How to Setup SharePoint 2013 With Windows Azure : Part 2

We can surely build this lab environment on our own hardware, but due to the level of SharePoint 2013 hardware requirements, many of us may not have sufficient spare hardware to implement an on-premise lab environment.

This makes a great scenario for leveraging our Windows Azure FREE 90-day Trial Offer to build a free lab environment for SharePoint 2013 in the cloud. Using the process outlined in this article, we will be able to build a basic functional farm environment for SharePoint 2013 that will be accessible for approximately 105 hours of compute usage each month at no cost to you under the 90-day Trial Offer.

After the 90-day trial period is up, you can choose if you'd like to convert to a full paid subscription. If you are testing advanced SharePoint 2013 scenarios and need more resources than available in the lab configuration below, you can certainly scale-up or scale-out elastically by provisioning larger VMs or additional SharePoint web and application server VMs.

SharePoint 2013 Lab Server Slicing

To deliver a functional and expandable lab environment, I'll be walking through the approach of provisioning a SharePoint Server 2013 on Windows Azure VMs as depicted in the following architecture diagram that will require around three VMs on a common Windows Azure Virtual Network.



Prerequisites

Please follow my previous article on How to Setup SharePoint 2013 with Windows Azure.

Setting up the Environment

How to Register a DNS Server in Windows Azure

Register the internal IP address that our domain controller VM will be using for Active Directory-integrated Dynamic DNS services by performing the following steps:

1. Sign in at the Windows Azure Management Portal with the logon credentials used when you signed up for your Free 90-Day Windows Azure Trial.
2. Select "Networks" located on the side navigation panel on the Windows Azure Management Portal page.
3. Click the "+NEW" button located on the bottom navigation bar and select "Networks" - "Virtual Network" - "Register DNS Server".
   
   
   
   
4. Complete the DNS Server fields as follows:
   
   
   • NAME: MYlabdns01
   • DNS Server IP Address: 10.0.0.4 
     
     



5. Click the "REGISTER DNS SERVER" button.
   
   
   

Define a Virtual Network in Windows Azure

Define a common virtual network in Windows Azure for running Active Directory, Database and SharePoint virtual machines by performing the following steps:

1. Sign in at the Windows Azure Management Portal with the logon credentials used when you signed up for your Free 90-Day Windows Azure Trial.
2. Select "Networks" located on the side navigation panel on the Windows Azure Management Portal page.
3. Click the "+NEW" button located on the bottom navigation bar and select "Networks" - "Virtual Network" - "Quick Create".
4. Complete the Virtual Network fields as follows:
   
   
   • NAME: Mylabnet01
   • Address Space: 10.---.---.---
   • Maximum VM Count: 4096 [CIDR:/20]
   • Affinity Group: Select the Affinity Group defined in the Getting Started steps from the Prerequisites section above.
   • Connect to Existing DNS: Select Mylabdns01 - the DNS Server registered in the above steps.
      



5. Click the "CREATE A VIRTUAL NETWORK" button.
   
   Configure Windows Server Active Directory in a Windows Azure VM
   
   Provision a new Windows Azure VM to run a Windows Server Active Directory domain controller in a new Active Directory forest by performing the following steps:
   
   
   1. Sign in at the Windows Azure Management Portal with the logon credentials used when you signed up for your Free 90-Day Windows Azure Trial.
   2. Select Virtual Machines located on the side navigation panel on the Windows Azure Management Portal page.
   3. Click the "+NEW" button located on the bottom navigation bar and select "Compute" - "Virtual Machines" - "From Gallery".
   4. In the Virtual Machine Operating System Selection list, select "Windows Server 2012, December 2012" and click the button.
   5. On the Virtual Machine Configuration page, complete the fields as follows:
       
      • Virtual Machine Name: Mylabad01
      • New Password and Confirm Password fields: Choose and confirm a new local Administrator password.
      • Size: Small (1 core, 1.75GB Memory)
         



6. Click the button to continue.
7. On the Virtual Machine Mode page, complete the fields as follows:
    
   • Standalone Virtual Machine: Selected
   • DNS Name: Mylabad01.cloudapp.net
   • Storage Account: Select the Storage Account defined in above steps
   • Region/Affinity Group/Virtual Network: Select "Mylabnet01 - the Virtual Network" defined in above steps.
   • Virtual Network Subnets: Select "Subnet-1 (10.0.0.0/23)"
      



8. Click the button to continue.
   
   
   
   
9. After the new virtual machine has finished provisioning, click on the name "Mylabad01" of the new Virtual Machine displayed on the Virtual Machines page of the Windows Azure Management Portal.
10. On the virtual machine details page for Mylabad01, make note of the Internal IP Address displayed on this page. This IP address should be listed as 10.0.0.4.
    
