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.