Tutorial: Create and manage a virtual machine scale set with the Azure CLI
Note
This tutorial uses Uniform Orchestration mode. We recommend using Flexible Orchestration for new workloads. For more information, see Orchesration modes for virtual machine scale sets in Azure.
A virtual machine scale set allows you to deploy and manage a set of identical, auto-scaling virtual machines. Throughout the lifecycle of a virtual machine scale set, you may need to run one or more management tasks. In this tutorial you learn how to:
- Create and connect to a virtual machine scale set
- Select and use VM images
- View and use specific VM instance sizes
- Manually scale a scale set
- Perform common scale set management tasks
If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.
Prerequisites
Use the Bash environment in Azure Cloud Shell. For more information, see Azure Cloud Shell Quickstart - Bash.
If you prefer to run CLI reference commands locally, install the Azure CLI. If you're running on Windows or macOS, consider running Azure CLI in a Docker container. For more information, see How to run the Azure CLI in a Docker container.
If you're using a local installation, sign in to the Azure CLI by using the az login command. To finish the authentication process, follow the steps displayed in your terminal. For other sign-in options, see Sign in with the Azure CLI.
When you're prompted, install the Azure CLI extension on first use. For more information about extensions, see Use extensions with the Azure CLI.
Run az version to find the version and dependent libraries that are installed. To upgrade to the latest version, run az upgrade.
- This article requires version 2.0.29 or later of the Azure CLI. If using Azure Cloud Shell, the latest version is already installed.
Create a resource group
An Azure resource group is a logical container into which Azure resources are deployed and managed. A resource group must be created before a virtual machine scale set. Create a resource group with the az group create command. In this example, a resource group named myResourceGroup is created in the eastus region.
az group create --name myResourceGroup --location eastus
The resource group name is specified when you create or modify a scale set throughout this tutorial.
Create a scale set
You create a virtual machine scale set with the az vmss create command. The following example creates a scale set named myScaleSet, and generates SSH keys if they do not exist:
az vmss create \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSet \
--image UbuntuLTS \
--admin-username azureuser \
--generate-ssh-keys
It takes a few minutes to create and configure all the scale set resources and VM instances. To distribute traffic to the individual VM instances, a load balancer is also created.
View the VM instances in a scale set
To view a list of VM instances in a scale set, use az vmss list-instances as follows:
az vmss list-instances \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSet \
--output table
The following example output shows two VM instances in the scale set:
InstanceId LatestModelApplied Location Name ProvisioningState ResourceGroup VmId
------------ -------------------- ---------- ------------ ------------------- --------------- ------------------------------------
1 True eastus myScaleSet_1 Succeeded MYRESOURCEGROUP c059be0c-37a2-497a-b111-41272641533c
3 True eastus myScaleSet_3 Succeeded MYRESOURCEGROUP ec19e7a7-a4cd-4b24-9670-438f4876c1f9
The first column in the output shows an InstanceId. To view additional information about a specific VM instance, add the --instance-id parameter to az vmss get-instance-view. The following example views information about VM instance 1:
az vmss get-instance-view \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSet \
--instance-id 1
List connection information
A public IP address is assigned to the load balancer that routes traffic to the individual VM instances. By default, Network Address Translation (NAT) rules are added to the Azure load balancer that forwards remote connection traffic to each VM on a given port. To connect to the VM instances in a scale set, you create a remote connection to an assigned public IP address and port number.
To list the address and ports to connect to VM instances in a scale set, use az vmss list-instance-connection-info:
az vmss list-instance-connection-info \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSet
The following example output shows the instance name, public IP address of the load balancer, and port number that the NAT rules forward traffic to:
{
"instance 1": "13.92.224.66:50001",
"instance 3": "13.92.224.66:50003"
}
SSH to your first VM instance. Specify your public IP address and port number with the -p parameter, as shown from the preceding command:
ssh azureuser@13.92.224.66 -p 50001
Once logged in to the VM instance, you could perform some manual configuration changes as needed. For now, close the SSH session as normal:
exit
Understand VM instance images
When you created a scale set at the start of the tutorial, a --image of UbuntuLTS was specified for the VM instances. Azure Marketplace includes many images that can be used to create VM instances. To see a list of the most commonly used images, use the az vm image list command.
az vm image list --output table
The following example output shows the most common VM images on Azure. The UrnAlias can be used to specify one of these common images when you create a scale set.
