Setting up an Oracle Virtual Machine in Windows Azure

If you want to set up an Oracle virtual machine in Windows Azure, fortunately, there is already a Database Servers virtual machine template for that!

Windows Azure Classic Portal vs. Windows Azure Portal

Unfortunately, even though many new features are available in the new Windows Azure Portal, there still remains a significant amount of functionality which still can ONLY be completed in the Windows Azure Classic Portal.

So what are the respective Urls for both the Windows Azure Classic Portal and the new Windows Azure Portal?

Below are the respective Urls:

Windows Azure Classic Portal: http://manage.windowsazure.com

Windows Azure Portal: https://portal.azure.com

Assigning roles and privileges in the Windows Azure Portal

There may be times in your organization when you need to set up additional users and privileges to manage your Windows Azure instances.

This is yet another feature which is not well documented by Microsoft, but with just a few simple steps, you can easily accomplish this:

1. Once you log into the Windows Azure Portal, click on Subscriptions
2. Click on the name of your Windows Azure Subscription
3. Click on the icon in the left hand top corner for "Access"
4. You can then see the list of existing users and from the toolbar, you can click on "Add" to add new users
5. You will then be able to add additional roles to the users such as "Owner", "Contributor", "Reader" etc.
6. Once you have selected a Role, you can then invite the specific user using their Microsoft account.
7. Click on the "Invite" button and once the user logs into the Azure Portal, they should have access to manage that Windows Azure Subscription!

Setting up a Paid Subscription for Visual Studio Online in the Windows Azure Portal

If you want to set up a Paid Subscription for Visual Studio Online, you have to set this up within the Windows Azure Portal.

Unfortunately, the process to accomplish this is not documented and instead you have to figure this out on your own.

But not to worry!  It is a relatively easy process to follow!

1. From the More Services section in the Azure Portal, click on Team Services Accounts
2. You should then see your existing Visual Studio Online account
3. If you have an existing Azure Subscription, you can then link your Visual Studio Online account to your Azure Subscription, by clicking on the Link button
4. Once the accounts have been linked, you can view the settings for your Visual Studio Online account
5. When you are ready to purchase additional Visual Studio Online licenses for your users, you can click on "Users" in the Settings pane
6. The new pane that displays will allow you to select the number of users you want to purchase
7. Once you have chosen the number of users you want to purchase, you click on the "Save" button in the toolbar.
8. Finally, once the purchased users have been assigned, you can go into Visual Studio Online and assign the appropriate purchased User Licenses to your Visual Studio Online users!

Checking SendGrid usage statistics for Windows Azure SendGrid accounts

I recently wanted to check how many e-mails SendGrid was sending every day from my Windows Azure SendGrid account and as you can probably guess, I was not able to find this information from within the Windows Azure Portal!

Well, I decided to try logging in with my Windows Azure account into http://sendgrid.com/ and I was able to view my graphs of my e-mail usage!

Failed to delete storage account

I was attempting to delete one of my storage account containers in the new Windows Azure Portal, when I suddenly encountered this error message:

I went to link provided in the error message: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-cannot-delete-storage-account-container-vhd/

This indicated that I needed to switch the Azure Classic Portal in order to rectify this problem!

I needed to go into my Virtual Machines and check the disks and images.

When I initially looked at my Virtual Machines, there were none there!

However, the article further stated that the Disks and Images might still exist so I proceeded to check my Disks:

Sure enough, the disk was still there!  I went ahead and deleted the disk and then moved on to the Images:

Once again, I went ahead and deleted the Image.

Now, when I went back to the new Windows Azure Portal, I tried to delete the storage account and got the successful message: "Successfully deleted storage account"!!

Adding additional Windows Azure Administrators

If you have one or more administrators in your organization that need to manage your Windows Azure virtual machines, you may find the need to add them to your Windows Azure account so that they can manage these environments.

Microsoft makes this process pretty straightforward and even provides a handy article on just how to accomplish this task: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/billing-add-change-azure-subscription-administrator/

Using Resource Manager to manage Azure Virtual Machines

As many who have worked with Windows Azure over the last few years, may know that Windows Azure switched from a Classic Service Management model to a Resource Manager model.

Unfortunately, there are still a large number of sample scripts available on the web that refer to the Classic Service Management model, so I needed to start finding out how to work with the new Azure Resource Manager model from my Windows PowerShell scripts.

Thankfully, I finally came across this Microsoft Azure article which describes some of the commands needed to work with Azure Resource Manager and virtual machines:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-windows-ps-manage/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-windows-ps-create/

Naturally, the piece that was missing from this article was how to put all the pieces together end-to-end so that I could log into Windows Azure and then manage my Azure Virtual Machines!

So, after going through some additional articles, I was finally able to piece together this PowerShell script:

Filing a Support Request in the Windows Azure Portal

If you ever run into a problem while working with Windows Azure, chances are that you will need to file a support request at some point in time.

If you are managing a Virtual Machine, you can click on the Settings for your Virtual Machine and then click on "New support request"

If you are using  your default MSDN benefits, chances are that you will not have any support plan available or associated with your Azure account.

If you are very fortunate, then you may have been selected to participate in the Azure Basic Support option: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/plans/basic/.  As Microsoft would have it, this Basic Support option is by INVITATION ONLY.

However, if you have some other Microsoft benefits (such as being a member of the Microsoft Partner Network), you can associate your Partner Contract ID with your Azure subscription:

Once you have your Contract linked, you should be able to then file an Azure Support Request.

