When you create your service model, you can specify the size of the virtual machine (VM) to which to deploy instances of your role, depending on its resource requirements. The size of the VM determines the number of CPU cores, the memory capacity, and the local file system size allocated to a running instance.

The following table describes each of the available options for VM size:

To specify the VM size for your role, edit your service definition file, and set the vmsize attribute on the WebRole or WorkerRole element to Small, Medium, Large, or ExtraLarge. See Service Definition Schema for more information.

Note
If you are using the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio, you can also set the VM size in the property pages for the role.