Create an Azure Virtual Machine

Goal

Your company has entrusted you with creating their first Virtual Machine in Azure from scratch. For this task you are given a blank subscription with no infrastructure at all.

For reference on general information about the SDK, please see the Quick Start Guide.

Task description

In Azure, all resources are grouped in Resource Groups, which allows the users to keep track of which application uses what resources more efficiently. The infrastructure and components needed for a Virtual Machine, and the Virtual Machine itself, must be inside a Resource Group.

This task is subdivided in four sections:

• Creating a client and authenticate to Azure
• Creating the network infrastructure first
• Create components needed for the Virtual Machine
• Create the virtual machine

Creating a client and authenticate to Azure

Task 1 - Authentication

First step is always to authenticate to Azure and create a client to manage resources, please follow the documentation and create your client to access Azure resources.

Task 2 - Create a resource group

First, from your subscription you need to create the Resource Group where all the resources are going to live. Feel free to name the Resource Group however you want but take into account naming rules and restrictions for Azure Resources. You are also required to provide a location for the Resource Group, for this task, you can use "westus2".

Setting up the Network Infrastructure

For you to succeed in this task, you will first need to implement the network infrastructure needed to create a Virtual Machine:

• Virtual Networks: A Virtual Network that connects to the internet where all Subnets live.

• Subnets: A Subnet is a range of IP addresses where Virtual Machines live.

Task 3 - Create a virtual network

Next, you need to create a Virtual Network from the Resource Group, after which you need to add a Subnet in it. When creating the Virtual Network, you can use 10.0.0.0/16 when asked for the CIDR. After that, from that Virtual Network you can create a Subnet where you will use 10.0.0.0/24 for the Subnet CIDR.

Setting up the Virtual Machine components

Next, you will be setting up all the components needed for a Virtual Machine:

• Network Interfaces: A network interface is the interconnection between a Virtual Machine and a Virtual Network.

• Public IP Addresses: Public IP addresses enable Azure resources, in this case, the Network Interface, to communicate to Internet.

Task 4 - Create a network interface

Now it is time to setup the Network Interface for the Virtual Machine, but first you need to get a new public IP address. Create a new IP address from the Resource Group and name it as you wish. After that, you should be able to create a Network Interface with the public IP address that you just created.

Feel free to use the REST API reference here:

• Public IP Addresses
• Network Interfaces

Task 5 - Create a Virtual Machine

For the last step, you will be able to create a new Virtual Machine. Construct the Virtual Machine using the name of the Virtual Machine, username, and password that you want, as well as the Network Interface ID.

Similar to Task 4, you can refer to API documentation here

• Virtual Machines

Validating

Finally, to validate that your Virtual Machine has been successfully created, display the Virtual Machine ID in the console.

At this point you just successfully created a new Virtual Machine as well as the whole networking infrastructure that is needed for it and any future Virtual Machine that your company will require. Well done.

Additional references

Azure REST API references for Compute

Quick Start Guide.