Tutorial: Create and Manage Windows VMs with Azure PowerShell

Article
10/28/2024

Applies to: ✔️ Windows VMs

Azure virtual machines provide a fully configurable and flexible computing environment. This tutorial covers basic Azure virtual machine (VM) deployment tasks like selecting a VM size, selecting a VM image, and deploying a VM. You learn how to:

Create and connect to a VM
Select and use VM images
View and use specific VM sizes
Resize a VM
View and understand VM state

Launch Azure Cloud Shell

The Azure Cloud Shell is a free interactive shell that you can use to run the steps in this article. It has common Azure tools preinstalled and configured to use with your account.

To open the Cloud Shell, just select Try it from the upper right corner of a code block. You can also launch Cloud Shell in a separate browser tab by going to https://shell.azure.com/powershell. Select Copy to copy the blocks of code, paste it into the Cloud Shell, and press enter to run it.

Create resource group

Create a resource group with the New-AzResourceGroup command.

An Azure resource group is a logical container into which Azure resources are deployed and managed. A resource group must be created before a virtual machine. In the following example, a resource group named myResourceGroupVM is created in the EastUS region:

New-AzResourceGroup `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM" `
   -Location "EastUS"

The resource group is specified when creating or modifying a VM, which can be seen throughout this tutorial.

Create a VM

When creating a VM, several options are available like operating system image, network configuration, and administrative credentials. This example creates a VM named myVM, running the default version of Windows Server 2016 Datacenter.

Set the username and password needed for the administrator account on the VM with Get-Credential:

$cred = Get-Credential

Create the VM with New-AzVM.

New-AzVm `
    -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM" `
    -Name "myVM" `
    -Location "EastUS" `
    -VirtualNetworkName "myVnet" `
    -SubnetName "mySubnet" `
    -SecurityGroupName "myNetworkSecurityGroup" `
    -PublicIpAddressName "myPublicIpAddress" `
    -Credential $cred

Connect to VM

After the deployment has completed, create a remote desktop connection with the VM.

Run the following commands to return the public IP address of the VM. Take note of this IP Address so you can connect to it with your browser to test web connectivity in a future step.

Get-AzPublicIpAddress `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM"  | Select IpAddress

Use the following command, on your local machine, to create a remote desktop session with the VM. Replace the IP address with the publicIPAddress of your VM. When prompted, enter the credentials used when creating the VM.

mstsc /v:<publicIpAddress>

In the Windows Security window, select More choices and then Use a different account. Type the username and password you created for the VM and then click OK.

Understand marketplace images

The Azure marketplace includes many images that can be used to create a new VM. In the previous steps, a VM was created using the Windows Server 2016 Datacenter image. In this step, the PowerShell module is used to search the marketplace for other Windows images, which can also be used as a base for new VMs. This process consists of finding the publisher, offer, SKU, and optionally a version number to identify the image.

Use the Get-AzVMImagePublisher command to return a list of image publishers:

Get-AzVMImagePublisher -Location "EastUS"

Use the Get-AzVMImageOffer to return a list of image offers. With this command, the returned list is filtered on the specified publisher named MicrosoftWindowsServer:

Get-AzVMImageOffer `
   -Location "EastUS" `
   -PublisherName "MicrosoftWindowsServer"

The results will look something like this example:

Offer             PublisherName          Location
-----             -------------          --------
Windows-HUB       MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS
WindowsServer     MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS
WindowsServer-HUB MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS

The Get-AzVMImageSku command will then filter on the publisher and offer name to return a list of image names.

Get-AzVMImageSku `
   -Location "EastUS" `
   -PublisherName "MicrosoftWindowsServer" `
   -Offer "WindowsServer"

The results will look something like this example:

Skus                                      Offer         PublisherName          Location
----                                      -----         -------------          --------
2008-R2-SP1                               WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS  
2008-R2-SP1-smalldisk                     WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS  
2012-Datacenter                           WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS  
2012-Datacenter-smalldisk                 WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS  
2012-R2-Datacenter                        WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS  
2012-R2-Datacenter-smalldisk              WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS  
2016-Datacenter                           WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS  
2016-Datacenter-Server-Core               WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS  
2016-Datacenter-Server-Core-smalldisk     WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS
2016-Datacenter-smalldisk                 WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS
2016-Datacenter-with-Containers           WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS
2016-Datacenter-with-Containers-smalldisk WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS
2016-Datacenter-with-RDSH                 WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS
2016-Nano-Server                          WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer EastUS

This information can be used to deploy a VM with a specific image. This example deploys a VM using the latest version of a Windows Server 2016 with Containers image.

