Azure Virtual Machine

Hi guys today we are going to understand about Azure Virtual Machine.

        As per the previous blog we came to know about the subscription and its types and in today’s topic we are going to know about azure virtual machine. So as the name suggest virtual machines are software computers that provide the same functionality as physical computers. They run the application and an operating system.

       Multiple virtual machines can run simultaneously on the same physical computer. For servers, the multiple operating systems run side-by-side with a piece of software called a hypervisor to manage them, while desktop computers typically employ one operating system to run the other operating systems within its programmed windows. Each virtual machine provides its own virtual hardware, including CPUs, memory, hard drives, network interfaces and other devices. The virtual hardware is then mapped to the real hardware on the physical machine which saves costs by reducing the need for physical hardware systems along with the associated maintenance costs that go with it, plus reduces power and cooling demand. So, azure provides the leverage to build virtual machines for free and can be utilized up to 750 hours.

As per the requirement there are different types of Virtual machines as per requirement. Each and every series has its own specialty

·       A – Series

·       Bs – Series

·       D – Series

·       DC – Series

·       E – Series

·       F – Series

·       G – Series

·       H – Series

·       Ls– Series

·       M – Series

·       Mv2 – Series

·       N – Series

These machines can be used for various purposes such as Development and research, Deploying and Testing applications, Testing patches and so on.

? Azure Virtual Machine Image:

 So each and virtual machine to be created requires some prerequisite to fulfill the conditions so the properties of normal servers let it be windows, Linux or any other operating system image these are been captured as Virtual machine images, so while creating the VM’s anyone can choose it from the azure repository or any other image can be bought from the Azure market place.

? Creation of the Virtual machines:

Azure gives the leverage to create Virtual machines in the following ways.

·       From the azure portal

·       PowerShell

·       Azure CLI

·       Azure ARM Templates

? Create virtual machine via Azure portal

1.     Type virtual machines in the search.

2.     Under Services, select Virtual machines.

3.     In the Virtual machines page, select Add.

4.     In the Basics tab, under Project details, make sure the correct subscription is selected and then choose to Create new resource group. Type myResourceGroup for the name.

5.     Under Instance details, type my VM for the Virtual machine name and choose East US for your Region, and then choose Windows Server 2019 Datacenter or any of your wish for the Image. Leave the other defaults.

6.     Under Administrator account, provide a username, such as azureuser and a password. The password must be at least 12 characters long and meet the defined complexity requirements.

7.     Under Inbound port rules, choose Allow selected ports and then select RDP (3389) and HTTP (80) from the drop-down.

8.     Leave the remaining defaults and then select the Review + create button at the bottom of the page.

? Connect to virtual machine

Create a remote desktop connection to the virtual machine. These directions tell you how to connect to your VM from a Windows computer. On a Mac, you need an RDP client such as this Remote Desktop Client from the Mac App Store.

1.     Click the Connect button on the overview page for your virtual machine.

2.     In the Connect to virtual machine page, keep the default options to connect by IP address, over port 3389, and click Download RDP file.

3.     Open the downloaded RDP file and click Connect when prompted.

4.     In the Windows Security window, select More choices and then Use a different account. Type the username as localhost\username, enter password you created for the virtual machine, and then click OK.

5.     You may receive a certificate warning during the sign-in process. Click Yes or Continue to create the connection.

? Clean up resources

When no longer needed, you can delete the resource group, virtual machine, and all related resources.

Select the resource group for the virtual machine, then select Delete. Confirm the name of the resource group to finish deleting the resources.

? Create virtual machine via Azure PowerShell

The Azure PowerShell module is used to create and manage Azure resources from the PowerShell command line or in scripts

You can also access it via https://shell.azure.com/powershell  

? Create virtual machine via Azure Command Line Interface (CLI)

The Azure Cloud Shell is a free interactive shell that you can use to run the steps in this article. It has common Azure tools preinstalled and configured to use with your account. To open the Cloud Shell, just select Try it from the upper right corner of a code block. You can also launch Cloud Shell in a separate browser tab by going to https://shell.azure.com/bash . Select Copy to copy the blocks of code, paste it into the Cloud Shell, and press Enter to run

There are many commands required which is readily available in the azure cli once you install it on the local pc provided you have an active azure subscription.

? Create Virtual machine via Azure ARM Template.

ARM stands for Azure Resource Manager which uses the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file that defines the infrastructure and configuration for your project. It uses declarative syntax, which lets you state what you intend to deploy without having to write the sequence of programming commands to create it. You can also create templates to save time so that can be used readily where ever necessary.

? Deploy the template

1.     Select the following image to sign in to Azure and open a template. The template creates a key vault and a secret

2.     Select or enter the following values. Use the default values, when available.

o  Subscription: select an Azure subscription.

o  Resource group: select an existing resource group from the drop-down, or select Create new, enter a unique name for the resource group, and then click OK.

o  Location: select a location. For example, Central US.

o  Admin username: provide a username, such as user.

o  Admin password: provide a password to use for the admin account. The password must be at least 12 characters long and meet the defined complexity requirements.

o  DNS label prefix: enter a unique identifier to use as part of the DNS label.

o  Windows OS version: select which version of Windows you want to run on the VM.

o  VM size: select the size to use for the VM.

o  Location: the default is the same location as the resource group, if it already exists.

3.     Select Review + create. After validation completes, select Create to create and deploy the VM.

The Azure portal is used to deploy the template. In addition to the Azure portal, you can also use the Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, and REST API. To learn other deployment methods, see Deploy templates.

? Review deployed resources

You can use the Azure portal to check on the VM and other resource that were created. After the deployment is finished, select Go to resource group to see the VM and other resources.

? Clean up resources

When no longer needed, delete the resource group, which deletes the VM and all of the resources in the resource group.

1.     Select the Resource group.

2.     On the page for the resource group, select Delete.

3.     When prompted, type the name of the resource group and then select Delete.

So, hope this blog will help you to understand the Azure Virtual machine and its features. If you enjoyed this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook. Thank you!