Design and Implement ARM VM Storage

In this IT Pro Challenge, learners will understand how to use the Azure portal to create an Azure Resource Manager (ARM) virtual machine. Learners will set the virtual machine's size, enable Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access, and create and attach a new managed data disk to the virtual machine. Learners will also use Windows Disk Management to allocate a drive, create a folder, then increase the size of the data disk, and create an Azure Managed Disk snapshot of that disk. The skills acquired in this lab are beneficial for being an Azure developer or a system administrator.

Overview

For this virtual lab, the scenario is that you are an Azure developer, and your company is migrating its primary web application from an on-premise datacenter to Azure. Your job is to create and deploy an Azure Resource Manager (ARM) virtual machine and then add a virtual machine data disk to the virtual machine. Your final task is to resize the virtual machine data disk. As proof of concept, you will create a snapshot of the virtual machine data disk.

An Azure Managed Disk snapshot is a "snapshot" of a point in time in the state when an existing disk can be used to create another virtual machine. It's important not to get confused by different "snapshot" terminology. Azure Managed Disk snapshots are different from Microsoft VMWare snapshots because a VMWare snapshot can restore a virtual machine to a previous state and configuration.

Create an ARM VM

To begin the lab, you will sign in to the Azure portal and create an ARM virtual machine configured to use the Azure Marketplace image for Windows Server 2016 Datacenter. You will also need to set the size of the virtual machine (128 GB), enable Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access, and disable Auto Shutdown and Monitoring options.

Attach and prepare VM data disk

Now you need to create a new, empty managed disk and attach it to the virtual machine. Then use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to connect to the virtual machine and Windows Disk Management to format the new disk, allocate a drive letter, and create a folder in that drive.

Windows Disk Management replaces the fdisk command; you can use it to view and manage installed drives and their partitions.

Resize and create a snapshot of the VM data disk

Finally, to complete your task, you need to resize the data disk (from 128 GB to 256 GB) and then use RDP and Windows Disk Management to verify the newly resized disk has an extra 128 GB of unallocated memory, that the drive you created in the previous step remains at 128 GB and contains the folder you created.

Then you need to create a snapshot of the data disk.

Summary Conclusion

By taking this virtual lab, you will learn how to use the Azure portal to create an ARM virtual machine, attach and prepare a new virtual machine data disk, and then as a proof of concept, resize the data disk, and create a snapshot of that virtual machine data disk.