Hands-On Lab

Windows Azure Virtual Machine Roles

Lab version: Last updated: 2.0.0 12/15/2010

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CONTENTS OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................................................... 3 EXERCISE 1: CREATING AND DEPLOYING A VIRTUAL MACHINE ROLE IN WINDOWS AZURE ...... 4

Task 1 Building a Base Virtual Machine Image................................................................................... 5 Task 2 Preparing the Base Image for Deployment ........................................................................... 15 Task 3 Installing the Windows Azure VM Role Integration Components ........................................ 28 Task 4 Uploading the Disk Image to Windows Azure....................................................................... 36 Task 5 Creating the Service Model ................................................................................................... 40 Task 6 Creating the Hosted Service and Deploying the Package ..................................................... 47
EXERCISE 2: TROUBLESHOOTING WITH REMOTE DESKTOP ........................................................... 54

Task 1 Connecting to a Role Instance with Remote Desktop .......................................................... 54 Task 2 Using Powershell to Access the Windows Azure Runtime Environment .............................. 60
EXERCISE 3: UPDATING AND SERVICING A VIRTUAL MACHINE ROLE ........................................... 63

Task 1 Creating a Differencing Disk .................................................................................................. 63 Task 2 Updating a Virtual Machine Role OS Image .......................................................................... 73
SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................................. 77 APPENDIX A: CONFIGURING YOUR WINDOWS AZURE MANAGEMENT PORTAL CREDENTIALS IN VISUAL STUDIO ........................................................................................................................................ 77 APPENDIX B: INSTALLING WINDOWS SERVER 2008 R2 .................................................................... 83

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Overview
Windows Azure Virtual Machine Roles allow you to run a customized instance of Windows Server 2008 R2 in Windows Azure, making it easier to move applications to the cloud. In this hands-on lab, you will explore Virtual Machine roles and you will learn how to create custom OS images that you deploy to Windows Azure.

Objectives
In this hands-on lab, you will learn how to: Prepare custom OS images that you can deploy to Windows Azure Connect to your Windows Azure role instances with Remote Desktop for troubleshooting Use differencing disks to apply updates to your Virtual Machine roles

Prerequisites
The following is required to complete this hands-on lab: Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V role enabled Hyper-V Manager Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.3 Setup media for Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition (Trial software available here)

Note: This hands-on lab requires a high-speed Internet connection to upload VM image files to your Windows Azure subscription.

Important: Currently, access to VM Role is available through an invite-only beta program. Unless you have enrolled in this program, you will not be able to complete this hands-on lab.

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Exercises
This hands-on lab includes the following exercises: 1. Creating and Deploying a Virtual Machine Role in Windows Azure 2. Troubleshooting with Remote Desktop 3. Updating and Servicing a Virtual Machine Role

Estimated time to complete this lab: 90 minutes. Note: This hands-on lab involves certain procedures, for example, uploading VM image files to Windows Azure, that could potentially be time consuming. The estimate reflects the time required to complete each step that requires your active involvement and not the overall time required to complete every task.

Note: When you first start Visual Studio, you must select one of the predefined settings collections. Every predefined collection is designed to match a particular development style and determines window layouts, editor behavior, IntelliSense code snippets, and dialog box options. The procedures in this lab describe the actions necessary to accomplish a given task in Visual Studio when using the General Development Settings collection. If you choose a different settings collection for your development environment, there may be differences in these procedures that you need to take into account.

Exercise 1: Creating and Deploying a Virtual Machine Role in Windows Azure

In this exercise, you prepare the base image that you will deploy to Windows Azure. In Hyper-V Server, you create a new virtual machine and perform a default installation of Windows Server 2008 R2. After booting the virtual machine, you log in, install and configure the required OS features, and then install the Windows Azure VM Role Integration Components. In a more realistic scenario, at this point, you would typically install additional software. Once you have installed and configured all the required software, you apply the System Preparation Tool (sysprep.exe) to generalize the image, shut it down, and then you upload it to Windows Azure. Next, you create a service model and configure it to use the deployed image, generate a service package, and then deploy it to your subscription using the Windows Azure Platform Management Portal. Page | 4

Task 1 Building a Base Virtual Machine Image In this task, you create a virtual machine in Hyper-V to build a base image of Windows Server 2008 R2. 1. Open Hyper-V Manager in the Start menu and connect to your Hyper-V Server.

Figure 1 Hyper-V Manager console

2. In Hyper-V Manager, right-click the server name, point to New, and then select Virtual Machine. Click Next at the welcome screen to start the New Virtual Machine Wizard.

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Figure 2 Creating a new virtual machine to prepare an image

3. In the Specify Name and Location step, set the name to VM Role and then click Next.

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Figure 3 Choosing the name of the new virtual machine

4. In the Assign Memory step, set the amount of memory to 2048 MB and then click Next.

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Figure 4 Configuring the amount memory assigned to the virtual machine

5. Next, in the Configure Networking step, select Local Area Connection - Virtual Network and then click Next.

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Figure 5 Configuring networking options for the virtual machine

Note: The network connection will be used by the virtual machine to access Windows Update and apply required updates.

