I don't recommend mining with free credits from trial-accounts.
With that being said: If you enter your credit-card details and deactivate the spending-limit your VMs won't get shut down. You just have to remember to switch off everything before your free credits run out (your free credits will still work after deactivating the spending-limit).

Profitability right now is generally bad... if the past is any indication for the future then things will change with the next altcoin-season after the upcoming bitcoin-halving.
Otherwise my favorite profit-calculator is https://www.cryptunit.com/, you can have a look at the numbers there.

Yeah, i'm aware of the fork and i am currently working on finding the optimal settings for mining with azure.

If your instances get shut down, it's a good sign that you are violating the ToS and you should probably stop what you are doing.
About the trial-accounts: of course you could keep on creating new trial accounts with fake identities. But is this really the way you want to do it? If you think about it a little you also must come to the conclusion that this is bad for your karma.

And about the hashrate: Azure has different types of CPUs in different regions. Also the actual performance depends on the cpu-usage of the VMs of other customers running on the same CPU (the script has a function to recalibrate itself to get the best hashrate). So there are some reasons for the fluctuation. When i created the script i did some experiments and got best results with the "east us"-region and f2 instances. Of course, it would be nice if you can post here if you find better settings.

For best results you should use instances with less cores, e.g. 2 or 4 cores per instance.


900 h\s is at the lower range... But there's always some fluctuation. Did you use the settings described in the guide?

By the way, it sounds like you're using trial accounts - please don't do that, it's just  not worthwhile. You really need a msdn account if you want to use the script.

Unfortunately altcoin-prices are very low right now, so profitability is very bad.
You can check https://www.cryptunit.com for other coins...
Personally, I mine xmr, even if sometimes other coins would yield a higher dollar-value (after all, xmr is one of the top-altcoins).
Otherwise, I am also mining banano - profitability is equally bad, but I find mining it is more fun than xmr
See https://azurecloudminingscript.github.io/Run_Folding_At_Home_in_the_Azure_Cloud.html for more info about mining banano.

Hi everybody,

FYI: i created a script to run folding@home in the azure-cloud, which you can use to earn Banano as the OP described. Check out my post at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5147260

By the way: my experience with Azure and GCloud is that they don't really care what you are using the VMs for, as long as you have entered a valid credit-card in your account (e.g. after entering your credit-card you can use up the free credits you get for signing up. You'll just have to switch off your VMs once your credit is exhausted, otherwise you'll get billed according to your usage).
The same applies if you have a legit MSDN-subscription (e.g. paid for by your employer): you can burn your free credits anyway you wish (in this case even without entering a credit-card).

Hi everybody,

need a break from the dead-serious mining-business? Why not have some fun with Banano?

As explained in another post in this forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5143131.0), you can earn BANANO by participating in Folding@Home, the distributed computing project which aims to fight diseases. As the title of this post (and my username) suggests, i have created a script for running folding@home in the azure cloud. It will just take 5 minutes to setup and it will keep on running indefinitely after the initial setup.

If you have a MSDN-subscription you can use your free credits to get a few hundred BANANO daily (150.000 folding-points per day).
If you don't have a MSDN-subscription - well, sorry, you're out of luck. Please don't run my script with the one-off credits you get with azure's trial accounts. That's just bad style and is not really worth it.

To start, you'll first need a Banano-wallet: https://vault.banano.cc/
Then get your folding@home-UserID from https://bananominer.com/
For increased payout, get a passkey for your UserID at https://apps.foldingathome.org/getpasskey
Finally, follow my guide at https://azurecloudminingscript.github.io/Run_Folding_At_Home_in_the_Azure_Cloud.html to setup the virtual machines in azure. Note that you'll have to complete 10 folding@home WorkUnits before you'll be credited the full amount of Banano/folding-points (this will take 2-3 days).

If you have any questions, post here or send me a PM.

Full disclosure: When you use the generated script from the link above, the VMs will be folding 2% of the time with my personal User-ID. I hope you will concede me that small piece of fame in exchange for providing this guide.

Sorry, mining with azure is only profitable if you have free credits from e.g. a MSDN-subscription. If you have to pay for the VMs you will lose money. With the current market situation, you'll make maybe 20$ in cryptocurrency if you spend 100$ for azure-vms (the exact numbers depend on the current exchange-rates and which coin you mine).


 

Hi everybody,

FYI: apparently azure has increased the price for the F-instances. If you have a MSDN Enterprise subscription, your free credits will only be enough to run 9 instances (for a total of 18 cores) instead of the previously 10 instances. For MSDN Professional still 3 instances are possible.

If you have run out of free credits, azure will delete your pools. You'll have to re-setup your pools (just use 9 instances instead of previously 10).

Hi everybody,

FYI: I have updated the used xmr-stak to version 2.10.4.

Also, i have added a password-field to the detailed script-generator at https://azurecloudminingscript.github.io/Turn_your_Azure_Free_Credits_into_Cryptocurrency_detailed.html. This makes it easier to add custom worker-IDs (for pools that expect the ID in the password-field) or to setup merged-mining as requested by mk111.

I have added the option "Generic cryptonight_turtle" to my script-generator at https://azurecloudminingscript.github.io/Turn_your_Azure_Free_Credits_into_Cryptocurrency_detailed.html. You can add the Loki-wallet as normal in the wallet-field, however, for now you'll have to enter your turtle-wallet manually into the script - just replace the phrase "export pool_pass1=x" with "export pool_pass1=TRTLxxxxxxx" (where TRTLxxxxxxx is your turtle-wallet) in the generated script.
I just tested it and in the pool's dashboard i can see both the loki and the turtle-balance increasing.

I'll add a field to directly edit the password later to the script-generator.

Edit:  Note: when manually adding your wallet, take care not to add any spaces to the generated script.

Yes, that looks interesting... thanks for the hint.
I will see how to get this running.

FYI: Another update, now the script is running with XMR-Stak 2.10.1. As described above, your VMs will get the update automatically after some time (or you can restart your pools - there does not seem to be much of a change in the hashrate, though).

FYI: I have updated the script to use XMR-Stak 2.10.0. This version has much better optimized CPU-Mining. You don't have to do anything to get the better hashrate (just wait - every few days the script will refresh itself, giving you the better hashrate).
If you want to get the better hashrate straight away, you can also restart your pools (scale to 0 and then scale back to e.g. 10 low priority nodes).

You'll have to select "Generic Cryptonight_R". I have added the new option to the script-generator at https://azurecloudminingscript.github.io/Turn_your_Azure_Free_Credits_into_Cryptocurrency_detailed.html. I just tried it, it works for me - if you can't get it to work please post here again.

You're welcome 

I made a new start-page with pre-filled forms for certain coins. You'll just  have to enter your wallet-id. I have added conceal (new PoW post-Fork) there:https://azurecloudminingscript.github.io/

You can also use this direct link:
https://azurecloudminingscript.github.io/Turn_your_Azure_Free_Credits_into_Cryptocurrency_detailed.html#pool1=conceal.herominers.com:10361&currency=cryptonight_conceal

Of course you can change the default-value for the pool to something else.
If you have trouble getting it to work you can post here and ask me.

Hi everybody,

FYI: In preparation for the upcoming monero-fork i have updated the script to use the latest XMR-Stak. (the VMs will automatically get the updated script, there is no need for you to do anything).

There will probably be another optimized release of xmr-stak, i will update the script as soon as that will get available (again, you won't have to do anything - the VMs will automatically get the updated script).

You're welcome