NP sizes series

The NP-series virtual machines are powered by Xilinx U250 FPGAs for accelerating workloads including machine learning inference, video transcoding, and database search & analytics. NP-series VMs are also powered by Intel Xeon 8171M (Skylake) CPUs with all core turbo clock speed of 3.2 GHz.

Host specifications

Part	Quantity Count Units	Specs SKU ID, Performance Units, etc.
Processor	10 - 40 vCPUs	Intel Xeon 8171M (Skylake) [x86-64]
Memory	168 - 672 GiB
Local Storage	1 Disk	736 - 2948 GiB
Remote Storage	8 - 32 Disks
Network	1 - 4 NICs	7500 - 30000 Mbps
Accelerators	1 - 4 FPGAs	AMD Alveo U250 FPGA (64GB)

Feature support

Premium Storage: Supported
Premium Storage caching: Supported
Live Migration: Not Supported
Memory Preserving Updates: Not Supported
Generation 2 VMs: Not Supported
Generation 1 VMs: Supported
Accelerated Networking: Not Supported
Ephemeral OS Disk: Supported
Nested Virtualization: Not Supported

Sizes in series

Basics

vCPUs (Qty.) and Memory for each size

Size Name	vCPUs (Qty.)	Memory (GB)
Standard_NP10s	10	168
Standard_NP20s	20	336
Standard_NP40s	40	672

VM Basics resources

• Check vCPU quotas

Local Storage

Local (temp) storage info for each size

Size Name	Max Temp Storage Disks (Qty.)	Temp Disk Size (GiB)
Standard_NP10s	1	736
Standard_NP20s	1	1474
Standard_NP40s	1	2948

Storage resources

• Introduction to Azure managed disks
• Azure managed disk types
• Share an Azure managed disk

Table definitions

• ¹Temp disk speed often differs between RR (Random Read) and RW (Random Write) operations. RR operations are typically faster than RW operations. The RW speed is usually slower than the RR speed on series where only the RR speed value is listed.
• Storage capacity is shown in units of GiB or 1024^3 bytes. When you compare disks measured in GB (1000^3 bytes) to disks measured in GiB (1024^3) remember that capacity numbers given in GiB may appear smaller. For example, 1023 GiB = 1098.4 GB.
• Disk throughput is measured in input/output operations per second (IOPS) and MBps where MBps = 10^6 bytes/sec.
• To learn how to get the best storage performance for your VMs, see Virtual machine and disk performance.

Remote Storage

Remote (uncached) storage info for each size

Size Name	Max Remote Storage Disks (Qty.)
Standard_NP10s	8
Standard_NP20s	16
Standard_NP40s	32

Storage resources

• Introduction to Azure managed disks
• Azure managed disk types
• Share an Azure managed disk

Table definitions

• ¹Some sizes support bursting to temporarily increase disk performance. Burst speeds can be maintained for up to 30 minutes at a time.

• Storage capacity is shown in units of GiB or 1024^3 bytes. When you compare disks measured in GB (1000^3 bytes) to disks measured in GiB (1024^3) remember that capacity numbers given in GiB may appear smaller. For example, 1023 GiB = 1098.4 GB.

• Disk throughput is measured in input/output operations per second (IOPS) and MBps where MBps = 10^6 bytes/sec.

• Data disks can operate in cached or uncached modes. For cached data disk operation, the host cache mode is set to ReadOnly or ReadWrite. For uncached data disk operation, the host cache mode is set to None.

• To learn how to get the best storage performance for your VMs, see Virtual machine and disk performance.

Network

Network interface info for each size

Size Name	Max NICs (Qty.)	Max Network Bandwidth (Mb/s)
Standard_NP10s	1	7500
Standard_NP20s	2	15000
Standard_NP40s	4	30000

Networking resources

• Virtual networks and virtual machines in Azure
• Virtual machine network bandwidth

Table definitions

• Expected network bandwidth is the maximum aggregated bandwidth allocated per VM type across all NICs, for all destinations. For more information, see Virtual machine network bandwidth
• Upper limits aren't guaranteed. Limits offer guidance for selecting the right VM type for the intended application. Actual network performance will depend on several factors including network congestion, application loads, and network settings. For information on optimizing network throughput, see Optimize network throughput for Azure virtual machines.
• To achieve the expected network performance on Linux or Windows, you may need to select a specific version or optimize your VM. For more information, see Bandwidth/Throughput testing (NTTTCP).

Accelerators

Accelerator (GPUs, FPGAs, etc.) info for each size

Size Name	Accelerators (Qty.)	Accelerator-Memory (GB)
Standard_NP10s	1	64
Standard_NP20s	2	128
Standard_NP40s	4	256

Frequently asked questions

Q: What's the difference between Xilinx U250 and the AMD Alveo U250?

A: AMD Acquired Xilinx and renamed their FPGA line to Alveo. They are identical and use the same drivers, but the original Xilinx page redirects to AMD's new site.

Q: How to request quota for NP VMs?

A: Follow this page Increase VM-family vCPU quotas. NP VMs are available in East US, West US2, SouthCentral US, West Europe, SouthEast Asia, Japan East, and Canada Central.

Q: What version of Vitis should I use?

