3.Create a Windows Virtual Machine in Azure

 Create a new Windows virtual machine

We can create Windows VMs with the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell. The easiest approach is the portal because it walks you through the required information and provides hints and helpful messages when creating a VM.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal using the same account you activated the sandbox with.

2. On the Azure portal menu or from the Home page, under Azure services, select Create a resource. The Create a resource pane appears.

3. Select the See more in Marketplace link next to Popular offers. This option displays all available images in the Azure Marketplace.

Select Microsoft as the filter value in the Publisher filter options. In the search box, enter Windows Server, and then press Enter.

 

The result shows several Windows Server-related images. Select the Windows Server image.

The Windows Server pane appears.

1. There are several Windows Server versions we can select from to create our VM. In the Select a plan dropdown list, select the [smalldisk] Windows Server 2019 Datacenter option.

2. Select Create to start configuring the VM.

Configure the VM settings

The VM creation experience in the portal is presented in a wizard format to walk you through all the configuration areas for the VM. Selecting Next will take you to the next configurable section. However, you can move between the tabs running across the top that identify each section.

The Create a virtual machine pane appears.

Configure basic VM settings

It's a best practice to standardize your resource names so you can easily identify their purpose. Windows VM names are a bit limited - they must be between 1 and 15 characters, cannot contain non-ASCII or special characters, and must be unique in the current resource group.

On the Basics tab, enter the following values for each setting.

Setting	Value
Project details
Subscription	Concierge Subscription (the subscription that should be billed for VM hours).
Resource Group	Select [sandbox resource group name]
Instance details
Virtual machine name	Enter a name for your VM, such as test-vp-vm2 (for Test Video Processor VM #2)
Region	Select a region close to you from the following locations.
Availability options	Select No infrastructure redundancy required. This option is used to ensure the VM is highly available by grouping multiple VMs together a set to deal with planned or unplanned maintenance events or outages.
Image	Ensure the image is set to "Windows Server 2019 Datacenter - Gen1". You can open the dropdown list to see all the options available.
Size	The Size field is not directly editable and has a DS1 default size. Select the See all sizes link to explore other VM sizes. The resulting dialog box allows you to filter based on # of CPUs, Name, and Disk Type. Select Standard DS1 v2 (normally the default) when you are done. That will give the VM 1 CPU and 3.5 GB of memory.
Administrator account
Username	Enter a username you will use to sign in to the VM.
Password	Enter a password that's at least 12 characters long. It must have three of the following: one lower case character, one uppercase character, one number, and one special character that is not '\' or '-'. Use something you will remember or write it down, as you will need it later.
Confirm password	Confirm your password.
Inbound port rules
Public inbound ports	Select Allow selected ports. Because this is a Windows VM, we want to be able to access the desktop using RDP.
Select inbound ports	Select RDP (3389) from the dropdown list. As the note in the UI indicates, we can also adjust the network ports after we create the VM.

Configure disks for the VM

1. Select Next : Disks.

2. On the Disks tab, enter the following values for each setting.

Setting	Value
Disk options
OS disk type	Select Premium SSD
Encryption type	Select the (Default) Encryption at-rest with a platform-managed key from the dropdown list.
Data disks
Select Create and attach a new disk link. The Create a new disk pane appears.	Accept all the default values for the following settings: Name; Source type; Size; Encryption type; and Enable shared disk. Note that here is where we could use a snapshot, or Storage Blob to create a VHD. Select OK to create the disk, and go back to the Data disks section.

Under Data disks, there should now be a new disk in the first row.

Configure the network

1. Select Next : Networking.

2. In a production system, where we already have other components, we'd want to utilize an existing virtual network. That way our VM can communicate with the other cloud services in our solution. If there isn't one defined in this location yet, we can create it here and configure the:

• Subnet: First subnet to subdivide the address space - it must fit within the defined address space. After the VNet is created, you can add additional subnets.

• Public IP: Overall IPV4 space available to this network.

On the Networking tab, enter the following values for each setting.

Setting	Value
Network interface
Virtual network	Let's change the default ranges to use the 172.xxx IP address space. Select the Create new link. The Create virtual network pane appears.

Enter the following values for each field.

Field	Value
Address space
Address range	Enter 172.16.0.0/16 to give it the full range of addresses.
Subnets
Subnet name	Set as default.
Address range	Enter 172.16.1.0/24 to give it 256 IP addresses of the space.

Select OK.

 Note

By default, Azure will create a virtual network, network interface, and public IP for your VM. It's not trivial to change the networking options after the VM has been created so always double-check the network assignments on services you create in Azure.

Finish configuring the VM and create the image

The rest of the options have reasonable defaults and there's no need to change any of them. You can explore the other tabs if you like. The individual options have an (i) icon next to them that will show a help bubble to explain the option. This is a great way to learn about the various options you can use to configure the VM.

1. Select Review + create. The system will validate your options, and give you details about the VM being created.

2. Select Create to create and deploy the VM. The Azure dashboard will show the VM that's being deployed. This may take several minutes.