Joining a Windows Azure VM to a Windows Azure VM-based Domain/Forest

When you are setting up a virtual network in Windows Azure in order to host multiple virtual machines that will be part of a locally installed Active Directory Domain/Forest, there are several things you should know:

1. You can assign a Windows Azure VM a Static IP Address by running a series of PowerShell commands as described in this article: http://www.bhargavs.com/index.php/2014/03/13/how-to-assign-static-ip-to-azure-vm/
2. Even though you assign a Static IP address to the Windows Azure VMs using the PowerShell commands, you may still need to go into the Network Properties for the Network Adapters on the VMs that will be joined to the domain and change their Primary and Second DNS Server IP Addresses.
3. If you are unable to connect to the Internet from a VM that is joined to the domain, you may need to add additional DNS Servers such as Google Public DNS to the Network Adapter TCP/IP Properties or else add the DNS Servers to the Virtual Network settings in the Azure Management Portal.
4. If you change the DNS Server IP Addresses for a VM, you may have to wait a few minutes (typically 15 minutes) or initiate a reboot before you may be able to join the VM to the domain in order for the server to be able to recognize names on the network from the domain.
5. When joining another VM to the existing domain, you will need to use the FQDN (such as corp.contoso.com) rather than simply the NetBIOS shortened domain name (CORP or CONTOSO).

Hopefully these helpful hints will resolve any issues that you may encounter when working with virtual networks and setting up an Azure VM-hosted domain!