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Important
HBv2-series VMs are scheduled for retirement on May 31, 2027. This applies to all HBv2 sizes: Standard_HB120rs_v2, Standard_HB120-96rs_v2, Standard_HB120-64rs_v2, Standard_HB120-32rs_v2, and Standard_HB120-16rs_v2. After this date, HBv2 VMs will be set to a deallocated state, stop working, stop incurring billing charges, and lose SLA and support. Plan your migration to current-generation HPC alternatives before the retirement date. For migration guidance, see the Migration guidance section below.
HBv2-series VMs are optimized for applications that are driven by memory bandwidth, such as fluid dynamics, finite element analysis, and reservoir simulation. HBv2 VMs feature 120 AMD EPYC 7V12 processor cores, 4 GB of RAM per CPU core, and no simultaneous multithreading. Each HBv2 VM provides up to 350 GB/s of memory bandwidth, and up to 4 teraFLOPS of FP64 compute. HBv2-series VMs feature 200 Gb/sec Mellanox HDR InfiniBand. These VMs are connected in a non-blocking fat tree for optimized and consistent RDMA performance. These VMs support Adaptive Routing and the Dynamic Connected Transport (DCT, in addition to standard RC and UD transports). These features enhance application performance, scalability, and consistency, and their usage is recommended.
Note
HBv2-series is scheduled for retirement on May 31, 2027. For new HPC architecture planning, consider current-generation alternatives such as HBv5-series, HX-series, HBv4-series, or HBv3-series VMs.
Host specifications
| Part | Quantity Count Units |
Specs SKU ID, Performance Units, etc. |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | 16 - 120 vCPUs | AMD EPYC 7V12 (Rome) [x86-64] |
| L3 Cache | 1536 MB | |
| Memory | 456 GB | 350 GB/s |
| Local Storage | 1 Temp Disk 1 NVMe Disk |
480 GiB 960 GiB |
| Remote Storage | 8 Disks | |
| Network | 8 vNICs 1 InfiniBand HDR NIC |
40 Gb/s 200 Gb/s |
| Accelerators | None |
For features supported by this series, see the Feature support section.
Sizes in series
vCPUs (Qty.) and Memory for each size
| Size Name | vCPUs (Qty.) | Memory (GB) | L3 Cache (MB) | Memory Bandwidth (GB/s) | Base CPU Frequency (GHz) | Single-core Frequency Peak (GHz) | All-core Frequency Peak (GHz) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard_HB120rs_v2 | 120 | 456 | 512 | 350 | 2.45 | 3.3 | 3.1 |
| Standard_HB120-96rs_v2 | 96 | 456 | 512 | 350 | 2.45 | 3.3 | 3.1 |
| Standard_HB120-64rs_v2 | 64 | 456 | 512 | 350 | 2.45 | 3.3 | 3.1 |
| Standard_HB120-32rs_v2 | 32 | 456 | 512 | 350 | 2.45 | 3.3 | 3.1 |
| Standard_HB120-16rs_v2 | 16 | 456 | 512 | 350 | 2.45 | 3.3 | 3.1 |
VM Basics resources
Lifecycle and procurement
Important
Reserved Instance purchase end date: 1-year and 3-year Reserved Instance purchases for HBv2-series VMs ended on April 2, 2026. New long-term RI commitments are no longer available for this series. Existing RIs remain valid until their expiration.
- Pay-as-you-go: HBv2-series VMs remain available on a pay-as-you-go basis until the retirement date of May 31, 2027.
- Plan migration: Begin migrating workloads to current-generation HPC alternatives before May 31, 2027. After this date, HBv2 VMs will be deallocated automatically.
For migration recommendations, see the Migration guidance section.
Feature support
| Feature name | Support status |
|---|---|
| Premium Storage | Supported |
| Premium Storage caching | Supported |
| Live Migration | Not Supported |
| Memory Preserving Updates | Not Supported |
| Generation 2 VMs | Supported |
| Generation 1 VMs | Supported |
| Accelerated Networking | Supported |
| Ephemeral OS Disk | Supported |
| Nested Virtualization | Not Supported |
| Backend Network | InfiniBand HDR |
Migration guidance
HBv2-series VMs will be retired on May 31, 2027. Microsoft recommends migrating to the following current-generation HPC VM series before the retirement date:
| Recommended series | Key characteristics |
|---|---|
| HBv5-series | 4th Gen AMD EPYC (Zen4), up to 368 cores, HBM3 memory, NDR InfiniBand – best for memory bandwidth-intensive workloads |
| HX-series | AMD EPYC 9004, up to 176 cores, large L3 cache – suited for memory-capacity-intensive HPC workloads |
| HBv4-series | 4th Gen AMD EPYC (Genoa), up to 176 cores, NDR InfiniBand – strong all-round HPC replacement |
| HBv3-series | 3rd Gen AMD EPYC (Milan), up to 120 cores, HDR InfiniBand – comparable generation step-up from HBv2 |
When selecting a replacement size, consider the following:
- MPI and RDMA requirements: Verify that your MPI library and InfiniBand fabric (HDR vs. NDR) are supported on the target series.
- Memory bandwidth: Benchmark your workload on the target series to confirm performance parity or improvement.
- Workload compatibility: Test application correctness and performance on the target series before production migration.
Other size information
List of all available sizes: Sizes
Pricing Calculator: Pricing Calculator
Information on Disk Types: Disk Types
Next steps
Read about the latest announcements, HPC workload examples, and performance results at the Azure Compute Tech Community Blogs.
For a higher level architectural view of running HPC workloads, see High Performance Computing (HPC) on Azure.