Managing Azure Virtual Machines

This document provides a comprehensive guide to managing your Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) after creation. Effective management is crucial for ensuring performance, security, and cost optimization of your cloud infrastructure.

Core VM Management Tasks

Managing a VM involves several key operations that can be performed through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, or REST APIs.

Starting, Stopping, and Deleting VMs

These are fundamental operations:

  • Starting a VM: Use this when a VM needs to be operational. Note that running VMs incur costs.
  • Stopping (Deallocating) a VM: This releases the compute resources, significantly reducing costs. The VM's disk storage is preserved.
  • Deleting a VM: This permanently removes the VM and associated resources (unless explicitly configured otherwise, like managed disks). This action is irreversible.

Azure CLI Example (Stopping a VM):

az vm deallocate --resource-group MyResourceGroup --name MyVM

Resizing a VM

You can change the size of your VM to accommodate changes in workload demands. This typically requires stopping (deallocating) the VM first.

Steps:

  1. Navigate to your VM in the Azure portal.
  2. Under "Settings", select "Size".
  3. Choose a new VM size from the available options.
  4. Click "Resize" to apply the changes.

Monitoring VM Performance

Azure Monitor provides extensive capabilities for observing the health and performance of your VMs. Key metrics include CPU utilization, disk I/O, and network traffic.

Azure VM Monitoring Dashboard

Example Azure Monitor dashboard for VM performance.

Applying Updates and Patches

Keeping your VM operating systems and applications up-to-date is critical for security and stability. Azure offers several methods:

  • Manual Updates: Log in to your VM and use the OS's native update mechanisms (e.g., Windows Update, apt-get for Linux).
  • Azure Update Management: A feature within Azure Automation that allows centralized management and automation of updates across multiple VMs.

Managing VM Disks

Virtual machine disks store your operating system and data. You can manage disks by:

  • Attaching and detaching data disks.
  • Resizing disks.
  • Creating snapshots for backup.
  • Migrating to different disk types (e.g., Standard HDD to Premium SSD).
Tip: Always back up your VM disks regularly, either through Azure Backup or by creating snapshots.

Advanced VM Management

Autoscaling

Autoscaling allows you to automatically adjust the number of VM instances in a Virtual Machine Scale Set based on metrics like CPU load or queue depth. This ensures optimal performance and cost efficiency.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Azure Backup provides scheduled backups and allows for on-demand recovery. For disaster recovery, Azure Site Recovery replicates your VMs to another Azure region, enabling quick failover in case of an outage.

Note: Configure backup and disaster recovery strategies early in your VM lifecycle.

Security Management

Beyond OS patching, consider:

  • Implementing Network Security Groups (NSGs) to control inbound and outbound traffic.
  • Using Azure Security Center for threat detection and vulnerability management.
  • Managing access with Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC).

Next Steps

Explore the following resources for more in-depth information:

Next: VM Networking