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Discontinued services in Microsoft Azure

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Introduction to discontinued services in Microsoft Azure

This article provides a list of discontinued services in Microsoft Azure, as per the Azure service lifecycle. This includes services and features which have been discontinued, retired or deprecated. The below list shall be continuously be updated with latest updates from the Azure side. Many of these services involve migration of Azure ASM-type (Azure Service Management) classic resource migration to the equivalent Azure ARM-type (Azure Resource Management) resources. The article also contains a separate list will all deprecated protocols for discontinued services in Microsoft Azure, for instance discontinued support for TLS v1.0 or v1.1.

Please note that it would be good to periodically check the Azure updates channel for any posts which include the "Action Required" phrase, in order not to miss any Azure service retirement which could result in downtime or operational issues for your infrastructure, apps and data: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/?query=Action%20required.

You are advised to consult the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy and periodically check the "Product End of Support & Retirements" page. For example, for year 2023 the following Azure and Microsoft 365 services will be deprecated: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/end-of-support/end-of-support-2023. For a comprehensive list of Microsoft products and their lifecycle policy timelines, including migration options, please visit the Microsoft Product Lifecycle Search page.

Discontinued services in Microsoft Azure

Bear in mind that Microsoft usually allows a minimum of 1 year ahead of the imminent retirement/deprecation until announcing the deprecation of an Azure service.

Azure service resource limits and known issues

Also please note that you should always consult the Azure service resource limits, quotas and known issues when designing any Azure solution.

Discontinued services in Microsoft Azure

Updates 2024

Classic administrator roles and classic resources

On 31 August 2024, Azure classic administrator roles, i.e. Co-Administrator and Service Admin roles will be retired and must be replaced by Azure RBAC roles. All Azure classic resources and Azure Service Manager will also be retired on the same date. Refer to the MS transition article.

Transition to metrics in Azure Monitor before classic metrics in Azure Storage are retired on 9 January 2024.

Refer to Microsoft article transition to metrics in Monitor and carry out action items by 9 January 2024.

Migrate to the Authentication methods policy in Entra ID by 30 September 2025

On 30 September 2025, the ability to manage authentication methods in the legacy multifactor authentication (MFA) and self-service password reset (SSPR) policies will be replaced by authentication methods policy in Entra ID. For more details, refer to MS article How to migrate to the Authentication methods policy - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn.

Updates 2023

Azure Front Door and Microsoft CDN (classic) domain fronting blocking

This will be in effect starting January 8, 2024. Review the following MS article more details: Azure Front Door - Frequently asked questions | Microsoft Learn.

Extended support for .NET 7 (STS) ends on 14 May 2024 — upgrade your apps to .NET 8 (LTS)

On 14 May 2024, extended support for .NET 7(STS) will end. Your apps that are hosted on App Service will continue to run, but security updates and technical support will no longer be available. Review the relevant MS article at App Service language support. Follow the steps to upgrade your app to .NET 8(LTS) before 14 May 2024.

If you use certificate pinning, update your trusted root store for Azure Storage services by 29 February 2024

If you have client applications that have pinned to intermediate certificate authorities, take one of these actions by 29 February 2024 to prevent interruptions to your connections:

  • Add the issuing certificate authorities to your trusted root store. Keep using the current intermediate certificate authorities until they're updated.
  • Or, to avoid the effects of this update and future certificate updates, discontinue certificate pinning in your applications.

Azure Load Testing preview API versions

Azure Load Testing preview API versions will be retired on 10 September 2023 and will be replaced by Azure Load Testing GA API versions on 10 September 2023. To avoid service disruption, you’ll need to update your templates, tools, scripts, and programs, to use a newer API version. You can refer to the REST API documentation here.

Azure AD legacy MFA and SSPR policies

Migrate your authentication methods from the MFA and SSPR policies to the Authentication methods policy before 30 September 2024.

Azure App Service disaster recovery mode

If you have web applications deployed to the Free or Shared tier and you want to implement a disaster recovery strategy for them, scale up to Basic tier or higher. To avoid data or functionality loss in the event of a regional disaster, implement common disaster recovery techniques (https://aka.ms/AppserviceBCDR) for your App Service web apps by 31 March 2025.

Azure Multi-Factor Authentication Server deprecated

By September 30, 2024 organisations should migrate their users’ authentication data to the cloud-based Azure MFA service using the latest Migration Utility included in the most recent Azure MFA Server update. Learn more at Azure MFA Server Migration.  

Classic alerts for Recovery Services vaults in Azure Backup

On 31 March 2026, classic alerts for Recovery Services vaults in Azure Backup will be retired and no longer supported.

Azure Batch Low Priority VMs

Low Priority VMs are a deprecated feature and will be retired on 30 September 2025, so you need to transition to Spot VMs by that date.

Azure unmanaged disks deprecated

By September 30, 2025 you will need to migrate/convert your Windows or Linux virtual machines to managed disks.

NC-series Azure Virtual Machines retired

NC-series VMs must be de-allocated and migrated by 31 August 2023.

Azure Cognitive Search skills

After 31 August 2024, the older versions of sentiment analysis and entity recognition skills will no longer be supported, and any invocation of these skills will result in errors.  

Azure MySQL single server

On 16 September 2024, Azure Database for MySQL Single Server will be retired, and you'll need to migrate to Flexible Server by that date. Use Azure Data Migration Service to migrate to Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server by 16 September 2024 (read the FAQ to learn more). More details can be found in the following article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/mysql/single-server/whats-happening-to-mysql-single-server.

