This blog post series highlights the key announcements and major updates related to Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Azure Local, as officially released by Microsoft in the past two weeks.
Azure
General
Microsoft’s strategic AI datacenter planning for large-scale NVIDIA Rubin deployments
Microsoft stated that its long-range Azure datacenter strategy has been designed to enable seamless, large-scale deployment of NVIDIA’s Rubin platform, highlighted around CES 2026. The company explained that Azure’s next-generation AI datacenters and “superfactory” sites—such as its Fairwater locations in Wisconsin and Atlanta—were engineered in advance to accommodate next-gen rack-scale systems like NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72, including anticipated requirements for power delivery, cooling/thermal envelopes, memory density, and high-performance networking. Microsoft also emphasized a “systems approach,” where compute, networking, storage, and orchestration are tuned together to maximize utilization at massive cluster scale, with the goal of bringing new NVIDIA generations online quickly and efficiently as they become available.
Cloud-native apps on Kubernetes pricing calculator scenario
Microsoft has introduced a new cloud-native apps on Kubernetes scenario in the Azure pricing calculator to help teams estimate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a production-ready Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster. The scenario includes an architecture diagram and a detailed cost estimate that can be customized through workload-specific inputs, and it accounts for common supporting services such as Azure Container Registry (ACR), Azure monitoring capabilities (for example, Azure Monitor), and Microsoft Defender for Cloud. This addition is intended to support both legacy workload migrations and new application deployments—including microservices, web applications, artificial intelligence (AI), graphics processing unit (GPU) workloads, and databases—by providing a clearer baseline for planning and comparison.
Storage
Azure Premium SSD v2 Disk is now available in Austria East and in a second Availability Zone in Japan West
Azure Premium SSD v2 Disk is now available in the Austria East region and in a second Availability Zone (AZ) in Japan West, further expanding regional and zonal options for customers deploying IO-intensive workloads. Premium SSD v2 is positioned as a next-generation, general-purpose block storage offering that delivers sub-millisecond latency and strong price-performance characteristics for demanding production scenarios. It is designed to support a broad set of enterprise workloads—such as SQL Server, Oracle, MariaDB, SAP, Cassandra, MongoDB, big data/analytics, and gaming—running on Azure virtual machines or stateful containerized environments.
Azure Local
Features and improvements in 2512
Microsoft has released the December 2025 update for hyperconverged deployments of Azure Local, identified as version 12.2512.1002.16. This release includes general reliability improvements and bug fixes, and it also introduces several platform updates across operating system, deployment authentication, and Kubernetes/GPU support. From 2512 onward, all new and existing Azure Local deployments run the updated OS version 26100.7462 (following the new OS introduced in release 2504), and the 2512 OS image is available from the Azure portal. Microsoft notes that deployments require a driver compatible with OS version 26100.7462 (or Windows Server 2025); if such a driver is not available, customers can use the 2503 image. For Integrated System or Premier solution hardware purchased from the Azure Local Catalog through Microsoft hardware partners, the OS is preinstalled, and Microsoft recommends working with the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to obtain an OS image compatible with build 12.2512.1002.16 and appropriate drivers for OS 26100.7462 or Windows Server 2025.
This build also standardizes on .NET 8.0.22 for both .NET Runtime and ASP.NET Core. In addition, Azure Local deployment now supports simplified cluster registration by removing the requirement for a Service Principal Name (Microsoft Entra ID app) with a self-signed certificate; instead, the cluster uses a system-assigned managed identity (SMI) to authenticate to Azure during deployment through the Azure portal. Finally, in Public Preview, Azure Local now supports NVIDIA L-series GPUs on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) enabled by Azure Arc, enabling GPU-accelerated workloads on AKS clusters running on Azure Local with NVIDIA L-series hardware. The release also includes documentation updates, including newly published guidance for SDN upgrade infrastructure and removal of Azure Stack HCI renaming banners from feature overview articles to align with updated Azure portal experiences.
Conclusion
Over the past two weeks, Microsoft has introduced a slew of updates and announcements pertaining to Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Azure Local. These developments underscore the tech giant’s unwavering commitment to enhancing its cloud offerings and adapting to the ever-evolving needs of businesses and developers. Users of Azure can anticipate improved functionalities, streamlined services, and enriched features as a result of these changes. Stay tuned for more insights as I continue to monitor and report on Azure’s progression in the cloud sphere.
