Manu Shukla

Posted on Jul 16 • Originally published at ecorpit.com

Azure retired RIs for 18 VM series on July 1, 2026: the migration math

#azure #finops #cloudcost #reservedinstances

Azure retired RIs for 18 VM series on July 1, 2026: the migration math

Summary. As of July 1, 2026, Azure no longer sells or renews Reserved VM Instances for 18 VM series. One-year RIs ended for 14 of them (Av2, Amv2, Bv1, D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Ls, Lsv2), and both one-year and three-year RIs ended for Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3 and Esv3, per Microsoft's transition guide. Nothing switched off on that date: existing RIs run to the end of their term, and RIs are a billing construct only. But Microsoft's third option, renewing before the deadline, expired 15 days ago. Two options remain, and the trade-in to an Azure savings plan for compute is a one-way door: you cannot exchange a savings plan back into a reservation.

Most write-ups treat these 18 series as one problem. They are two, and they need different answers.

What changed, exactly

Change	Series affected	Status of the VM itself
One-year RIs ended July 1, 2026	Av2, Amv2, Bv1, D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Ls, Lsv2	Retiring, 2028 dates
One- and three-year RIs ended July 1, 2026	Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, Esv3	Product active, not retiring
Three-year RIs already ended 05/01/2025	D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, Ls	Retiring 05/01/2028
Three-year RIs already ended 11/15/2025	Av2, Amv2, Bv1, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Lsv2	Retiring 11/15/2028
RI purchases ended 04/02/2026	HBv2, NP-series	Retiring 05/31/2027

Three facts from Microsoft's transition guide that the headlines drop:

July 1, 2026 does not terminate existing RIs. RIs remain valid until their individual expiration dates. There is no disruption to running workloads.

The cost event is not July 1. It is the day your specific reservation expires. If you take no action, "workloads continue running normally" and "costs might increase once RI coverage ends" — the guide's own words. Microsoft flags this plainly: "This should be a conscious decision, not an accidental outcome."

And the renewal option is gone. Microsoft's Option 3 was to renew a one- or three-year RI before July 1, 2026, noting it was "the final opportunity to renew RIs for impacted legacy VM series" and that "renewed RIs are honored for their full term, even after July 1, 2026." If you took it, you bought up to three more years. If you did not, that door is shut.

The split that decides your answer

Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3 and Esv3 are not being retired. Microsoft's retired VM sizes migration guide lists their retirement date as "Product active" and states they are "not being retired until further notice." They simply lost RI eligibility. For these, Microsoft says: "Azure savings plan is the primary recommendation if you plan to continue using these VM series."

The other 14 series have a hard retirement date. D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2 and Ls retire on May 1, 2028. Av2, Amv2, Bv1, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs and Lsv2 retire on November 15, 2028. HBv2 and NP-series retire on May 31, 2027. For these, the guide is blunt: "Migration is mandatory to avoid unexpected shutdown."

What "shutdown" means is specific. After retirement, VMs using that size are deallocated and stop incurring charges. The size loses support and SLA coverage. In-memory and temporary disk data is lost. Managed disk data is preserved, and you can resize to a supported size and restart.

So: if you are on Ev3, this is a billing decision with no deadline beyond your RI's expiry. If you are on Fsv2, it is a billing decision stacked on top of a migration project that has to land before November 15, 2028. Do not let the first conversation hide the second.

Option 1: trade in for an Azure savings plan

A savings plan is a commitment to spend a fixed dollar amount per hour for one or three years, in exchange for lower prices on eligible usage. Discounts vary by product and term, not by how much you commit. Like reservations, it is a billing offer: it does not affect the runtime state of your resources.

The mechanics that matter, from Microsoft's trade-in guide:

You can trade in up to 100 reservations at a time as part of one savings plan purchase. Only Azure Virtual Machines, Dedicated Hosts, Azure App Service and database reservations are eligible. The new savings plan's total commitment must equal or exceed the returned reservation's remaining commitment. Microsoft's worked example: a three-year reservation costing $100 per month, exchanged after the 18th payment, requires a new savings plan lifetime commitment of $1,800 or more.

The trade-in cancels your reservation, refunds a pro-rated amount, and cancels any future monthly payments. Microsoft is not currently charging early termination fees for reservation trade-ins, though the guide states it might in future and gives no date.

Three traps in that paragraph.

The default commitment is probably too low. Microsoft says it outright: during a trade-in, the default hourly commitment is calculated from the remaining monetary value of the reservations traded in, and "the resulting hourly commitment might not be a large enough benefit commitment to cover the virtual machines that were previously covered by the returned reservations." The remaining value of a half-spent reservation is not the cost of covering the same VMs for a fresh year. Accept the default and you under-cover, and the gap bills at pay-as-you-go.

