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What is Azure Arc VM management?

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Applies to: Azure Local 2311.2 and later

Important

Azure Stack HCI is now part of Azure Local. Learn more.

This article provides a brief overview of the Azure Arc virtual machine (VM) management feature on Azure Local, including benefits, components, and a high-level workflow.

Azure Arc VM management enables IT admins to provision and manage Windows and Linux VMs hosted in an on-premises Azure Local environment. IT admins can use the feature to create, modify, delete, and assign permissions and roles to app owners, thereby enabling self-service VM management.

Administrators can manage Azure Arc VMs on their Azure Local instances by using Azure management tools, including the Azure portal, the Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, and Azure Resource Manager templates. By using Azure Resource Manager templates, you can also automate VM provisioning in a secure cloud environment.

To find answers to frequently asked questions about Azure Arc VM management on Azure Local, see the FAQ.

Benefits of Azure Arc VM management

Although Hyper-V provides capabilities to manage your on-premises VMs, Azure Arc VMs offer many benefits over traditional on-premises tools. These benefits include:

  • Role-based access control (RBAC) via built-in Azure Local roles enhances security by ensuring that only authorized users can perform VM management operations. For more information, see Use role-based access control to manage Azure Local virtual machines.

  • Azure Arc VM management provides the ability to deploy with Resource Manager templates, Bicep, and Terraform.

  • The Azure portal acts as a single pane of glass to manage VMs on Azure Local and Azure VMs. With Azure Arc VM management, you can perform various operations from the Azure portal or the Azure CLI, including:

  • The self-service capabilities of Azure Arc VM management reduce administrative overhead.

Limitations of Azure Arc VM management

Consider the following limitations when you're managing Azure Arc VMs on Azure Local:

  • Taking checkpoints on Azure Arc VMs running on Azure Local by using on-premises tools, such as Windows Admin Center or Hyper-V Manager, will adversely affect the management of these Azure Arc VMs from Azure.
  • Updates to Azure Arc VM configurations, such as vCPU, memory, network interface, or data disk via on-premises tools, won't be reflected on the Azure management plane.
  • Moving a resource group isn't supported for Azure Arc VMs on Azure Local and its associated resources (such as network interfaces and disks).
  • Creation of Azure Arc VMs by using Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 images isn't supported via the Azure portal. You can do it only via the Azure CLI. For more information, see Additional parameters for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 images.

Components of Azure Arc VM management

Azure Arc VM management has several components, including:

  • Azure Arc resource bridge: This lightweight Kubernetes VM connects your on-premises Azure Local instance to the Azure cloud. The Azure Arc resource bridge is created automatically when you deploy Azure Local.

    For more information, see What is Azure Arc resource bridge?.

  • Custom location: Just like the Azure Arc resource bridge, a custom location is created automatically when you deploy Azure Local. You can use this custom location to deploy Azure services. You can also deploy VMs in these user-defined custom locations, to integrate your on-premises setup more closely with Azure.

  • Kubernetes extension for VM operators: The VM operator is the on-premises counterpart of the Azure Resource Manager resource provider. It's a Kubernetes controller that uses custom resources to manage your VMs.

By integrating these components, Azure Arc offers a unified and efficient VM management solution that bridges the gap between on-premises and cloud infrastructures.

Azure Arc VM management workflow

In this release, the Azure Arc VM management workflow is as follows:

  1. During your deployment of Azure Local, one Azure Arc resource bridge is installed per cluster. A custom location is also created.
  2. You assign built-in RBAC roles for Azure Arc VM management.
  3. You create VM resources such as:
    1. Storage paths for VM disks.
    2. VM images, starting with an image in Azure Marketplace, in an Azure Storage account, or in a local share. These images are then used with other VM resources to create VMs.
    3. Logical networks.
    4. VM network interfaces.
  4. You use the VM resources to create VMs.

To troubleshoot problems with your Azure Arc VMs or to learn about known issues and limitations, see Troubleshoot Azure Arc VM management for Azure Local.

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