I provide online certifications and I run a platform to examine students.
Basically this platform:
At the start of the exam creates as many azure virtual machine (with certain software and configuration) as there are students
Grants the students access to them
At the end of the exam stops the machines and, after some compliance time, destroys them
Students needs to create a Word document as exam final report and, At the moment, they do this on their personal PC, using their own tools.
For compliance reasons, I've to grant students the possibility to use Microsoft Office iWord on the virtual machines themselves.
Considering my platform threats, the VMs as disposable (creating and deleting them each time), do you know what is the most appropriate licensing plan that would fit this use case?
Related
I'm trying to setup a collection of Azure workstation VMs for a small organisation (3 staff and increasing).
My prior experience with Azure is focused on web servers. I'm familiar and comfortable with the resources required for discrete VMs (VM, managed disk, network interface, public IP, DNS).
On the face of it, Azure Virtual Desktop looks like a potentially attractive option for scalability. But I've just followed the Getting Started process, and I have ended up with around 25 new resources spread across three new resource groups.
It is not clear what each of them do or what each of them cost. I am experiencing difficulties with trying to connect with the test user created as part of this process.
I understand that AVD is probably targeted at large organisations where this complexity may be warranted and navigable.
But with limited time to pursue this, I'm suspecting that the best option for constructing this small network may be to stay with the resources that I am familiar with.
Would appreciate feedback on the following:
It seems that discrete VMs can only be provisioned with a flavor of Windows Server, and desktop versions of Windows (ie, 10, 11) are only available via AVD. Is there any downside to using Windows Server (compared to a desktop version) as the platform for a workstation? The workload apps here are primarily development-focused: Office, Visual Studio, SSMS etc.
A copy of Office will be needed on each VM. AVD has a bundled option for this, but I believe it can also be provisioned separately per VM via the Microsoft Account/Office 365 pathway. Any licensing pitfalls there that I should be aware of?
If each staff member is to be allocated their own separate VM, we would want them to call that VM up and shut it down as needed, to avoid wasted compute expense for the majority of the daily cycle. But without granting them access to the Azure portal account. Is there a mechanism than can help with this?
Yes you can, but we do have multiple advantages and disadvantages.
It depends on operating system of the server but it is not that good idea.
Performance Degradation - Server should works as SERVICE PROVIDER and use it as workstation can consume its resources and cause degradation of its performance.
In some of the Windows server OS case it may be a good idea because of Windows Workstation OS versions supports only a limited number of processors (less then server version).
One is needed to disable IE enhanced security and few other available in the below link
Add windows features once the OS is installed etc.
Reference: https://www.quora.com/Can-I-use-Windows-Server-as-I-would-use-Windows-Desktop-i-e-Win-10-7-8
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_it_possible_to_use_a_server_as_a_workstation
Options: Enable Hyper V on server and add multiple Workstation.
https://support.auvik.com/hc/en-us/articles/212801986-How-to-enable-Microsoft-Hyper-V-on-Windows-Servers-and-Workstations
A copy of Office will be needed on each VM. AVD has a bundled option for this, but I believe it can also be provisioned separately per VM via the Microsoft Account/Office 365 pathway. Any licensing pitfalls there that I should be aware of?
Office version with license can be installed manually and via application packaging. There will not be any challenges.
If each staff member is to be allocated their own separate VM, we would want them to call that VM up and shut it down as needed, to avoid wasted compute expense for the majority of the daily cycle. But without granting them access to the Azure portal account. Is there a mechanism than can help with this?
Automation is available to stop vm if not running in azure
Reference : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-solution-vm-management-config
If I spin up a pay-as-you-go VM with Windows Server/10, then the license is included in the price.
But if I buy a reserved VM, would I then need to buy a normal license for either Windows Server or Windows 10 in addition to the cost for the reserved VM?
https://portal.azure.com/?l=en.en-us#create/Microsoft.Reservations
I see this when filling out the create reserved VM page. (As I am doing this for a volunteer organisation, I need to make sure that I know what the costs are to avoid any surprises.)
I did find a link about Software costs but I don't understand how to calculate software meters.
https://learn.microsoft.com/bs-latn-ba/azure/billing/billing-reserved-instance-windows-software-costs
As per the azure documentation the reservation discounts are for the infrastructure only. You are charged for windows and other software. If you have the azure hybrid benefit then you get the windows charges covered .
Check the table for the row "Windows VMs with additional software "
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/billing/billing-understand-vm-reservation-charges
Good Afternoon,
Here is the scenario, our company manages multiple computers/pcs (about 50 or so) that are located in different geographic locations. These 50 computers run the same software locally. They all connect to a Apache Linux Box that is housed on premises. They are all in a workgroup locally. Something like this:
Location 1 (Term1, Term2, Term3, Term4, etc.)
Location 2 (Term1, Term2, Term3, etc.)
Location 3 (Term1, Term2, etc.)
Location 4 (Term1, Term2, Term3, Term4, Term5, etc.)