Compute it instead. Microsoft's method: take the upfront charge for the product from the Azure pricing calculator, then divide by 8,760 for a one-year savings plan or 26,280 for a three-year plan, multiply by the number of instances, and repeat per product.

hourly_commitment = (upfront_annual_charge / 8760) * instance_count      # 1-year
hourly_commitment = (upfront_3yr_charge   / 26280) * instance_count      # 3-year

It is a one-way door. You cannot exchange a savings plan for a reservation, or for another savings plan. Savings plan purchases cannot be cancelled or refunded. A reservation trade-in is reversible in exactly zero directions.

Unused hourly commitment evaporates. Benefits apply automatically each hour to eligible usage in scope, highest-discount usage first, until the hourly commitment is used up; usage above it bills at your on-demand rate. Unused commitment for an hour expires and does not roll over. A savings plan sized for your peak hour wastes money every quiet hour. Size it to the floor of your usage, not the ceiling.

One more scope limit that catches teams: savings plan for compute does not cover software, networking, or storage charges. It covers infrastructure for Virtual Machines, App Service, Functions premium plan, Container Instances, Dedicated Host, Container Apps and Spring Apps for Enterprise. If a third of your Azure bill is egress and managed disks, a savings plan is not touching it.

Savings plans are available only to Enterprise Agreement, Microsoft Customer Agreement or Microsoft Partner Agreement customers. EA customers need offer type MS-AZR-0017P or MS-AZR-0148P.

Option 2: migrate to a newer series and buy a new RI

Newer series still support both Reserved Instances and savings plans. Migrating restores the deeper reservation discount and clears the 2028 retirement in one move. Microsoft's recommended targets:

Current series	Target series	The catch
Dv3, Dsv3	Dsv5, Ddsv5, Dasv5, Dadsv5, Dsv6, Ddsv6, Dasv6, Dadsv6	v6 disk controller is NVMe, not SCSI
Ev3, Esv3	Esv5, Edsv5, Easv5, Eadsv5, Esv6, Edsv6, Easv6, Eadsv6	v6 requires Generation 2 VMs only
D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2	Dsv5/Ddsv5/Dasv5/Dadsv5, Dasv6/Dadsv6/Dsv6/Ddsv6, Dasv7/Dadsv7	v6 requires MANA and a supported OS
Av2, Amv2	Bsv2/Basv2, Dsv5/Ddv5/Dasv5, Esv5/Edv5/Easv5, Dsv6/Ddsv6/Dasv6	Bsv2/Basv2 unavailable in Sovereign clouds
F, Fs, Fsv2	Dlsv6/Dldsv6/Dalsv6/Daldsv6, Falsv6, Dldsv5/Dlsv5/Dsv5/Ddsv5	Remote storage 4,167 IOPS / 124 MBps on target
G, Gs, Ls, Lsv2	Lsv3/Lasv3, Lsv4/Lasv4	Remote storage 12,800 IOPS / 200 MBps; Lsv4/Lasv4 are latest

Microsoft recommends v5 and v6 for Premium Storage, Accelerated Networking and Nested Virtualization, and prefers v6. But it lists four reasons to pick v5 or even v4 instead: v6 requires NVMe enabled and a supported OS, supports Generation 2 VMs only, requires MANA (Microsoft Azure Network Adapter) with a supporting OS, and may not have capacity in the regions and zones you need.

That last one is the sentence to read twice. A v6 plan with no capacity in your region is not a plan.

The resize itself is short: stop (deallocate) the VM, resize to the target series, start it. Check quota for the target series first and request an increase through the portal if needed. Migrating to a newer VM type does not disrupt pay-as-you-go or savings plan billing.

The decision, in one table

If your fleet is	And your RI expires	Do this
Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, Esv3, staying put	Any date	Savings plan, sized by calculator not by default
Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, Esv3, refresh due anyway	After 2026	Migrate to v5/v6, buy a new RI on the target
Av2, D, F, G, Ls and similar, retiring 2028	Before the retirement date	Migrate first, commit second
Mixed and unstable	Any date	Savings plan on the stable floor, PAYG above it
HBv2 or NP-series	RI sales ended 04/02/2026	Exchange to HBv3/HBv4/HBv5/HX or GPU series before 05/31/2027

The honest engineering judgement: for anything on the 14 retiring series, a three-year savings plan bought today to cover VMs that deallocate in 2028 is a commitment you cannot cancel against hardware you cannot keep. Migrate first. The real cost here is the migration project, not the reservation.

