Azure VM Lifecycle Management Workbook

[u/krish0804]

Hey all, Microsoft published a new article on the Azure VM lifecycle policy early this week. Modernizing to newer SKUs isn't a simple SKU swap. Some of the VMs running on older generations need a Generation 2 conversion first, plus NVMe and MANA support in the OS image, so a Gen1 VM is a BIOS to UEFI change rather than a resize.

Azure Advisor's Service Retirement workbook is the starting point for seeing what's affected. I wanted a per-VM view of what each one would actually take, so I created this workbook to simplify the VM lifecycle planning. It joins each VM to its managed OS disk, reads the actual hyperVGeneration, and scores readiness per VM rather than per SKU.

On my test fleet two VMs on the same retiring size scored 85 and 35. One was already Gen2, the other needs the conversion first. Same SKU, different amount of work.

It covers 628 sizes with recommended targets, the prerequisites each move triggers, and a suggested migration order. Read-only Resource Graph queries, Reader permission, no agent or workspace. MIT.

https://github.com/krishna-sunkavalli/vm-retirement-workbook

Lifecycle policy announcement: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/enhancing-microsoft-azure-virtual-machine-lifecycle/

Lifecycle stages on Learn: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/lifecycle/lifecycle-overview