REDEFINING CLOUD-NATIVE PERFORMANCE: A TECHNICAL EVALUATION OF MICROSOFT AZURE’S COBALT 100 ARM-BASED VIRTUAL MACHINES

Abstract

Cloud computing stands to dramatically change the paradigm with the enablement of Arm based architectures, shifting performance, power efficiency and cost optimization possibilities. A new, customized Arm-based virtual machine (VM) called Cobalt 100, recently announced by Microsoft Azure, and promises to rewire cloud-native computing for workloads of today. This work provides an in-depth performance comparison between x86-based Azure VM instances and the new Cobalt 100 VMs. Our approach is to use industry standard benchmarking suites (like Geekbench 6, SPEC CPU 2017, and Sysbench) on Arm based Cobalt 100 and x86 based Dv5 VMs. We also measure real-world application workloads (web servers, NGINX, and databases, MySQL, microservices in Kubernetes cluster) as well. Performance is evaluated in terms of CPU throughput, memory bandwidth, energy efficiency, cost/performance, and application latency. Results show Cobalt 100 VMs providing 40% higher price-performance and 60% better CPU performance on CPU-intensive workloads than Dv5 series. For webservers and database hosting Cobalt 100 showed 15–25% lower latency and 30% less power consumption, the perfect solution for your cloud native, black carbon free deployment! This benchmark proves the potential of Arm architecture in enterprise cloud, and it positions Cobalt 100 as a proven alternative to traditional x86 VMs for developers and organizations seeking optimal performance and sustainability for next generation of cloud-native applications.