Valkey on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Valkey 8.1 on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for Azure Marketplace

Valkey is the open-source, BSD-licensed continuation of the Redis project, compatible with existing Redis clients, drivers, and tooling. This image ships Valkey 8.1.10, the current security release of the 8.1 line, pre-installed and hardened on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, so you have an in-memory data store for caching, pub/sub, leaderboards, and rate limiting running within minutes of first boot in your Azure subscription.

Why this image: Running Valkey 8 on Azure without a managed service means more than a package install. Ubuntu 24.04 only packages the older 7.2 line, so you download and verify the upstream release, create the service account and data directory, write a systemd unit with correct restart semantics, configure the host firewall, and patch Ubuntu CVEs. This image does all of that, so your team connects to a working cache in under 10 minutes.

Who this is for: Backend engineers who need a drop-in Redis-compatible cache in their own Azure subscription without a managed-service premium. Platform teams migrating to the BSD-licensed Valkey fork. Architects who put session state, rate counters, or pub/sub on a dedicated VM.

Target use cases:

• Session caching — cache-hit rates above 95% in well-tuned deployments cut database read pressure
• API rate limiting and token buckets — atomic increments at sub-millisecond latency
• Real-time pub/sub and event fan-out to thousands of concurrent subscribers
• Leaderboards — sorted sets deliver O(log N) insert and rank operations
• Work queues with lists and Streams, without a separate message broker

What is pre-installed and configured:

• Valkey 8.1.10 — the official upstream binary release, checksum-verified and pinned; the build fails unless the installed server reports exactly this version
• Secure-by-default posture — port 6379 with protected mode on and no password in the image, so the server answers only local clients until you set your own password (requirepass) or ACL user; no shared secret is baked in
• systemd unit — starts on boot and restarts on failure
• Verified on first boot — the running service must answer PING before first boot completes; the host firewall allows only SSH and 6379
• Pre-publish checks — automated audit covering Trusted Launch, SSH key injection, walinuxagent, and cloud-init idempotency
• Trusted Launch ready — Gen2 image with vTPM and Secure Boot support
• Monthly patch cadence — rebuilt from Ubuntu and Valkey security advisories within days of each release

Recommended deployment: Standard_D4as_v5 (4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM) for caches up to 12 GB; Standard_E8s_v5 (8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM) for memory-heavy workloads. Attach a Premium SSD data disk so RDB snapshots survive reimaging.

System requirements: Gen2 VM, at least 2 vCPU and 8 GB RAM. Before you open TCP 6379 in your Network Security Group, set a password or ACL user and limit the rule to your own IP range; until then remote clients get the protected-mode refusal by design.

Azure integration: Azure Monitor Agent, Defender for Cloud, Azure Backup, and Update Manager install without conflicts. Assign a Managed Identity so your applications read the Valkey password from Azure Key Vault instead of configuration files.

Licensing: Valkey is BSD-3-Clause open-source software maintained by the Linux Foundation. Valkey has no license fee; Azure compute and storage rates plus a $0.09 per vCPU-hour software fee apply.

Get started: deploy the image, connect over SSH, and send PING with the bundled CLI (expect PONG). Then set a password in the Valkey configuration file and restart the service before you connect from other hosts. Email support@dcassociatesgroup.com for deployment assistance.