Thank you to everyone who joined Corey Sanders and Stephen Siciliano for an #AzureChat. It was great to hear the community’s voice in this live discussion about two of our favorite topics--Virtual Machines and Autoscaling. Below is a recap in case you missed the chat or want to explore the links for more in-depth content on the topics discussed.
Q1: Do I have to be a developer to use Windows AzureVMs?
A1: You don't have to be a developer. With our large range of capabilities, Developers, DevOps, and IT Pros are all welcome. - @CoreySandersWA
Q2: How can I get started with Windows Azure VMs?
A2: So easy to answer. :) Go here, http://qub.me/y8u4q1 , get a free trial and have a blast. Linux, Windows, Oracle - @CoreySandersWA
Q3: How can I manage VMs in Windows Azure?
A3: You can manage using Azure portal (with the power of monitoring/autoscale) or using existing on-prem tools via VNETs. - @CoreySandersWA
Q4: Are there easy ways for me to automate the creation of different types of Virtual Machines?
A4: We have a fantastic script center allowing easy automation using PowerShell: http://qub.me/WudbPw . VMs+disks, SharePoint... - @CoreySandersWA
Q5: How do you expose endpoints to your VM that are accessible only to your Cloud Services?
A5: You can control access to the VM or Cloud Service by setting an ACL on the public IP: http://qub.me/ZXBCma - @CoreySandersWA
Q6: How do I export a VM from on-prem to Windows Azure?
A6: Because we just run Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V in Azure, moving a VM should be just move the VHD and boot. A snap.
Community Response: It depends upon whether you want to use the VM as the base for a set of images, or if you just want to suck it in. - @CTO_Reed
Host Response: @CTO_Reed Agreed. You can either upload the VHD or start in the cloud and build from there! - @CoreySandersWA
Community Response: Then just upload it as a "disk" rather than an "image" and start it up! - @CTO_Reed
Q7: Can Autoscale automatically deploy new VM’s?
A7: No, you'll need to provision/fully set up the VM's you'll need in advance, then we'll turn them on/off to save you money. - @iscsus
Q8: For Dev/Test scenarios, can Autoscale scale to 0 VMs?
A8: Yes! Using Scheduled Autoscale you can have all of your VM’s turn off at night or on the weekends. - @iscsus
Response: Can't we try manually shutdown? - @milson
Response: You can also manually shut down -- but then it won't automatically turn on in the morning when you start work :) - @iscsus
Community Questions:
Question: When are we getting multiple public IP's for the VM's on Azure? -
@Evron19 Response: Eamonn, are you looking for multiple public IPs on a single VM? Load-balanced? -
@CoreySandersWA Response: Hey Corey, case is for multiple SSL sites on one VM. I know we can use SNI etc but not completely supported etc -
@Evron19 Answer: For SSL, SNI is ok but does have some limitations (Windows XP, yes?). Good f/b for future plans. -
@CoreySandersWA
Question: Do you have plans to allow autoscaling by both CPU and Queue simultaneously? -
@thomento Answer: No immediate plans to support both in the UI, but we did just release a new sdk
http://po.st/m7uzAk . In
the SDK (on nuget http://po.st/O8DOrp ) you can create any set of scale rules based on different metrics. - @iscsus Response: I didn’t know, if you use the SDK… does that conflict with the UI? I like having the UI to add-hoc configuration. -
@thomento Response: yes, it may be possible to use the SDK to create settings the UI doesn't understand - in that case you can't use both -
@iscsus
Question: How long should it take for a CPU autoscale rule to kick in? Yesterday I was seeing 30+ mins. - not sure what to expect though. -
@rickraineytx Answer: By default, autoscale takes the average CPU over 45 minutes - this means it could be 30+ min after a spike. B
ut, with the sdk (http://po.st/O8DOrp ) you can manually set different time periods to average metrics over. - @iscsus Response: 30+ min? What does it “10 minutes after last scale action” in the UI mean then? -
@thomento Response: Y
es, that was my experience. I too was wondering then about the last scale action as it can be as small as 5.- @rickraineytx Response: So there are 2 different scenarios-if you start w/0 cpu and go to 80 quickly, it can take 30+ minutes because we average over 45 min. But if your cpu avg is already high, there could be actions every 10min. - @iscsus Response: This is not clear in the UI (which is the best UI BTW). I would love to be able to change that in the UI. - @thomento Response: Good point :) we're always working on improving the ui so thx for the feedback. - @iscsus Response: We have a work around, not ideal but would really like to see this. It's in Azure Websites i think? - @Evron19
Question: Do each of the VM's need to be configured the same to use AutoScale? -
@jonstellwagen Answer: autoscale works for the stateless part of your app (eg iis), you can't store state on the vm's. Files are fine -
@iscsus
Question: What are the provisions for big data on Windows Azure? -
@milson ![]()