MANA is rolling out to existing Azure VM sizes: what it means for your NVAs

This article explains the rollout of the Microsoft Azure Network Adapter (MANA) to existing Azure VM size families starting August 2026. MANA, part of Azure Boost, offers benefits like sub-second firmware upgrades, higher throughput, and lower latency. For most workloads, it's a non-event with free performance gains, but for Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs), it poses unique challenges. The article covers what MANA is, how the rollout affects existing VMs, why NVAs are particularly impacted, vendor responses, and recommended actions for administrators. It emphasizes that while VMs will still work without MANA support, performance may degrade for high-connection workloads.