A: Xilinx recommends Vitis 2022.1, you can also use the Development VM marketplace options (Vitis 2022.1 Development VM for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and CentOS 7.8)

Q: Do I need to use NP VMs to develop my solution?

A: No, you can develop on-premises and deploy to the cloud. Make sure to follow the attestation documentation to deploy on NP VMs.

Q: What shell version is supported and how can I get the development files?

A: The FPGAs in Azure NP VMs support Xilinx Shell 2.1 (gen3x16-xdma-shell_2.1). See Xilinx Page Xilinx/Azure with Alveo U250 to get the development shell files.

Q: Which file returned from attestation should I use when programming my FPGA in an NP VM?

A: Attestation returns two xclbins, design.bit.xclbin and design.azure.xclbin. Use design.azure.xclbin.

Q: Where should I get all the XRT / Platform files?

A: Visit Xilinx's Microsoft-Azure site for all files.

Q: What Version of XRT should I use?

A: xrt_202210.2.13.479

Q: What is the target deployment platform?

A: Use the following platforms.

• xilinx-u250-gen3x16-xdma-platform-2.1-3_all
• xilinx-u250-gen3x16-xdma-validate_2.1-3005608.1

Q: Which platform should I target for development?

A: xilinx-u250-gen3x16-xdma-2.1-202010-1-dev_1-2954688_all

Q: What are the supported Operating Systems?

A: Xilinx and Microsoft validated Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and CentOS 7.8.

Xilinx has created the following marketplace images to simplify the deployment of these VMs:

• Xilinx Alveo U250 2022.1 Deployment VM Ubuntu18.04

• Xilinx Alveo U250 2022.1 Deployment VM Ubuntu20.04

• Xilinx Alveo U250 2022.1 Deployment VM CentOS7.8

Q: Can I deploy my Own Ubuntu / CentOS VMs and install XRT / Deployment Target Platform?

A: Yes.

Q: If I deploy my own Ubuntu18.04 VM then what are the required packages and steps?

A: Follow the guidance in Xilinx XRT documentation Xilinx XRT documentation

Install the following packages.

• xrt_202210.2.13.479_18.04-amd64-xrt.deb

• xrt_202210.2.13.479_18.04-amd64-azure.deb

• xilinx-u250-gen3x16-xdma-platform-2.1-3_all_18.04.deb.tar.gz

• xilinx-u250-gen3x16-xdma-validate_2.1-3005608.1_all.deb

Q: If I deploy my own Ubuntu20.04 VM then what are the required packages and steps?

A: Follow the guidance in Xilinx XRT documentation Xilinx XRT documentation

Install the following packages.

• xrt_202210.2.13.479_20.04-amd64-xrt.deb

• xrt_202210.2.13.479_20.04-amd64-azure.deb

• xilinx-u250-gen3x16-xdma-platform-2.1-3_all_18.04.deb.tar.gz

• xilinx-u250-gen3x16-xdma-validate_2.1-3005608.1_all.deb

Q: If I deploy my own CentOS7.8 VM then what are the required packages and steps?

A: Follow the guidance in Xilinx XRT documentation Xilinx XRT documentation

Install the following packages.

• xrt_202210.2.13.479_7.8.2003-x86_64-xrt.rpm

• xrt_202210.2.13.479_7.8.2003-x86_64-azure.rpm

• xilinx-u250-gen3x16-xdma-platform-2.1-3.noarch.rpm.tar.gz

• xilinx-u250-gen3x16-xdma-validate-2.1-3005608.1.noarch.rpm

Q: What are the differences between on-premises FPGAs and NP VMs?

A:
- Regarding XOCL/XCLMGMT:
On Azure NP VMs, only the role endpoint (Device ID 5005), which uses the XOCL driver, is present.

In on-premises FPGAs, both the management endpoint (Device ID 5004) and role endpoint (Device ID 5005), which use the XCLMGMT and XOCL drivers respectively, are present.

- Regarding XRT:
On Azure NP VMs, the XDMA 2.1 platform only supports Host_Mem(SB).
To enable Host_Mem(SB) (up to 1-Gb RAM): sudo xbutil host_mem --enable --size 1g
To disable Host_Mem(SB): sudo xbutil host_mem --disable

Starting on XRT2021.1:

On-premises FPGA in Linux exposes M2M data transfer.
This feature isn't supported in Azure NP VMs.

Q: Can I run xbmgmt commands?

A: No, on Azure VMs there's no management support directly from the Azure VM.

Q: Do I need to load a PLP?

A: No, the PLP is loaded automatically for you, so there's no need to load via xbmgmt commands.

Q: Does Azure support different PLPs?

A: Not at this time. We only support the PLP provided in the deployment platform packages.

Q: How can I query the PLP information?

A: Need to run xbutil query and look at the lower portion.

Q: Do Azure NP VMs support FPGA bitstreams with Networking GT Kernel connections?

A: No. The FPGA Attestation service performs a series of validations on a design checkpoint file and generates an error if the user's application contains connections to the FPGA card's QSFP networking ports.

Other size information

List of all available sizes: Sizes

Pricing Calculator: Pricing Calculator

Information on Disk Types: Disk Types

Next steps

Take advantage of the latest performance and features available for your workloads by changing the size of a virtual machine.

Utilize Microsoft's in-house designed ARM processors with Azure Cobalt VMs.

Learn how to Monitor Azure virtual machines.