With the cloud playing an increasingly central role in business operations, setting up a virtual machine (VM) in Microsoft Azure provides a powerful solution for organizations looking to scale infrastructure without investing in physical hardware. This guide walks through the steps to create a Windows VM on Azure.
1. Setting Up Your Azure Environment
Before creating a VM, ensure that you have:
Azure Subscription: You’ll need an active Azure subscription. You can set this up through the Azure portal.
Resource Group: Grouping resources under a single logical entity allows you to manage, monitor, and delete resources more efficiently.
Log in to the Azure portal.
Select Resource Groups from Azure services
Click + Create and enter other information as shown below:
Subscription: Choose your Azure subscription.
Resource Group Name: Name your resource group (e.g., winVM-RG).
Region: Select the region closest to your users for optimal latency and cost-efficiency (e.g East US)
Click “Review + create”. then click “Create”
2. Creating a Windows VM
After setting up your environment, you can now create a VM:
Search for and select Virtual Machines from Azure search box.
Click + Create and select Azure Virtual Machine.
Configure the following in the Basics tab:
Subscription: Select your subscription.
Resource Group: Choose the resource group you created earlier. (winVM-RG)
Virtual Machine Name: Choose a meaningful name for the VM (e.g., Window2022VM).
Region: Select the same region as your resource group for consistency (East US).
Availability Options: Choose the appropriate option based on your needs (e.g., Availability Zone or Availability Set for high availability), for lab purposes, i will choose “No infrastructure redundancy required”
Image: Select Windows Server 2022 Datacenter or a different version of Windows Server that suits your requirements.
Size: Choose the VM size based on your workload requirements. Azure’s B-series and D-series are cost-effective for typical Windows applications.
Username and Password: Set up a username and password for the admin account on the VM. Make sure to use a secure password. Leave other settings as default.
Leave other settings as default unless you have specific requirements.
**Click “**Review and create”, then click Create. Azure will start deploying your Windows VM, which may take a few minutes.
Scroll down and click on “Create”
5. Connecting to Your Windows VM
Once the VM is ready, connect to it using RDP:
Go to the Virtual Machine by clicking on “Go to resource”
Click Connect menu > Connect.
Click on “Download RDP file” to download the RDP file and open it.
4. Enter your password to access the VM.
Click “Yes” to continue
Now you are logged-in to the VM using RDP as shown below
FINAL STEP → Clean Up
Search and select “Resource groups”
Click on the resource group you want to delete; in our case it is “winVM-RG”
3. Click “Delete resource group”
- Enter the resource group name as shown below, then click on “Delete”
Click “Delete” then “Confirm Delete” to delete all the resources created alongside the Windows virtual machine. This will ensure you don’t incur running VM cost after practice.
Final Thought
Creating a Windows VM on Azure is a straightforward process, yet it provides powerful flexibility to meet your organization's infrastructure needs. By following this guide and adhering to best practices, you can ensure your Azure VM deployment is secure, and cost-efficient.
Azure offers a wealth of options for tuning VMs to fit your specific needs, making it a valuable choice for organizations of any size.
I appreciate you reading this article, and I hope it has been insightful.
:Valentine Stephen