    
    
    
11. On the virtual machine details page for Mylabad01, click the "Attach" button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and select "Attach Empty Disk". Complete the following fields on the Attach an empty disk to the virtual machine form:
    
    
     
    • Name: Mylabad01-data01
    • Size: 10 GB
    • Host Cache Preference: None
       



12. On the virtual machine details page for Mylabad01, click the "Connect" button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and click the "Open" button to launch a Remote Desktop Connection to the console of this virtual machine. Logon at the console of your virtual machine with the local Administrator credentials
    
    
    
    
13. From the Remote Desktop console please use how to install Active directory on the server
14. Using the Server Manager tool, install Active Directory Domain Services and promote this server to a domain controller in a new forest with the following parameters:
     
    • Active Directory Forest name:
    • Volume Location for NTDS database, log and SYSVOL folders: F:
       
15. Create two users for SharePoint configuration
16. Type "dsa.msc" in run, you will get the AD console
17. Right-click on the user then "new" - "User"
    
    
    
    
18. Please provide the user name:
    
    
    
    
19. Click "Next" and select the following options:
    
    
    
    
20. This should be the service account we are going to use while installing SharePoint
21. Better create two service accounts, as:
    
    
    • One for installation of SharePoint
    • One for Service configuration

Configure SQL Server 2012 in a Windows Azure VM

Provision a new Windows Azure VM to run SQL Server 2012 by performing the following steps:

1. Sign in at the Windows Azure Management Portal with the logon credentials used when you signed up for your Free 90-Day Windows Azure Trial.
2. Select "Virtual Machines" located on the side navigation panel on the Windows Azure Management Portal page.
3. Click the "+NEW" button located on the bottom navigation bar and select "Computer Virtual Machines - from Gallery".
4. In the Virtual Machine Operating System Selection list, select "SQL Server 2012 Evaluation Edition" and click the button.
   
   
   
   
5. On the Virtual Machine Configuration page, complete the fields as follows:
    
   • Virtual Machine Name: Mylabdb01
   • New Password and Confirm Password fields: Choose and confirm a new local Administrator password.
   • Size: Medium (4 cores, 7 GB Memory)
      



6. Click the button to continue.
7. On the Virtual Machine Mode page, complete the fields as follows:
   
   
   • Standalone Virtual Machine: Selected
   • DNS Name: Mylabdb01.cloudapp.net
   • Storage Account: Select the Storage Account defined in the Getting Started steps from the Prerequisites section above.
   • Region/Affinity Group/Virtual Network: Select "Mylabnet01"
   • Virtual Network Subnets: Select "Subnet-1 (10.0.0.0/23)"
    



8. Click the button to continue.
9. After the new virtual machine has finished provisioning, click on the name ("Mylabdb01") of the new Virtual Machine displayed on the Virtual Machines page of the Windows Azure Management Portal.
   
   
   
   
10. On the virtual machine details page for Mylabdb01, make note of the Internal IP Address displayed on this page. This IP address should be listed as 10.0.0.5.
11. On the virtual machine details page for MYlabdb01, click the "Attach" button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and select "Attach Empty Disk". Complete the following fields on the "Attach an empty disk to the virtual machine" form:
     
    • Name: Mylabdb01-data01
    • Size: 50 GB
    • Host Cache Preference: None
       
12. To allow SharePoint to connect to the SQL Server, you will need to add an Inbound Rule for the SQL Server requests in the Windows Firewall. To do this, open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security from "Start" - "All Programs" - "Administrative Tools"
    
    
    
    
13. Select the Inbound Rules node, right-click it and select "New Rule" to open the New Inbound Rule Wizard.
    
    
    • In the Rule Type page, select "Port" and click "Next".
      
