# Approve proximity-group removal before preview regional-to-zonal VM migration

> What placement constraint must change when a regional VM in a proximity placement group moves to a zone?

- Canonical URL: https://update.dsesecurity.com/updates/dse-20260909-074-approve-proximity-group-removal-before-preview-regional-to-zonal-vm-migration/
- Publisher: Detection Systems & Engineering (DSE Security)
- Author: DSE Security Editorial Team
- Published: 2026-09-10T00:30:42+00:00
- Modified: 2026-09-10T00:35:07+00:00
- Last reviewed by DSE: 2026-09-09
- Resource type: Guide
- DSE priority: Information
- Topics: Business Continuity, IT
- Reading time: 2 minutes

## What you need to know

What placement constraint must change when a regional VM in a proximity placement group moves to a zone?

## Potentially affected

Teams evaluating the public-preview in-place regional-to-zonal migration of an Azure VM associated with a proximity placement group.

## DSE recommendation

Approve the loss of the proximity-placement-group association and the one-way zone transition before deallocating the VM.

## Article

## Source facts

Microsoft’s in-place regional-to-zonal VM migration is a public preview and is not available in the Azure portal. It requires deallocation and cannot return the VM to regional placement. A VM in a proximity placement group must remove that association during zone assignment. Availability-set VMs are outside this procedure; Basic public IPs, Basic Load Balancer configurations, and unmanaged disks are also unsupported until converted to the documented alternatives. [Microsoft Learn](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/migrate-to-availability-zone).

## Applicability

Review one regional VM against the preview registration, permissions, tool versions, and target-zone size requirements. Identify which application dependencies motivated its current proximity placement. Keep this in-place preview distinct from a Resource Mover workflow that creates replacement resources.

## DSE recommendation

Approve the loss of the proximity-placement-group association and the one-way zone transition before deallocating the VM. Ask the application owner to define acceptable behavior after the placement change. Record the intended zone and the prerequisites that must already be satisfied. Plan recovery around an approved alternative rather than promising to reverse the zone property back to regional placement.

## Verification

After the authorized zone assignment and start, inspect the VM’s zone and proximity-group association. Confirm that the observed location matches the approved decision and test communication with the application’s dependent services. Compare latency-sensitive workflows with their acceptance criteria. Preserve the before-and-after placement record and unresolved differences; a successful property update alone does not establish that removing the original placement constraint was acceptable for the workload.

## Official references

[Microsoft Learn: Migrate a regional virtual machine to an availability zone](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/migrate-to-availability-zone). Source reviewed September 9, 2026.

## Primary reference

- Name: Migrate a regional virtual machine to an availability zone - Azure Virtual Machines | Microsoft Learn
- Authority: Microsoft Learn
- URL: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/migrate-to-availability-zone
- Source publication date: Not stated by the source

## Citation and use

Preferred citation: “Approve proximity-group removal before preview regional-to-zonal VM migration,” DSE Security, https://update.dsesecurity.com/updates/dse-20260909-074-approve-proximity-group-removal-before-preview-regional-to-zonal-vm-migration/
Publishing principles: https://update.dsesecurity.com/updates/dse-updates-editorial-methodology/
Usage and citation policy: https://update.dsesecurity.com/usage/
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