DEV Community: Simeon Alikali

How to Create a Virtual Machine Scale Set in Azure.

Simeon Alikali — Wed, 01 May 2024 22:43:34 +0000

What is virtual machine scale set?

A Virtual Machine Scale Set allows you to deploy and manage a set of autoscaling virtual machines. You can scale the number of VMs in the scale set manually, or define rules to auto scale based on resource usage like CPU, memory demand, or network traffic. You can use VMSS to deploy a group of VMs with identical configurations, such as the operating system, its also provides load balancing.

Create Virtual Machine Scale Set

You can deploy a scale set with a Windows Server image or Linux image.
Lets begin!!!

1) Type Scale set in the search box.
In the results, select Virtual Machine Scale Sets.

2) Click Create on the Virtual Machine Scale Sets page, which opens the Create a Virtual Machine Scale Set page.

In the Basics tab, under Project details,
Subscription: Select the right subscription
Resource group: select your resource group or you create new resource group.

Scale set details

Virtual machine scale set name: Type the name for your virtual machine scale set.
Region: select a region that is close to your area.
Availability zone: Select all he zones make your V.machine highly available.

Orchestration
There are two types of orchestration modes in Azure: Uniform and Flexible.

Uniform Orchestration

Manages virtual machines that are all based on the same configuration model.
Optimized for large-scale stateless workloads with identical instances.
Provides fault domain high availability guarantees when configured with fewer than 100 instances.
Uses identical VM instances.
Individual instances aren't compatible with the standard Azure IaaS VM API commands.

Flexible Orchestration

Allows for a mix of virtual machines with different configurations within the same scale set.
Achieve high availability at scale with identical or multiple virtual machine types.
Offers high availability guarantees (up to 1000 VMs) by spreading VMs across fault domains in a region or within an Availability Zone.
Enables you to scale out your application while maintaining fault domain isolation.
Supports standard Azure IaaS VMs, instead of scale set child virtual machines.

Virtual machine scale set name: ensure the Uniform option is selected.

Scaling
Scaling mode: select autoscaling (Autoscaling: Scaling based on a CPU metric, on any schedule.)
Scaling configuration: click configure, in the scaling configuration make the necessary configuration and click save.

Scaling conditions: Click on he add scaling condition or the pen icon to make necessary scaling of your choice and save.

Instance details
Image: select the image of your choice.
VM architecture: select x64 as it provides most software compatibility.
size: select the size of your choice.

Administrator account
Username: type in your username.
Password: enter your desire password.
Confirm password: re-enter your desire password.
license type: select the license type and select the box.

DISK

OS disk size: select the size of your choice
OS disk type: select the one of your choice.
key management: select platform-managed key.

Networking
Under Load balancing
Load balancing options: select Azure load balancer.
select load balancer: create a load balancer if you don't have an existing one.

create a load balancer
Load balancer help to distribute traffic across your virtual machine.

Load balancer name: enter the name of your choice.
type: select the one of your choice and leave others at default then select create.

Management
under upgrade policy
upgrade mode: select the upgrade mode of your choice.

Health
Enable application health monitoring in other to update the status of your instances.

Click review + create, after validation is passed then click create.

perfect!!! my vmss are up and running.

Difference between scaling mode and scale-in policy configuration

In the context of cloud computing and virtual machine scale sets, scaling mode and scale-in policy configuration are two distinct concepts that manage how resources are adjusted to meet demand.

Scaling Mode:

Scaling mode refers to the overall behavior of a virtual machine scale set when it comes to adding or removing instances.
It’s about how and when the scale set decides to increase or decrease the number of virtual machines.

Scale-In Policy Configuration:

Scale-in policy, on the other hand, is a subset of the scaling mode that specifically deals with the removal of instances.
It defines the order and criteria for which virtual machines are terminated during a scale-in event.
Azure, for instance, provides three scale-in policies: Default, NewestVM, and OldestVM2.
Default: Balances VMs across availability zones and selects the oldest VM for termination.
NewestVM: Targets the most recently created VM for termination after balancing across zones.
OldestVM: Removes the oldest VM after balancing across zones.

load balancer
what is load balancer?
A load balancer is a system that distributes incoming network traffic across a group of backend servers or resources.

