Cannot use Azure Free Trial (no GPU machines available)

I am trying to set-up my environment.

In the Lesson HOW TO SET UP YOUR AWS DEEP LEARNING SERVER it is mentioned > We’ve just learned that Azure now allows new users to access GPU machines without requiring a special request, and will provide $200 of free credits <

Unfortunately I do not think this is possible when you go for a free trial subscription, because all GPU machines have 6+ cores and the core quota for a free trial account is 4.

Maybe it works if you choose a Pay-As-You-Go subscription. I tried to change my Azure subscription from Free trial to Pay-As-You-Go but I could not.

I have been following the steup guide by @complancoder (mentioned in the lesson).

Any insight on the topic?

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It’s not unusual to have multiple subscriptions in Azure. You can add one via this link: https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_Billing/BillingBlade/Overview. I added an additional subscription instead of upgrading my free one. (Oddly, the web page was English with a little Portuguese mixed in – avaliação means “evaluation”, that’s the free one.)

I’ll pass on this issue to our contact at Azure - I know they’re interested in debugging any problems people see.

Have you checked that:

  • You have chosen ‘HDD’ and not ‘SSD’
  • You have selected US East

Yes @jeremy, I chose HHD as well as US east.

The option “NC6” shows up, but I cannot select it and the unavailability message mentions that it’s because it has 6 cores, while free trial only allows to use up to 4 cores.

@elena294 what happened when you tried to switch to PAYG?

(BTW, I had exactly the same problem as you, so it’s nice to know I’m not alone! Hopefully we’ll get this sorted with the Azure team’s help…)

@jeremy
When I tried to switch to PAYG, the only option I was given was to accept to start paying with my credit card any expense I would accrue after the 200$ credit expired.
Once I accepted this condition, my subscription was automatically renamed ‘Pay As You Go’ and I got a confirmation email, but my subscription information was still showing ‘free trial’ and NC6 was still unavailable.

@elena294 Ugh! I am a Microsoft Employee so I am on the Microsoft Employee Subscription hence I did not get into this issue . I didn’t know employees had it any different . I will updated my post with this ! :frowning:

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Hi @elena294 @Jeremy, I have finally established that when you convert a free trial to PAYG with a CC, it still retains the same core allocation policy. While we try to fix this, please raise a support ticket to request additional cores (to the number you require). It is not ideal and will add some time to your deployment, but is the only work around in the short term. Apologies in advance.

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I’m glad we resolved this - I will remove the recommendation to use Azure from our site for now. Let us know when it’s fixed. :slight_smile:

I would recommend that if people currently wish to use the N-Series GPU to either proceed with a PAYG account from the start and skip the free trial, or if they have started a free trial, raise a support ticket through the Azure Portal to have to core allocation increased.

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Hi,

Noticed that Azure had a Windows alternative called DSVM (Data Science Virtual Machine) and was wondering if any of you knew if that might be appropriate for this course, can’t see if it have NVidia but I think it comes prepared with most of the tools used in the course.

Is the Ubuntu (NC6 option) otherwise still an good option, or are there any other (would prefer Windows) alternatives on Azure?

Thanks!

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Hi,

I am facing the same issue after upgrading from free trial to Pay-As-You-Go. Could you please help me on how you raise the ticket for raise the number of cores. When I am trying to create a ticket for increasing cores under the category ‘quota’, I must enter SKU family, but NC is not listed there.

Thanks!

Hi @jeremy,

I would like to send a GPU credit application to AWS, Microsoft Azur, Google Cloud and NVIDIA GPU Cloud in favor of the Fastai study group in Brasilia that I lead with Brazilian colleagues (I had the list of their profiles in the forum: 69 to today on the 80 participants in our course meetings and a larger number through the list of emails).

Could you help me send this request to them ? (or could I get name and emails from you ?)

Thanks if you can help.

Pierre

Unfortunately, the problem remains the same,I cannot try gpu machine with my free account + 200$, also I cannot upgrade due to not having an online payment method (cc, paypal,etc…)

With an Microsoft Azure free trial, you receive $200 in credits which you can spend on any Azure service, including any virtual machines size you wish to create. Your free trial subscription remains active for 30 days.

You cannot use credits to pay for non Microsoft services like Sendgrid or non Microsoft virtual machines like Barracuda Firewall.

Note that when you create a virtual machine, Azure will start consuming from the $200 credits you received as part of the free trial. Some virtual machines are more expensive than others. It is possible to create items on your free trial subscription which will deplete the $200 credits within 24 or 48 hours. When you run out of credit or your free trial expires 30 days after you created it, your subscription will be disabled.

You may want to check the price sheet here before you go ahead and deploy an item : [Pricing Calculator | Microsoft Azure]. Simply add the items you wish to deploy to get an estimation of how much credits will be consumed.
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