I’m in the process of moving some my lab environments that I use for teaching SQL Server classes to Azure. I’m pretty new to the Azure infrastructure world but I thought I could share some of my lessons learned in doing this. My first post will walk you through moving an existing Hyper-V virtual machine image to be hosted in Azure.

Limitations

Before you start this process here’s a couple things to be aware of:

• Virtual Machines in Azure must be .vhd files.  They cannot be .vhdx or other platforms. There are easy ways to convert to .vhd though.

  Supposedly the Add-AzureVHD command will automatically convert .vhdx files to traditional .vhd files however  when I attempted this it did not work, and produced the following error:

  Add-AzureVHD : ‘C:\VM\Virtual Hard disks\MyVM.vhdx’ is not a valid VHD file.

  No problem though. With a quick Windows PowerShell command I converted my .vhdx file to a .vhd file type.

  PS C:\>Convert-VHD –Path “C:\VM\Virtual Hard Disks\MyVM.vhdx” –DestinationPath “C:\VM\Virtual Hard Disks\MyNewVM.vhd”

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• You should also be aware that there are limits to the size of the VM that you can attach. I went through the process I’m about to describe to you only to find out that at my .vhd was too large.  The maximum supported OS disk size is 128 GB.  Any larger and you will see an error like the screen shot below. Notice this is just the OS disk size so that tells you that other disks that are larger can be attached later. Use this post to guide you through shrinking your virtual disk size Reducing the Disk Size of a Hyper-V Virtual Machine.
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Uploading Your VM

These first set of steps will walk you through uploading an existing Hyper-V VHD into Azure.

• If you haven’t already download and Install the Windows Azure PowerShell module http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=320376&clcid=0×409
• Launch Windows Azure PowerShell
• Before you start using the Windows Azure PowerShell cmdlets, you need to configure connectivity between your machine and Windows Azure. One way to do this is by downloading the PublishSettings file from Windows Azure and importing it. Using the PowerShell prompt enter the following commands:
  • Get-AzurePublishSettingsFile
  • Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile “C:\Subscription-6-5-2014-credentials.publishsettings”
• Next setup source and destination parameters for your .vhd file.  Using the PowerShell prompt enter the following commands:
  • $sourceVHD = “C:\VM\Virtual Hard Disks\MyNewVM.vhd”
  • $destinationVHD =  “https://yourcontainer.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/MyNewVM.vhd”
• Using these parameters us the Add-AzureVHD cmdlet to upload your .vhd to an Azure blob storage container.  You can also specify the number of threads you would like to use for the upload.
  • Add-AzureVHD –LocalFilePath $sourceVHD –Destination $destinationVHD –NumberOfUploaderThreads 3

Map the VHD to an Azure Virtual Machine Disk

• Once the upload completes login to your Azure portal. https://manage.windowsazure.com
• Click on the Virtual Machines page and then select Disks and then Create on the bottom of the screen.
• Provide a Name and then click browse to find the VHD URL that you uploaded in the previous steps.
• You should also Check the box indicating that The VHD contains an operating system.  Then select the appropriate OS from the Operating System Family property. Click OK.

Creating the Azure VM

With this complete you can now create an Azure Virtual Machine from you .vhd you upload from your local machine.

• Click on the Virtual Machine page again and click New in the bottom of the screen.
• Select From Gallery.

• Click on My Disks and you will find the .vhd uploaded and assigned as a Virtual Machine disk.
• Select your machine then click the arrow in the bottom right to continue.

• Provide a name in the Virtual Machine Name property and select the resource plan you would like this virtual machine to use.
• Click the arrow in the bottom right to continue.

• Configure the DNS name for the virtual machine and which virtual group you would like to join it to then click the arrow in the bottom right to continue.

• Optionally you could add third-party additional extensions to the VM. Click the check to confirm your configuration of the new VM.

Your VM will be provisioned and should be available immediately once these steps are complete.  Keep in mind a lot of these steps that I did through the management portal could certainly be done using PowerShell as well.