SQL SERVER – Creating Azure VM for SQL Server Using Portal

I need to admit that Microsoft has been investing big time on the Azure platform and the adoption has been great amongst customers. In the recent past, though I have made several performance tuning activities with customers on SQL Server – many have come back to me asking for consulting into migration into Azure. A lot of conversations have been around lift-and-shift application deployments on an Azure VM (Virtual Machine).

In this blog, let me take you through a step by step approach of initializing a VM on Azure using the portal.

1. If you are using an Azure subscription, log on from Microsoft Azure.

2. On the azure Portal, Select Virtual Machines located on the side navigation panel on the Microsoft Azure Management Portal page
3. Click the +Add button located on the top of the Virtual machines pane.
4. In the Virtual Machine list, click SQL Server and SQL Server 2016 SP1 Developer on Windows Server 2016.
   

Note: You can choose other images with a different edition / version of SQL Server, as required.

5. Click the Create button in the right pane. Use the “Resource Manager” deployment model.
6. On the Virtual Machine Configuration Basics Page, complete the fields as follows:
   – Virtual Machine Name: SQLAuthSQL01
   – New User Name: Choose a secure local Administrator user account to provision.
   – New Password and Confirm Password fields: Choose and confirm a new local Administrator password.
   – Resource Group Name: SQLAuth
   Click OK.

Note: If the VM Name or Resource group name is already taken, choose another name.

7. On the Virtual Machine Size page, complete the fields / select a configuration that suits you. You will see a series different based on the type of disk that we select. In the earlier configuration we selected SSD and hence this will be different from HDD configuration. Please pick based on your needs.
8. On the Virtual Machine Configuration for optional features page, leave the default values as it is and click OK.
   PS: I would highly recommend you to take a look at each of the configuration values and read about them. I would write a different blog around some of the extensions later in detail.
9. On the Virtual Machine Configuration SQL Server Settings page, leave the default values as it is and click OK.
   
   Make sure to select the SQL Authentication and use the other defaults.
10. On the Virtual Machine Summary page, validate the configuration and click OK to start provisioning the VM.

This kick starts the deployment and you will see a progress on the dashboard as shown below.

This completes our steps to create a VM using the Azure portal. In subsequent blogs we will look at some of the settings that you can plan to play around.

 Do let me know via comments if you are using Azure for your needs. Are you using VMs or using the SQL Azure Databases? Let us know how you use them.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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