This post will discuss how to create an Azure virtual machine using azure management portal, https://manage.windowsazure.com.

When you are going to create an Azure VM, you have two options:

1. Create Quick VM. This allows you to create VMs very quickly with only basic details such as DNS name, administrator account username and password, vm location, etc. However you cannot create VM based on image and specify other details etc.
2. Create VM from gallery. You can use this to specify VM configuration in detail, including storage account, service names, etc.

Quick create virtual machine

After logging onto management portal, go to footer -> New -> Virtual Machine -> Quick create:

This will open up a form to the right of quick create button. Fill in the basic details such as below:

Click create a virtual machine to start process for creating VM. You would see a message in the footer for same. Also, if you go to virtual machines, you would see that your VM is in provisioning state:

You would need to wait for a few minutes before this actually gets provisioned completely. After this, you would see the VM state as Running:

Create virtual machine from gallery

After logging onto management portal, go to footer -> New -> Virtual Machine -> From Gallery:

This will open a pop-up form containing many options. You’ll first need to choose an image, where you’ll need to select one of the existing images on the gallery and click next.

You can also filter images from left menu shown.

After this, fill in details asked in the ‘Virtual Machine Configuration’ screen as shown and then click next:

In the next screen, you’ll need to provide details like associated cloud service, virtual machine location, storage account details, public endpoints details, availability set. For most of these options, you can select either one of the existing configuration or you can opt for new one. Fill in the details as show below and then click next:

Finally, select if you wish to install any agent, accept legal terms and then click finish to start process for provisioning:

If you go to virtual machines, you would see that your virtual machine is in provisioning state. You would need to wait for a few minutes before this actually gets provisioned completely. After this, you would see the virtual machine state as Running. At this point, you can rdp to it and start working on it.

What should I prefer?

Quick create option does allow you to create virtual machine with bare minimum details but you do not have option of choosing:

1. An existing cloud service in which you would place virtual machine. By default, it will create one for you, with same name as virtual machine name
2. An existing storage account to be utilized. By default, it will create another storage account for you, with random string of characters. for example, like this:

Context : Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Commands.Common.Storage.AzureStorageContext
StorageAccountDescription : Implicitly created storage service
AffinityGroup :
Location : North Europe
GeoReplicationEnabled :
GeoPrimaryLocation : North Europe
GeoSecondaryLocation :
Label : h2portalvhds2529wp2d5cmg
StorageAccountStatus : Created
StatusOfPrimary : Available
StatusOfSecondary :
Endpoints : {https://h2portalvhds2529wp2d5cmg.blob.core.windows.net/,
 https://h2portalvhds2529wp2d5cmg.queue.core.windows.net/,
 https://h2portalvhds2529wp2d5cmg.table.core.windows.net/,
 https://h2portalvhds2529wp2d5cmg.file.core.windows.net/
AccountType : Standard_LRS
StorageAccountName : h2portalvhds2529wp2d5cmg
OperationDescription : Get-AzureStorageAccount
OperationId : 6c40bf1c-d7a9-06fd-8b6a-69381e44e37c
OperationStatus : Succeeded

This is pretty bad if you are looking for consistency in terms of deployment.

1. You cannot choose an existing availability set or affinity set as well.

If you are looking for consistency in terms of deployment and build on already existing infrastructure in Azure, quick create is not the option for you.