Azure Basics · Module 07

Virtual Machines – Sizes, Disks, Connecting, Availability and Scale Sets

Choose a VM region, size and pricing, manage disks, create and connect securely, keep it available with availability sets/zones and scale with scale sets.

Practice interactively →

What you will learn

• Choose a VM series, size and pricing model
• Tell OS, temporary and data disks and managed disk types apart
• Create a Linux VM with the CLI and connect securely
• Use fault/update domains, availability sets and zones
• Scale with VM Scale Sets and autoscale

Lessons

1. Planning a VM — Network, Name, Region, Pricing and Size

   Before creating a VM decide its network, name, region, pricing model and size; the series letter tells whether a VM is optimised for CPU, RAM, disk or GPU.

2. VM Disks — OS, Temporary and Data Disks

   Every VM has an OS disk and often a temporary disk (data lost on deallocate/redeploy); extra data disks are managed disks of type Standard HDD/SSD, Premium SSD, Premium SSD v2 or Ultra.

3. Creating and Connecting to a VM

   Create a Linux VM with `az vm create` and SSH keys, open only the ports you need, and connect with SSH or Azure Bastion instead of exposing 22/3389 to the Internet.

4. Availability — Availability Sets, Fault/Update Domains and Zones

   An availability set spreads VMs across fault domains (hardware) and update domains (maintenance) within one datacenter; availability zones place VMs in separate datacenters of a region to survive losing a whole datacenter.

5. VM Scale Sets and Autoscale

   A scale set deploys and manages many identical VMs; autoscale scales out/in by metric or schedule within minimum, maximum and default limits.