Introduction

In the ever-evolving world of cloud computing, maximizing performance and efficiency is crucial for businesses leveraging virtual machines (VMs) on platforms like Microsoft Azure, especially for high I/O workloads like SAP on Azure or database applications. One significant upgrade that can yield substantial performance improvements is converting your Azure VM from a SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) disk setup to NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) using Azure Boost. This blog post will guide you through the process of making this conversion and explore the numerous advantages of NVMe over SCSI. 

Advantages of Azure Boost

Azure Boost is a powerful enhancement tool for Azure VMs, offering the following advantages:

Accelerated Disk Performance: Azure Boost optimizes disk I/O operations, significantly increasing the speed and efficiency of your VM’s storage.
Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with existing Azure infrastructure, allowing for a smooth transition and immediate performance benefits.
Cost-Effective Optimization: By enhancing the performance of existing VMs, Azure Boost helps reduce the need for more expensive hardware upgrades or additional resources.

To learn more about Azure Boost visit our documentation or the announcement blog.

What is changing for your VM?

Changing the host interface from SCSI to NVMe will not change the remote storage (OS disk or data disks), but change the way the operating systems sees the disks.

 
SCSI enabled VM
NVMe enabled VM

OS disk
/dev/sda
/dev/nvme0n1

Temp Disk
/dev/sdb
/dev/sda

First Data Disk
/dev/sdc
/dev/nvme0n2

In the following sections, we’ll provide a step-by-step guide to converting your Azure VM from SCSI to NVMe using Azure Boost, ensuring you can take full advantage of these performance improvements and maintain a competitive edge in the cloud computing landscape.

Migrate your virtual machine (VM) from SCSI to NVMe

To migrate from SCSI to NVMe and benefit from higher performance some steps need to be followed:

Check if your virtual machine series supports NVMe
Check your operating system for NVMe readiness
Convert your virtual machine to NVMe
Check your operating system

1. Check if your virtual machine series supports NVMe

The supported virtual machine SKUs to support NVMe attached disks is available in our documentation and in the table below.

If your VM type is not listed below change the VM type.

Size Series
Series Type
Deployment Status

Dalsv6
General Purpose
Preview

Easv6
Memory Optimized
Preview

DCesv5
General Purpose
Preview

ECesv5
Memory Optimized
Preview

Mv3 Medium Memory
High Memory to CPU Optimized
Production

Falsv6/Famsv6
Compute Optimized
Preview

Dlsv5
General Purpose
Production

Dsv5
General Purpose
Production

Esv5
Memory Optimized
Production

Ebsv5
Managed disks optimized
Production

Lsv3
Local storage optimized
Production

Dplsv5
General Purpose
Production

Dpsv5
General Purpose
Production

Epsv5
Memory Optimized
Production

Nvadsv5
GPU/AI workload optimized
Production

HBv4
High Performance Compute (HPC)
Production

HX
High Performance Compute (HPC)
Production

As the list of supported VM families may change over time, please check the up-to-date documentation.

2. Check your operating system for NVMe readiness

The operating system needs to support NVMe devices, this includes e.g. device drivers and initrdm, the temporary file system used during boot, need to be prepared. In addition to that you need to validate the mount points of the file systems as those will check if you use the SCSI device name (/dev/sdX).

To make this process easier we created a bash script that does the prevalidation for you.

2.1 Check Controller Type of VM

2.1.1 Check Controller Type using PowerShell

PS C:Usersuser1> $vm = Get-AzVM -name nvme-conversion-vm
PS C:Usersuser1> $vm.StorageProfile.DiskControllerType
SCSI
PS C:Usersuser1>

2.1.2 Check Controller Type using Azure CLI

$ az vm show –name nvme-conversion-vm –resource-group nvme-conversion
{
“additionalCapabilities”: {
…
“storageProfile”: {
…
“diskControllerType”: “SCSI”,
…

2.1.3 Check Controller Type using Azure Portal

2.2 Run Preflight Check script

The bash script does not automatically change anything on your system, it will only provide recommendations for commands to run.

This includes

NVMe modules
GRUB configuration
/etc/fstab checks for devices

To start the script use the following command (curl):

curl -s -S -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/SAP-on-Azure-Scripts-and-Utilities/main/NVMe-Preflight-Check/azure-nvme-preflight-check.sh | sh -s — -v

As an alternative you can also use wget:

wget –no-verbose -O – https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/SAP-on-Azure-Scripts-and-Utilities/main/NVMe-Preflight-Check/azure-nvme-preflight-check.sh | sh -s — -v

Third option is to download the script from the GitHub repository and run it manually.

nvme-conversion-vm:/home/azureuser # curl -s -S -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/SAP-on-Azure-Scripts-and-Utilities/main/NVMe-Preflight-Check/azure-nvme-preflight-check.sh | sh -s — -v
————————————————
START of script
————————————————
————————————————
OK NVMe Module is installed and available on your VM
————————————————
————————————————
ERROR NVMe Module is not loaded in the initramfs image.

mkdir -p /etc/dracut.conf.d
echo ‘add_drivers+=” nvme nvme-core nvme-fabrics nvme-fc nvme-rdma nvme-loop nvmet nvmet-fc nvme-tcp “‘ >/etc/dracut.conf.d/nvme.conf
dracut -f -v

