Deploy VMs to proximity placement groups using Azure PowerShell

Article
08/22/2024

Applies to: ✔️ Linux VMs ✔️ Windows VMs

To get VMs as close as possible, achieving the lowest possible latency, you should deploy them within a proximity placement group.

A proximity placement group is a logical grouping used to make sure that Azure compute resources are physically located close to each other. Proximity placement groups are useful for workloads where low latency is a requirement.

Create a proximity placement group

Create a proximity placement group using the New-AzProximityPlacementGroup cmdlet.

$resourceGroup = "myPPGResourceGroup"
$location = "East US"
$ppgName = "myPPG"
$zone = "1"
$vmSize1 = "Standard_E64s_v4"
$vmSize2 = "Standard_M416ms_v2"
New-AzResourceGroup -Name $resourceGroup -Location $location
$ppg = New-AzProximityPlacementGroup `
   -Location $location `
   -Name $ppgName `
   -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
   -ProximityPlacementGroupType Standard `
   -Zone $zone `
   -IntentVMSizeList $vmSize1, $vmSize2

List proximity placement groups

You can list all of the proximity placement groups using the Get-AzProximityPlacementGroup cmdlet.

Get-AzProximityPlacementGroup -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $ppgName   

ResourceGroupName           : myPPGResourceGroup
ProximityPlacementGroupType : Standard
Id                          : /subscriptions/[subscriptionId]/resourceGroups/myPPGResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Compute/proximityPlacementGroups/myPPG
Name                        : myPPG
Type                        : Microsoft.Compute/proximityPlacementGroups
Location                    : eastus
Tags                        : {}
Intent                      : 
  VmSizes[0]                : Standard_E64s_v4
  VmSizes[1]                : Standard_M416ms_v2
Zones[0]                    : 1

Create a VM

Create a VM in the proximity placement group using -ProximityPlacementGroup $ppg.Id to refer to the proximity placement group ID when you use New-AzVM to create the VM.

$vmName = "myVM"

New-AzVm `
  -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
  -Name $vmName `
  -Location $location `
  -ProximityPlacementGroup $ppg.Id

You can see the VM in the placement group using Get-AzProximityPlacementGroup.

Get-AzProximityPlacementGroup -ResourceId $ppg.Id |
    Format-Table -Property VirtualMachines -Wrap

Move an existing VM into a proximity placement group

You can also add an existing VM to a proximity placement group. You need to stop\deallocate the VM first, then update the VM and restart.

$ppg = Get-AzProximityPlacementGroup -ResourceGroupName myPPGResourceGroup -Name myPPG
$vm = Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Name myVM
Stop-AzVM -Name $vm.Name -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName
Update-AzVM -VM $vm -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName -ProximityPlacementGroupId $ppg.Id
Start-AzVM -Name $vm.Name -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName

Move an existing VM out of a proximity placement group

To remove a VM from a proximity placement group, you need to stop\deallocate the VM first, then update the VM and restart.

$ppg = Get-AzProximityPlacementGroup -ResourceGroupName myPPGResourceGroup -Name myPPG
$vm = Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Name myVM
Stop-AzVM -Name $vm.Name -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName
$vm.ProximityPlacementGroup = ""
Update-AzVM -VM $vm -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName 
Start-AzVM -Name $vm.Name -ResourceGroupName $vm.ResourceGroupName

Availability Sets

You can also create an availability set in your proximity placement group. Use the same -ProximityPlacementGroup parameter with the New-AzAvailabilitySet cmdlet to create an availability set and all of the VMs created in the availability set will also be created in the same proximity placement group.

To add or remove an existing availability set to a proximity placement group, you first need to stop all of the VMs in the availability set.

Move an existing availability set into a proximity placement group

$resourceGroup = "myResourceGroup"
$avSetName = "myAvailabilitySet"
$avSet = Get-AzAvailabilitySet -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $avSetName
$vmIds = $avSet.VirtualMachinesReferences
foreach ($vmId in $vmIDs){
    $string = $vmID.Id.Split("/")
    $vmName = $string[8]
    Stop-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName -Force
    } 

$ppg = Get-AzProximityPlacementGroup -ResourceGroupName myPPG -Name myPPG
Update-AzAvailabilitySet -AvailabilitySet $avSet -ProximityPlacementGroupId $ppg.Id
foreach ($vmId in $vmIDs){
    $string = $vmID.Id.Split("/")
    $vmName = $string[8]
    Start-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName 
    }

Move an existing availability set out of a proximity placement group

$resourceGroup = "myResourceGroup"
$avSetName = "myAvailabilitySet"
$avSet = Get-AzAvailabilitySet -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $avSetName
$vmIds = $avSet.VirtualMachinesReferences
foreach ($vmId in $vmIDs){
    $string = $vmID.Id.Split("/")
    $vmName = $string[8]
    Stop-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName -Force
    } 

$avSet.ProximityPlacementGroup = ""
Update-AzAvailabilitySet -AvailabilitySet $avSet 
foreach ($vmId in $vmIDs){
    $string = $vmID.Id.Split("/")
    $vmName = $string[8]
    Start-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName 
    }

Scale sets

You can also create a scale set in your proximity placement group. Use the same -ProximityPlacementGroup parameter with New-AzVmss to create a scale set and all of the instances will be created in the same proximity placement group.

To add or remove an existing scale set to a proximity placement group, you first need to stop the scale set.

Move an existing scale set into a proximity placement group

$ppg = Get-AzProximityPlacementGroup -ResourceGroupName myPPG -Name myPPG
$vmss = Get-AzVmss -ResourceGroupName myVMSSResourceGroup -VMScaleSetName myScaleSet
Stop-AzVmss -VMScaleSetName $vmss.Name -ResourceGroupName $vmss.ResourceGroupName
Update-AzVmss -VMScaleSetName $vmss.Name -ResourceGroupName $vmss.ResourceGroupName -ProximityPlacementGroupId $ppg.Id
Start-AzVmss -VMScaleSetName $vmss.Name -ResourceGroupName $vmss.ResourceGroupName

Move an existing scale set out of a proximity placement group

$vmss = Get-AzVmss -ResourceGroupName myVMSSResourceGroup -VMScaleSetName myScaleSet
Stop-AzVmss -VMScaleSetName $vmss.Name -ResourceGroupName $vmss.ResourceGroupName
$vmss.ProximityPlacementGroup = ""
Update-AzVmss -VirtualMachineScaleSet $vmss -VMScaleSetName $vmss.Name -ResourceGroupName $vmss.ResourceGroupName  
Start-AzVmss -VMScaleSetName $vmss.Name -ResourceGroupName $vmss.ResourceGroupName

Next steps

You can also use the Azure CLI to create proximity placement groups.

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