Retirement: Migration of Azure Batch Low-Priority VMs to Spot VMs in early March

Azure Batch had retired Low-Priority VMs on September 30, 2025 and will begin a system-initiated migration to Spot VMs beginning March 1, 2026. This change aligns Batch with the broader Azure Spot infrastructure and simplifies the platform’s VM offering.

Impact:

• The migration will occur automatically and be completed within several days.
• No interruption to existing workloads is expected.
• Customers will see Spot-based billing beginning with the March invoice.

Action required:

• No action is required if you choose to continue using Spot VMs after the migration.
• If you prefer not to transition, you may migrate your Batch workloads to dedicated (on-demand) compute nodes before end of February. After this deadline:
• Low-priority VMs can no longer be created.
• Existing Low-priority VMs will be billed at Spot pricing.

Details:

• All current Low-Priority VMs will automatically run as Spot VMs after migration.
• Batch-managed pool allocation will handle the transition seamlessly.
• Existing API/SDK references to Low-Priority VM properties will automatically allocate Spot capacity without changes to customer code or configuration.

Learn more.