6. Now, in the Connect Virtual Disk step, select the option labeled Create a virtual hard disk. Set the Name of the disk to baseimage.vhd, change the location to a suitable folder in your Hyper-V server, set the disk Size to 30GB, and then click Next to continue.

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Figure 6 Creating a new virtual hard disk

Note: The VHD size must fit the quota allocated for the chosen VM size for you role. In this case, setting the size to 30GB allows you to deploy the VM in a small role.

If you already have a VHD file with a clean installation of Windows Server 2008 R2, you may use that instead. To do this, select the option labeled Use an existing virtual hard disk and browse to the location of the VHD file. Note that the image file must contain a single partition with the OS installation and must not include a recovery partition.

Note: If you use an existing image, after you create the virtual machine, you may skip the OS installation section of this task and proceed to the next task.

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Figure 7 Using an existing virtual hard disk

7. In the Installation Options step, choose the option that is the most suitable for the type of setup media that you have, and then click Next.

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Figure 8 Installing an operating system from the setup media

Note: To create a base image for the Virtual Machine Role, you require setup media for Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition. Click here to download trial software.

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Figure 9 Completing the Virtual Machine Wizard

8. Click Finish to create the virtual machine. 9. In Hyper-V Manager, in the results pane, under Virtual Machines, right-click the name of the newly created virtual machine and then select Connect. Note: If Hyper-V manager does not list the virtual machine, you may need to right-click the server name and select Refresh.

10. In the toolbar of the Virtual Machine Connection window, click the Start icon.

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Figure 10 Starting the virtual machine in Hyper-V

Note: Virtual Machine Connection is a tool that you use to connect to a virtual machine so that you can install or interact with the guest operating system.

11. Start the virtual machine to launch the Windows Server 2008 R2 installation procedure. Note: If the installation does not start automatically, you may have specified an incorrect location of the setup media for Windows Server 2008 R2 in the Installation Options page of the New Virtual Machine wizard.

12. Install Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition using default settings. The only special requirement for a valid VM Role image is to allocate the entire virtual hard disk file to a single partition where you install the operating system. To avoid creating a recovery partition during the installation, follow these steps:

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a. Choose the Custom (advanced) installation type to select the partition where you will install Windows. b. Press Shift + F10 to open a command prompt during GUI-mode setup. c. At the command prompt, enter the following commands: Command Prompt
diskpart select disk 0 create partition primary exit

d. Close the command prompt window. e. Install Windows in the newly created partition. For additional installation information, see Appendix B - Installing Windows Server 2008 R2.

Task 2 Preparing the Base Image for Deployment Typically, VM roles are best suited for deploying legacy systems that involve complex installation and configuration procedures or for those applications whose setup you cannot script; otherwise, a web or worker role together with start-up tasks typically provide a simpler solution and the benefit of lower management requirements. For the scope of this lab, because the objective is simply to confirm that you can deploy and start a VM Role image successfully, you will enable the Web Server role in your virtual machine. Note, however, that a web role with full-IIS support provides equivalent functionality and that you would not normally use a VM role for this purpose. In this task, you prepare the image containing a default installation of Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise that you created in the previous task by installing the components required for deployment to Windows Azure. 1. If necessary, in Hyper-V Manager, open a new Virtual Machine Connection window, and sign-in to the virtual machine that you created previously. 2. In the guest operating system, if not already open, start Server Manager from All Programs | Administrative Tools. 3. Select the Roles node and then click Add Roles.

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Figure 11 Adding a new server role

4. In the Server Roles step, select the Web Server (IIS) role in the list and click Next.

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Figure 12 Installing the Web Server role

5. In the Web Server (IIS) step, click Next.

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Figure 13 Web Server (IIS) step

6. In the Role Services step, click Next without selecting any additional components.

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Figure 14 Configuring Web Server role components

7. In the Confimation step, ensure that the Web Server role is included in the list of services and then click Install.

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Figure 15 Confirming the installation selections

8. Wait for the installation to complete and then click Close.

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Figure 16 Successful installation of the Web Server role

9. Next, in Server Manager, select the Features node and then click Add Features.

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Figure 17 Installing additional features

10. In the Features step, expand .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features, select.NET Framework 3.5.1 and then click Next.

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Figure 18 Installing the .NET Framework prerequisite

Note: The VM Role Integration Components require .NET Framework 3.5.1. You will install these components in the next task.

11. In the Confirmation step, click Install.

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Figure 19 Confirming the installation of the .NET Framework features

12. In the Results step, click Close.

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Figure 20 Successful installation of the .NET Framework feature

13. Open the Windows Update control panel from Start | All Programs | Windows Update. 14. In the Windows Update page, select Change Settings.

