Azure Managed Redis - Creation Failed with SKU not supported in your subscription / region

Answer / Update: Root cause confirmed by Microsoft support

Following up on my own question in case others run into this. The Microsoft support team got back to me, and here's the summary.

Why the error occurs: The error is caused by an ongoing capacity shortage for Azure Managed Redis on Microsoft's side. The European regions affected most are Germany West Central, West Europe and North Europe. The Microsoft support team confirmed it has nothing to do with configuration, deployment method or anything else on the customer side.

What it means

• Azure Managed Redis (including the Balanced tier) is available in Germany West Central as shown by the products availability by region page for the Redis Cache service. The service exists in the region, but there's currently not enough capacity to provision new instances there.
• Microsoft engineering is working on it, but by today there's no ETA. The issue has been going on for a while and is expected to last for the foreseeable future.

How to work around it

1. Use a nearby, less affected region. Germany North and Belgium were suggested as close alternatives to Germany West Central. In my case, the same instance deployed in Germany North with no problems. Keep in mind that this adds network latency.
2. Try a larger SKU. Based on current observations, SKUs above M50, B20 and X10 are more likely to provision successfully. That isn't guaranteed, and the cost is much higher.
3. Retry persistently. A few manual retries in the most affected regions are unlikely to work. Off-peak times (nights, weekends) and an automated retry loop help more. The Microsoft support team pointed to a community script, "Azure Managed Redis Deployment Automation" on the Microsoft Community Hub which has found success for quite a few customers in time. Microsoft doesn't officially support it, so review it before you use it.
4. Stay on Azure Cache for Redis for now if you need to. Existing Azure Cache for Redis customers were advised to stay on the old service. The creation block for existing Azure Cache for Redis customers (Basic, Standard and Premium tiers), has been removed. Existing customers can keep creating caches until September 2028. See What's new in Azure Cache for Redis.

How to track it

• Microsoft tracks this as an incident, and affected subscriptions are added to the related communications.
• For customers running Azure Managed Redis in one of the affected Regions can track it via Azure Service Health Incident https://app.azure.com/h/KQQQ-QGG/16beda
• If you open a support case, the Microsoft support team can try to escalate a capacity request for a specific subscription, region and SKU. They don't guarantee a result, and it can take days or weeks. Expect to provide:
  • Subscription ID, region, SKU(s), number of instances and whether you need HA
  • Whether it's a migration or a new workload, and the business impact
  • Why Azure Managed Redis is required, and which features you need
  • Why Azure Cache for Redis isn't enough, given that creation for existing customers is now allowed until 2028

Hope this saves someone else a few days of back and forth.

Hi @Cedric Ahlers ,
This error indicates that while the SKU is generally available in Germany West Central at a regional level, your specific subscription offer type (such as Pay-as-you-go, Dev/Test, or Visual Studio) or datacenter capacity policies have restricted provisioning for that SKU in that region.

1. How to verify SKU availability for Azure Managed Redis

The Products available by region page reflects general platform availability across the datacenter, but it does not account for subscription-level restrictions or local capacity allocations. Under the hood, Azure Managed Redis uses the Microsoft.Cache/redisEnterprise resource provider.

To see the exact SKUs currently available to your subscription in Germany West Central, run the following Azure CLI command:

az redisenterprise list-skus --location germanywestcentral

• If Balanced_B0 and Balanced_B3 do not appear in the output, the provider is gating those SKUs for your subscription tier in that region.
• You can also ensure the resource provider is registered on the subscription:

  
    az provider register --namespace Microsoft.Cache
  
  

2. How to request access through Azure Support

Because Azure Managed Redis does not have a self-service slider in the Subscriptions > Quotas blade, access must be requested through a support ticket:

1. In the Azure Portal, navigate to Help + support > Create a support request.
2. Set the following basic parameters:
   • Issue type: Select Technical (or Service and subscription limits (quotas) if available for Redis Enterprise).
   • Service: Azure Cache for Redis (or Azure Managed Redis).
   • Problem type: Provisioning, scaling, or deletion (or Quota or limit increase).
   • Problem subtype: Unable to create cache / Allocation failure.
3. In the request details, include the following information:
   • Subscription ID: Your target subscription ID.
   • Region: Germany West Central (germanywestcentral).
   • Target SKUs: Balanced_B0 and Balanced_B3.
   • Cluster architecture: 2-node High Availability setup.
   • Business justification: Note your migration/new project requirements and the retirement timeline of Azure Cache for Redis.

Recommended Alternatives While Waiting

• Alternative Regions: If your data residency policies allow, test deployment in West Europe (westeurope) or North Europe (northeurope), where Managed Redis capacity is generally less constrained.
• Alternative SKUs: Test provisioning an entry-level compute or memory SKU (e.g., MemoryOptimized_M10) to confirm if the gate applies strictly to the Balanced tier or across the entire service for your subscription.