At what point do we need to enable a load balancer?

In essence, you should consider enabling an Azure Load Balancer when your application demands reliability, scalability, and better performance under varying loads, or when you are deploying services that span multiple virtual machines, availability zones, or regions.

The difference between OS Disk, Data Disk and Temporary Disk.

Simeon Alikali — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 21:36:06 +0000

WHAT IS A DISK IN AZURE?
In azure, a disk is a place to store an operating system, applications and data.

There are three main disk in Azure:
1) Operating System disk
2) Data disk
3) Temporary disk.

Operating System disk
a) The OS disk is the disk that houses the operating system.
b) That OS disk has a pre-installed OS, which was selected when the
VM was created.
c) This disk contains the boot volume (This is where OS stores it
system files)
d) Os disk is persistent.

Data disk
a) A data disk is a managed disk that's attached to a virtual
machine to store application data, or other data you need to
keep.
b) Data disks are registered as SCSI (Small Computer System
Interface) drives and are labeled with a letter that you choose.
c) The size of the virtual machine determines how many data disks
you can attach to it.
d) Data disk is persistent.
e) Generally, you should use the data disk to store your
applications and data, instead of storing them on OS disks.

Temporary disk
a) The temporary disk provides short-term storage for applications
and processes, and is intended to only store data such as page
files, swap files etc.
b) Most VMs contain a temporary disk, which is not a managed disk. c) Data on the temporary disk may be lost during a maintenance,
when you redeploy a VM, or when you stop the VM.

How to Create and attach a data disk to the VM.

Simeon Alikali — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 21:26:47 +0000

How to create data disk in azure

Sign in to the Azure portal.
Search for and select Virtual machines.
On the Virtual machine pane under setting, select Disks.

On the Disks page, select Create and attach a new disk.
In the drop-downs lists for the new disk, make the selections you want, and name the disk.
click apply to create the disk.

Initialize a new data disk

Connect to the VM (RDP into your vm)
Right click the Windows Start menu inside the running VM and click disk management. The Disk Management console opens.

Disk Management recognizes that you have a new, uninitialized disk and the Initialize Disk window appears.
Select OK to initialize it.

The new disk appears as unallocated. Right-click anywhere on the disk and select New simple volume.

The New Simple Volume Wizard window opens,Proceed through the wizard, keeping all of the defaults, and when you're done select Finish.

Close Disk Management.
A pop-up window appears notifying you that you need to format the new disk before you can use it. Select Format disk.
When the formatting is complete, select OK.

View your new Data Disk
Inside the running VM, click file explorer.
click this PC

in this PC page you will see your new disk with the name new volume(f).

Renaming the data disk
You can decide to personalize it be renaming the disk.

Right click on the disk, click show more options.

Click rename.

Type in the new name and strike enter on your keyboard

there you have the new name!!!

we can decide to save a file into our new data disk
let's try it out

Wao, here we have them.

PEREFECT!!!
WE HAVE OUR NEW DATA DISK CREATED, ATTACHED AND INITIALIZED.

....I hope this was helpful.

How to Create a Linux virtual machine in the Azure portal

Simeon Alikali — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 21:18:37 +0000

Azure virtual machines (VMs) can be created through the Azure portal. The Azure portal is a browser-based user interface to create Azure resources. This tutorial shows you how to use the Azure portal to deploy a Linux virtual machine (VM) running Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS.

Create virtual machine

1) Sign in to the Azure portal
2) Enter virtual machines in the search.
3) Under Services, select Virtual machines.

4) In the Virtual machines page, select Create and then Virtual machine. The Create a virtual machine page opens.

5) In the Basics tab, under Project details, make sure the correct subscription is selected and then choose the resource group or click create new to create resource group.

6) Under Instance details,
Virtual machine name: Input the Virtual machine name.
Region: Select the region of your choice.
Availability Option: Select availability zone.
Availability Zone: Choose any zone of your choice.
Security type: select trusted lunch virtual machines.
Image: Choose Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS - Gen2 for your Image or any of your choice.
Size: select the size of your choice.

Under Administrator account

Authentication type: Select SSH public key or password.
Username: enter your username, exceluser.
Password: Enter your password.
Confirm password: Confirm the password entered above.