Offer Publisher Sku Urn UrnAlias Version
------------- ---------------------- ------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------- ---------
CentOS OpenLogic 7.3 OpenLogic:CentOS:7.3:latest CentOS latest
CoreOS CoreOS Stable CoreOS:CoreOS:Stable:latest CoreOS latest
Debian credativ 8 credativ:Debian:8:latest Debian latest
openSUSE-Leap SUSE 42.2 SUSE:openSUSE-Leap:42.2:latest openSUSE-Leap latest
RHEL RedHat 7.3 RedHat:RHEL:7.3:latest RHEL latest
SLES SUSE 12-SP2 SUSE:SLES:12-SP2:latest SLES latest
UbuntuServer Canonical 16.04-LTS Canonical:UbuntuServer:16.04-LTS:latest UbuntuLTS latest
WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer 2016-Datacenter MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2016-Datacenter:latest Win2016Datacenter latest
WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer 2012-R2-Datacenter MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2012-R2-Datacenter:latest Win2012R2Datacenter latest
WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer 2012-Datacenter MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2012-Datacenter:latest Win2012Datacenter latest
WindowsServer MicrosoftWindowsServer 2008-R2-SP1 MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2008-R2-SP1:latest Win2008R2SP1 latest
To view a full list, add the --all argument. The image list can also be filtered by --publisher or –-offer. In the following example, the list is filtered for all images with an offer that matches CentOS:
az vm image list --offer CentOS --all --output table
The following condensed output shows some of the CentOS 7.3 images available:
Offer Publisher Sku Urn Version
------- ---------- ---- ---------------------------------- -------------
CentOS OpenLogic 7.3 OpenLogic:CentOS:7.3:7.3.20161221 7.3.20161221
CentOS OpenLogic 7.3 OpenLogic:CentOS:7.3:7.3.20170421 7.3.20170421
CentOS OpenLogic 7.3 OpenLogic:CentOS:7.3:7.3.20170517 7.3.20170517
CentOS OpenLogic 7.3 OpenLogic:CentOS:7.3:7.3.20170612 7.3.20170612
CentOS OpenLogic 7.3 OpenLogic:CentOS:7.3:7.3.20170707 7.3.20170707
CentOS OpenLogic 7.3 OpenLogic:CentOS:7.3:7.3.20170925 7.3.20170925
To deploy a scale set that uses a specific image, use the value in the Urn column. When you specify the image, the image version number can be replaced with latest, which selects the latest version of the distribution. In the following example, the --image argument is used to specify the latest version of a CentOS 7.3 image.
Important
We recommend using the latest image version. Specify 'latest' to use the latest version of an image available at deploy time. Note, even if you use 'latest', the VM image will not automatically update after deploy time even if a new version becomes available.
As it takes a few minutes to create and configure all the scale set resources and VM instances, you don't have to deploy the following scale set:
az vmss create \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSetCentOS \
--image OpenLogic:CentOS:7.3:latest \
--admin-user azureuser \
--generate-ssh-keys
Understand VM instance sizes
A VM instance size, or SKU, determines the amount of compute resources such as CPU, GPU, and memory that are made available to the VM instance. VM instances in a scale set need to be sized appropriately for the expected work load.
VM instance sizes
The following table categorizes common VM sizes into use cases.
| Type | Common sizes | Description |
|---|---|---|
| General purpose | Dsv3, Dv3, DSv2, Dv2, DS, D, Av2, A0-7 | Balanced CPU-to-memory. Ideal for dev / test and small to medium applications and data solutions. |
| Compute optimized | Fs, F | High CPU-to-memory. Good for medium traffic applications, network appliances, and batch processes. |
| Memory optimized | Esv3, Ev3, M, GS, G, DSv2, DS, Dv2, D | High memory-to-core. Great for relational databases, medium to large caches, and in-memory analytics. |
| Storage optimized | Ls | High disk throughput and IO. Ideal for Big Data, SQL, and NoSQL databases. |
| GPU | NV, NC | Specialized VMs targeted for heavy graphic rendering and video editing. |
| High performance | H, A8-11 | Our most powerful CPU VMs with optional high-throughput network interfaces (RDMA). |
Find available VM instance sizes
To see a list of VM instance sizes available in a particular region, use the az vm list-sizes command.
az vm list-sizes --location eastus --output table
The output is similar to the following condensed example, which shows the resources assigned to each VM size:
MaxDataDiskCount MemoryInMb Name NumberOfCores OsDiskSizeInMb ResourceDiskSizeInMb
------------------ ------------ ---------------------- --------------- ---------------- ----------------------
4 3584 Standard_DS1_v2 1 1047552 7168
8 7168 Standard_DS2_v2 2 1047552 14336
[...]