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Figure 21 Changing Windows Update settings

15. In the Change Settings page, select the option labeled Never check for updates (not recommended) and then click OK.

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Figure 22 Disabling Windows Updates in the VM Role image

16. Next, click Check for updates and install all available updates.

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Figure 23 Installing Windows Updates before deploying the VM Image

Note: If prompted, you may need to reboot and repeat the check for updates in case there are additional updates to install.

Task 3 Installing the Windows Azure VM Role Integration Components In this task, you install the Windows Azure VM Role Integration Components. 1. In the Virtual Machine Connection window, in the Media menu, point to DVD Drive and then select Insert Disk. In the Open dialog, browse to the location of the ISO file for the VM Role Integration Components, wavmroleic.iso, and then click Open.

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Figure 24 Connecting the VM Role Integration Components installation ISO file to the virtual CD/DVD drive

Note: If you have not installed the Windows Azure SDK in your Hyper-V server, you will need to copy the wavmroleic.iso file from another computer were you installed the SDK to the Hyper-V servers hard disk. You will find this file in the iso folder of the Windows Azure SDK installation directory.

2. After you connect the ISO file to the DVD drive of the virtual machine, wait for the AutoPlay dialog to appear and then click Open folder to view files using Windows Explorer.

Figure 25 Browsing the VM Role Integration Components ISO file

Note: If the AutoPlay feature is not enabled, open a Windows Explorer window and browse to the CD/DVD drive. Page | 29

3. In the Windows Explorer window, locate the WaIntegrationComponents-x64.msi (Windows Installer) file and double-click it to start the installation.

Figure 26 Launching the installation of the VM Role Integration Components

4. At the Welcome screen, click Next to proceed.

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Figure 27 Windows Azure VM Role Integration Components Setup Welcome screen

5. In the Operating System Configuration step, enter an Administrator Password, confirm it, and then click Next.

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Figure 28 Configuring the administrator password

6. Click Install to begin the installation of the Integration Components.

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Figure 29 Beginning the installation of the VM Role Integration Components

7. When prompted to install device software, click Install to proceed.

Figure 30 Installing required device drivers

8. Wait for the installation to complete, which should only take a few seconds.

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Figure 31 Monitoring the progress of the installation

9. Click Finish to exit the setup program.

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Figure 32 Successful installation of the VM Role Integration Components

10. Once the installation of the components has finished, you will be prompted to restart the system. Click Yes to continue.

Figure 33 Restarting the system to complete the installation of the integration components

11. Wait for the system to restart and log in to the guest machine once again. 12. Now, inside the VM, open the Start menu, type %windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe and then press Enter to launch the System Preparation Tool. Set the System Cleanup Action to Page | 35

Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE), check the option labeled Generalize, set the Shutdown Options to Shutdown, and then press OK.

Figure 34 Launching the System Preparation Tool

Note: The Sysprep tool (Sysprep.exe) prepares the image by cleaning up various user and machine settings and log files, as well as removing any hardware-dependent information.

13. Wait for the system to completely shutdown. Your image is now ready for deployment.

Task 4 Uploading the Disk Image to Windows Azure In this task, you upload the VHD file to the Management Portal. 1. Open a Windows Azure SDK Command Prompt as an administrator from Start | All Programs | Windows Azure SDK v1.x. 2. To deploy 3. At the command prompt, execute the following command line, where:
<YOUR-SUBSCRIPTION-ID> ID of your Windows Azure subscription that you obtain from the Management Portal Thumbprint of the management certificate that you can generate in Visual Studio and upload to the Management Portal (see Appendix A: Configuring your Windows Azure Management Portal Credentials in Visual Studio) Path to the disk image file, baseimage.vhd, that you built in

<YOUR- CERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT>

<PATH-TO-VHD-FILE>

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Hyper-V <HOSTED-SERVICE-LOCATION> Windows Azure data center location where the hosted service will be deployed (choose from Anywhere Asia, Anywhere Europe, Anywhere US, East Asia, North Central US, North Europe, South Central US, Southeast Asia, West Europe)

Windows Azure Command Prompt

csupload Add-VMImage -Connection "SubscriptionId=<YOUR-SUBSCRIPTION-ID>; CertificateThumbprint=<YOUR-CERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT>" -Description "Base image Windows Server 2008 R2" -LiteralPath "<PATH-TO-VHD-FILE>" -Name baseimage.vhd -Location <HOSTED-SERVICE-LOCATION>

Note: The Connection parameter contains settings required to access and manage your subscription. If you regularly use the csupload tool, you may store this connection string in your local disk using the Set-Connection command and then execute commands without specifying the connection details each time.

4. Press Enter to start execution. 5. In the Windows Azure VHD Verification Tool dialog, click OK to allow the VHD to be mounted. If the AutoPlay dialog appears, close it.

