Deployment Formats

Model Format and SKU Mapping

Format strings are case-sensitive. "Mistral AI" works; "mistral" does not.

Two Endpoint Types

Project Endpoint (OpenAI models): https://<resource>.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/<project>/openai/v1/

• Use openai.OpenAI(base_url=..., api_key=...) — NOT AzureOpenAI

Cognitive Services Endpoint (OSS models): https://<resource>.cognitiveservices.azure.com/openai/deployments/<name>/chat/completions?api-version=2025-04-01-preview

• Use openai.AzureOpenAI(azure_endpoint=..., api_key=..., api_version=...)

CLI Deployment (az cognitiveservices)

The CLI uses different format strings than the ARM REST API for OSS models:

az cognitiveservices account deployment create \
  --name <resource> \
  --resource-group <rg> \
  --deployment-name <name> \
  --model-name <model> \
  --model-version "1" \
  --model-format "OpenAI-OSS" \
  --sku-capacity 100 \
  --sku-name "GlobalStandard"

⚠️ Using "OpenAI-OSS" in ARM REST or "Microsoft" in CLI will fail with HTTP 500.

ARM REST API Deployment

PUT https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{sub_id}/resourceGroups/{rg}/providers/Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts/{account}/deployments/{deploy_name}?api-version=2024-10-01

{
  "sku": { "name": "GlobalStandard", "capacity": 100 },
  "properties": {
    "model": {
      "format": "Microsoft",
      "name": "gpt-oss-20b.ft-{jobid}-suffix",
      "version": "1"
    }
  }
}

ARM token: az account get-access-token --query accessToken -o tsv (expires ~60min).

Capacity Notes

• Capacity = tokens-per-minute in thousands. 100 = 100K TPM.
• Set capacity ≥ 100 for eval workloads. At capacity=1, OSS FT models hit "Failed to load LoRA" errors.
• Quota is per-resource. After deleting a deployment, wait 15–20s before creating a new one.
• Deployment names: max 64 chars, alphanumeric + hyphens, unique within resource.

Common Deployment Errors