I deployed a Java application to Windows Azure cloud using Virtual Machine by following this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8OyTfQPn1I. Now I want to apply autoscaling. However when I go to the "scale" tab, the options are greyed out and I am unable to turn on scaling.
P.S.- I have already created an availability set and added standard instance VMs of same configuration to it.
Please do help.
Thanks! :)
Autoscaling in Azure Virtual Machines requires that you pre-create all the VMs in an availability set, and then shutdown/deallocate those not currently needed. I suspect that your VMs are not in an availability set.
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The Azure Monitoring Agent is a service that runs on a virtual machine and sends logs and metrics to Azure Analytics. This agent can be installed via multiple ways, for example:
by selecting the option while creating the VMSS, for example in the Azure portal
with an "Enable" button in the monitoring section of a VMSS in case it was not installed while the VMSS was created
by installing the the correct "extension" for all machines in the VMSS
manually or automated as a software installation inside the virtual machine, for example via ansible or actually by hand
There might be more options, but in any case the agent needs to know to which Analytics Workspace it should send its data, and this value is a user input during the installation of the agent.
Now, once installed, how can I change the destination Analytics Workspace for an entire VMSS?
There is no option to change the workspace. for the Virtual machines scale sets this support is limited as of now.
We have a number of worker roles in Azure under a Cloud Service that are set to size Small by default. This doesn't seem to be configurable either in the Azure Portal or the Preview Portal, so how do I go about changing the size of the worker role without using PowerShell?
This can be done in Visual Studio by right clicking on the role in question under the sub folder of "Roles", choosing properties and then there should be a drop down for VM size. Re-publish and the size change should be reflected.
Cloud Services have the VM size located in the ServiceDefinition.csdef, which is part of the deployment package. This is why you are not finding the setting in the portal. You need to build and publish a new deployment package.
Since you don't want to do this with PowerShell, you'd need to make edits directly to your csdef file via an editor / IDE and then redeploy the package.
I’m trying to provision multiple Azure VMs using DSC (Desire state configuration). Unfortunately all examples and documentation out there show only simple “one machine” provisioning. I have experimented and research it but still cannot make it work.
By any chance, could somebody point me to example showing how to provision multiple VMs with different configurations?
Thanks!
You can use the Azure PowerShell cmdlets to create VMs and set DSC configurations on them. Here is a link to an article which describes the same
http://www.powershellmagazine.com/2014/08/05/understanding-azure-vm-dsc-extension/
I have a program that I run only 1-2 hours a day. Is there a way to suspend the Azure server so I don't pay for it, then resume it later? How fast is it to suspend and then resume?
To clarify here, Azure no longer charges for stopped VMs. The billing change was announced in 2013 on Scott Guthrie's blog: No Charge for Stopped VMs.
This means you can use the portal or APIs to stop a VM without deallocating the resource - and avoid charges at the same time.
Not sure if you are asking for Window Azure Cloud Services or for Windows Azure Virtual Machines but you sure can stop/start these Azure Virtual Machines directly on Windows Portal or using Powershell or REST based Service Management API. The Windows Azure Portal does not provide a way to schedule stop/restart so you will have to manually do it by yourself or use some 3rd party service i.e. AzureWatch etc to do it.
Note: Even if you shutdown the Virtual Machine or Cloud Service, you will still pay for if you want to do it for cost saving, then you would need to delete the service or VM. Reboot/Restart does not take long as VM is already configured and ready to run so it is just the time to turn on a pre-configured VM.
If you want to use REST API in your own application to stop/start here is some help:
Virtual Machines: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj157206.aspx
Cloud Service: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg441298.aspx
If you want to use Powershell to stop/Start Azure VM look for "Start-AzureVM" and "Stop-AzureVM" cmdlet below:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj152841.aspx
To save money, I did Remote Desktop to my Azure Windows VM, and clicked shutdown.
Then, at my Azure dashboard (https://manage.windowsazure.com) > VIRTUAL MACHINES > STATUS it changed from Running to Stopped.
But then I read this doesn't stop the billing.
So I went to Microsoft Azure > Virtual machines (classic) >
and saw the status was Stopped. But this doesn't mean billing stopped.
I clicked the "stop" command, and it changed to Stopped (deallocated) which means no (or near 0) billing.
The screenshot says it all... so only a "deallocated" VM won't be billed!
One more thing to add. As opposed to a deleted VM, a deallocated VM still has virtual disks attached to it which consume storage space and therefor creates costs.
If you mean the "suspended" state you can achieve with your computer I don't think is available today on Azure.
Google Cloud for example has just released that feature on beta https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/suspending-an-instance
So I am a little bit confused about the Azure feature to create virtual machines(i.e VMRoles).
When I do a quick create via the managment portal, I am not asked to specify nor a hosted service nor a storage account. After I click 'create' I see that a storage account is generated for me automatically with some unique name, but I don't see the same for a hosted service. Is a hosted service not needed to create a VM?
The thing that is confusing is that it seems like every other method for creating a VM does require me to specify a hosted service (Azure PowerShell, REST API). And indeed after I create the VM using one of these methods I see my VM inside the hosted service...
Anyone can explain this?
Thanks in advance
Please do not confuse Windows Azure Virtual Machines (IaaS, stateful) with Windows Azure VMRole (PaaS, stateless).
As for creation - the process behind the portal is automated. For me, I have a separate Cloud Service for each Virtual Machine I've created (along with the auto generated storage account). However as all operations are asyc, and I also guess the Microsoft teams are using some kind of CQRS pattern behind the portal, it might take some time for all the components behind a Virtual Machine to appear. While the API strictly requires everything to be ready set, before you actually create the Virtual Machine. My guess is that soon you will also see a cloud service created for your VM (it usually is with the name of the Virtual Machine you created). Also, if you have noticed, the public URI for accessing your Virtual Machine (be it RDP or SSH) has the format of [your_vm_name].cloudapp.net - so this is a Cloud Service (formerly known as Hosted Service).
First of all Windows Azure Virtual Machines and VM Role are two separate things. Based on what you have explained it seems you are trying to create a Windows Azure Virtual Machine so I will explain you in short how it works:
Very first: In order to create a Windows Azure Virtual Machine you need a VHD which has OS Image. You can use one from Gallery or you can upload one by yourself to your specific Blob Azure Storage.
When you use Quick create or create the process is exactly same in the background however during quick create lots of settings is already predefined as will quick create you will only get Windows OS VHD to choose. In both cases a storage account is used to copy the OS VHD (if it is not part of your OS image collection). In most of the cases a previously created storage account is used, so you may think in was not created but in fact the storage account was used to copy the VHD from repo. This may not be the case if you create a VM from an image which is already in your OS VHD collection.
With quick create the DNS name you set is become the VM name but with create you have option to create a different DNS name for your application but they needed in both cases. In any case the DNS name will bind to your VM, the same DNS name will distinguish your VM from others and a must to configure for any VM.
I believe that the cloud service is not surfaced for a single quick-create Virtual Machine. This is to make Virtual Machines as easy to use as possible. The cloud service would be created and be displayed on the portal were a second virtual machine to be added to the cloud service.