Figure 35 Mounting the VHD for verification

Note: Initially, the tool executes a preparation phase where it mounts the VHD file and verifies it. It then processes the file to create a smaller compressed copy. The file it generates has a .preped extension and it stores it by default in the same folder as the original image file. To Page | 37

change the folder where csupload stores this file, use the TempLocation parameter and then specify the path to the alternate location.

Figure 36 Preparation phase of the csupload tool

6. After the preparation phase completes, the tool creates a new blob to hold the image file and then begins to upload the compressed image to your Windows Azure account.

Figure 37 Uploading phase of the csupload tool Page | 38

Note: Base image files are typically large and, depending on the speed of your Internet connection, may take a significant amount of time to upload.

7. In the Management Portal, select the Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN tab, and then VM Images. Notice that the list includes the baseimage.vhd file that you are currently uploading and that its status is shown as Pending.

Figure 38 Available VM Images including the image currently being uploaded

8. Wait for the upload to complete, which may take several hours, if your connection is not very fast.

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Figure 39 VM image successfully uploaded to Windows Azure

9. Examine the status of the VM role image in the Management Portal and verify that it has now changed to Committed.

Figure 40 Image committed successfully after finishing the upload

Task 5 Creating the Service Model Page | 40

After completing the previous task, you now have a VM image deployed to your Windows Azure account. In this task, you create a service model and configure it to reference this image. 1. Start Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. 2. In Visual Studio, create a new Windows Azure Project. You may choose any language, Visual C# or Visual Basic, because you will only use Visual Studio to create the service model and generate the service package. Set the name of the project to MyVMRole, change the location to the Source folder of the lab, ensure that the option labeled Create directory for solution is checked, and set the solution name to Begin. Click OK to create the project.

Figure 41 Creating a new Windows Azure Project

3. In the New Windows Azure Project dialog, click OK without adding any roles. You will create a Virtual Machine role in the following steps.

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Figure 42 Creating a project to host the Virtual Machine Role

4. Once the solution is created, right-click the Roles folder inside the MyVMRole project, point to Add, and then select New Virtual Machine Role.

Figure 43 Adding a new Virtual Machine Role to the project

Note: Currently, access to VM Role is available through an invite-only beta program. If you enroll in this program, you will receive instructions for enabling the required functionality in the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio; otherwise, you may not see the required menu option. Page | 42

5. In the properties window for the new role, select the Virtual Hard Disk tab. To show the window, expand the Roles node in Solution Explorer and then double-click the VMRole1 role. 6. Before you can choose an image to use for your VM role, you need to configure Visual Studio to access your Windows Azure account. If you have used Visual Studio previously to deploy service packages to Windows Azure, you may already have created the required credentials. For instructions on how to do this, see Appendix A - Configuring your Windows Azure Management Portal Credentials in Visual Studio. 7. Once you configure the credentials, choose them in the drop down list labeled Select or create your Windows Azure account credentials. After you do this, Visual Studio accesses your subscription and retrieves a list of available virtual machine images. 8. Expand the drop down list labeled Select VHD and choose the image named baseimage.vhd, which contains the installation of Window Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition that you uploaded earlier.

Figure 44 Choosing a VHD for your virtual machine role

Note: The drop down lists every VHD that you upload to your subscription.

9. Configure an endpoint to allow external connections to the Web server in the VM Role. To do this, in the role properties window, switch to the Endpoints tab. Click Add Endpoint to create a

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new entry in the endpoints list. Set the name of the endpoint to HttpIn, select Input in the Type column, http as the Protocol and type 80 for both Public Port and Private Port values.

Figure 45 Configuring an external endpoint for the virtual machine role

Note: In this hands-on lab, you enable the Web Server feature in the VM image to provide a simple mechanism to determine when the role starts successfully; hence the need to declare the input endpoint.

10. Next, configure the Remote Desktop connections for your role. To do this, right-click the MyVMRole cloud service project in Solution Explorer and select Publish. In the Deploy Windows Azure project dialog box, click Configure Remote Desktop connections.

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Figure 46 Preparing for deployment

11. In the Remote Desktop Configuration dialog, check the option labeled Enable connections for all roles. 12. Expand the drop down list labeled Create or select a certificate to encrypt the user credentials and select Create. 13. In the Create Certificate dialog, enter a name to identify the certificate, for example, AzureRemote, and then click OK.

Figure 47 Creating a certificate for Remote Desktop connections Page | 45

14. Now, back in the Remote Desktop Configuration dialog, choose the newly created certificate from the drop down list, enter the name of the user that you will use to connect remotely to your rolethis can be any name of your choiceenter a password and confirm it, and leave the account expiration date unchanged.

