Azure Virtual Machines

Azure Virtual Machines

Deploy and manage azure virtual machines infrastructure as part of your cloud-native environment.

TL;DR Checklist

• Enable monitoring and logging
• Configure security and access controls
• Set up automated backups
• Enable high availability
• Implement disaster recovery
• Document configuration
• Test failover procedures
• Set up alerting

When to Use

Use azure virtual machines when:

• Running cloud infrastructure workloads
• Requiring managed services from the platform
• Needing automatic scaling and high availability
• Integrating with other cloud services
• Building cloud-native applications

When NOT to Use

Avoid azure virtual machines when:

• Self-managed alternatives better suit your requirements
• Cost optimization strongly favors different solutions
• Specific vendor lock-in concerns exist
• Custom implementations provide better control

Purpose and Use Cases

Primary Purpose: Provide cloud infrastructure for modern application deployments.

Common Use Cases:

1. Production Deployments — Running enterprise workloads
2. Development Environments — Quick provisioning for testing
3. Disaster Recovery — Backup and failover infrastructure
4. Scaling Applications — Auto-scaling for varying loads
5. Data Processing — Batch and stream processing jobs

Architecture Design Patterns

Pattern 1: High Availability Configuration

# Reference: Configure for high availability
# - Enable redundancy across availability zones
# - Set up automatic failover
# - Configure load balancing
# - Enable automated backups

Pattern 2: Security Hardening

# Reference: Implement security best practices
# - Enable encryption at rest and in transit
# - Configure network security controls
# - Implement identity and access management
# - Enable audit logging

Integration Approaches

1. Integration with Monitoring

Enable comprehensive observability:

• Real-time metrics collection
• Log aggregation and analysis
• Performance monitoring
• Alert configuration

2. Integration with Security

Implement defense-in-depth:

• Identity and access management
• Encryption at rest and in transit
• Network security controls
• Compliance monitoring

3. Integration with Other Services

Connect with platform services:

• Load balancing and traffic management
• Database services
• Storage solutions
• Container orchestration

Common Pitfalls

❌ Pitfall 1: Missing Monitoring

Problem: No visibility into resource health and performance.

Solution:

• Enable comprehensive monitoring
• Set up log aggregation
• Configure alerting rules
• Review metrics regularly

❌ Pitfall 2: Inadequate Security

Problem: Resources exposed to unauthorized access.

Solution:

• Enforce identity and access management
• Enable encryption
• Configure network security groups
• Conduct security audits

❌ Pitfall 3: No Backup Strategy

Problem: Data loss with no recovery option.

Solution:

• Enable automated backups
• Test restore procedures
• Store backups in separate regions
• Document recovery processes

❌ Pitfall 4: Single Point of Failure

Problem: Service outage from single resource failure.

Solution:

• Enable high availability features
• Distribute across availability zones
• Implement automatic failover
• Design for graceful degradation

Best Practices Summary

Related Skills

Core Workflow

1. Assess Requirements — Understand the use case, scale, integration needs, and existing infrastructure. Checkpoint: Document requirements, constraints, and success criteria.

2. Design Architecture — Plan component interactions, data flow, and deployment strategy using cloud-native best practices. Checkpoint: Verify the architecture addresses all requirements and follows CNCF conventions.

3. Implement & Configure — Create manifests, configurations, and deployment scripts. Include resource limits, health checks, and observability hooks. Checkpoint: Validate all YAML against schema and test in a staging environment.

4. Deploy & Monitor — Apply manifests to the cluster, verify component health, and confirm observability is working. Checkpoint: Confirm all pods/services are running, probes passing, and metrics/alerts configured.

Constraints

MUST DO

• Include at least one complete working YAML manifest example
• Note when content is auto-generated vs. manually verified
• Reference relevant CNCF project documentation

MUST NOT DO

• Deploy manifests without testing in a staging environment first
• Use deprecated API versions (e.g., apps/v1beta1)
• Omit resource limits and requests in Kubernetes manifests

Live References

Authoritative documentation links for this skill's domain. The model follows markdown links at load time to resolve external references and inline content.

• Primary Documentation
• API Reference or Getting Started
• Configuration Guide
• Best Practices
• Common Patterns or Tutorials