New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS): Microsoft has announced the general availability of the latest Azure Virtual Machines featuring the Ampere Altra Arm–based processor.

The new virtual machines will be generally available on September 1, and customers can launch them in 10 Azure regions and multiple availability zones around the world, the company said in a statement.

In addition, the Arm-based virtual machines can be included in Kubernetes clusters managed using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This ability has been in preview and will be generally available over the coming weeks in all the regions that offer the new virtual machines.

"Hundreds of customers have tested and experienced firsthand the excellent price-performance that the Arm architecture can provide for web and application servers, open-source databases, microservices, Java and .NET applications, gaming, media servers, and more," said Paul Nash Vice President, Azure Compute Platform.

Azure's Ampere Altra Arm–based virtual machines represent a cost-effective and power-efficient option that does not compromise the level of performance that customers require, said the company.

"The general availability of Microsoft Azure VMs on Arm marks an important milestone in redefining what is possible in cloud computing," said Chris Bergey, SVP and GM, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm.

All the new virtual machine sizes support up to 40 Gbps of networking bandwidth.

The Ampere Altra Arm–based Azure virtual machines are now available in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia.

"We plan to expand Azure regional availability after September 1," said the company.