Azure Virtual Machines

Azure Virtual Machines - Basics

In this article, we are going through some basic details on Azure Virtual Machines; i.e., how to create and deploy through Azure Portal, Azure CLI, and Azure C# .Net.

What are Azure Virtual Machines?

Azure Virtual Machines is a product/service offered by Azure that hosts Windows or Linux image instances of Virtual Machines. It offers a large set of hardware configurations, including the most recent cutting-edge technologies from the market, in order to build the best Virtual Machine that suits your needs. It also offers a wide variety of ways to manage your VMs, from the Azure Portal Website up to Azure CLI, Powershell or C# code.

Benefits of Azure Virtual Machines

High Availability, with guaranteed SLA from 99,9 up to 99,99%;
Pay as you use, with the billing being sum per-second usage;
Security, offering many types of encryption;
Scalability, being able to scale from one to thousands Virtual Machines in minutes;
Hybrid environments, being able to access your cloud and on-premises environment;

Creation and management options

Azure Virtual Machine Creation checklist

Resource Group, where you will place your Virtual Machine resources;
Virtual Network, where the Virtual Machine will use to communicate with the internet and other resources;
IP Address, used for your Virtual Machine communication;
Network Interface, connecting your IP Address with your Virtual Network;
Availability Set, handling the availability and reliability of your Virtual Machine;
Operational System, to run your Virtual Machine;
Admin credentials, to manage your Virtual Machine;
Machine Size, with the memory, CPU and disk types;
Virtual Machine, with your admin credentials, OS, size and availability set.

VMs Pricing Calculation

Due to the many types of possible configurations and prices, it would be very difficult to have an idea of how much you would pay for hosting your Virtual Machine within Azure. That's why Azure has provided a free and complete pricing calculator, you may simulate among the various types of configuration in order to check which one fits you better.

Create an Azure VM using the Azure portal

This is the easiest way to create your Virtual Machine, needing no code.

Go to the Virtual Machines section

Option 1

Option 2

Virtual Machines Section

Fill the form with your VM data,

And after filling the form, click in Review + Create

Wait for validation,

After validation success, click on create.

Ps.: You could also download the Virtual Machine template in order to automate the creating process with Azure ARM.

Validate the output and wait for deployment

Result

Create an Azure VM using Azure CLI

This method of creating your Virtual Machine is also very easy but requires some coding knowledge if you want to customize your VM.

Login

In order for Azure to know which account you are using, you need to log in

az login

Create your Resource Group

$location = "westeurope"
$resourceGroup = "azureCLiResourceGroup"
az group create --name $resourceGroup --location $location

Create the Virtual Machine

$vmName ="VMWithCli"
$vmUser = "sampleUser"
$vmPassword = "SamplePass1234"
$resourceGroup = "azureCLiResourceGroup"
az vm create --resource-group $resourceGroup --name $vmName --image win2016datacenter --admin-username $vmUser --admin-password $vmPassword

Result

Azure CLI response

{
"id": "/subscriptions/fcde3549-dbd1-45e1-ac40-06610ff281e1/resourceGroups/azureCLiResourceGroup",
"location": "westeurope",
"managedBy": null,
"name": "azureCLiResourceGroup",
"properties": {
"provisioningState": "Succeeded"
},
"tags": null,
"type": "Microsoft.Resources/resourceGroups"
}
{
"fqdns": "",
"id": "/subscriptions/fcde3549-dbd1-45e1-ac40-06610ff281e1/resourceGroups/azureCLiResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/VMWithCli",
"location": "westeurope",
"macAddress": "00-0D-3A-AB-70-94",
"powerState": "VM running",
"privateIpAddress": "10.0.0.4",
"publicIpAddress": "65.52.131.227",
"resourceGroup": "azureCLiResourceGroup",
"zones": ""
}

Azure Portal Validation

Create and Manage Azure VMs using C#

Requirements

Nuget Package

Microsoft.Azure.Management.Fluent

Have an Azure Service Principal account

To see how to create an Azure Service Principal, check Microsoft's official guide.

Create a new console application

Create a new console application for .Net Framework and name it as AzureVirtualMachine. Your project must look like this:

Setting Local Variables

Variables are going to be used through various commands:

var groupName = "sampleResourceGroup";
var vmName = "VMWithCSharp";
var location = Region.EuropeWest;

Connect to your Azure Account

var credentials = SdkContext.AzureCredentialsFactory
.FromServicePrincipal("clientId", "clientSecret", "tenantId", AzureEnvironment.AzureGlobalCloud);
var azure = Azure
.Configure()
.WithLogLevel(HttpLoggingDelegatingHandler.Level.Basic)
.Authenticate(credentials)
.WithDefaultSubscription();