Figure 48 Configuring Remote Desktop settings

15. Before you close the dialog, click View next to the certificate drop down list. In the Certificate dialog, switch to the Details tab and click Copy to File. Follow the wizard to export the certificate to a file, making sure that you choose the option to export the private key. Save the resulting file to a suitable location in your hard disk. You will need to upload this file to the Management Portal later, once you create a hosted service for your role. 16. Click OK to close the Remote Desktop Configuration dialog. 17. Finally, back in the Deploy Windows Azure project dialog, create a service package to deploy your virtual machine role. To do this, select the option labeled Create Service Package Only, click OK, and then wait until Visual Studio creates it. Once the package is ready, Visual Studio opens a window showing the folder that contains the generated files. Page | 46

Figure 49 Creating a service package in Visual Studio

Task 6 Creating the Hosted Service and Deploying the Package In this task, you create a new hosted service for your Virtual Machine role and then deploy the service package. 1. Return to the browser window showing the Management Portal. 2. Create a hosted service for your virtual machine role. To do this, select the Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN tab followed by Hosted Services, and then click New Hosted Service on the ribbon.

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Figure 50 Creating a hosted service for your virtual machine

3. In the Create a new Hosted Service dialog, enter a Service Name, for example, MyVMRole, and the URL that you wish to assign to the service. Remember that this URL is public, therefore, it needs to be unique and can only contain characters that are valid in a URL. The dialog validates the name as you type it and warns you if the name you choose has already been taken. Pick the region where you want to host the service from the drop down list labeled Choose a region and ensure that it is the same region where you uploaded the VM image in the previous task. Finally, in the Deploy pane, select the option labeled Do not deploy, and then click OK.

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Figure 51 Configuring the hosted service

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4. Upload the certificate used to encrypt the Remote Desktop password to the newly created service. To do this, expand the node for your hosted service to display and select the Certificates node and then click Add Certificate on the ribbon.

Figure 52 Configuring service certificates

5. In the Upload an X.509 Certificate dialog, click Browse and navigate to the location where you stored the certificate for Remote Desktop that you created and exported during the previous task, enter the assigned password, confirm it, and then click Create.

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Uploading the Remote Desktop certificate to the service

6. Once you create the service, select it in the items pane of the Management Portal page, and then click New Production Deployment on the ribbon.

Figure 54 Creating a new deployment for the service

7. In the Create a new Deployment dialog, click Browse Locally next to the Package Location text box and then navigate to the location where Visual Studio generated the service package during the previous task. You should have a Windows Explorer window already open showing the correct location. Choose the service package file with a .cspkg extension and click Open. Repeat the same procedure to choose the Configuration File with a .cscfg extension in the same location. Finally, enter a label to identify your deployment, and click OK.

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Figure 55 Deploying a service package for the Virtual Machine role

8. Once you start the deployment, you can monitor its progress in the Management Portals UI. Observe the various states that the deployment undergoes as the role starts up and initializes.

Figure 56 Viewing the status of the hosted service

9. Wait until the status of the deployment is shown as Ready.

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Figure 57 Hosted service successful start

10. To verify that the role started successfully, open the home page of your VM role in your browser. You can find its URL in the Properties window of your deployment, which corresponds to the web server (port 80) endpoint that you defined while creating the service model.

Figure 58 Accessing the input endpoint of the VM role

11. Verify that you can access the default page in IIS, as shown in the image below.

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Figure 59 Accessing the web server running in the VM role

Exercise 2: Troubleshooting with Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop allows you to connect to a role instance for troubleshooting purposes. In this exercise, you connect to an instance of your VM role and use Powershell to access the service runtime environment.

Task 1 Connecting to a Role Instance with Remote Desktop Page | 54

In this task, you connect to your running role instances using Remote Desktop. 1. Once the roles status changes to Ready, expand the deployment in the center pane to show its instances and select the line labeled VM Instancethere should only be a single instance for the current deployment and then click Connect on the ribbon.

Figure 60 Connecting to a role instance with Remote Desktop

2. Download the Remote Desktop connection file from the Management Portal. Depending on your browser security configuration, the browser may block the download and prompt you for confirmation. If this happens, you may need to allow the download to proceed and then repeat the previous step once the page refreshes. In the File Download dialog, click Open.

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Figure 61 Downloading the Remote Desktop connection file

3. If prompted by a security warning from your browser, click Allow to proceed.

Figure 62 Allowing the remote desktop connection to proceed

4. Click Connect in the Remote Desktop Connection dialog.

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Figure 63 Downloading the Remote Desktop connection file

5. In the Windows Security dialog, enter the credentials that you specified earlier when you configured the Remote Desktop connection for the role, and then click OK.

Figure 64 Entering your Remote Desktop credentials

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6. Wait until the connection is established.

Figure 65 Waiting for the connection to be established

7. Remote Desktop prompts you with a dialog warning that the identity of the remote computer cannot be verified. Click Yes to proceed.

Figure 66 Verifying the identity of the remote computer

8. Once authenticated, the connection is quickly established and a window showing the desktop for the chosen role instance should open. Page | 58

Figure 67 Remote Desktop connected to the virtual machine role instance

Note: If you have trouble connecting with your credentials, you can configure the remote desktop credentials from the Management Portal. To do this, select the role that you want to configure, and then click User Access in the Remote Access section of the ribbon.

