News | Azure Local 2604

Microsoft has released Azure Local 2604, and this one is a meaty release. The headline is architectural: SAN storage and disaggregated deployments go GA, finally breaking the 16 node ceiling and letting you scale compute and storage independently. On top of that you get GPU acceleration GA, Key Vault local identity GA, and a serious cut in deployment and validation time.

OS and runtime baseline

• All new and existing deployments now run OS version26100.32690. You will need a driver compatible with that build or Windows Server 2025. For Integrated System and Premier hardware, your OEM ships it preinstalled.
• .NET 8.0.26 and .NET 10.0.6 (Runtime and ASP.NET Core).

New features

• Disaggregated deployments (GA):deploy Azure Local against SAN storage only. Compute and storage scale independently, and clusters can go beyond 16 nodes. Big one for larger environments.
• SAN storage (GA):attach SAN alongside Storage Spaces Direct, or use it standalone in disaggregated mode.
• Local identity with Azure Key Vault (GA):graduates from preview, including rack aware clustering support.
• GPU acceleration for Azure Local VMs (GA):full DDA and GPU‑P attach and detach as a Day‑2 operation via CLI or portal.
• Domain join prior to deployment:supported out of the box now.
• Manage update settings:control how updates are applied per cluster.

Improvements (the ones that matter for Day‑2 ops)

• Validation time cut by up to 50%, and validation now resumes from the failure point within a 3 hour window instead of starting over. Anyone who has babysat a stalled validation knows what this is worth.
• Deployment time down ~40%and consistent for clusters up to 8 nodes.
• Graceful stop and restart by defaultfor Azure Local VMs. Update yourstack-hci-vmextension (az extension update --name "stack-hci-vm"). Use--skip-shutdownif you really need the old behaviour.
• SDN management per NIC:toggle via--bypass-sdn-policies. Same extension update applies.
• Disk management UXin the portal: cluster level data disk creation, plus attach existing disk from the VM view.
• Azure Marketplace image pickeropens full page when creating a VM image. Small UX win.

AKS enabled by Azure Arc

• Supported Kubernetes:1.31.12, 1.31.13, 1.32.8, 1.32.9, 1.33.4, 1.33.5.
• Kubernetes 1.30 is no longer supported.Check your clusters before you upgrade Azure Local, or the upgrade will block.
• KMS v1 deprecation is approaching.KMS v2 is in this release. Plan a redeploy of clusters onto v2.

Upgrade planning notes

• If you are running AKS on 1.30, sort that first. It is the most likely blocker.
• If you have been holding off on Key Vault local identity or rack aware clustering, both are GA now and pair well.
• SAN customers: this is the release to plan for, but design the disaggregated topology before flipping the switch.
• Update thestack-hci-vmCLI extension before you start scripting against the new VM behaviours.

What’s new (2604): https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/azure-local/whats-new?view=azloc-2604
Known issues (2604): https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/azure-local/known-issues?view=azloc-2604

2604 is the release that quietly removes a lot of the historic Azure Local ceilings: node count, storage architecture, GPU lifecycle, identity model. Worth planning into the next maintenance window.