Quickstart: Create SQL Server on Azure VM with PowerShell

Article
08/19/2024

Applies to: SQL Server on Azure VM

This quickstart steps through creating a Windows SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machine (VM) with Azure PowerShell.

Tip

This quickstart provides a path to quickly provision and connect to a SQL Server VM. For more information about other Azure PowerShell options to create SQL Server VMs, see the Provisioning guide for SQL Server VMs with Azure PowerShell.
If you have questions about SQL Server virtual machines, see the Frequently Asked Questions.

Prerequisites

To complete this quickstart, you should have the following:

An Azure subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.
The latest version of Azure PowerShell

Note

This article uses the Azure Az PowerShell module, which is the recommended PowerShell module for interacting with Azure. To get started with the Az PowerShell module, see Install Azure PowerShell. To learn how to migrate to the Az PowerShell module, see Migrate Azure PowerShell from AzureRM to Az.

Connect to Azure

Open PowerShell and establish access to your Azure account by running the Connect-AzAccount command, and set your subscription context with Set-AzContext.
```
Connect-AzAccount
Set-AzContext -subscription <Subscription ID>
```
When you see the sign-in window, enter your credentials. Use the same email and password that you use to sign in to the Azure portal.

Create a resource group

Define variables for a unique resource group name and provide a location of a target Azure region for all VM resources. Then use New-AzResourceGroup to create your resource group. To simplify the rest of the quickstart, the remaining commands use this name as a basis for other resource names.

$ResourceGroupName = "sqlvm1"
$Location = "East US"
$ResourceGroupParams = @{
   Name = $ResourceGroupName
   Location = $Location
   Tag = @{Owner="SQLDocs-Samples"}
}
New-AzResourceGroup @ResourceGroupParams

Configure network settings

Use New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig, New-AzVirtualNetwork, and New-AzPublicIpAddress to create a virtual network, subnet, and a public IP address. These resources are used to provide network connectivity to the virtual machine and connect it to the internet.

$SubnetName = $ResourceGroupName + "subnet"
$VnetName = $ResourceGroupName + "vnet"
$PipName = $ResourceGroupName + $(Get-Random)

# Create a subnet configuration
$SubnetConfig = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name $SubnetName -AddressPrefix 192.168.1.0/24

# Create a virtual network
$Vnet = New-AzVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName -Location $Location `
   -Name $VnetName -AddressPrefix 192.168.0.0/16 -Subnet $SubnetConfig

# Create a public IP address and specify a DNS name
$Pip = New-AzPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName -Location $Location `
   -AllocationMethod Static -IdleTimeoutInMinutes 4 -Name $PipName

Use New-AzNetworkSecurityGroup to create a network security group after you've configured rules to allow remote desktop (RDP) and SQL Server connections with New-AzNetworkSecurityRuleConfig.

# Rule to allow remote desktop (RDP)
$NsgRuleRDP = New-AzNetworkSecurityRuleConfig -Name "RDPRule" -Protocol Tcp `
   -Direction Inbound -Priority 1000 -SourceAddressPrefix * -SourcePortRange * `
   -DestinationAddressPrefix * -DestinationPortRange 3389 -Access Allow

#Rule to allow SQL Server connections on port 1433
$NsgRuleSQL = New-AzNetworkSecurityRuleConfig -Name "MSSQLRule"  -Protocol Tcp `
   -Direction Inbound -Priority 1001 -SourceAddressPrefix * -SourcePortRange * `
   -DestinationAddressPrefix * -DestinationPortRange 1433 -Access Allow

# Create the network security group
$NsgName = $ResourceGroupName + "nsg"
$Nsg = New-AzNetworkSecurityGroup -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName `
   -Location $Location -Name $NsgName `
   -SecurityRules $NsgRuleRDP,$NsgRuleSQL

Create the network interface with New-AzNetworkInterface.

$InterfaceName = $ResourceGroupName + "int"
$Interface = New-AzNetworkInterface -Name $InterfaceName `
   -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName -Location $Location `
   -SubnetId $VNet.Subnets[0].Id -PublicIpAddressId $Pip.Id `
   -NetworkSecurityGroupId $Nsg.Id

Create the SQL VM

Define your credentials to sign in to the VM. The username is "azureadmin". Make sure you change <password> before running the command.

# Define a credential object
 $userName = "azureadmin"
 $SecurePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString '<strong password>' `
    -AsPlainText -Force
 $Cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($userName, $securePassword)

Create a virtual machine configuration object with New-AzVMConfig and then create the VM with New-AzVM. The following command creates a SQL Server 2022 Developer Edition VM on Windows Server 2022.

# Create a virtual machine configuration
$VMName = $ResourceGroupName + "VM"
$VMConfig = New-AzVMConfig -VMName $VMName -VMSize Standard_DS13_V2 |
   Set-AzVMOperatingSystem -Windows -ComputerName $VMName -Credential $Cred -ProvisionVMAgent -EnableAutoUpdate |
   Set-AzVMSourceImage -PublisherName "MicrosoftSQLServer" -Offer "sql2022-ws2022" -Skus "sqldev-gen2" -Version "latest" |
   Add-AzVMNetworkInterface -Id $Interface.Id

# Create the VM
New-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName -Location $Location -VM $VMConfig

Tip

It takes several minutes to create the VM.

Register with SQL VM RP

To get portal integration and SQL VM features, you must register with the SQL IaaS Agent extension.

To do so, first register your subscription with the resource provider by using Register-AzResourceProvider:

# Register the SQL IaaS Agent extension to your subscription
Register-AzResourceProvider -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.SqlVirtualMachine

Next, register your SQL Server VM with the SQL IaaS Agent extension by using New-AzSqlVM:

$License = 'PAYG'

# Register SQL Server VM with the extension
New-AzSqlVM -Name $VMName -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName -Location $Location `
-LicenseType $License

Remote desktop into the VM

Use Get-AzPublicIpAddress to retrieve the public IP address for the new VM.

Get-AzPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName | Select IpAddress

Pass the returned IP address as a command-line parameter to mstsc to start a Remote Desktop session into the new VM.
```
mstsc /v:<publicIpAddress>
```
When prompted for credentials, choose to enter credentials for a different account. Enter the username with a preceding backslash (for example, \azureadmin), and the password that you set previously in this quickstart.

Connect to SQL Server

After signing in to the Remote Desktop session, launch SQL Server Management Studio 2017 from the start menu.
In the Connect to Server dialog box, keep the defaults. The server name is the name of the VM. Authentication is set to Windows Authentication. Select Connect.

You're now connected to SQL Server locally. If you want to connect remotely, you must configure connectivity from the Azure portal or manually.

Clean up resources

If you don't need the VM to run continuously, you can avoid unnecessary charges by stopping it when not in use. The following command stops the VM but leaves it available for future use.

Stop-AzVM -Name $VMName -ResourceGroupName $ResourceGroupName

You can also permanently delete all resources associated with the virtual machine with the Remove-AzResourceGroup command. Doing so permanently deletes the virtual machine as well, so use this command with care.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you created a SQL Server 2022 virtual machine using Azure PowerShell. To learn more about how to migrate your data to the new SQL Server, see the following article.

Migration guide: SQL Server to SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

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