Figure 68 Configuring Remote Desktop for a role

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Figure 69 Configuring the Remote Desktop credentials using the Management Portal

9. At this point, you may use the remote desktop connection to explore your virtual machine running in the cloud.

Task 2 Using Powershell to Access the Windows Azure Runtime Environment In this task, you use a Powershell snap-in to stop network traffic to the current role instance. 1. In the Remote Desktop session, open a Powershell console window as an administrator. 2. At the command prompt, type the following command to add a Powershell snap-in to the current session. This snap-in is installed with the integration components and provides access to the Windows Azure runtime environment. Powershell
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime

3. To view all the commands available in the snap-in, enter the following command: C#
Get-Command -module Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime

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Figure 70 Viewing available commands in the service runtime Powershell snap-in

Note: You may view additional information for any of these commands by executing: Get-Help <command-name> where <command-name> is the name of the command.

4. To remove the current role instance from the load balancer rotation and prevent traffic from being forwarded to this instance, type the following command: Powershell
Set-RoleInstanceStatus -Busy

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Figure 71 Stopping network traffic to the current role instance

5. Examine the status of the deployment in the Management Portal and notice that it now shows the status of the hosted service as Busy.

Figure 72 Role instance status showing that it has been removed from the load balancer rotation

6. Close the Powershell window and then examine the status of the role instance at the Management Portal. Notice that after a brief delay, the status returns to Ready and the role is ready once again to receive external traffic. Note: The status of the role instance can also be restored by executing the following command: Set-RoleInstanceStatus -Ready

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Exercise 3: Updating and Servicing a Virtual Machine Role

Servicing and adding new features to a Virtual Machine role are possible without requiring you to upload a complete replacement image to your Windows Azure subscription. Instead, you can deliver updates through differencing disks whose parent is the original base image and which contain all the necessary changes. After preparing a differencing disk, you upload it and associate it with its base image. Once the disk is stored in your subscription, you can update the service configuration to replace the image used by the hosted service with the differencing disk.

Task 1 Creating a Differencing Disk In this task, you update the image running in the Virtual Machine role. For the scope of this lab, the objective is simply to replace the default image in the IIS Welcome page located inside the C:\inetpub\wwwroot folder. 1. Open Hyper-V Manager in the Start menu and connect to your Hyper-V Server. 2. Right click your server name, select New and then Hard Disk. 3. In the New Virtual Hard Disk Wizard, click Next to skip past the welcome screen. 4. In the Choose Disk Type step, select the Differencing disk option and click Next to proceed.

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Figure 73 Creating a differencing disk

5. Now, in the Specify Name and Location step, set the Name of the disk to diffimage.vhd, change the location to a suitable folder in your Hyper-V server, and then click Next.

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Figure 74 Choosing the name and location of the disk

6. In the Configure Disk step, browse to the base image that you previously deployed and choose it as the parent of the new differencing virtual hard disk. Click Next to proceed.

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Figure 75 Configuring the parent image for the differencing disk

7. Click Finish to create the VHD file in your computer.

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Figure 76 Confirming the creation of the differencing virtual hard disk

Once you create the differencing disk, you now configure the virtual machine to use it. 8. In the Hyper-V console, ensure the virtual machine that you set up at the start of the lab is turned off and then right-click its node to select Settings. 9. In the Hardware section on the left pane, select the Hard Drive node under IDE Controller 0. Next, click Browse to select the differencing disk that you just created and then OK to apply the changes.

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Figure 77 Replacing the VHD disk file in the virtual machine with the differencing disk

10. Start the guest operating system. To do this, right-click the virtual machine in the Hyper-V Manager and select Connect to open a Virtual Machine Connection. Then, click the Start button in the windows toolbar. 11. Wait for the virtual machine to boot and then log in using the credentials that you assigned previously, when you initialized the base image and installed the tools.

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Figure 78 Logging in to the virtual machine image

12. Now, in the console window for the VM, from Start | All Programs | Accessories, open Paint as an administrator. 13. In Paint, open the image file shown as part of the welcome page for the default Internet Information Server (IIS) installation, which you will find at C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Welcome.png. 14. Use the Text tool to overlay a caption on this image file. Use any sample phrase, for example, draw the text:Windows Azure VM Role.