Under Inbound port rules

Public inbound ports: choose Allow selected ports.
Select inbound port: Select SSH (22).

7) Leave the remaining defaults and then select the Review + create button at the bottom of the page

8) click create after validation is successfully passed.

9) When the deployment is finished, select Go to resource.

Connect to virtual machine
a) click connect, in the drop down menu, select connect

b) Open windows PowerShell and type in the following command on the powershell command prompt, ssh username@public ip address and then strike enter.
c) It will give you a massage if you are connecting for the first time, The authenticity of host "public ip address" (public ip address)' can't be established.....
d) Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])?
e) Type "yes" and strike enter, then it will request for your password.
f) Type in your password and strike enter, if all things are ok you will be connected.

Great!!!
Here we are in our linux virtual machine.

HOW TO CREATE A WINDOWS VIRTUAL MACHINE IN AZURE.

Simeon Alikali — Sun, 07 Apr 2024 22:35:36 +0000

Azure windows virtual machines (VMs) can be created through the Azure portal.
If you don't have an Azure account, you can create a free account here https://azure.microsoft.com/free/?WT.mc_id=A261C142F

follow the steps below to create your windows 10 virtual machine.
Now that you have created your azure subscription, sign in to the azure portal https://portal.azure.com/ using your Email and Password.

CREATE YOUR VIRTUAL MACHINE

Enter virtual machines in the search bar.
Select "virtual machines" from the search results.

In the Virtual machines page, click Create, select azure virtual machines. The Create a virtual machine page opens.

PROJECT DETAILS
In this category we have the subscription and resource group.

Azure subscription.

In Azure, subscriptions are a unit of management, billing, and scale. With azure subscription you will have access to make use of azure resources and services.

2 Resource group
Resource groups are simply groupings of resources. When you create a resource, you’re required to place it into a resource group. if you don't have an existing resource group you can click create new to create one.

INSTANCE DETAILS

Give your virtual machine a name.
Select the region you want your virtual machine to be.

A region is a geographical area on the planet that contains at least one, but potentially multiple datacenters that are nearby and networked together with a low-latency network.

click on the availability option and availability zone. In azure, a region can consist up to three availability zones.

select your security type.
Select window 10 pro for the image.

An image is an operating system. It has all the instructions and settings needed to set up a computer.

Select the size of your virtual machine, click all sizes. Leave the other default.

ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT

Under Administrator account, provide a username, such as Exceluser and a password. The password must be at least 12 characters long and meet the defined complexity requirements.

Inbound Port Rules
On the inbound port rules section, select "Allow selected ports" and then select RDP (3389). This port will give you remote access to your physical work desktop computers.

Click on "Next: Disks>" to go to the Disk page

Disk
Azure VMs have one operating system disk and a temporary disk for short-term storage. You can attach additional data disks. The size of the VM determines the type of storage you can use and the number of data disks allowed.

1) On the Disk page click on the OS disk type and select Standard SSD or any disk type of your choice. Leave other as default.

2) Leave the networking, management, monitoring and advanced pages as default. Skip to the Tag page.

Tag
Tags are name/value pairs that enable you to categorize resources and view consolidated billing by applying the same tag to multiple resources and resource groups.
1) Give your tag a name.

2) Next, click on Review+create.

3) After the validation run you will see an example summary of the estimated costs.

4) After validation runs is successfully passed, select the Create button at the bottom of the page.

5) After deployment is complete, select Go to resource.

Connect to Your Windows Virtual Machine.
Create a remote desktop connection to the virtual machine. These directions tell you how to connect to your Windows 10 operating system.

1) On the overview page of your virtual machine click "Connect".

2) Connect with RDP, leave the default settings and click the download RDP file.

3) Open the downloaded RDP file and click "connect".

4) Input your username, password and click ok as the case may be.

5) Click yes to the prompt.

Welcome!!! You are connected to your Windows 10 Pro.

Delete resources
When no longer needed, you can delete the resource group, virtual machine, and all related resources.

1) On the Overview page for the VM, select the Resource link.

2) At the top of the page, select Delete.

3) A page will open warning you that you are about to delete resources.

4) Make the necessary choice and click delete.

I hope this will guide you in creating your Windows 10 virtual machine.
Regards