Getting the Publish Settings file for Windows Azure

If you are connecting to Windows Azure with PowerShell, then you can either set up an account in Azure Active Directory in order to be able to log into your Azure account as "Work or school account" or you can revert to using a Publish Settings file!

While this was relatively easy to find in the Classic Azure Portal, this is not so easy to find in the new Azure Portal.

Fortunately, you can still download the Publish Settings file using PowerShell!

The PowerShell script will ultimately send you to this Url to download your Publish Settings file once you log into the system: https://manage.windowsazure.com/publishsettings/index?client=powershell

So, if you are already logged into your Azure account in your web browser, you may be able to download the Publish Settings file directly.

If you still want to know how to do this through PowerShell, here is the PowerShell script for your review:

New authentication methods in SQL Server 2016

I recently set up and configured a SQL Server 2016 instance on a virtual machine and when I logged into the system for the first time, I encountered a welcome change to the authentication screen!

As you can see from the above image, SQL Server 2016 has now added support for "Active Directory Password Authentication" as well as "Active Directory Integrated Authentication"!

If you can read this article, you can get some more details on these 2 new types of authentication mechanisms: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189721.aspx

If you read through the article, you can see that both of these authentication mechanisms are targeted towards authenticating against Azure Active Directory!

For more information on connecting to SQL Server using Azure Active Directory, you can check out this article: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-aad-authentication/

Installing Microsoft Antimalware for Windows Azure Virtual Machines

One of the many changes that came about as part of the switch from the Azure Classic Portal to the new Azure Portal was the way in which you install Microsoft Antimalware for your Windows Azure Virtual Machines.

In the past, you would simply choose "Microsoft Antimalware" as part of the wizard when you are setting up your virtual machine for the first time.  Unfortunately, that practice also did not allow you to go back and set it up later once the virtual machine was created.

While Microsoft has made it easier to turn on now at a later point in time, since it is no longer part of the initial creation process of the Windows Azure VM and it is disabled by default, it is also easier to forget!

Fortunately, installing Microsoft Antimalware after the fact is relatively simple.

First click on the Settings for your virtual machine:

In the Settings menu, you should see a menu option for "Extensions".  Once you click on that you should get a list of the currently installed extensions.  In the toolbar for that new screen, you should be able to click on the "Add" button to get a list of additional extensions to install:

In that list, you will find the listing for "Microsoft Antimalware".  You can click on it to open another screen for configuring Antimalware and creating it on your Windows Azure VM:

Once you read through the details screen, you can click on the "Create" button.  This will then provide you a final screen to configure the settings for Microsoft Antimalware:

Once you have configured all of the rules for running Microsoft Antimalware, you can click on the OK button to set it up on your Windows Azure VM.  It should now show up in the list of installed extensions for your VM listed as "IaaSAntimalware":

Checking resource and cost utilization in the Windows Azure Portal

If you want to monitor how many resources you are utilizing as well as how much you are spending in Windows Azure, you can check this very easily!

Once you log into the Windows Azure Portal, on the left hand navigation, you will see a link for Subscriptions:

You can then click on the name of your Windows Azure Subscription to view the resource usage:

That is all there is to it!!  Pretty simple, huh??

Premium vs. Standard Disk Storage in Windows Azure Virtual Machines

If you are building Virtual Machines in Windows Azure, you will probably need to add additional disk storage at some point in time as your needs grow.

However, you should be aware that Windows Azure Disk Storage has a different pricing model for Premium vs. Standard Disk Storage: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/storage/

You will immediately discover that Premium Disk Storage costs SIGNIFICANTLY more than Standard Disk Storage so it is important to make sure you choose the right type of Disk Storage for your needs.

You can follow the simple steps below to add a new disk to your Windows Azure virtual machine:

1. Select your virtual machine
2. Click on the Settings for your virtual machine
3. In the Settings menu, click on Disks
4. At the top of the Disks menu, you will see an icon for "Attach new"
5. Click on the Attach new icon
6. You will now be prompted for information regarding your new Disk.  
7. When you choose your disk, Windows Azure has now DEFAULTED the Type to Premium.  Therefore, you will want to change the selection to Standard
8. When you choose a Standard disk, the default size will be 1023 GB (approx. 1 TB).  You can then configure the location settings for your disk which will specify the storage account to use.
9. Once you click OK, your new disk will be added to your virtual machine!

Setting up SendGrid for Windows Azure

If you want to send out e-mails from Windows Azure, then the obvious choice is to use SendGrid.

Fortunately, setting up SendGrid within the Windows Azure is pretty simple and straightforward!

First, you have to log into your Windows Azure Portal and click on Browse in the left hand navigation menu:

In the list of menu options, you should now see an option for "SendGrid accounts" which you should click to set up a new SendGrid account:

Next, you will want to click on the "Add" button in the toolbar to set up a new SendGrid account.  SendGrid offers several different plan options, but the FREE plan will work for many organizations.

You will then have to enter your Contact Information along with the user credentials you want to set up for using the SendGrid account in Windows Azure:

Lastly, you will need to accept the legal terms in order to complete setting up your SendGrid account:

If everything was successful, you should now be able to see your newly set up SendGrid account!!

You can then go back into your SendGrid Accounts and check the settings for SendGrid to use for your Windows Azure Virtual Machine or any other services you might be running in Windows Azure: