On many different occasions, they ask me how I manage my Azure Virtual Machines. As usual, my response is It depends! It depends because, on Azure, we have many different ways to manage virtual machines. I don’t have a preference. I use all of them, depending on what activity I need to perform. That is the beauty of Azure.

To manage an Azure Virtual Machine (VM), you can follow these general steps:

  1. Login to the Azure portal and navigate to the virtual machine you want to manage.
  2. From the virtual machine blade, you can start, stop, restart, or delete the VM.
  3. To connect to the VM, you can use Azure Bastion Service, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) or Secure Shell (SSH) depending on the operating system running on the VM.
  4. You can also manage the VM through Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or REST API.
  5. If you need to configure or update the VM, you can do so through the VM’s operating system.

Here are some specific actions you can perform on an Azure VM:

  • Start: You can start a VM by selecting the “Start” button in the Azure portal or by using PowerShell, CLI, or API commands.
  • Stop: You can stop a VM by selecting the “Stop” button in the Azure portal or by using PowerShell, CLI, or API commands. This action deallocates the VM, which means you don’t get charged for compute usage, but storage is still charged.
  • Restart: You can restart a VM by selecting the “Restart” button in the Azure portal or by using PowerShell, CLI, or API commands.
  • Connect: To connect to a VM, you need to use either Azure Bastion, RDP or SSH. You can obtain the connection information for a VM in the Azure portal or through PowerShell or CLI commands.
  • Scale: You can scale a VM up or down by changing the VM size. You can do this in the Azure portal, PowerShell, or CLI.
  • Configure: You can configure a VM’s settings, such as network settings, storage settings, or operating system settings, in the Azure portal or through PowerShell or CLI commands.
  • Update: You can update a VM’s operating system, applications, or configurations by using the built-in update features of the operating system or by using your preferred deployment tools.

These are just some of the actions you can perform to manage an Azure VM. The specific steps you need to take depend on your specific requirements and the tools you choose to use.

Cheers,

Marcos Nogueira
Azure MVP
azurecentric.com
Twitter: @mdnoga