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Figure 79 Using the text tool to modify the default welcome page in IIS

Figure 80 Overlaying a caption on the image

15. Save the file. 16. Once again, you need to prepare the differencing disk for deployment. To do this, inside the VM, open the Start menu, type %windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe and then press Enter to launch the System Preparation Tool. Set the System Cleanup Action to Enter System Out-ofBox Experience (OOBE), check Generalize, set the Shutdown Options to Shutdown, and then press OK. Page | 70

17. Wait for the system to completely shutdown. Your differencing image is now ready for deployment to Windows Azure. To deploy this image, you will follow a similar procedure to the one that you used earlier, when you uploaded the base image. 18. Open a Windows Azure SDK Command Prompt as an administrator from Start | All Programs | Windows Azure SDK v1.x. 19. At the command prompt, execute the following command line, where:
<YOUR-SUBSCRIPTION-ID> ID of your Windows Azure subscription that you obtain from the Management Portal Thumbprint of the management certificate that you can generate in Visual Studio and upload to the Management Portal (see Appendix A: Configuring your Windows Azure Management Portal Credentials in Visual Studio) Path to the differencing disk image file, diffimage.vhd, that you built in Hyper-V Windows Azure data center location where the hosted service will be deployed (choose from Anywhere Asia, Anywhere Europe, Anywhere US, East Asia, North Central US, North Europe, South Central US, Southeast Asia, West Europe) Choose the same region used for the base image

<YOUR- CERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT>

<PATH-TO-VHD-FILE>

<HOSTED-SERVICE-LOCATION>

Windows Azure Command Prompt

csupload Add-VMImage -Connection "SubscriptionId=<YOUR-SUBSCRIPTION-ID>; CertificateThumbprint=<YOUR-CERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT>" -Description "Differencing image with updated logo" -LiteralPath "<PATH-TO-VHD-FILE>" -Name diffimage.vhd -Location <HOSTED-SERVICE-LOCATION>

20. Press Enter to start execution.

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Figure 81 Uploading the differencing disk image

21. In the Windows Azure VHD Verification Tool dialog, click OK to allow the VHD to be mounted. If the AutoPlay dialog appears, close it. 22. Wait until the uploading process completes. Because the differencing disk is considerably smaller, this should be significantly faster than uploading the base image. 23. Now, at the command prompt, enter the following command to associate the differencing disk with its base image.
<YOUR-SUBSCRIPTION-ID> ID of your Windows Azure subscription that you obtain from the Management Portal Thumbprint of the management certificate that you can generate in Visual Studio and upload to the Management Portal (see Appendix A: Configuring your Windows Azure Management Portal Credentials in Visual Studio)

<YOUR- CERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT>

Windows Azure Command Prompt

csupload Set-Parent -Connection "SubscriptionId=<YOUR-SUBSCRIPTION-ID>; CertificateThumbprint=<YOUR-CERTIFICATE-THUMBPRINT>" -Child diffimage.vhd Parent baseimage.vhd

24. Now, go back to the Management Portal, select the Hosted Services, Storage Accounts, & CDN tab, and then VM Images. Notice how the portal now shows the differencing disk as a child of the base image. Page | 72

Figure 82 Base image and its differencing disk

Task 2 Updating a Virtual Machine Role OS Image In this task, you update the service model to use the differencing disk and deploy it to Windows Azure to allow the Virtual Machine role to boot from the replacement disk image. Changing the image that a role boots from is easily achieved by updating the OsImage element in the configuration file. You can do this at the Management Portal, without stopping the service. 1. Browse the Windows Azure Platform Management Portal at https://windows.azure.com/ and, if necessary, sign in with your Live ID. 2. At the Management Portal, select the Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN tab and then Hosted Services. 3. Locate the hosted service that you created earlier and select the deployment that contains the base image VHD. Then, click Configure in the Deployments group of the ribbon.

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Figure 83 Updating the configuration of your service deployment

4. In the Configure Deployment dialog, select the option labeled Edit current configuration. Notice that the contents of the Settings text box contain the settings that you defined when you created the service model and built the package in Visual Studio. 5. In the Settings text box, locate the OsImage element and change the value of its href attribute from baseimage.vhd to diffimage.vhd.

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Figure 84 Updating the image used by the virtual machine role

6. Click OK to save the changes and update the role configuration. Notice that the Management Portal changes the status of the deployment to Updating while the changes are applied.

Figure 85 Waiting for the changes to the OS image to take effect

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7. Wait until the host starts again and changes its status back to Ready. Note: This process may take several minutes. Remember that the role now starts from an updated image that was generalized with the System Preparation Tool (Sysprep.exe) and that it needs to boot and prepare the OS for its first time use.

8. Now, navigate to the URL of the service to open the Welcome page in the IIS instance running in the VM role. Notice that it now shows the updated image, which now shows an additional caption, confirming that the role has booted from the differencing disk.

Figure 86 Welcome page in Internet Information Server (IIS) showing the updated image

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Summary
In this hands-on lab, you explored the basic features of Windows Azure Virtual Machine roles and saw how to create custom OS images and prepare them for deployment to the cloud.