Create a Resource Group

var resourceGroup = azure.ResourceGroups.Define(groupName)
.WithRegion(location)
.Create();

Create the Virtual Network

var network = azure.Networks.Define("sampleVirtualNetwork")
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithAddressSpace("10.0.0.0/16")
.WithSubnet("sampleSubNet", "10.0.0.0/24")
.Create();

Create the Public IP Address

With dynamic IP:

var publicIPAddress = azure.PublicIPAddresses.Define("samplePublicIP")
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithDynamicIP()
.Create();

Create the Network Interface

var networkInterface = azure.NetworkInterfaces.Define("sampleNetWorkInterface")
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithExistingPrimaryNetwork(network)
.WithSubnet("sampleSubNet")
.WithPrimaryPrivateIPAddressDynamic()
.WithExistingPrimaryPublicIPAddress(publicIPAddress)
.Create();

Create the Availability Set

With aligned SKU set type due to having a managed disk

var availabilitySet = azure.AvailabilitySets.Define("sampleAvailabilitySet")
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithSku(AvailabilitySetSkuTypes.Aligned)
.Create();

Create the Virtual Machine

Using Windows Server as Operating System with 2012 R2 image and with machine size set as Stardard B1.

azure.VirtualMachines.Define(vmName)
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithExistingPrimaryNetworkInterface(networkInterface)
.WithLatestWindowsImage("MicrosoftWindowsServer", "WindowsServer", "2012-R2-Datacenter")
.WithAdminUsername("sampleUser")
.WithAdminPassword("Sample123467")
.WithComputerName(vmName)
.WithExistingAvailabilitySet(availabilitySet)
.WithSize(VirtualMachineSizeTypes.StandardB1s)
.Create();

Complete code

using Microsoft.Azure.Management.Compute.Fluent.Models;
using Microsoft.Azure.Management.Fluent;
using Microsoft.Azure.Management.ResourceManager.Fluent;
using Microsoft.Azure.Management.ResourceManager.Fluent.Core;
namespace AzureVirtualMachine
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var credentials = SdkContext.AzureCredentialsFactory
.FromServicePrincipal("clientId", "clientSecret", "tenantId", AzureEnvironment.AzureGlobalCloud);
var azure = Azure
.Configure()
.WithLogLevel(HttpLoggingDelegatingHandler.Level.Basic)
.Authenticate(credentials)
.WithDefaultSubscription();
var groupName = "sampleResourceGroup";
var vmName = "VMWithCSharp";
var location = Region.EuropeWest;
var resourceGroup = azure.ResourceGroups.Define(groupName)
.WithRegion(location)
.Create();
var network = azure.Networks.Define("sampleVirtualNetwork")
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithAddressSpace("10.0.0.0/16")
.WithSubnet("sampleSubNet", "10.0.0.0/24")
.Create();
var publicIPAddress = azure.PublicIPAddresses.Define("samplePublicIP")
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithDynamicIP()
.Create();
var networkInterface = azure.NetworkInterfaces.Define("sampleNetWorkInterface")
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithExistingPrimaryNetwork(network)
.WithSubnet("sampleSubNet")
.WithPrimaryPrivateIPAddressDynamic()
.WithExistingPrimaryPublicIPAddress(publicIPAddress)
.Create();
var availabilitySet = azure.AvailabilitySets.Define("sampleAvailabilitySet")
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithSku(AvailabilitySetSkuTypes.Aligned)
.Create();
azure.VirtualMachines.Define(vmName)
.WithRegion(location)
.WithExistingResourceGroup(groupName)
.WithExistingPrimaryNetworkInterface(networkInterface)
.WithLatestWindowsImage("MicrosoftWindowsServer", "WindowsServer", "2012-R2-Datacenter")
.WithAdminUsername("sampleUser")
.WithAdminPassword("Sample123467")
.WithComputerName(vmName)
.WithExistingAvailabilitySet(availabilitySet)
.WithSize(VirtualMachineSizeTypes.StandardB1s)
.Create();
}
}
}

Result

Virtual Machine created successfully

Congratulations, you have successfully created your Azure Virtual Machine.

Code on GitHub.

External References

7 Comments

Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.

Mariano Padini5y ago
Great post. Thanks. But i have a question: where i can find the "clientId", "clientSecret", "tenantId"?
- Thiago Vivas5y ago
  Hi Mariano, thanks for your compliment. You can find those values at your service principal on Azure Portal or you can also retrieve it at creation time as explained here
- Thiago Vivas5y ago
  Https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/azure/authentication
Jin Necesario6y ago
Great post. Thanks.
- Thiago Vivas6y ago
  Thanks, Jin. I'm glad you liked it.
Juliana Souza6y ago
Thanks for sharing!
- Thiago Vivas6y ago
  Thanks Juliana, I'm glad you liked it.