Microsoft has announced a new series of VM sizes called G-Series which provides higher performance, faster I/O and more RAM than current VM sizes.
| VM Size | Cores | RAM (in GB) | Local SSD Storage (in GB) |
| Standard_G1 | 2 | 28 | 406 |
| Standard_G2 | 4 | 56 | 812 |
| Standard_G3 | 8 | 112 | 1630 |
| Standard_G4 | 16 | 224 | 3250 |
| Standard_G5 | 32 | 448 | 6500 |
These VM sizes will be available later this year.
In addition, Microsoft is providing a new high performance storage called Azure Premium Storage which offers SSD based storage designed for intensive I/O workloads. For those looking at shifting their SQL Server workloads to the cloud, this will be welcome news.
Pricing has not yet been announced.
