If you are planning to deploy an Azure virtual machine, it’s important to take a systematic approach. Here’s an ultimate Azure Virtual Machine checklist that outlines everything you should cover as from setup to deployment:
1. Plan Your Virtual Machine Deployment: When you start off planning for your virtual machine deployment, identify the purpose of your virtual machine. This essentially means identifying the specific workload your virtual machine will run, e.g web server, database server, etc. Determine the types of workloads that require specific configurations and the type of hardware that would best suit your needs.
2. Choose the Right Operating System: Choose your operating system based on the workload requirements of your virtual machine. It’s important to consider the limitations, performance considerations, and licensing costs.
3. Decide the VM Size: Choose the right size for your virtual machine, based on the workload and operating system you have decided on. Consider factors like the number of cores, memory, and storage required to meet your workload demands.
4. Secure Your Virtual Machine: Keep security in mind when you are deploying virtual machines. Use Azure Security Center to monitor and protect your virtual machines. Consider creating and applying Azure Policy to ensure you comply with your company’s security policy.
5. Create and Configure Your Virtual Machine: Create your virtual machine based on the decisions made in steps 1 to 4. Follow the necessary steps to create and configure the virtual machine.
6. Connect and Manage Your Virtual Machine: Connect and manage your virtual machine using tools such as Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), SSH, and Azure portal. Use Azure site recovery to protect the virtual machines from site outages.
7. Optimize Your Virtual Machine Performance: Optimize your virtual machine performance using tools like Azure Monitor, Azure Advisor, and Azure Influence. Continuously monitor your virtual machine to ensure optimal performance.
8. Deploy Your Application and Data: Once you have set up and configured your virtual machine, you are ready to deploy your application and data.
9. Back up Your Virtual Machine: It’s important to back up your virtual machine to ensure business continuity. Use Azure Backup to backup your virtual machine and application data.
The above checklist assumes that you have the basic knowledge of Azure, networking and storage concepts. It’s also important to keep in mind that the checklist may change or evolve depending on specific workload requirements or organizational policies.
In conclusion, using this checklist as a guide, you can be sure that your Azure virtual machine deployment process will be systematic and successful.