1 768 Standard_A0 1 1047552 20480
2 1792 Standard_A1 1 1047552 71680
[...]
4 2048 Standard_F1 1 1047552 16384
8 4096 Standard_F2 2 1047552 32768
[...]
24 57344 Standard_NV6 6 1047552 38912
48 114688 Standard_NV12 12 1047552 696320
Create a scale set with a specific VM instance size
When you created a scale set at the start of the tutorial, a default VM SKU of Standard_D1_v2 was provided for the VM instances. You can specify a different VM instance size based on the output from az vm list-sizes. The following example would create a scale set with the --vm-sku parameter to specify a VM instance size of Standard_F1. As it takes a few minutes to create and configure all the scale set resources and VM instances, you don't have to deploy the following scale set:
az vmss create \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSetF1Sku \
--image UbuntuLTS \
--vm-sku Standard_F1 \
--admin-user azureuser \
--generate-ssh-keys
Change the capacity of a scale set
When you created a scale set at the start of the tutorial, two VM instances were deployed by default. You can specify the --instance-count parameter with az vmss create to change the number of instances created with a scale set. To increase or decrease the number of VM instances in your existing scale set, you can manually change the capacity. The scale set creates or removes the required number of VM instances, then configures the load balancer to distribute traffic.
To manually increase or decrease the number of VM instances in the scale set, use az vmss scale. The following example sets the number of VM instances in your scale set to 3:
az vmss scale \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSet \
--new-capacity 3
It takes a few minutes to update the capacity of your scale set. To see the number of instances you now have in the scale set, use az vmss show and query on sku.capacity:
az vmss show \
--resource-group myResourceGroup \
--name myScaleSet \
--query [sku.capacity] \
--output table
Common management tasks
You can now create a scale set, list connection information, and connect to VM instances. You learned how you could use a different OS image for your VM instances, select a different VM size, or manually scale the number of instances. As part of day to day management, you may need to stop, start, or restart the VM instances in your scale set.
Stop and deallocate VM instances in a scale set
To stop one or more VM instances in a scale set, use az vmss stop. The --instance-ids parameter allows you to specify one or more VM instances to stop. If you do not specify an instance ID, all VM instances in the scale set are stopped. The following example stops instance 1:
az vmss stop --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myScaleSet --instance-ids 1
Stopped VM instances remain allocated and continue to incur compute charges. If you instead wish the VM instances to be deallocated and only incur storage charges, use az vmss deallocate. The following example stops and deallocates instance 1:
az vmss deallocate --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myScaleSet --instance-ids 1
Start VM instances in a scale set
To start one or more VM instances in a scale set, use az vmss start. The --instance-ids parameter allows you to specify one or more VM instances to start. If you do not specify an instance ID, all VM instances in the scale set are started. The following example starts instance 1:
az vmss start --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myScaleSet --instance-ids 1
Restart VM instances in a scale set
To restart one or more VM instances in a scale set, use az vmss restart. The --instance-ids parameter allows you to specify one or more VM instances to restart. If you do not specify an instance ID, all VM instances in the scale set are restarted. The following example restarts instance 1:
az vmss restart --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myScaleSet --instance-ids 1
Clean up resources
When you delete a resource group, all resources contained within, such as the VM instances, virtual network, and disks, are also deleted. The --no-wait parameter returns control to the prompt without waiting for the operation to complete. The --yes parameter confirms that you wish to delete the resources without an additional prompt to do so.
az group delete --name myResourceGroup --no-wait --yes
Next steps
In this tutorial, you learned how to perform some basic scale set creation and management tasks with the Azure CLI:
- Create and connect to a virtual machine scale set
- Select and use VM images
- View and use specific VM sizes
- Manually scale a scale set
- Perform common scale set management tasks
Advance to the next tutorial to learn about scale set disks.
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