What workloads are ideal for VMs?

Azure Resource Manager Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines are a very foundational and fundamental resource in Cloud Computing. Deploying virtual machines gives you more flexibility and control over your cloud infrastructure and services, however, it also means you have more responsibility to maintain and configure these resources. This course gives you an overview of why use virtual machines as well as how to create, configure, and monitor VMs in Azure Resource Manager.

Azure Resource Manager Virtual Machines: What You'll Learn

Lesson	What you'll learn
Overview	Overview of the course and the Learning Objectives
What is a Virtual Machine?	Understand what are Azure Virtual Machines and what workloads are ideal for VMs
Creating and Connecting to Azure VMs	Learn to deploy Windows and Linux VMs as well as how to connect to these VMs
Scaling Azure Virtual Machines	Understand VM scaling, load-balancing, and Availability Sets in Azure Resource Manager
Configuration Management	Understand the basic concepts of Desired State Configuration and the options available to Azure VMs
Design and Implement VM Storage	Gain an understanding of the underlying Storage options available to VMs as well as Encryption
Configure Monitoring & Alerts for Azure VMs	Learn to monitor VMs in Azure Resource Manager as well as configure alerts.
Summary	Course summary and conclusion

 

Workloads define the type of work your Virtual Machine instances will perform. Microsoft supports many VM workloads much like on-premises servers. These include workloads such as Microsoft BizTalk server, Microsoft Dynamics, SharePoint, SQL Server, Exchange, System Center, and of course Windows Server itself to name a few. Windows Server 2003 (with a CSA) and later versions are supported for deployment in Microsoft Azure. However for versions that are earlier than Windows Server 2008 R2, there is no Azure Marketplace support, and customers must provide their own images. In fact, Microsoft does not support operating systems that are past their End of Support without a Custom Support Agreement (CSA).

Workloads also include non-Windows operating systems such as Linux. You may find many Azure-Endorsed Linux distributions such as RedHat, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, etc. Not to mention there are many 3rd-party appliances such as Checkpoint and Barracuda firewall images.