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Copying On-premises Virtual Machines to Windows Azure

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System Center 2012 components and other products, features, and roles

This solution helps you apply use a Windows Azure subscription to extend your datacenter and service applications. This solution includes examples that describe how  a typical administrator, with the fictitious name Chris Green, uses System Center 2012.

This solution is intended to serve as a high-level example, not as comprehensive or detailed guidance. You can use the example solution as a guide to posting descriptions of your own solutions that are particular to your business or organization. Then, others can use your solutions to build their own solutions using multiple System Center components.

Scenario description

Chris Green is an administrator at Contoso Enterprises. He is in charge of integrating Windows Azure cloud capacity into the Contoso Enterprises data center. To be successful, he must be able to:

  • Obtain a Windows Azure subscription. 
  • Create and deploy virtual machines in Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), a component of System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1).
  • Connect securely to both VMM and Windows Azure.

By using various System Center 2012 SP1 components and other Microsoft services together and with minimal configuration, you can use: 

  • Virtual Machine Manager to create and store virtual machines
  • Windows Azure to provide an cloud-based extension to your on-premises data center operations
  • App Controller to copy your configured virtual machines from VMM on-premises to Windows Azure

The scenario focuses on administrative tasks and is optimized for an administrator role.

How does this solution fit into your IT strategy?

Windows Azure is an cloud-based application platform that allows you to use Microsoft data centers to host and run applications. Windows Azure provides three core components:

 • Windows Azure Cloud Services provide a Platform as a Service (PaaS) environment.

 • Data management services focus on providing scalable storage (SQL Database, Windows Azure Blob service, Windows Azure Table service, and Windows Azure Queue service) for large-scale requirements.

 • Networking services in Windows Azure is the networking environment of the Windows Azure application platform. Networking services in Windows Azure use Connect service, Traffic Manager, and Virtual Network for high-speed connections and options to connect nodes that consist of several servers.

Windows Azure provides scheduling, resource allocation, device management, and fault tolerance for the nodes in the fabric. It also provides high-level application models for intelligently managing the complete application lifecycle, including deployment, health monitoring, upgrades, and de-activation.

You can use the Windows Azure API that is built on REST, HTTP, and XML to interact with the services that Windows Azure provides. The Windows Azure API also integrates with Microsoft Visual Studio so that it can be used as the integrated development environment (IDE) to develop and publish Windows Azure-hosted applications.

How do you prepare System Center for this solution?

To prepare your environment for this solution, you should review guidance in the System Center 2012 Integration Guide that is hosted on the Microsoft TechNet wiki at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/13188.system-center-2012-integration-guide.aspx. There you can review community information for each System Center component in its role as a programmable platform to be used for the Microsoft Private Cloud Reference Model. It is intended to provide an abstraction layer that guides partners and customers on their decision process for methods to build automated solutions across System Center components and between System Center and other systems.

Once you have the System Center 2012 components and other requirements met, you’re ready to test the solution.

How to accomplish this solution

(Think of this as more than a guide, but rather as a bulletin board for your ideas)

This list assumes that you have installed and have access to System Center 2012 SP1. What you need to do:

  1. Obtain a Windows Azure subscription
    You must already have a Windows Azure subscription for access to resources before you can copy a virtual machine to Windows Azure. For more information about obtaining a Windows Azure subscription, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=277002. 
  2. Create and deploy virtual machines in VMM
    You can’t copy a virtual machine that does not yet exist. You’ll need to have VMM infrastructure resources created; that is, the private  clouds that contain CPUs, memory, storage, and virtual machines to create and deploy virtual machines and services to a private cloud. You can read more about configuring infrastructure resources in VMM at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=277005.
  3. Connect securely to VMM
    For more information about connecting securely to VMM, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=277003.
  4. Connect securely to Windows Azure
    For more information about connecting securely to Window Azure, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=277006.
  5. Copy the virtual machines. The virtual machine must be in a Stored state.
    For more information about copying virtual machines, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=279863.

How can you customize or extend this solution?

(For you to fill in)

  • Extension 1 by Company X1 lets you do Y1
  • Extension 2 by Company X2 lets you do Y2

For more technical scenarios, see the Technical Scenarios page in the System Center TechCenter.