What are Azure Virtual Machines?
Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) provide on-demand, scalable computing resources. You can use Windows and Linux virtual machines to deploy and run applications quickly. Get flexibility, control, and enterprise-grade performance.
With Azure VMs, you can easily migrate your workloads to the cloud, develop and test applications in a flexible environment, and scale your infrastructure as your needs change.
Key Features
Scalability & Performance
Easily scale your compute resources up or down based on demand. Choose from a wide range of VM sizes optimized for various workloads, from general-purpose to compute-intensive and memory-optimized.
Hybrid Capabilities
Seamlessly integrate your on-premises environment with Azure using Azure Arc and Azure Stack HCI for a unified hybrid cloud experience.
Security & Compliance
Benefit from robust security features, including network security groups, Azure Security Center, and compliance certifications to meet your regulatory requirements.
Cost-Effectiveness
Optimize your spending with various pricing options, including pay-as-you-go, reserved instances, and Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server and SQL Server.
High Availability & Disaster Recovery
Ensure business continuity with availability sets, availability zones, and Azure Site Recovery for comprehensive disaster recovery solutions.
Managed Services
Leverage managed disks, Azure Monitor, and automated patching to reduce operational overhead and focus on your applications.
Common Use Cases
- Application Hosting: Deploy web servers, application backends, and enterprise applications.
- Development & Testing: Create flexible environments for rapid development and testing cycles.
- Big Data Analytics: Run demanding analytics workloads with scalable compute power.
- High-Performance Computing (HPC): Access powerful VM instances for complex simulations and modeling.
- Disaster Recovery: Replicate and failover critical workloads to Azure.
- Database Hosting: Deploy and manage your SQL Server, MySQL, or other database instances.
Getting Started with Azure VMs
Creating and managing virtual machines in Azure is straightforward. You can use the Azure portal, Azure CLI, PowerShell, or ARM templates.
Example: Creating a Linux VM using Azure CLI
az vm create \
--resource-group MyResourceGroup \
--name MyVM \
--image UbuntuLTS \
--admin-username azureuser \
--generate-ssh-keys
This command creates a Linux VM named 'MyVM' in the 'MyResourceGroup' resource group using the latest Ubuntu LTS image. It also sets up SSH access for the 'azureuser'.
Explore the Azure CLI documentation for detailed commands and options.