Azure Virtual Machine Management
Author: Sainath K.E.V
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Introduction: This document provides details about Managing Virtual Machines under Microsoft
Azure Public Cloud. It explains in greater detail about creating storage, virtual machine and performing
different Virtual Machine management actions on the Virtual Machine.
Azure Management Portal:
Azure Management Portal allows Users to manage Public Cloud Infrastructure which allows them to
manage
Web sites
Virtual Machines
Mobile Services
Cloud Services
Storage
Media Services
BizTalk Services
Active Directory
Logon to Windows Azure Portal, sign in with Hotmail / Live ID, upon login, the Management Portal is
displayed as shown below.
Note: Users can view their Credit status by clicking the “Credit Status” option located on top of the
portal which provides information regarding Credit Status and number of days remaining. This credit
status would automatically reset for every month.
Azure Storage Account:
When creating Virtual Machines, the Management Portal automatically creates Storage Account, but
Users have an option to create their Storage Account before creating their Virtual Machines / Cloud
services. Azure provides Users with 3 different options for Data replication and by default Geo-
Redundant option gets selected when Users create Azure Storage account.
Locally Redundant
Geo-Redundant
Read Access Geo-Redundant
Description about the above Data Redundant / Data high availability options can be found under the link
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-whatis-account/
Navigate to Storage option from the Management Portal and select Create a Storage Account as shown
below
I have selected Cloudatlas and Southeast Asia with Geo-Redundant option for my Storage Account.
Upon selecting Create Storage Account, Management portal takes a minute to create the account,
Users can track the status as shown below
Users can monitor the Storage account by navigating to Storage Dashboard as shown below. The
dashboard provides capabilities to
Monitor the tables
Monitor the blob
Monitor the Queues
Logging of Tables, Blob and Queues
Create dedicated Containers
Azure Virtual Machine Management:
Next step is to create Virtual Machine. Azure Management Portal have an option to create Virtual
Machine and configure different parameters as shown below.
Navigate to Virtual Machine section under the Management Portal and select Create a Virtual Machine
Users are provided with multiple options to create Virtual Machine either from Quick Create or from
Gallery
Quick Create: This option allows Users to create Virtual Machine with minimum information.
User has to enter the unique DNS name and select the Image size, User account which gets
added as administrator and Affinity Group
From Gallery: This option allows Users to create Virtual Machine from Gallery which provides
different options to select images , and you can select custom disks which gets uploaded to
storage account.
Note: Azure supports only VHD files and not VHDX.
Select the image and click on the arrow at the bottom of the page to navigate to page 2. The
below wizard provides option to enter
Virtual Machine Name
Virtual Machine Size
User Name
Note: User name cannot be Administrator
The next screen provides option to select
Cloud Service
Cloud Service DNS Name
Region / Affinity Group / Virtual Network
Virtual Network Subnets
Storage Account
Availability Set
The next wizard allows Users to open the ports. Users are provided with the options listed
below
The virtual machine gets created under Virtual Machines container as shown below.
Basic Virtual Machine management can be done via Virtual Machine management task bar as shown
below which allows users to perform the following actions on Virtual Machine
Shutdown,
Connect
Restart,
Attach ,
Detach Disk ,
Capture
Delete
Creating New Virtual Machine: In order to create New Virtual Machine, select the New option from the Task Bar as shown below
Attaching Extra Disk: There are many scenarios to have an additional disk for virtual machines, this
can be achieved by Attach Empty disk option as shown below
Select the Virtual Machine Name, Storage Location, File Name and the size of the secondary disk to get
created.
Connecting to a Virtual Machine: Users can connect to Virtual Machine with the Connect option
which will open up an RDP session to the Virtual Machine.
When you select the option Connect, Users are prompted to open / save an RDP file as shown below
When select Open option, the RDP session prompts for user name and password. Enter the user name
and password which you had initially used during the VM creation and click on OK.
Configuring Additional Disk: Users have to configure the additional disk which they had created during the Virtual Machine creation.
Navigate to Start Run compmgmt.msc Disk Management
Click Ok and right click on the Unallocated 40.00 GB Partition, select New Simple Volume
The Newly created Disk appears as shown below.
When user creates an Empty disk , they gets created under Storage account. Azure creates a default
folder called VHD to store the disks, Users can view the Disks by navigating to Storage Containers
Click on VHD which will navigate to the below wizard
The above wizard displays the disks that I have created, User can perform the following actions on the
Disks
Download
Edit
Delete
Download: Users can download the disk to their local computer by selecting the disk and click on
Download option from the Task bar below, on a new page, IE prompts User to save the disk, as shown
below
Edit: User can edit the blob properties and metadata of the disk as shown below
Delete: This option allows user to delete the disk from the storage. Select the disk to be deleted and
click on Delete option which will prompt the users with the below message
Detach and Delete Disks:
Users can detach the disks which gets temporarily removed from the Virtual machine, but does not get
deleted from Storage. Click on Detach Disk on the specific Virtual Machine , this would prompt User
with the Storage name and attached disks as shown below
Once you detach the disks, Users can safely delete the disks from Azure Management Portal. To delete
the Disk, select Disk option select the Disk click on Delete option as shown below
Summary: This document explain different Azure Virtual Machine Management options which helps
Users in creating / Deleting / Managing Azure Virtual Machines. In the next article I will describe on
Azure Virtual Machine Networking.
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