Creating and Managing Azure Virtual Machines using PowerShell in 6 Essential Steps

Introduction

As organizations continue to migrate their workloads to the cloud, Microsoft Azure stands out as a leading platform for deploying scalable, reliable, and cost-effective virtual machines (VMs). Managing these VMs efficiently is crucial for cloud engineers, DevOps engineers, and Enterprise IT Administrators. While Azure Portal offers a straightforward graphical interface, PowerShell provides a powerful, flexible, and automatable way to create and manage Azure VMs. This article explores, in detail, how to create and manage Azure Virtual Machines using PowerShell, empowering you to automate your cloud infrastructure confidently.

Why use PowerShell for Azure VM Management?

PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management framework provided by Microsoft. When combined with Azure modules, it enables to Automate repetitive VM tasks (creation, configuration, scaling, backup). Manage resources at scale, across multiple VMs and resource groups. Script complex deployment scenarios for consistency and repeatability.

Integrate with other Azure and on-premises services. PowerShell  scripting capabilities make it perfect for DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, and large-scale cloud environments.

Also it helps creating VM very quickly compare to Azure Portal GUI.

 

Prerequisites :

• An Azure subscription is require to perform this task.
• Windows PowerShell 5.1 or PowerShell 7+ Should be installed (PowerShell comes preinstalled with windows OS. however, For macOS/Linux install PowerShell Core)
• The Az PowerShell module should be installed.
• Sufficient permissions in Azure account to create and manage resources.

Note: We need to run these PowerShell script either on our Local Machine or from Azure Cloud Shell (No Setup Needed)

 

 Setting Up PowerShell and connect to Azure account.

 

 

• Install the Az Module – If you haven’t installed the Az module, open PowerShell as administrator and run following command.

Install-Module -Name Az -AllowClobber -Scope CurrentUser

• Sign in to Azure account – Connect PowerShell session to Azure account .

Connect-AzAccount

• If you have multiple Azure Subscription, Set the Subscription under which you want to deploy vm . 
  You will be prompted to authenticate interactively, in my case i have already logged in to my Azure account and subscription (above screenshot).

Set-AzContext -SubscriptionId 'your-subscription-id'

Deploying an Azure Virtual Machine with PowerShell

$resourceGroup = "myResourceGroup"
$location      = "EastUS"
$vmName        = "myVM"
$vnetName      = "myVnet"
$subnetName    = "mySubnet"
$ipName        = "myPublicIP"
$nicName       = "myNIC"
$size          = "Standard_B2s"
$image         = "Windows2019Datacenter"

New-AzResourceGroup -Name $resourceGroup -Location $location

# Create VNet
$vnet = New-AzVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
-Location $location -Name $vnetName -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/16"

# Create Subnet
$subnet = Add-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name $subnetName `
-AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/24" -VirtualNetwork $vnet

Step 4: Create Public IP and Network Interface – Create a public IP for RDP/SSH access, and a network interface(NIC).

# Public IP
$publicIP = New-AzPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
-Name $ipName -Location $location -AllocationMethod Dynamic

Step 5: Configure VM Credentials – Set up an admin username and password for that VM.

# Securely prompt for password
$adminUsername = "azureuser"
$adminPassword = Read-Host -Prompt "Enter VM admin password" -AsSecureString

Step 6: Now create the Virtual Machine by Defining the VM configuration and create it.

# VM Config
 $vmConfig = New-AzVMConfig -VMName $vmName -VMSize $size

# Set OS Disk
$vmConfig = Set-AzVMOperatingSystem -VM $vmConfig -Windows ` -ComputerName $vmName -Credential (New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($adminUsername, $adminPassword)) ` -ProvisionVMAgent -EnableAutoUpdate

# Set Image
$vmConfig = Set-AzVMSourceImage -VM $vmConfig ` -PublisherName ‘MicrosoftWindowsServer’ ` -Offer ‘WindowsServer’ ` -Skus ‘2019-Datacenter’ ` -Version ‘latest’

# Set NIC
$vmConfig = Add-AzVMNetworkInterface -VM $vmConfig -Id $nic.Id

# Create the VM
New-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Location $location -VM $vmConfig

Deallocate VM:

Stop-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName -Force

Resizing a VM – To scale up or down VM size.

$vm = Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName
$vm.HardwareProfile.VmSize = 'Standard_DS2_v2'
Update-AzVM -VM $vm -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup

Note: The VM should be deallocated before resizing.

$diskConfig = New-AzDiskConfig -Location $location -CreateOption Empty -DiskSizeGB 128
$dataDisk = New-AzDisk -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -DiskName "myDataDisk" -Disk $diskConfig
$vm = Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName
$vm = Add-AzVMDataDisk -VM $vm -Name "myDataDisk" -ManagedDiskId $dataDisk.Id -Lun 1 -CreateOption Attach
Update-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -VM $vm

Remove-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName -Force

Note : The PS script provided above are examples. Please make sure to replace placeholders like resource group names, VM names, locations, and other values according to your specific environment and requirements.