Virtual Machine Role in Windows Azure

VM role is a special role, which gives user freedom to control the operating system. While web role and worker role runs on a virtual machine, but VM is a virtual machine. But this comes with the responsibility of making sure that the OS image is up to date through the creation of difference disks. So it increases the cost of development, testing and maintenance.

Virtual Machine Role in Windows Azure

Windows Azure compute provides facility to run an application in the cloud. For this azure provides three types of roles:

1. Web role: used for web application programming and supported by IIS7
2. Worker role: used for asynchronous, long running tasks, without any user interruption.
3. VM role: used for migrating windows server applications to Windows azure in an easy way.

In this article we will see Virtual Machine (VM) roles. VM role fits for the situations where:

• Long running application installation is required
• Error prone application installation
• Application installation needs manual interaction
• Migrating existing applications

VM role is a special role, which gives user freedom to control the operating system. While web role and worker role runs on a virtual machine, but VM is a virtual machine. But this comes with the responsibility of making sure that the OS image is up to date through the creation of difference disks. So it increases the cost of development, testing and maintenance.

Creation of VM role in azure needs:

1.          Creating a Base Virtual Machine Image
2.          Preparation of the Base Image for Deployment
3.          Installation of the Windows Azure VM Role Integration Components
4.          Uploading the Disk Image to Windows Azure
5.          Creating the Service Model
6.          Creating the Hosted Service and Deploying the Package

I will blog each step in detail in my upcoming articles.