Selecting a Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine Type and Size


Microsoft Azure offers many types of VM images in various sizes. Choosing the right VM image for your workload is an important factor for a successful Tableau Server deployment. You can choose from a wide range of Microsoft Azure VM images. For a complete list of all available VM image types and sizes, see Virtual Machine series(Link opens in a new window) at the Microsoft Azure website.

It is important to select an image that can run Tableau Server. The VM image must meet the Tableau Server hardware guidelines (a minimum of 8 cores and 128 GB of RAM). We recommend that you choose an instance that supports Azure premium storage(Link opens in a new window).

At minimum, a 64-bit Tableau Server requires a 4-core CPU (the equivalent of 8 Azure vCPUs) and 64 GB RAM. However, a total of 8 CPU cores (16 Azure vCPUs) and 128 GB RAM are strongly recommended for a single production Microsoft Azure VM.

Typical VM types and sizes for development, test and production environments

  • D Series – D13, D14, D16

  • DS Series – DS13, DS14

Note: We recommend that you use the DS series VMs with Premium Storage, which is best for database and other high performance applications. Typically, the D16s_v3 or DS13_V2 instances are a good choice. For testing and proof-of-concept purposes, you may find a virtual machine with only four cores acceptable (such as the DS13_V2).

Use two or three disks in RAID 0 configuration in order to get enough input/output operations per second (IOPS) on a single volume to provide high disk throughput. Two disks striped as a single volume provides good enough performance for an additional node not hosting repo. If you are running Tableau Server on a single computer, use three drives striped as a single volume (RAID 0) to provide enhanced disk performance, since more disk operations will happen on that computer.

Component/ResourceMicrosoft Azure

CPU

16 vCPU cores

Operating System

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

    • Tableau Server 2021.4.0 and later: 7.3.x and higher, 8.3 and higher (not 9.x)

    • Tableau Server 2021.3.x and earlier: 7.3 and higher (not 8.x)

  • Amazon Linux 2

    • Tableau Server 2021.4.0 and later

  • CentOS 7.3 and higher (not 8.x)

  • Oracle Linux 7.3 and higher (not 8.x)

  • Ubuntu

    • Tableau Server 2023.1.0 and later: The latest versions of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS (not 17.04), and 20.04 LTS

    • Tableau Server 2022.1.12 and later, 2022.3.4 and later: The latest versions of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS (not 17.04), and 20.04 LTS

      Note: Support for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS was added for versions 2022.1 and 2022.3 in the February 2023 maintenance releases.

    • Tableau Server 2022.3.3, 2022.1.12, and earlier: The latest versions of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS (not 17.04)

Note: As of July 2022, Debian distributions are no longer supported. For more information, see this Tableau Community post(Link opens in a new window).

    Earlier versions:

Memory

128+ GB RAM (4 GB RAM per vCPU)

Storage

Two volumes:

30-50 GiB volume for the operating system

100 GiB or larger volume for Tableau Server

Storage type

Premium Storage P20 (512 GB)++

For more information, see High-performance Premium Storage and managed disks for VMs(Link opens in a new window) at the Microsoft Azure website.

Disk latency

Less than or equal to 20ms as measured by the iostat command in Linux.

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