An Azure Virtual Machine is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) compute resource provided by Microsoft Azure that enables users to deploy and manage virtualized servers in the cloud. It delivers on-demand, scalable computing capacity without the need to purchase or maintain physical hardware. Azure VMs run on top of a hypervisor-based virtualization layer within Microsoft’s global data centers, allowing multiple isolated virtual machines to share the same physical host securely and efficiently.
That sounds too vague, right? Let me break it down a little bit more: An Azure Virtual Machine is like having a powerful server on standby without ever hearing the hum of hardware or worrying about rack space. Powered by Microsoft Azure, it lets you run up a fully functional Windows or Linux machine in minutes, scale it when traffic spikes, and then shut it down when the job’s done.
Whether you're deploying a production workload, testing a bold new idea, or lifting an app into the cloud, Azure VMs give you full control of the operating system and environment just like a traditional server, but smarter, faster, and globally available. In short, it is your data center… minus the data center 😉.
In this article, I will show you how to:
- Create a virtual machine
- Configure the virtual machine
- Deploy the virtual machine
- and then connect to the virtual machine
Create a Virtual Machine in Azure Portal
- In the portal, search for and select virtual machines
- Select + Create.
- Choose "Virtual Machine hosted by Azure".
Configure Virtual Machine Details
- For Resource group select Create new. Give your resource group a name and select OK to save your changes.
- Provide a virtual machine name
- In the availability options, select availability zone.
- For operating system (image), I will be using Windows Server 2025 Datacenter - x64 Gen2
- Set VM size to the default option
Set Up Administrator Account
- Set up username
- Set up password and then confirm password
- Configure inbound ports to RDP for windows operating system. HTTP (80) is the port that helps you communicate with the internet.
- Click the checkbox to accept the license agreement.
- Navigate to monitoring lab
- In the monitoring lab, disable boot diagnostics
Deploy the Virtual Machine
- select review + create
- Ensure validation passes.
- Click "Create" to deploy.
- After deployment is complete, select go to resource
Connect to the Virtual Machine
- Go to the public Ip address and maximize idle timeout
- Click "Connect" in the Azure VM blade.
- Select download RDP file
- Open RDP file and then enter your credentials to login
Now we are connected to the virtual machine
- Notice the virtual machine name
- Notice the windows edition
Top comments (1)
Good Job!