How to Create a Virtual Machine in Microsoft Azure

We all are creating and using Virtual Machines is VMware or  Hyper-V infrastructure , same way Virtual machines can be provisioned in the cloud . In the Cloud you don’t have any real control over the host operating system or hypervisor, and configuration must be done through the cloud portal . In this post I will be sharing the procedure how to deploy a Windows 2016 Standard Server in Microsoft Azure .

In Azure, you cannot specify the custom resources like CPU and Memory values for Virtual Machine. Azure is offering resource templates of Virtual Machine and you have choose correct size of VM is selected to deploy .This is very important in  Azure since based on the template resource only you will get right performance for applications and pricing.

What s you need to create a Virtual Machine in Azure ?

• Azure Account with Subscription
• Resource group   – The VM must be contained in a resource group
• Storage account  –  The VM needs the storage account to store its virtual hard disks
• Virtual network  –  The VM must be a member of a virtual network
• Network Security Group (NSG)  – Required  to provide any access to our VM

In my previous post , I shared the procedure to how to create azure storage , and here we start with creation of Virtual Network , Network Security Group and Deploy 2016 Virtual Machine .

Creating the Virtual Network

Log into the Azure Portal and select “Create a Resource” – >click on Networking > Virtual Network

Specify the settings for Virtual Network as shown below image and Click on Create

• Name – Give required name
• Address Space – 10.1.0.0/16 will be default and you can modify as per requirement. Subscription type – Select the required type of
• subscription for different purposes like a Development subscription and a Production subscription
• Resource Groups – Already created one which you use to manage and group together Azure resources, or create new one from here
• Time zone – Choose your Time Zone
• Subnet a name – Subnet a name to identify for this VMs , you have option to create multiple subnet asper requirement .
• Address Range – Same as Address space given above

Navigate to  Virtual Network we created and you can see all details  .

Create Network Security Group (NSG)

Network security group is required to provide any access to virtual machine and it act like the firewall for the VM. It is required in order to provide any access to our VM, so it’s important we set this up before deploying virtual machine .

Navigate to All services -> Network Security Groups

Click “+” Add option  and add the Details as show below and click on Create 

Once the deployment completed navigate to  All Services  -> Network Security Groups  and you can see the newly created group

Click on the Created NSG  and you can view all the configuration option associated with that

Now Click on the Subnets option

Click on Associate option to  identify and the subnet’s and the virtual network

we can see the virtual network and subnet assigned to NSG  , Cick Ok to configure

Next we have create rule to enable RDP access to the virtual machine we are going to create , here are allowing the access through internet , for production always use the VPN connection for more security

Select Inbound security rules  from NSG we created select RDP services and give a name and description the click on   Add

Deploy Virtual Machine

We have created  Virtual Network and Network Security Group  now its time to deploy the Virtual Machine.

Clik on  Create a resource on the left-hand side and select Windows Server 2016 VM

Fill all the require detaisl as shown below to configure our Virtual Machine.

Select the subscription , Resource group , VM Name , Region ,  if redundancy required select availability option, image of the VM here we choose  2016 Server , also you have option to create Windows 2012 or  Linux machines . You also need to give a admin account  with username and password and select the inbound rue created  and appropriate  licensing option for  the virtual machine .

Note that *Size option is the one define the resources of the VM , you can choose based on your requirement

Click on Review + Create , also if you want manually select the resources by clicking next and follow screen option

You will get a validation passed message on the window and and you can review the pricing and configuration of the VM

Click on Create to start deploy the virtual Machine

Finally we have created the windows 2016 virtual machine , now let check other options where you can see the VM , how start and verify the access .

Navigate to the Dashboard and you can view all resources you have created , Click on the virtual Machine  created  , here it is VMARENA-WIN2016

You can view the VM details here , as shown below , Since the VM is running you access that using RDP

Select the RDP tab and click on Download RDP file 

Open the downloaded RDP file  , Select connect and input the credentials that we provided admin credentials while creating VM

And you have accessed the VM created , lets verify some details from command prompt

Open command prompt and check the logged user , ip details etc

Important Note

In Azure everything is “pay as you go”  , so if you don’t need the VM  you have to completely remove that ,  If you don’t completely remove  you can still get a charge. Just powering off the will not stop the meter from running because you are still reserving the hardware space from Microsoft . Also when you delete the VM, you are going to have to delete the managed disk as well separately .Cost is applied not only on the VM when it is running , all resources are part of that .

Conclusion

We have deployed a windows 2016 virtual machine from azure very quickly , it very fast when we compare to a virtual infrastructure.This is on the advantage of the cloud  , it allows us to bring  up VM very quickly and  you can scale out on massive levels .