Azure 209x – Practical Exercises

Overview
This course includes optional exercises where you can try out the techniques demonstrated in
the course for yourself. This guide lists the steps for the individual exercises.

Setup
If you already have a Microsoft Azure subscription, you can skip this section. Otherwise, follow
these steps to create a free trial subscription. You will need to provide a valid credit card
number for verification, but you will not be charged for Azure services – for more information,
see the frequently asked questions on the Azure sign-up page.

1. If you already have a Microsoft account that has not already been used to sign up for a
free Azure trial subscription, you’re ready to get started. If not, don’t worry, just create
a new Microsoft account.
2. After you’ve created a Microsoft account, create your free Microsoft Azure account.
You’ll need to sign-in with your Microsoft account if you’re not already signed in. Then
you’ll need to:
 Enter your cellphone number and have Microsoft send you a text message to
verify your identity.
 Enter the code you have been sent to verify it.
 Provide valid payment details. This is required for verification purposes only –
your credit card won’t be charged for any services you use during the trial
period, and the account is automatically deactivated at the end of the trial
period unless you explicitly decide to keep it active.
 Step 1 – Create Azure Virtual Machines (VM)

Activate Your Trail Azure subscription

In this exercise, you will activate an Azure trail subscription. If you already have an activate
Azure subscription, please skip this section.

1. Using your browser, enter in https://www.microsoftazurepass.com/ , then press Enter.

2. Select country/region from the drop-down list box, type the voucher code that you
received when you created your Azure account above, then click Submit. If your
country/region is not listed, select United States.
3. On the next page, click Sign in.
4. On the Azure Pass page, sign in with your Microsoft account created in previous task.
 You can choose to use your personal Microsoft account or the one created earlier in
the lab. The Sign-in page might not ask for a password if you still have a tab with
your Microsoft account inbox open.
5. On the Microsoft Azure page, verify your details, and then click Submit.
6. On the Azure Pass page, click Activate. A new tab will open in your browser.
7. On the Sign up page, check your details, type your alternate email address and click Next.
8. Enter your contact phone number data and click Next.
9. Click I agree to the subscription agreement, offer details, and privacy statement, and then
click Sign up.
10. Wait for a few minutes until your Azure subscription has been created.
11. Click Start managing my service, and then verify that a new Azure portal opens. You can
click through the portal to see the available options, but do not make any changes.
12. Leave your browser open.

Create a Windows virtual machine in the Azure Portal

In this exercise you will create a Windows virtual machine in Azure. We use a Windows Server
2016 Datacenter image as an example, but that's just one of the many images Azure offers.
Your image choices depend on your subscription. For example, some desktop images are
available to MSDN subscribers.
 1. If you are not still signed in to the Azure portal from the previous steps, Sign in to
the Azure portal now. https://ms.portal.azure.com/
2. On the hub menu, click New (+) > Compute > Windows Server 2016 Datacenter.
3. On the Windows Server 2016 Datacenter blade, in Select a deployment model, verify
that Resource Manager is selected. Click Create.
4. After you select the image, you can use the default settings and quickly create the
virtual machine.
5. On the Basics blade, enter a Name for the virtual machine. The name must be 1-15
characters long and it cannot contain special characters.
6. Enter a User name, and a strong Password that will be used to create a local account
on the VM. The local account is used to sign in to and manage the VM.
7. Select an existing Resource group or type the name for a new one. (see terminology
in Module 2 for Resource group information)
8. Type an Azure Datacenter Location such as East US. Click Okay.
9. Choose a VM size, and then click Select to continue.
10. On the Settings blade, you can change the storage and network options. For this
exercise, accept the default settings. Review the other options. If you selected a
virtual machine size that supports it, you can try Azure Premium Storage by selecting
Premium (SSD) in Disk type. When you're done making changes, click OK.
11. Click Summary to review your choices. When you see, the Validation passed
message, click OK.
12. Remember the Computer name, User name and, password for the Windows Server
13. While Azure creates the virtual machine, you can track the progress in Virtual
Machines on the hub menu.

Note: If you are familiar with Linux, repeat the steps above starting at step 2 and create a Linux virtual
machine. For help, watch the video How to setup a Linux Server in Azure in the Practical Exercises
panel.