Azure Database for PostgreSQL Single Server

On 28 March 2025, Azure Database for PostgreSQL Single Server will be retired, and you'll need to migrate to Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server by that date. Additionally, as part of this change:

  • Beginning 31 March 2023, you'll no longer be able to create new Single Server instances for PostgreSQL versions 10 and older through the Azure portal.
  • Beginning 9 November 2023, you'll no longer be able to create new Single Server instances for PostgreSQL version 11 through the Azure portal.

To avoid any disruptions in service, use the migration tool to migrate to Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server by 28 March 2025. Read the FAQ to learn more.

Azure classic cloud services and classic networking services

Azure Cloud Services (classic) will be retired on 31 August 2024. Classic Azure Virtual Network, reserved IP addresses, Azure ExpressRoute gateway, Azure Application Gateway, and Azure VPN Gateway are dependent on Azure Cloud Services (classic) and therefore they will be retired on the same date. Before that date, you’ll need to migrate any resources which use these classic networking services to the Azure Resource Manager deployment model. To avoid service disruptions, follow the guidance to migrate your resources that use these classic networking services to Azure Resource Manager by 31 August 2024: 

New deployments for Azure cloud services should use the new Azure Resource Manager based deployment model Azure Cloud Services (extended support). App Service Environment version 1 and version 2 run on Azure Cloud Services (classic), so Microsoft will retire App Service Environment version 1 and version 2 on 31 August 2024 as well.

Azure Application Gateway v1

Microsoft will be disabling creation of new gateways on the V1 SKU and any existing Azure Application Gateway v1 resources must be migrated to the v2 SKU by April 28, 2026. Review the following MS article for more details: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-gateway/retirement-faq.

Classic IaaS VMs

 If you use IaaS resources from ASM, you mustcomplete your migration to ARM by March 1, 2023.

Power Platform

Various Power Platform feature deprecations are provided in the following article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/important-changes-coming.

Azure CDN Standard from Akamai

On 31 October 2023, services of Azure CDN Standard from Akamai will no longer be supported. Customers must move workloads to another CDN profile such as Azure Front Door or Azure CDN from Verizon by 31 October 2023.

Deprecation of protocol support for discontinued services in Microsoft Azure

TLS v.1.0 and v.1.1

Part of the discontinued services in Microsoft Azure are the supported protocols, such as the TLS security protocol. If you have resources that interact with Azure services and still use TLS 1.1 or earlier, transition them to TLS 1.2 or later by 31 October 2024. To enhance security and provide best-in-class encryption for your data, we'll require interactions with Azure services to be secured using Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 or later beginning 31 October 2024, when support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will end.  The Microsoft implementation of older TLS versions is not known to be vulnerable, however, TLS 1.2 and later offer improved security with features such as perfect forward secrecy and stronger cipher suites.

To avoid potential service disruptions, confirm that your resources that interact with Azure services are using TLS 1.2 or later. Then:

  • If they're already exclusively using TLS 1.2 or later, you don't need to take further action.
  • If they still have a dependency on TLS 1.0 or 1.1, transition them to TLS 1.2 or later by 31 October 2024.

If you are a developer or devops engineer, review the following article for thorough guidance on how to prepare for this change: Solving the TLS 1.0 Problem - Security documentation | Microsoft Learn. For more details about TLS v.1.0 and TLS v.1.1 retirement/support in Azure, consult the following article: https://stefanos.cloud/tls-1-0-and-1-1-deprecation-in-azure-services/. Also review Microsoft Azure articles on TLS 1.2 preparation at:

The following list contains all other TLS protocol support announcements by Microsoft for Azure individual services:

  • On 4th December 2018, the Azure Bot Service will require all connections to be secured using transport layer security (TLS) 1.2.
  • Microsoft has announced in 2021 that they are deprecating TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 support from Office 365 and Microsoft 365 products and services. More details can be found at: https://stefanos.cloud/kb/how-to-allow-legacy-tls-smtp-clients-in-exchange-online/.
  • The deadline for IoT Hub deprecation of support for transport layer security (TLS) 1.0/1.1 is postponed indefinitely. IoT Hub will continue to support TLS 1.0/1.1 until further notice to ensure compatibility with existing applications and devices. It was previously announced that IoT Hub would deprecate support for TLS 1.0/1.1 on 1st July 2020. After reviewing customer feedback, we are postponing the deadline for migration indefinitely. However, all customers should migrate to TLS 1.2 as soon as possible.
  • To ensure that Azure can provide the best level of security for our customers’ data, Azure Resource Manager will be deprecating support for incoming requests coming over TLS 1.1 and other older security protocols by Autumn 2023. As such, to avoid any interruptions in your connections with Azure, we highly recommend that you migrate to TLS 1.2 and remove any dependencies on older protocols in your operating systems and work environments. Azure Resource Manager already supports TLS 1.2; customers currently using this version will be unaffected by this move. However, we will require HTTPS connections coming from all customers to use TLS 1.2, and we will no longer provide backwards compatibility to older security protocols. To maintain your connections to Azure Resource Manager, please update your operating systems, development libraries, frameworks, and all other solutions to their latest versions to support TLS 1.2. 
  • Azure App Service still supports TLS v.1.0 and v.1.1 as per: https://azure.github.io/AppService/2018/06/13/TLS-Configuration-now-fixed-to-block-1.0.html.
  • Azure Batch TLS 1.0/1.1 will be retired on 31 March 2023. To avoid disruptions to your workflow, follow these steps to transition using Batch TLS 1.0/1.1 before 31 March 2023. After that, Microsoft will stop supporting Batch TLS 1.0/1.1. TLS 1.0/1.1 workflows will break, and our client application won’t work until you upgrade.

This article aimed to provide a list of discontinued services in Microsoft Azure.

References for discontinued services in Microsoft Azure