Privately Sharing Azure VM Images Across Tenants and Regions

Question

Privately Sharing Azure VM Images Across Tenants and Regions

Monisa Magudeswaran 10

"Sharing Azure VM Images Across Tenants and Regions""Is there a way to share VM images privately (other than market place) across different Azure tenants, similar to AWS where users can create a VM in their own subscription using a shared image and copy the image to different regions. Specifically, I am looking for:1. The ability to share VM images across multiple tenants.

A method to allow users to deploy VMs from shared images in their own subscriptions.
A way to replicate/copy these shared images to other Azure regions for high availability.

Please provide guidance on best practices for achieving this functionality."

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Nikhil Duserla 8,100 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi @Monisa Magudeswaran,

Yes, you can deploy virtual machines directly from shared images. When it comes to server deployment, businesses often utilize custom virtual machine images and templates. One lesser-known feature that aids in managing, sharing, and deploying these custom images in Azure is the Azure Shared Image Gallery-.

Currently, Azure enables you to create virtual machines either from images available in the Marketplace or from your own custom managed images- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/shared-image-galleries?tabs=vmsource%2Cazure-cli

Images cannot only be shared with different users over different subscriptions, images can also be replicated over different Azure regions. This allows organizations to replicate each shared image version to different regions depending on what makes sense for your organization-https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/itopstalkblog/quick-look-at-the-azure-shared-image-gallery/352980

If you have any further queries, do let us know.

If you found this informative, please consider accepting an answer as a token of appreciation. And don't forget to give it a thumbs up 👍 if it was helpful.

User's image

Monisa Magudeswaran 10 Reputation points

2025-03-14T05:23:52.1+00:00

@Nikhil Duserla thanks for your response!

I have a quick question—let’s say I’ve shared an image with User A in Tenant 2. Can User A copy the image to different regions on their own, or do I need to create copies in the required regions and then share them with User A?

If the first option is possible, could you share an article on how to do it?

I have tried out the scenario of User A creating a VM via CLI. However, can User A create a VM from the Azure portal (GUI) using the shared image? If yes, I’d appreciate it if you could point me to any relevant documentation.

I have tried out the scenario of User A creating a VM via CLI

Thanks a lot!
Monisa
Monisa Magudeswaran 10 Reputation points

2025-03-14T11:50:12.0166667+00:00

@Nikhil Duserla also we want to share a VM image of our product to different customers. What are the ways?
Thank you
Monisa
Nikhil Duserla 8,100 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-03-14T13:42:32.76+00:00

Hi Monisa Magudeswaran,

Thank you for reaching out to us again.

While creating a VM image, you must select the required locations, and you can only use the image when creating the VM in those locations.

If User-A wants to create a VM in the West US location, you must select that location while creating the VM image.

Create an image of a VM in the portal- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/capture-image-portal

Create a VM from a generalized image version-https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/vm-generalized-image-version?tabs=portal%2Ccli2%2Ccli3%2Ccli4

If you have any further queries, do let us know.
Nikhil Duserla 8,100 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-03-17T07:30:24.1066667+00:00

Hi Monisa Magudeswaran,

Did the provided solution meet your queries, or do let us know if you have any further questions? I am happy to assist you. If the provided answer helped you, please mark it as accepted as a token of appreciation.
Nikhil Duserla 8,100 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-03-19T13:02:19.05+00:00

Hi Monisa Magudeswaran,

If an answer has been helpful, please consider accepting the answer to help increase visibility of this question for other members of the Microsoft Q&A community. If not, please let us know what is still needed in the comments so the question can be answered. Thank you for helping to improve Microsoft Q&A!

Share via

Privately Sharing Azure VM Images Across Tenants and Regions

1 answer

Your answer