I need to be in complete control of VM

Question

I have set up a VM that I need to run 24/7. I want to control the updates to the machine and will do this on a weekly basis. Is there a policy that allows me to do this? I have a dedicated application running on the machine and it needs to be up and running all the time.

Yesterday I set it up and had everything configured as needed. This morning, the VM appears to have been re-booted and my application needed to be restarted and re-configured. This is not acceptable.

Answer 1

Hi @John Aschenbrenner

We try as much as possible not to reboot any customer's VM. The amount of time your VM is available is defined with the SLA.

In the article below, we explain what we do in the background to reduce the disruption and how you can get notified up to 35 days in advance when we need to reboot your VM.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/maintenance-notifications

Keep in mind that some operations that you do, might also restart the VM (resizing the VM for example)

Regards,
Didier3001

Answer 2

Typically processes that need to run continuous are designed and configured to run as a service, so I'd ask the application developer for assistance with this. Otherwise something here might help.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/sc-create

The other option is to configure automatic logon
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/324737/how-to-turn-on-automatic-logon-in-windows

and use a script or Task Scheduler to start up your application.

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Answer 3

Then I'd try the other option I mentioned. Otherwise I'd suggest creating a support ticket here.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/create-ticket/

or you can also provide feedback here on uservoice.
https://feedback.azure.com/forums/216843-virtual-machines

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Answer 4

Sounds good, but I think in the end the burden is on the end user to make sure critical processes are running post windows update or other virtual machine maintenance.

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