Linux has become the most popular operating system on Azure as over 60% of customer cores run Linux-based workloads. We are committed to continuously investing in the platform to enhance the Linux and open source experience in Azure, ensuring we meet the evolving needs of our customers.

AlmaLinux has been available in the Azure Marketplace for over three years and we are excited to announce it is now an endorsed Linux distribution in Azure. AlmaLinux is a free, community-owned, enterprise-grade Linux distribution that is binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and offers long-term stability and security features. AlmaLinux is used by a wide range of customers in Azure and has become an increasing popular choice as CentOS Linux users look for alternatives following its end of life. The endorsement of AlmaLinux in Azure is a testament to its reliability, security, and performance.

“The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is thrilled that AlmaLinux has been recognized as an endorsed Linux distribution in Azure. This endorsement underscores our commitment to providing a stable, secure, and high-performance Linux distribution for enterprise environments. Being an endorsed distribution in Azure not only validates the reliability and quality of AlmaLinux but also ensures that our users can confidently deploy and manage their workloads in Azure.” – benny Vasquez, Chair of the Board, AlmaLinux OS Foundation

What does being an endorsed Linux distribution in Azure mean?

Customers have the flexibility to deploy any Linux distribution in Azure from several different image sources – Azure Marketplace, custom, or community gallery. Each source provides a different expectation for quality, utility, and support. A subset of the Linux distributions in Azure, which includes Ubuntu, Debian, Flatcar, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, and now AlmaLinux, are known as endorsed distributions. While a Linux distribution being endorsed is not an official recommendation from Microsoft, it indicates that the distribution has met the following criteria:

Market and customer demand: We’ve received signals about the market and customer demand of the Linux distribution and its usage in Azure.
Contract: We have a contractual agreement ensuring update cadences and remediation targets with the provider of the distribution, which can be the actual provider of the Linux distribution (e.g. Red Hat, Canonical, SUSE, etc.) or another vendor who is responsible for image publishing.
Engineering relationship: There is a close engineering relationship between Microsoft and the Linux distribution provider with ongoing forums to discuss  issues, customer feedback, new Azure feature enablement and future updates.
Content mirror in Azure: The Linux distribution provider maintains content and infrastructure across multiple Azure regions ensuring consistency of the update user experience and providing speedy, in-network software installation.

As an endorsed Linux distribution, AlmaLinux will adhere to testing and update standards, while also receiving support as detailed in Microsoft’s Linux and open source support policy.

Get started with AlmaLinux on Azure

AlmaLinux is available through the Azure Marketplace for both x64 and Arm64 architectures, including Microsoft’s latest Cobalt 100-based virtual machines, as well as a customized image for HPC workloads. AlmaLinux images are also available through Community Gallery and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

Learn more

Read the AlmaLinux press release
View the session from Open Source Summit North America to get an inside look into the engineering efforts at Microsoft that ensure your favorite Linux distributions run well on Azure
Read the migration guide to learn how to convert your current OS to AlmaLinux using the AlmaLinux migration tool

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