Connect to the Windows Server virtual machine

1. On the hub menu, click Virtual Machines (VM). If you only created one VM you will
automatically see an Overview > Essentials to that running VM.
2. Select the Windows Server virtual machine from the list.
3. On the blade for the virtual machine, click Connect. This creates and downloads a
Remote Desktop Protocol file (.rdp file) that is like a shortcut to connect to your
machine. You will be prompted to open or save the file to your desktop for easy
access. Open this file to connect to your VM.
4. Accept the warning and enter the local admin user name and password.
 a. If you run in to trouble when you try to connect, see Troubleshoot Remote
Desktop connections to a Windows-based Azure Virtual Machine.
5. Don’t do this now but, it is a good idea to stop the VM so you don't incur charges
when you aren't using it. Just click Stop and then click Yes.
6. You can follow the same process for connecting to a Linux VM

Step 2 – Configure and Deploy Operations Management Suite

Sign up for Operations Management Suite

In this exercise, you will create a new OMS Workspace

1. While RDP’ed into the Windows Server, open IE. By default, IE is placed in Enhanced
Security Configuration mode. This means to connect to you OMS workspace in Azure
you will be prompted to Add about 30 new URLs to your IE Trusted Sites. For demo
purposes only, I suggest you turn off Enhanced Security mode in IE.
a. Locate and start the Service Manager.
b. Select Local Server.
c. On the right side of the Server Manager, you will by default find the IE Enhanced
Security Configuration Setting (IEESC). (The default is On)
d. Click on On. The IEESC panel will appear.
e. You have two settings that can be disabled, one only affects the Administrators
and the other all users.
f. Make your selection to Off for Administrators, Users or both. Click Okay
g. Back in the Server Manager, you will see that the setting has not changed at all.
Press F5 to refresh the Server Manager and you will see that it is changed to Off.
2. Restart IE and navigate to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/operations-
management-suite
3. Click Sign In
4. If you are using a brand-new account, you will be prompted to either create a new
Microsoft Operations Management Suite workspace or BACK. Click Create New
Workspace
 5. On the Create New Workspace page, enter a workspace name. It should include 4-63
letters, digits or “-“. An example would be to use the course number and your last
name: Azure209xLASTName.
6. If requested, enter your Name, Phone Number, and Company, and Country.
7. Check I agree to the subscription agreement, offer details and privacy statement.
8. Chick Create.
9. On the Link Azure Subscription page, select Azure Pass or the subscription you want to
use and click LINK.
10. The Operations Management Suite page should now appear. You will configure
Operations Management Suite in the next task.

Configure and deploy Operations Management Suite

In this exercise, you will configure and deploy OMS

1. If you are not on the OMS home page, navigate to https://www.microsoft.com/en-

us/server-cloud/operations-management-suite
2. On the Microsoft Operations Management Suite home page, click Solutions Gallery.
3. Review the available solutions (review this tab often, new solutions are added often),
and then click the house icon on the left side.
4. On the home page, click Settings.
5. Click Connected Sources; Ensure Windows Servers is selected. (Select Linux Servers
when configuring Linux systems)
6. On the Windows desktop, Click the Windows Start button.
7. Type Notepad and hit Enter.
8. Switch back to your browser, and you will see WORKSPACE ID and PRIMARY KEY in the
right pane. Click the copy icon and paste the IDs in Notepad.
9. Save the Notepad file as C:\WorkspaceID.txt in case you need it later.
10. Return to the browser and click Download Windows Agent (64 bit). This will download
MMASetup-AMD64.exe. Click Save and then click Run. Click Yes at the User Account
Control prompt.
11. In the Welcome to the Microsoft Monitoring Agent Setup Wizard, click Next.
12. Read the Microsoft Software License Terms, and then click I Agree.
 13. Accept the default destination folder by clicking Next.
14. Select Connect the agent to Azure Log Analytics (OMS), and then click Next. Notice that
if you were running System Center Operations Manager on premise you can use the
same monitoring agent.
15. On the Azure Log Analytics page, enter the Workspace ID and Workspace Key, click
Next, take the default No updates, click Install, and then click Finish. You should use
Ctrl-v for pasting the strings into the agent setup.
16. Open Control Panel on your computer (Windows key -> select Control Panel), click
System and Security, and then click Microsoft Monitoring Agent.
17. Select the Azure Log Analytics (OMS). Notice the green check mark on Status.
18. Click Ok.
19. Return to the Operations Management Suite website, and then refresh your browser.
20. Click the Connected Sources tab, and then click 1 Windows Computer Connected. It
might take some time for the data to collect. Explore any results that you have.
21. You will now see that you have a connected data source.
22. If you are curious about Log Analytics, we suggest you deploy the OMS agent on your
own local system and gain some insight into your system.

