Microsoft Azure customers will now be able to create Ephemeral OS disks, a type of disc created on local virtual machine (VM) storage that is not saved to remote Azure storage.
This latest feature from the cloud giant could help ensure high levels of confidentiality for data, as information stored on these types of disks will never be sent to an offsite data center.
Ephemeral disks are now currently available in all regions, and you can learn more about how to deploy them by heading here (opens in new tab).
Ephemeral OS disks
Microsoft says Ephemeral OS disks are ideal for stateless applications, where no client data generated in one session is used in the next session.
In addition, Microsoft explained these discs can be ideal for use cases that require lower latency, similar to a temporary disk, or the ability to fast reset or reimage VMs and to scale set instances to the original boot state.
Ephemeral OS disks are supported by Azure Marketplace, custom images, and Azure Compute Gallery (opens in new tab) (formerly known as Shared Image Gallery), but will not support features such as capturing VM images, disk snapshots, or OS Disk Swap.
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If your looking for additional security, you’ll be pleased to know that the disks support Microsoft Azure’s Trusted Launch (opens in new tab) feature, but only in certain regions and for certain VM sizes.
Ephemeral OS disks are also free, and customers incur no storage cost for making new disks.
If you’ve still got questions about the latest feature, you head here to check out the FAQ (opens in new tab)that Microsoft has put together.
This is not the only feature that Microsoft has been rolling out for virtual machine aficionados.
Microsoft recently has updated its free Windows 11 virtual machines (VMs) offering, which is designed for developers, but could also give users the perfect way to try out its latest operating system before jumping in.