Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator AssociateDeploy and manage Azure compute resourcesHard
A company is deploying a new Azure Virtual Machine (VM) that will run a specialized high-performance computing (HPC) workload. This workload requires extremely low latency access to a large amount of temporary storage that is directly attached to the VM and guarantees high throughput. Which Azure disk type is most suitable for this requirement?
- AEphemeral OS Disk
- BPremium SSD
- CStandard SSD
- DStandard HDD
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Ephemeral OS Disk
Ephemeral OS disks are created on the local VM host storage, providing ultra-low latency and high throughput, which is ideal for HPC workloads requiring fast temporary storage. They are not persistent and are tied to the VM's lifecycle. Standard HDDs and SSDs are persistent, network-attached disks with lower performance characteristics. Premium SSDs offer higher performance than Standard SSDs but are still network-attached and not as fast as ephemeral local storage.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Premium SSDs provide high performance for production workloads but are network-attached disks and cannot match the latency and throughput of local VM host storage.
- C. Standard SSD offers better performance than HDD but is still network-attached and not as fast as local ephemeral storage for HPC.
- D. Standard HDD offers the lowest performance and is not suitable for HPC workloads requiring extremely low latency and high throughput.
Azure Ephemeral OS Disk
An Azure VM disk type that is created on the local VM host storage, offering ultra-low latency and high throughput, but is non-persistent and tied to the VM's lifecycle.
- Stored on the VM's local host, not in Azure Storage.
- Offers significantly lower latency and higher throughput compared to managed disks.
- Non-persistent: data is lost if the VM is deallocated, moved, or redeployed.
- Ideal for stateless applications, temporary data, or caching where high I/O is critical.
- Requires specific VM sizes that support caching or temporary storage.
Memory trick: Ephemeral: Extremely Fast, but Easily Gone.