Deploying a VM in Azure

In the previous chapter, we explored the deployment of a VM through ARM templates. In this section, we will briefly explore the manual deployment of a VM using the Azure portal. To do this, follow the given steps:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal: https://portal.azure.com.
2. Open the resource group you will be using for this exercise, click Overview on the left menu, then clickCreate.
3. Click Compute on the left menu underCategories, then click Virtual machine on the right-hand side:

Figure 10.6 – Creating a resource

4. On the Basics tab, make a selection for Subscription and Resource group. Enter a name in the Virtual machine name field – this is limited to 15 characters. Choose a region from the Region dropdown, leave Availability options as No infrastructure redundancy required, and for Image, select Windows Server 2016 Datacenter – Gen 1. Set Size to Standard_D2ds_v4. Then, fill in the Username and Password fields, click Allow selected ports for the Public inbound ports option, choose RDP (3389) for the Select inbound ports dropdown, and then click on Next : Disks >:

Figure 10.7 – Creating a VM

5. For the OS disk type option, select Premium SSD (locally-redundant storage), and for Encryption type, leave the default selection. Click the Advanced drop-down menu and enable Use managed disks. Click Next : Networking >:

Figure 10.8 – Creating a VM – Disks

6. Note that you have the option to create a new network and subnet (the default option) or to join an existing network and subnet. A public IP is not required but leave the default where it will create one for this demonstration. Note that you see the inbound ports selected are set to RDP (3389) as you configured on the Basics tab. Click Next : Management >.
7. On this tab, you can enable Boot diagnostics. Set this to Enable with managed storage account (recommended). Leave all other settings as the default configuration and click Next : Advanced >.
8. Note that you can configure custom extensions as well as select a dedicated host group and proximity placement group. Click on Review + create.
9. After validation has been completed and passed, click Create.

You have completed the deployment of a VM on Azure. You will have noticed there are several different configurations for a VM that you can deploy. Spend some time reviewing these further to become more comfortable. In the next section, we will explore managing VM sizes.