      
      
      
    • In the Protocols and Ports page, leave TCP selected, select Specific local ports, and set its value to 1433. Click "Next" to continue.
      
      
      
      
    • In the Action page, ensure that "Allow the connection" is selected and click "Next".
    • In the Profile page, leave the default values and click "Next".
    • In the Name page, set the Inbound Rule's Name to SQLRule and click "Finish"
    • Close the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security window.
       
14. In the Server Manager tool, join this server to the domain and restart the server to complete the domain join operation.
15. For this right-click on "My Computer" and select properties
16. Click on "Change settings"
    
    
    
    
    
17. After the server restarts, connect again via Remote Desktop to the server's console and login with the local Administrator credentials
18. Open SQL Server Management Studio from "Start" | "All Programs" | "Microsoft SQL Server 2012 - SQL Server Management Studio" and add the "domain\Administrator" user to SQL Server with the Sysadmin server role selected.
    
    
    • Expand Security folder within the SQL Server instance. Right-click Logins folder and select "New Login".
    • In the General section, set the Login name to "domain\Administrator", and select the Windows Authentication option.
      
      
      
      
    • Click "Server Roles" on the left pane. Select the checkbox for the Sysadmin server role.
    • Click the OK button and close SQL Server Management Studio.

Configure SharePoint Server 2013 in a Windows Azure VM

1. Sign in at the Windows Azure Management Portal with the logon credentials used when you signed up for your Free 90-Day Windows Azure Trial.
2. Select Virtual Machines located on the side navigation panel on the Windows Azure Management Portal page.
3. Click the "+NEW" button located on the bottom navigation bar and select "Compute" | "Virtual Machines" | "From Gallery".
4. In the Virtual Machine Operating System Selection list, select Windows Server 2012, December 2012 and click the button.
5. On the Virtual Machine Configuration page, complete the fields as follows:
    
   • Virtual Machine Name: Mylabapp01
   • New Password and Confirm Password fields: Choose and confirm a new local Administrator password.
   • Size: Large (4 cores, 7GB Memory)
      
6. Click the button to continue.
7. On the Virtual Machine Mode page, complete the fields as follows:
   
   
   • Standalone Virtual Machine: Selected
   • DNS Name: Mylabapp01.cloudapp.net
   • Storage Account: Select the Storage Account defined in the Getting Started steps from the Prerequisites section above.
   • Region/Affinity Group/Virtual Network: Select Mylabnet01 - the Virtual Network defined in Exercise 2 above.
   • Virtual Network Subnets: Select Subnet-1 (10.0.0.0/23)
      
8. After the new virtual machine has finished provisioning, click on the name ( Mylabapp01 ) of the new Virtual Machine displayed on the Virtual Machines page of the Windows Azure Management Portal.
9. On the virtual machine details page for MYlabapp01, make note of the Internal IP Address displayed on this page. This IP address should be listed as 10.0.0.6.
10. On the virtual machine details page for Mylabapp01, click the Attach button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and select "Attach Empty Disk". Complete the following fields on the "Attach an empty disk to the virtual machine" form:
    
    
    • Name: MYlabapp01-data01
    • Size: 50 GB
    • Host Cache Preference: None
       
11. On the virtual machine details page for Mylabapp01, click the Connect button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and click the Open button to launch a Remote Desktop Connection to the console of this virtual machine. Logon at the console of your virtual machine with the local Administrator credentials defined in Step 5 above.
12. In the Server Manager tool, click on Local Server in the left navigation pane and click on the Workgroup option. Join this server to the domain and restart the server to complete the domain join operation.
13. After the server restarts, re-establish a Remote Desktop connection to the server and logon with the "domain\Administrator" domain user
14. In the Server Manager tool, click on "Local Server" in the left navigation pane and select "IE Enhanced Security Configuration". Turn off enhanced security for Administrators and click the OK button.
15. Press the Windows key to switch to the Start Screen and launch Internet Explorer. Download SharePoint preview and install as described in my following article
16. Please follow my article How to Configure Three-Tier Farm For SharePoint Server 2013