Note: If you wanted to enable the OMS agent on the Windows Server from the
command line:
MMASetup-AMD64.exe /Q:A /R:N /C:"setup.exe /qn
ADD_OPINSIGHTS_WORKSPACE=1 OPINSIGHTS_WORKSPACE_ID=<your workspace id>
OPINSIGHTS_WORKSPACE_KEY=<your workspace key>
AcceptEndUserLicenseAgreement=1"

Step 3 – Estimate your Azure costs

Azure Pricing Calculator - Price and configure Azure features for the following
scenario

In this exercise, you will price and configure an Azure infrastructure estimate by using the
Pricing Calculator for two virtual machines and a storage account with 500 GB of data.
1. From any browser, navigate to the Pricing Calculator at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
us/pricing/calculator/

The pricing for each service in Azure is different. Many Azure services provide Basic, Standard,
and Premium tiers, usually with several price and performance levels in each tier, allowing you
to select an appropriate performance level for your use of the service. As you change the
selections, the pricing estimate is provided on the right side of the page. You can look at each
feature separately or select several resources to estimate multiple features together.

2. Click +Add items

3. Click Compute > Virtual Machines. A message appears saying it has been added. Notice the
many compute options.
4. Click Storage > Storage. A message appears saying it has been added. Notice the various
storage options.
5. Click the X on the top right corner of the calculator. You should see it has added a Virtual
Machine and Storage.
6. On the Virtual Machines tile, set the Region to the one closest to you and set Type to
Windows (other options include Linux). Next, set the Pricing Tier to Standard. Then, check
the drop-down list on instance size and select a A7.
7. Set the storage Region to the same as used in step 6 and, set the TYPE to File.
8. Set Pricing Tier to Basic and, the Data Redundancy to LRS (Local Redundancy Store, GRS is
Geographically Redundant Store)
9. Change the Capacity to 5 TB
10. Increase the number of Virtual Machines to 2. Notice the usage time is defaulted to 744
Hours or 31 days.
11. In the panel on the right labeled you will see Your Estimate monthly cost in the currency of
your choice.
12. If you click Export Estimate, it will export all the data to an Excel spreadsheet.

The pricing calculator can be helpful in estimating your Azure costs for new projects you want
to add or for an entire infrastructure design.

We suggest you try a few different configurations to see the options and how they are priced.
 View billing in the Azure portal
An important component of using Azure is being able to view your billing information. If you
have an account that allows you a certain amount of credit, it’s nice to know how much you
have left and to view where the costs are accumulating. To see your current usage;
1. Click the Billing tile in the Dashboard of the Azure portal. (Bottom Left)
2. Select the Subscription you want to examine. The Subscriptions blade is displayed.
3. On the bottom of that blade is a tile showing the amount left before you hit the cap,
what the starting credit was, and the burn rate.
Underneath this graphic is the cost by resource. This account is taken up by the small web app
that is running, but if there are VMs, storage accounts, and so on, the total cost of each
resource would be displayed here. If you click the graphic, it will show the resource costs by
resource in a new blade. The ability to view the billing information on a regular basis is helpful
when managing the costs for your Azure subscription.

Deploying Windows Server 2016 Nano Server in Azure

In this exercise, you will create a Windows Nano virtual machine in Azure.

1. If you are not still signed in to the Azure portal from the previous steps, Sign in to
the Azure portal now. https://ms.portal.azure.com/
2. On the hub menu, click New (+) > Compute > See all
3. Select Windows Server. A scroll list of Windows Server is displayed on the right side
of the portal.
4. Scroll down and select Windows Server 2016 – Nano Server, then click Create.
5. Complete the Basics Configuration steps in Step 1.
6. The Resource group is the existing group created earlier. Click OK.
7. Select a machine size of your liking.
8. In step 3 Configure optional features be sure to configure the Network Security
Group to allow PowerShell Remoting.
9. Click on the Network Security Group (firewall) blade.
10. Select Create New.
 11. Click Add an inbound rule.
12. Name the new firewall rule. For example, WinRM-https.
13. Priority enter 1001.
14. Accept the default for Source, i.e., Any.
15. Service select WinRM.
16. Protocol select TCP.
17. Port range should be defaulted to 5986, and Action Allow.
18. Click OK, Click OK, Click OK.
19. You should see a message that the Validation passes in the Summary panel. Click
Okay.

In the Azure dashboard, you will see the Nano Server being deployed. Once it is up and running
you will see the Overview > Essentials details of the new server. You can connect to the Nano
server using the public IP address and PowerShell remoting. Note: PowerShell Remoting must
be setup on the machine you are using to connect to the Nano server. Also, you will need to
add the Nano Server to your trusted host group.

You can now connect to your Nano Server running in Azure. Watch this video “Nano Server and
Azure PowerShell” for a look at some of PowerShell’s new features running on Nano Server in
Azure. Here

This is the end of this courses labs. Don’t forget to Stop your Azure virtual machines.