Testing Visual Studio on Azure

A few months ago I wrote about my Dev and Test adventure, where I used the Azure Portal to create my Virtual Machine. Since then, Microsoft has released significant additions to the Azure Resource Manager (ARM). This post is all about provisioning a Visual Studio Virtual Machine to your MSDN Azure Subscription using ARM.

It’s Getting Tight

In my last blog post I shared about how I use a Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine as my development machine. It’s been a month since I made this drastic change, and I must admit that it’s been pretty cool! The Azure Virtual Machine has provided me with more agility in my hectic schedule. I’ve been able to start my day from one machine, move to a different machine and continue from where I left off. I no longer deal with putting my machine to sleep or trying to remember where I was when I left off. When I log off from one machine, I log back in right where I left off.

As I move from project to project, the resource requirements vary, and sometimes I need more resources. Fortunately, we can scale our Virtual Machines up and down through PowerShell and the Azure Portal.

Find The Closest #Azure Data Center

I regularly get asked about how to choose a Microsoft Azure Data Center for optimal deployments. The answer is to pick the Data Center that is nearest to your users. For applications that have a broad user base, it’s favorable to deploy multiple instances of the application and to use Microsoft Azure Traffic Manager to direct users to the closest Data Center. This typically provides the best user experience.

You Could Win* an Aston Martin by Activating Your Windows Azure Benefits!

*No purchase necessary. Open to eligible Visual Studio Professional, Premium or Ultimate with MSDN subscribers as of June 1, 2013.

Ends 11:59 p.m. PT on September 30, 2013. For full official rules including odds, eligibility and prize restrictions see website.

Windows Azure allows you to setup brand new development and testing environments in just a few minutes! 

Using the MSDN Windows Azure subscription, you can spin up Virtual Machines that allow you to test various scenarios.

For example, you could choose from a variety of pre-configured Virtual Machines like Windows Server, SQL Server, SharePoint and BizTalk. With discounts ranging from 25% on Cloud Services to upwards of 33% on BizTalk Enterprise Virtual Machines.

You don’t have to wait after hardware procurement and internal processes to build your environments.
Activate your Windows Azure benefits and create Dev & Test environments that live up to your needs.

Create a Dev & Test Environment in Minutes!

How many times do we have to scramble to assemble a decent
Dev & Test environment?

When I think back to my past lives, I can attest that it’s been a challenging mess. I used to run around to various departments in order to find available machines, software installation disks, licenses and IT resources to help me put everything together.

Taking shortcuts usually meant cutting back on the Dev & Test infrastructure. Consequently, I rarely had environments that mirrored the actual production environment. Products would make their way through development and quality assurance, but I rarely had a clear picture of how it would react to the production environment. Deploying to production usually resulted in being asked to come in on weekends because the outcome was completely unpredictable and that time needed to be scheduled in order to rollback.

Just thinking about all this sends chills down my spine!