India-specific considerations

Currency is a live variable, not a footnote. Savings plans are always billed in local currency. Rates are priced in USD for Microsoft Customer Agreement and Microsoft Partner Agreement customers, and in local currency for Enterprise Agreement customers. Microsoft states that for MCA and MPA customers transacting in non-USD currencies, monthly billed amounts vary based on the current month's market exchange rate. An Indian MCA customer's rupee bill against a dollar-denominated hourly commitment moves every month with the rate — a one- or three-year commitment carries FX exposure your CFO should see before signing, not after.

Refunds also land differently by agreement. For EA customers, trade-in money goes back into the Azure Prepayment balance as credit valid for 90 days from the date of refund; unused credit expires at the end of 90 days. For MCA customers paying by credit card, the original invoice is cancelled, a new invoice is created, and the refund goes to the card used for the original purchase. An EA customer trading in mid-term must have somewhere to spend that credit inside 90 days or lose it.

Indian teams sizing this alongside the rest of their cloud bill will find our notes on FinOps moves for Indian cloud teams and the broader FinOps playbook for cutting AWS, Azure and GCP spend useful as context for where reservation strategy sits against the rest of the bill.

What to do this week

Sign in to the Azure portal, open Reservations, filter Product type to Virtual Machines, and review VM family and reservation expiration date. If the family is in the list of 18, you are affected.
In Cost Management + Billing, check utilization and confirm whether the workload continues past the RI expiration date. A reservation at 60% utilization is a different decision from one at 100%.
Sort the affected fleet into two buckets: not-retiring (Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, Esv3) and retiring-by-2028 (everything else).
For each bucket, compute the savings plan hourly commitment properly using the 8,760 or 26,280 divisor. Do not accept the trade-in default.
Check target-series quota and regional capacity before committing to any v6 migration path.

Microsoft's own guidance on timing: start planning six to twelve months before RI expiration, not at the expiration date. Azure Advisor, the savings plan purchase experience in the portal, and the Benefit Recommendation APIs all produce commitment recommendations from your actual usage.

FAQ

Which Azure VM series lost Reserved Instance availability on July 1, 2026?

One-year RIs ended for Av2, Amv2, Bv1, D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Ls and Lsv2. Both one-year and three-year RIs ended for Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3 and Esv3. That is 18 series in total. Purchases for HBv2 and NP-series had already ended on April 2, 2026.

Do my existing Azure reservations stop working on July 1, 2026?

No. Microsoft states that July 1, 2026 does not terminate existing RIs, that they remain valid until their individual expiration dates, and that there is no disruption to running workloads because RIs are a billing construct only. The cost change happens when your specific reservation expires, not on the deadline date.

Can I still renew a Reserved VM Instance for these series?

No. Renewing before July 1, 2026 was Microsoft's third option and it described that as the final opportunity to renew RIs for the impacted legacy series. RIs renewed before the deadline are honored for their full term even after July 1, 2026. After July 1, no additional renewals or purchases are allowed.

Can I undo a savings plan trade-in if I get the sizing wrong?

No. Microsoft states you cannot exchange a savings plan for a reservation or for another savings plan, and that savings plan purchases cannot be cancelled or refunded. Size the commitment before you buy, using the pricing calculator method rather than the default hourly commitment offered during trade-in.

How do I calculate the right savings plan hourly commitment?

Take the upfront charge for the product from the Azure pricing calculator, divide by 8,760 for a one-year plan or 26,280 for a three-year plan, then multiply by the number of instances you are trading in. Repeat for each product and total the results. Microsoft warns the trade-in default may under-cover your VMs.

Are Dv3 and Ev3 virtual machines being retired?

No. Microsoft's migration guide lists Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3 and Esv3 with a retirement date of "Product active" and says they are not being retired until further notice. They lost reservation eligibility only. Azure savings plan is Microsoft's primary recommendation for teams staying on these series.

What happens if I ignore this and do nothing?

Workloads keep running and costs move to pay-as-you-go rates once RI coverage ends. For the 14 retiring series there is a second consequence: at the retirement date the VM is deallocated, loses SLA and support, and in-memory and temporary disk data is lost. Managed disk data survives and you can resize to restart.

Does a savings plan cover my whole Azure bill?

No. Savings plan for compute covers infrastructure costs for Virtual Machines, App Service, Functions premium plan, Container Instances, Dedicated Host, Container Apps and Spring Apps for Enterprise. It does not cover software, networking or storage charges. Licensing costs may be addressable separately through Azure Hybrid Benefit.

How eCorpIT can help

eCorpIT is a Gurugram-based technology consultancy, and our senior engineering teams run this exact triage for Azure fleets: sorting reservations into retiring and not-retiring buckets, sizing savings plan commitments against real hourly usage rather than the trade-in default, and scheduling v5 or v6 migrations around regional capacity and OS support. We model the FX exposure on rupee-billed commitments before you sign a three-year term. If you have RIs expiring on any of these 18 series, contact us and we will work the numbers against your actual utilization data.