Appendix A: Configuring your Windows Azure Management Portal Credentials in Visual Studio
Follow these steps to create the credentials that you can use to access your Windows Azure subscription from Visual Studio. 1. To add a new set of credentials, open an existing Windows Azure project or create a new one. 2. Open a Windows Azure Project Management Authentication dialog. To do this, use one of the following two procedures: a. In Solution Explorer, right-click the Windows Azure project and select Publish. b. In the Deploy Windows Azure project dialog, make sure that the option labeled Deploy your Windows Azure project to Windows Azure is selected, expand the drop down list labeled Credentials, and then select Add.

Figure 87 Configuring Windows Azure account credentials - Option A

Alternatively, Page | 77

c. Add a Virtual Machine Role to the Windows Azure project. To do this, right-click the Roles folder inside the project, point to Add, and then select New Virtual Machine Role. d. In Solution Explorer, double-click the VM Role to open its properties window. e. In the Virtual Hard Disk tab, expand the drop down list labeled Select or create your Windows Azure account credentials, and then choose Add.

Figure 88 Configuring Windows Azure account credentials - Option B

3. In the Windows Azure Project Management Authentication dialog, expand the drop down list below the label Create or select an existing certificate for authentication and choose Create. 4. In the Create Certificate dialog, set the name to AzureMgmt and click OK. 5. Choose the newly created certificate from the drop down list.

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Figure 89 Choosing a certificate for authentication

6. Now, click the link labeled Copy the full path to store the path to the certificate file in the clipboard.

Figure 90 Page | 79

Copying the path of the generated certificate public key file to the clipboard

Note: Visual Studio stores the public key file for the certificate it generates in a temporary folder inside your local data directory.

7. Click OK to dismiss the confirmation message box and then save the path in the clipboard to a safe location. You will need this value shortly, when you upload the certificate to the portal.

Figure 91 Confirmation that the file path was copied to the clipboard successfully

8. Now, in the Windows Azure Project Management Authentication dialog, click the link labeled Windows Azure Portal to open a browser window and navigate to the Management Portal.

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9. At the Management Portal, if you have not already done so, sign in using your Windows Live ID. 10. Select the Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN option, click Management Certificates, and then click Add Certificate on the ribbon.

Figure 92 Adding a new management certificate to your subscription

11. In the Add New Management Certificate dialog, click Browse, change the file name to the path for the public key (.cer) file generated by Visual Studio that you copied earlier to your clipboard, and then click Open. Click Done to upload the certificate to the Management Portal.

Figure 93 Uploading a management certificate

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12. In the Properties pane, make a record of your subscription ID. You will need it in the next step.

Figure 94 Retrieving your subscription ID from the Management Portal

13. Go back to the Windows Azure Project Management Authentication dialog in Visual Studio and paste the value retrieved from the Management Portal into the subscription ID textbox.

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Figure 95 Entering your Windows Azure subscription ID

14. Provide a name to identify your credentials, for example, MyWindowsAzureAccount, and then click OK.

Appendix B: Installing Windows Server 2008 R2

The following procedure briefly describes the steps required to install Windows Server 2008 R2 using default settings. 1. Start the virtual machine to launch the Windows Server 2008 R2 installation procedure. Note: If the installation does not start automatically, you may have specified an incorrect location of the setup media for Windows Server 2008 R2 in the Installation Options page of the New Virtual Machine wizard.

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Figure 96 Installation loading files from the setup media

2. Choose the language to install, the time and currency format, and the default keyboard layout and then choose Next.

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Figure 97 Configuring the language and regional settings

3. Click Install now to begin the installation.

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Figure 98 Starting the installation process

4. Choose the Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise server edition and then click Next.

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Figure 99 Choosing the server edition to install

5. Read and accept the license terms. Then, click Next to proceed.

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Figure 100 Accepting the licensing agreement

6. Choose the Custom (advanced) installation type.

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Figure 101 Choosing an installation type

7. When prompted to choose an installation location, press Shift+F10 to open a command prompt.

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Figure 102 You can open a command prompt by pressing Shift + F10 now

8. At the command prompt, type diskpart and press Enter.

Figure 103 Page | 90

Launching the diskpart tool

9. Now, type list disk and press Enter to enumerate available disksthere should be a single disk only.

Figure 104 Enumerating available disks

10. Next, type select disk 0 and press Enter.

Figure 105 Selecting the current disk

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11. Type create partition primary and then press Enter to create a partition that spans the entire disk.

Figure 106 Creating a primary partition

12. Finally, type exit and then press Enter.

Figure 107 Exiting the diskpart tool

13. Close the command prompt window.

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14. Back in the GUI, click Refresh to update the list of available partitions, choose the newly created partition and then click Next.

Figure 108 Choosing a partition to install the operating system

15. Wait for the installation to complete.

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Figure 109 Windows installation showing the current progress

16. Once the installation completes and the system boots successfully, in the virtual machine, click OK to set up the administrators password and log in for the first time.

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Figure 110 Changing the administrators password

17. Enter a password for the administrator, confirm it, and then press Enter or click the blue button.

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Figure 111 Logging in for the first time

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