Understanding Azure Virtual Machine Disk. Lesson 2.

You are welcome to today's learning on the second part of understanding Azure storage disk. Today we will be concluding this topic on Understanding Azure Virtual Machine Disk and I would appreciate if we could embark on this learning journey together. I will appreciate your comments and contribution on the topic.

We learned in the last edition the functions of Data disk in Azure VM. We also learned the two broad classifications of Azure VM disc which are Managed Disk and Unmanaged Disk.

In this edition of the Tech Merchant Blog, we will be looking at another classification of Azure storage disk before we look at the step-by-step guidelines on how to add data disk and initialise it to make it usable on Azure VM.

Functional Classification of Azure Virtual Machine Disk.

Azure virtual machine disks can be functionally classified based on their roles and purposes within the virtual machine (VM) environment. Here's a functional classification of Azure VM disks:

1. Operating System Disk (OS Disk):

   • Function: Contains the operating system files, boot files, and system files required for the VM to start and run.

   • Role: Facilitates the installation, booting, and initial setup of the VM's operating system.

2. Data Disks:

   • Function: Provide additional storage space for data, applications, databases, and user files used by the VM.

   • Role: Separates data from the OS disk, enabling efficient management, scaling, and backup of application-specific data.

3. Temporary Disk:

   • Function: Offers fast, temporary storage for caching, scratch space, and other transient data.

   • Role: Supports temporary data processing needs and should not be relied upon for persistent storage.

4. Read-Only OS Disk:

   • Function: Enables creating a read-only copy of the OS disk to ensure the integrity of the OS image.

   • Role: Useful for scenarios where you want to prevent accidental modifications to the OS image.

5. Snapshot Disks:

   • Function: Captures a point-in-time image of a disk, including OS and data disks.

   • Role: Used for creating backups, data recovery, testing, and creating new VM instances from a known state.

6. Ultra Disks:

   • Function: High-performance SSD option designed for I/O-intensive workloads.

   • Role: Provides extremely low latency and high throughput for applications demanding top-tier storage performance.

7. Caching:

   • Function: Temporarily stores frequently accessed data for faster retrieval.

   • Role: Improves read performance and reduces latency by serving data from cache instead of slower storage.

8. Data Migration:

   • Function: Facilitates moving data between on-premises environments and Azure.

   • Role: Supports hybrid scenarios where data needs to be migrated to or from the cloud.

9. Custom Image Disks:

   • Function: Captures a VM disk as an image for creating new VM instances with the same configuration.

   • Role: Simplifies deployment and ensures consistency across VM instances.

10. Load Balancing and Scaling:

    • Function: Distributes workloads across multiple VM instances for improved performance and availability.

    • Role: Combined with shared data disks, supports scaling out applications and load balancing.

By understanding the functional roles of each type of Azure VM disk, you can make informed decisions when provisioning and configuring storage for your virtual machines. This allows you to optimize the performance, availability, and management of your cloud-based infrastructure.

Guidelines on How Data Disk Could be Added and Initialized on Azure Virtual Machine.

The step-by-step guideline below should be followed in adding a data disk to an Azure Virtual Machine and initialising the disk to make it functional.

Step 1:

Create a Windows Virtual Machine and connect to it through RDP. The picture below is what your window VM look like after the right configuration has been put in place. You can refer to the third edition of The Tech Merchant blog for guidelines on how to create a Windows virtual machine. Click on the "go to resource" button.

Step 2:

Please take note of this second step and make it a standard practice whenever you are to create your VM. This step has to do with increasing the time of your idle time out from 4 minutes to 30 minutes. Not doing this can lead to your VM timing out every 4 minutes and you need to keep refreshing it which can give you a frustrating experience when working on the VM.

Step 3:

Click the "overview" to go back to the previous page and click on connect.

Step 4:

Scroll down to click on the select button in the native RDP box.

Step 5:

Look out for the local RDP page pop-up on the right. scroll down and to click the "Download RDP File"

Step 6:

Look out for another pop-up and click on "keep".

Step 7:

Click on "Connect" on the Remote Desktop Connection

Step 8:

Input the user name and password and press ok.

Click on "Ok" on the new pop-up.

You have successfully accessed the VM via the RDP path.

Step 9:

Go back to the overview page of the VM in the Azure portal; look out for "disks" and click.

Step 10:

You are now on the disk page. Look out for the Operating system disk (OS Disk) that was earlier configured when we were deploying the VM. We learnt this OS disk in our functional classification of the disk. Check the Data Disk section and click on "Create and attach a new disk" to create a new data disk.

Step 11.

Identify the disk with a number. Name the disk accordingly, and increase the disk size based on the desired capacity. Click on "Save" to create the data disk.

Step 12:

It is time for the created disk to be initialised to make it functional. To do this, you need to go to the Virtual Machine created. On the search bar in the VM, Search for "disk management" and click on "create and format hard disk partition".

Click "ok" on the pop-up box.

On the right-hand side of the Pop-up box scroll down gently till you locate the created disk that needs to be initialised. You can identify the disk by looking out for the disk that is "unallocated".

Right-click on the unallocated disk box

On the pop-up, click on "new simple volume"

Continue to click on "Next" on all the pop-ups and leave everything in the pop-ups to default.

This is the last Pop-up and signifies the last stage in the disk initialisation project. Click on "finish" to end the process.

The created data disk has been initialised and ready for usage.

This will be the end of our learning on Understanding Azure VM Disk. I hope you had an informative learning journey on the topic. Stay tuned for more editions of new informative learning on The Tech Merchant Blog.