Virtual Machines in Windows Azure

Before deploying your first Virutal Machine to Windows Azure you need to create an account. There are several different free offers but everyone is connected to your Microsoft Account. So if you for instance have a MSDN Subscription and Sign Up for a Trail Account on http://aka.ms/TryWindowsAzureNow with that same Microsoft Account your MSDN Benefits is instantly activated. The same goes for BizSpark members.

Deploying your first Virtual Machine!

With an active account it’s now time to deploy your first vm in Windows Azure.

 

1. Go to http://manage.windowsazure.com and sign in with your Microsoft Account
2. Click on New in the left hand corner and select Compute – Virtual Machine – Quick Create
   
3. Now you need to go thru a few easy steps:
 
1. Enter a name for you VM. This name must be unique in the .cloudapp.net namespace and will be checked immediately.
2. Select the Image that you want to use. In this guide I will use Windows Server 2012.
3. Select the size of your VM. Here I have created a Large VM.
4. Enter a password. This password will be used when you remote access the VM.
5. Select the location. If you are based in Sweden the closest data centers are North Europe or West Europe.
6. Click on Create Virtual Machine and your VM will be created! This takes some time but in a few minutes you will be able to access it from your computer. When the VM is created you will see this message:
   
4. Now click on Virtual Machines in the menu on the right hand side and you will see that your VM is in a Running state:
   
   
5. Click on the name of the VM to see more information about that running instance:
   
   
6. Click on Configure. On this page you can now change to size of the Virtual Machine. Change this to Extra Large and then click on Save on the bottom of the page:
   
   
   
   This will force the VM to restart and when it has restarted it will be running on a new VM with the requested resources.
7. Go back to the overview and click on Connect at the bottom of the page:
   
   
8. Sign in the VM via Remote Desktop and use the password chosen in step 3.4

Spending limit

By default there is a spending limit on a newly created account on $0. This means that you won’t risk getting charged if you are about to use more resources then what’s included in your benefits. If you do so, your account will end up in a read only state and your Virtual Machines (VM) will be suspended. When you enter a new 30-day period and get new resources on your account, it will be active again.

 

My recommendation is that you remove the spending limit as soon as you want to make sure that the VM’s or cloud solutions always are available.

 

You can read more about the spending limit here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/spending-limits/

The following is how you can remove your Spending Limit:

1. Log in to the Windows Azure Account Center
2. Click Accounts
3. Click Subscriptions
4. Select a subscription e.g. Subscription 1

If the subscription has been disabled due to the Spending Limit being reached, click this notification: "Subscription reached the Spending Limit and has been disabled to prevent charges." Otherwise, click "Remove spending limit" in the Tasks area.