Azure Fundamentals · Lesson

Azure Virtual Machines

Provision and configure an Azure VM, understand VM sizes and pricing tiers, and learn best practices for managing VM lifecycle and availability.

What Is an Azure Virtual Machine?

An Azure Virtual Machine (VM) is an IaaS offering that provides on-demand, scalable computing resources in the cloud. It emulates a physical computer — with its own CPU, RAM, storage, and network interface — running on Microsoft's hypervisor (Hyper-V) on physical servers in an Azure data centre. You install and manage the guest operating system (Windows or Linux), middleware, and applications, while Azure handles the underlying hardware, host OS, and hypervisor layer.

Creating a VM in the Azure Portal

Creating a VM requires specifying several key parameters: Image — the OS and pre-installed software (e.g., Windows Server 2022, Ubuntu 22.04, SQL Server on Windows). Size — the VM's vCPU count, RAM, and temporary storage (discussed next). Region — where the VM will run. Authentication — SSH key pair for Linux or username/password for Windows. The portal walks you through these settings with guided wizards, and the Azure CLI lets you script the same configuration for repeatable deployments.

# Create a Windows Server VM via Azure CLI
az vm create \
  --resource-group myRG \
  --name myWindowsVM \
  --image Win2022Datacenter \
  --admin-username azureadmin \
  --admin-password 'P@ssword1234!'

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