Step-by-Step Guide to Azure Host Groups – Robert Smit MVP Blog

If you’re running enterprise workloads in Microsoft Azure, you’ve likely come across the need for dedicated hardware, VM placement control, and high availability. This is where Azure Host Groups and Dedicated Hosts fit in.

In this post, we’ll break down what Azure Host Groups are, why they matter, and how to create and configure them step by step. Whether you’re an Azure architect, cloud engineer, or IT decision-maker, this guide will help you understand how to use Host Groups for compliance, resiliency, and performance.

What Are Azure Host Groups?

An Azure Host Group is a logical container for Azure Dedicated Hosts. It provides placement policies that determine how your virtual machines (VMs) are distributed across:

• Fault domains
• Availability Zones
• Update domains

In other words, Host Groups give you fine-grained control over Azure VM placement to improve resiliency, availability, and compliance.

Why Use Azure Host Groups?

Host Groups are essential for organizations that need:

• Compliance and isolation – Ensure workloads run on dedicated physical servers.
• High availability – Spread workloads across fault domains and zones for redundancy.
• Placement control – Avoid noisy neighbors or enforce specific VM distribution policies.
• Enterprise workloads – Ideal for databases, SAP, financial applications, and mission-critical systems.

There are two types of quota that are consumed when you deploy a dedicated host.

1. Dedicated host vCPU quota. The default quota limit is 3000 vCPUs, per region.
2. VM size family quota. For example, a Pay-as-you-go subscription may only have a quota of 10 vCPUs available for the Dsv3 size series, in the East US region. To deploy a Dsv3 dedicated host, you would need to request a quota increase to at least 64 vCPUs before you can deploy the dedicated host.

Prerequisites for Creating a Host Group

Before you create a Host Group in Azure Compute Infrastructure, make sure you have:

• Contributor role or higher in your target resource group
• A supported Azure region for Dedicated Hosts
• Knowledge of supported VM series (not all VM types run on Dedicated Hosts)

Step-by-Step: How to Create an Azure Host Group

Step 1 – Open the Azure Portal

• Sign in to Azure Portal.
• Search for “Host Groups” in the search bar.
• Click Create.

Step 2 – Configure Basics

• Subscription: Select your subscription.
• Resource Group: Use an existing one or create a new one.
• Host Group Name: Enter a descriptive name.
• Region: Choose the region where your Dedicated Hosts will reside.

Step 3 – Configure Availability Options

• Fault domains: Define how many fault domains you want (e.g., 1–3).
• Availability Zones: Optionally spread hosts across different zones for maximum uptime.

Step 4 – Review and Create

• Validate your configuration.
• Click Create to deploy the Host Group.

Step-by-Step: Adding Dedicated Hosts to a Host Group

Once your Host Group is created:

1. Go to the Host Group resource.
2. Select + Add Host.
3. Configure:
   • Host name
   • VM family type (e.g., Dsv3, Esv4)
   • Host size (cores, memory)
4. Assign the new Dedicated Host to the Host Group.

Step-by-Step: Deploying Virtual Machines into a Host Group

When you create a new Azure Virtual Machine:

1. Go to the Advanced tab in the VM creation wizard.
2. Under Host settings, choose:
   • Host Group
   • (Optional) Specific Host if you want direct placement.

This ensures your VM runs only on the Dedicated Host hardware you assigned.

Azure Host Groups are a powerful tool within Azure Compute Infrastructure that give you:

• Greater control over VM placement
• Compliance-ready dedicated hardware
• Improved high availability and disaster recovery

By using Host Groups and Dedicated Hosts, you can design an enterprise-grade Azure environment that meets strict compliance, uptime, and performance requirements.

By adding the VM in the dedicated hostpool

Make sure you have upgraded the cores.

Pricing

Users are charged per dedicated host, regardless how many VMs are deployed. In your monthly statement, you’ll see a new billable resource type of hosts. The VMs on a dedicated host will still be shown in your statement, but will carry a price of 0.

The host price is set based on VM family, type (hardware size), and region. A host price is relative to the largest VM size supported on the host.

https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/virtual-machines/dedicated-hosts

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