Introduction.
Effective Azure Virtual Machine administration extends beyond deployment. As workloads evolve, administrators must be able to manage VM security, optimize resource utilization, maintain storage, and implement operational controls that improve both performance and cost efficiency.
In this guide, I demonstrate several essential Azure VM management tasks using the Azure portal. The walkthrough covers moving a virtual machine to a different subnet, vertically scaling the VM to accommodate changing compute requirements, attaching a managed data disk to expand storage capacity, and configuring automatic shutdown to minimize unnecessary Azure costs. These are practical operations that reflect common administrative responsibilities in enterprise Azure environments and are valuable skills for both cloud practitioners and Azure certification candidates.
Create a storage container.
- From the Azure portal home page, in the search box, enter storage accounts.
- Select the storage account you created in the Previous exercise. The storage account name is the hyperlink to the storage account. (Note: it should be associated with the resource group guided-project-rg.)
- On the storage account blade, under the Data storage submenu, select Containers.
- Select + Add container.
- In the Name field, enter storage-container.
- Select Create.
Upload a file to the storage container
- Select the storage container you just created.
- Select Upload and upload the file you prepared.
- Once the file is ready for upload, select Upload.
Change the access tier
- Select the file you just uploaded (the file name is a hyperlink).
- Select Change tier.
- Select Cold.
- Select Save.
Create a file share
- From the Azure portal home page, in the search box, enter storage accounts.
- Select the storage account you created in the Prepare exercise. The storage account name is the hyperlink to the storage account. (Note: it should be associated with the resource group guided-project-rg.)
- On the storage account blade, under the Data storage submenu, select File shares.
- Select + File share.
- On the Basics tab, in the name field enter file-share
- On the Backup tab, uncheck Enable backup.
- Select Review + create.
- Select Create.
- Once the file share is created, select Upload.
- Upload the same file you uploaded to the blob storage or a different file, it’s up to you.
Create a shared access signature token
- From the Azure portal home page, in the search box, enter storage accounts.
- Select the storage account you created in the Prepare exercise.
- On the storage account blade, select Storage browser.
- Expand Blob containers.
- Select the storage container you created earlier, storage-container.
- Select the ellipses (three dots) on the end of the line for the image you uploaded.
- Select Generate SAS
- Set Signing method to Account key.
- Set Signing key to Key 1.
- Set Stored access policy to None.
- Set Permissions to Read.
- Enter a custom start and expiry time or leave the defaults.
- Set Allowed protocols to HTTPS only.
- Select Generate SAS token and URI.
- Copy the Blob SAS URL and paste it in another window or tab of your browser. It should display the image you uploaded. Keep this tab or window open.
Rotate access keys
- From the Azure portal home page, in the search box, enter storage accounts.
- Select the storage account you created in the Prepare exercise.
- Expand the Security + networking submenu and Select Access keys.
- For Key 1, select Rotate key.
- Read and then acknowledge the warning about regenerating the access key by selecting Yes.
- Once you see the success message for rotating the access key, go back to the window or tab you used to check the SAS token and refresh the page. You should receive an authentication failed error.
Conclusion.
Managing Azure Virtual Machines effectively requires a balance between performance, scalability, and operational efficiency. By completing the tasks in this guide, we've explored how to reconfigure a VM's network placement, increase its compute capacity through vertical scaling, extend its storage with managed disks, and automate shutdown schedules to optimize cloud spending.
These capabilities form part of the day-to-day responsibilities of Azure administrators and cloud engineers, making them fundamental skills for maintaining reliable and cost-effective cloud infrastructure. As you continue working with Azure, incorporating these management practices into your workflow will help you build more resilient, scalable, and efficient environments.
Thank you for taking the time to read this walkthrough. If you've implemented similar VM management strategies or have additional recommendations for optimizing Azure workloads, I'd be glad to hear your thoughts in the discussion below.
Top comments (1)
Azure VM administration is as much about operational efficiency as it is about deployment. This walkthrough highlights a few of the management tasks that are commonly performed to optimize networking, compute resources, storage, and cost. I'm always interested in learning how others approach VM lifecycle management, so feel free to share your experiences, preferred practices, or automation strategies in the comments.