————————————————
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”console=ttyS0 net.ifnames=0 dis_ucode_ldr earlyprintk=ttyS0 multipath=off rootdelay=300 scsi_mod.use_blk_mq=1 USE_BY_UUID_DEVICE_NAMES=1 nvme_core.io_timeout=240″
————————————————
OK GRUB contains timeouts.
————————————————
————————————————
OK fstab file doesn’t contain device names
————————————————
Please crosscheck your /etc/fstab file
————————————————
END of script
————————————————
nvme-conversion-vm:/home/azureuser #

In this example initrd and the kernel are not ready for NVMe, running the dracut commands will enable the operating system.

nvme-conversion-vm:/home/azureuser # mkdir -p /etc/dracut.conf.d
nvme-conversion-vm:/home/azureuser # echo ‘add_drivers+=” nvme nvme-core nvme-fabrics nvme-fc nvme-rdma nvme-loop nvmet nvmet-fc nvme-tcp “‘ >/etc/dracut.conf.d/nvme.conf
nvme-conversion-vm:/home/azureuser # dracut -f -v
dracut: Executing: /usr/bin/dracut -f -v
…
dracut: *** Creating initramfs image file ‘/boot/initrd-5.14.21-150500.55.65-default’ done ***
nvme-conversion-vm:/home/azureuser # reboot

3. Convert your virtual machine to NVMe

To convert the operating system multiple steps are required.

Change the metadata of the OS disk to include NVMe capabilities
Change the SCSI controller to NVMe

This process has also been automated using a PowerShell script.

3.1 Download the PowerShell script

To download the PowerShell script from the GitHub repo use the following command:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri “https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/SAP-on-Azure-Scripts-and-Utilities/main/NVMe-Preflight-Check/azure-nvme-VM-update.ps1” -OutFile “.azure-nvme-VM-update.ps1”

3.2. Convert the Virtual Machine

To convert run the script, detailed documentation is also available on the GitHub repository.

You can decide if e.g. the VM should automatically be started after the reconfiguration.

.azure-nvme-VM-update.ps1 -subscription_id XXXXXXXX-a961-4fb7-88c0-757472230e6c -resource_group_name nvme-conversion -vm_name nvme-conversion-vm -disk_controller_change_to NVMe -vm_size_change_to Standard_E64bds_v5
INFO – OS Disk found
INFO – Access token generated
INFO – Getting VM info
INFO – Getting all VM SKUs available in Region swedencentral
INFO – This will take about a minute …
INFO – Found VM SKU – Checking for Capabilities
INFO – VM supports NVMe
INFO – Checking for TrustedLaunch
INFO – Checking if VM is stopped and deallocated
INFO – Stopping VM
Tenant: 72f988bf-86f1-41af-91ab-2d7cd011db47
SubscriptionName SubscriptionId Account Environment
—————- ————– ——- ———–
XX-XX-XX-XX XXXXXXX-a961-4fb7-88c0-757472230e6c xxxxxx@microsoft.com AzureCloud

OperationId : cf02d28c-c711-4fe5-89fc-854fba31b67a
Status : Succeeded
StartTime : 07.06.2024 15:18:35
EndTime : 07.06.2024 15:19:17
Error :
Name :

INFO – Setting OS Disk to SCSI/NVMe
INFO – Getting VM config to prepare new config
INFO – Setting new VM size
INFO – Setting disk controller for VM
INFO – Updating the VM configuration

RequestId :
IsSuccessStatusCode : True
StatusCode : OK
ReasonPhrase :

INFO – Not starting VM

3.3 Check the result

3.3.1 Check result in Azure Portal

3.3.2 Check result in PowerShell

PS C:Users> $vm = Get-AzVM -name nvme-conversion-vm
PS C:Users> $vm.StorageProfile.DiskControllerType
NVMe
PS C:Users>

4. Check your operating system

4.1 Check devices

You can check the devices using nvme command, if nvme command is missing install the “nvme-cli” package.

nvme list

The output should show the OS disk and the data disks.

4.2 Get udev file for NVMe (Optional)

On SCSI virtual machines the udev rules integrated in waagent (Azure agent) created links in /dev/disk/azure/scsi1/lunX to identify the data disks. As SCSI is not used anymore the rules do not apply.

With one of the two available options to deploy NVMe enabled udev rules you will see new symbolic links in the directory /dev/disk/azure/data/by-lun. This directory will be the replacement for /dev/disk/azure/scsi1.

nvme-conversion-vm:/usr/lib/udev/rules.d # ls -l /dev/disk/azure/data/by-lun/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Jun 7 13:52 0 -> ../../../../nvme0n2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Jun 7 13:52 1 -> ../../../../nvme0n3
nvme-conversion-vm:/usr/lib/udev/rules.d #

4.2.1 Manual download of udev file

To download the new udev rules file use this command:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/SAP-on-Azure-Scripts-and-Utilities/main/NVMe-Preflight-Check/88-azure-data-disk.rules –output /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/88-azure-data-disk.rules

and then run

udevadm control –reload-rules && udevadm trigger

to reload the udev rules.

4.2.2 Ready to install packages using Azure NVMe utils (https://github.com/azure/azure-nvme-utils )

There are pre-compiled packages available on Index of /results/cjp256/azure-nvme-utils/ (copr.fedorainfracloud.org) for multiple distributions, we are working on enabling and integrating Azure NVMe utils in all major distributions.

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