New-AzVm `
    -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM" `
    -Name "myVM2" `
    -Location "EastUS" `
    -VirtualNetworkName "myVnet" `
    -SubnetName "mySubnet" `
    -SecurityGroupName "myNetworkSecurityGroup" `
    -PublicIpAddressName "myPublicIpAddress2" `
    -ImageName "MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2016-Datacenter-with-Containers:latest" `
    -Credential $cred

Understand VM sizes

The VM size determines the amount of compute resources like CPU, GPU, and memory that are made available to the VM. Virtual machines should be created using a VM size appropriate for the workload. If a workload increases, an existing virtual machine can also be resized.

VM Sizes

The following table categorizes sizes into use cases.

Type	Common sizes	Description
General purpose	B, Dsv3, Dv3, DSv2, Dv2, Av2, DC	Balanced CPU-to-memory. Ideal for dev / test and small to medium applications and data solutions.
Compute optimized	Fsv2	High CPU-to-memory. Good for medium traffic applications, network appliances, and batch processes.
Memory optimized	Esv3, Ev3, M, DSv2, Dv2	High memory-to-core. Great for relational databases, medium to large caches, and in-memory analytics.
Storage optimized	Lsv2, Ls	High disk throughput and IO. Ideal for Big Data, SQL, and NoSQL databases.
GPU	NV, NVv2, NC, NCv2, NCv3, ND	Specialized VMs targeted for heavy graphic rendering and video editing.
High performance	H	Our most powerful CPU VMs with optional high-throughput network interfaces (RDMA).

Find available VM sizes

To see a list of VM sizes available in a particular region, use the Get-AzVMSize command.

Get-AzVMSize -Location "EastUS"

Resize a VM

After a VM has been deployed, it can be resized to increase or decrease resource allocation.

Before resizing a VM, check if the size you want is available on the current VM cluster. The Get-AzVMSize command returns a list of sizes.

Get-AzVMSize -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM" -VMName "myVM"

If the size is available, the VM can be resized from a powered-on state, however it is rebooted during the operation.

$vm = Get-AzVM `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM"  `
   -VMName "myVM"
$vm.HardwareProfile.VmSize = "Standard_DS3_v2"
Update-AzVM `
   -VM $vm `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM"

If the size you want isn't available on the current cluster, the VM needs to be deallocated before the resize operation can occur. Deallocating a VM will remove any data on the temp disk, and the public IP address will change unless a static IP address is being used.

Stop-AzVM `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM" `
   -Name "myVM" -Force
$vm = Get-AzVM `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM"  `
   -VMName "myVM"
$vm.HardwareProfile.VmSize = "Standard_E2s_v3"
Update-AzVM -VM $vm `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM"
Start-AzVM `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM"  `
   -Name $vm.name

VM power states

An Azure VM can have one of many power states.

Power State	Description
Starting	The virtual machine is being started.
Running	The virtual machine is running.
Stopping	The virtual machine is being stopped.
Stopped	The VM is stopped. Virtual machines in the stopped state still incur compute charges.
Deallocating	The VM is being deallocated.
Deallocated	Indicates that the VM is removed from the hypervisor but is still available in the control plane. Virtual machines in the `Deallocated` state do not incur compute charges.
-	The power state of the VM is unknown.

To get the state of a particular VM, use the Get-AzVM command. Be sure to specify a valid name for a VM and resource group.

Get-AzVM `
    -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM" `
    -Name "myVM" `
    -Status | Select @{n="Status"; e={$_.Statuses[1].Code}}

The output will look something like this example:

Status
------
PowerState/running

To retrieve the power state of all the VMs in your subscription, use the Virtual Machines - List All API with parameter statusOnly set to true.

Management tasks

During the lifecycle of a VM, you may want to run management tasks like starting, stopping, or deleting a VM. Additionally, you may want to create scripts to automate repetitive or complex tasks. Using Azure PowerShell, many common management tasks can be run from the command line or in scripts.

Stop a VM

Stop and deallocate a VM with Stop-AzVM:

Stop-AzVM `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM" `
   -Name "myVM" -Force

If you want to keep the VM in a provisioned state, use the -StayProvisioned parameter.

Start a VM

Start-AzVM `
   -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroupVM" `
   -Name "myVM"

Deleting VM resources

You can delete a VM, but by default this only deletes the VM resource, not the disks and networking resources the VM uses. You can change the default behavior to delete other resources when you delete the VM. For more information, see Delete a VM and attached resources.

Next steps

In this tutorial, you learned about basic VM creation and management such as how to:

Create and connect to a VM
Select and use VM images
View and use specific VM sizes
Resize a VM
View and understand VM state

Advance to the next tutorial to learn about VM disks.

Create and Manage VM disks

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