As mentioned, all the computers run in a workgroup. A local user is defined for each computer. Say user1/user2/user3/etc. We have to maintain a list of users since user management has become a bear as we have grown. In addition, patch management has become very time consuming as well. Traditional Active Directory (on-premise) is not an option as the clients at each location are different people with different financial resources and most/none are willing purchase/maintain Windows Server on premise.
The basic thought being, if it is not broke, don't fix it. As far as the user is concerned, they are not seeing a problem because most only have to deal with 4/5 computers in each location.
I noticed that in Windows 10, there is a an Azure AD service support. I was wondering if anyone could shed some light as to how that would work and how many users I would have to setup as to control costs. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.
Thanks....
You will want to look at Microsoft Intune for client management: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/microsoft-intune/Features.aspx
And more specifically: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn646959.aspx
With Windows 10 you are able to manage the user identities in Azure AD and the computers can to a domain join into Azure. At the same time you can set this up so that the devices also is auto-enrolled into Microsoft Intune for management when they join AzureAD.
This will allow you to manage settings and policies on the Windows 10 machines and control Windows Updates and Windows Defender.
This is just a very short description of the possibilities within Azure AD with Windows 10, and even more is coming this summer with the Aniversary Release of Windows 10.
I have a BizSpark account but I'm struggling to work out what I'm actually entitled to as part of my free Azure package. The package details are listed here:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/offers/details?locale=en-us&offer=ms-azr-0012p&no-rewrite=true
I need to run:
One virtual machine (running Linux) to power the website
One hosted service to provide the client software (Windows Phone and Windows 8) with database access
One hosted service to provide the virtual machine with database access
Two storage accounts (one for images and one for the virtual machine)
One SQL database
Do the hosted services count as VMs and can anybody shed some light on the best configuration (VM sizes etc) to fit all of the above into my subscription please? Multiple instances would be nice but I think I might be getting greedy now!
Thank you.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that you 1500 hours of small compute instances (this includes both Cloud Services and Virtual Machines). 1500 hours per month means you can run 2 small instances full time or choose for an equivalent ratio. So you could go for 4 extra small instances and still have room for 2 extra small instances and 1 small instance to use for something else. To keep the SLA (on the hosted service at least) I would suggest the following:
2 extra small instances of a Linux Virtual Machine
2 extra small instances of a hosted service with a web role. The web role would have 2 tasks:
Provide the client software with database access
Provide the Virtual Machine with database access
This might not be the best solution in terms of performance, but you'll be able to run everything high available without having to pay anything extra.
The 2 storage accounts and the SQL Azure database (you must use the web edition) are also covered by the BizSpark subscription.
Update: 1 small = 4 extra small equivalent ratio isn't right. The ratio is 1 small = 6 extra small.
We have our own application that stores contacts in an SQL database. What all is involved in getting up and running in the cloud so that each user of the application can have his own, private list of contacts, which will be synced with both his computer and his phone?
I am trying to get a feeling for what Azure might cost in this regard, but I am finding more abstract talk than I am concrete scenarios.
Let's say there are 1,000 users, and each user has 1,000 contacts that he keeps in his contacts book. No user can see the contacts set up by any other user. Syncing should occur any time the user changes his contact information.
Thanks.
While the Windows Azure Cloud Platform is not intended to compete directly with consumer-oriented services such as Dropbox, it is certainly intended as a platform for building applications that do that. So your particular use case is a good one for Windows Azure: creating a service for keeping contacts in sync, scalable across many users, scalable in the amount of data it holds, and so forth.
Making your solution is multi-tenant friendly (per comment from #BrentDaCodeMonkey) is key to cost-efficiency. Your data needs are for 1K users x 1K contacts/user = 1M contacts. If each contact is approx 1KB then we are talking about approx 1GB of storage.
Checking out the pricing calculator, the at-rest storage cost is $9.99/month for a Windows Azure SQL Database instance for 1GB (then $13.99 if you go up to 2GB, etc. - refer to calculator for add'l projections and current pricing).
Then you have data transmission (Bandwidth) charges. Though since the pricing calculator says "The first 5 GB of outbound data transfers per billing month are also free" you probably won't have any costs with current users, assuming moderate smarts in the sync.
This does not include the costs of your application. What is your application, how does it run, etc? Assuming there is a client-side component, (typically) this component cannot be trusted to have the database connection. This would therefore require a server-side component running that could serve as a gatekeeper for the database. (You also, usually, don't expose the database to all IP addresses - another motivation for channeling data through a server-side component.) This component will also cost money to operate. The costs are also in the pricing calculator - but if you chose to use a Windows Azure Web Site that could be free. An excellent approach might be the nifty ASP.NET Web API stack that has recently been released. Using the Web API, you can implement a nice REST API that your client application can access securely. Windows Azure Web Sites can host Web API endpoints. Check out the "reserved instance" capability too.
I would start out with Windows Azure Web Sites, but as my service grew in complexity/sophistication, check out the Windows Azure Cloud Service (as a more advance approach to building server-side components).