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Create a virtual machine in an availability zone using Azure PowerShell

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Applies to: ✔️ Windows VMs

This article details using Azure PowerShell to create an Azure virtual machine running Windows Server 2016 in an Azure availability zone. An availability zone is a physically separate zone in an Azure region. Use availability zones to protect your apps and data from an unlikely failure or loss of an entire datacenter.

To use an availability zone, create your virtual machine in a supported Azure region.

Sign in to Azure

Sign in to your Azure subscription with the Connect-AzAccount command and follow the on-screen directions.

Connect-AzAccount

Check VM SKU availability

The availability of VM sizes, or SKUs, may vary by region and zone. To help you plan for the use of Availability Zones, you can list the available VM SKUs by Azure region and zone. This ability makes sure that you choose an appropriate VM size, and obtain the desired resiliency across zones. For more information on the different VM types and sizes, see VM Sizes overview.

You can view the available VM SKUs with the Get-AzComputeResourceSku command. The following example lists available VM SKUs in the eastus2 region:

Get-AzComputeResourceSku | where {$_.Locations.Contains("eastus2")};

The output is similar to the following condensed example, which shows the Availability Zones in which each VM size is available:

ResourceType                Name  Location      Zones   [...]
------------                ----  --------      -----
virtualMachines  Standard_DS1_v2   eastus2  {1, 2, 3}
virtualMachines  Standard_DS2_v2   eastus2  {1, 2, 3}
[...]
virtualMachines     Standard_F1s   eastus2  {1, 2, 3}
virtualMachines     Standard_F2s   eastus2  {1, 2, 3}
[...]
virtualMachines  Standard_D2s_v3   eastus2  {1, 2, 3}
virtualMachines  Standard_D4s_v3   eastus2  {1, 2, 3}
[...]
virtualMachines   Standard_E2_v3   eastus2  {1, 2, 3}
virtualMachines   Standard_E4_v3   eastus2  {1, 2, 3}

Create resource group

Create an Azure resource group with New-AzResourceGroup. A resource group is a logical container into which Azure resources are deployed and managed. In this example, a resource group named myResourceGroup is created in the eastus2 region.

New-AzResourceGroup -Name myResourceGroup -Location EastUS2

Create networking resources

Create a virtual network, subnet, and a public IP address

These resources are used to provide network connectivity to the virtual machine and connect it to the internet. Create the IP address in an availability zone, 2 in this example. In a later step, you create the VM in the same zone used to create the IP address.

# Create a subnet configuration
$subnetConfig = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name mySubnet -AddressPrefix 192.168.1.0/24

# Create a virtual network
$vnet = New-AzVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Location eastus2 `
    -Name myVNet -AddressPrefix 192.168.0.0/16 -Subnet $subnetConfig

# Create a public IP address in an availability zone and specify a DNS name
$pip = New-AzPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Location eastus2 -Zone 2 `
    -AllocationMethod Static -IdleTimeoutInMinutes 4 -Name "mypublicdns$(Get-Random)" -Sku Standard

Create a network security group and a network security group rule

The network security group secures the virtual machine using inbound and outbound rules. In this case, an inbound rule is created for port 3389, which allows incoming remote desktop connections. We also want to create an inbound rule for port 80, which allows incoming web traffic.

# Create an inbound network security group rule for port 3389 - change -Access to "Allow" if you want to allow RDP access
$nsgRuleRDP = New-AzNetworkSecurityRuleConfig -Name myNetworkSecurityGroupRuleRDP  -Protocol Tcp `
    -Direction Inbound -Priority 1000 -SourceAddressPrefix * -SourcePortRange * -DestinationAddressPrefix * `
    -DestinationPortRange 3389 -Access Deny

# Create an inbound network security group rule for port 80 - - change -Access to "Allow" if you want to allow TCP traffic over port 80
$nsgRuleWeb = New-AzNetworkSecurityRuleConfig -Name myNetworkSecurityGroupRuleWWW  -Protocol Tcp `
    -Direction Inbound -Priority 1001 -SourceAddressPrefix * -SourcePortRange * -DestinationAddressPrefix * `
    -DestinationPortRange 80 -Access Deny

# Create a network security group
$nsg = New-AzNetworkSecurityGroup -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Location eastus2 `
    -Name myNetworkSecurityGroup -SecurityRules $nsgRuleRDP,$nsgRuleWeb

Create a network card for the virtual machine

Create a network card with New-AzNetworkInterface for the virtual machine. The network card connects the virtual machine to a subnet, network security group, and public IP address.

# Create a virtual network card and associate with public IP address and NSG
$nic = New-AzNetworkInterface -Name myNic -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Location eastus2 `
    -SubnetId $vnet.Subnets[0].Id -PublicIpAddressId $pip.Id -NetworkSecurityGroupId $nsg.Id

Create virtual machine

Create a virtual machine configuration. This configuration includes the settings that are used when deploying the virtual machine such as a virtual machine image, size, and authentication configuration. The Standard_DS1_v2 size in this example is supported in availability zones. This configuration also specifies the availability zone you set when creating the IP address. When running this step, you are prompted for credentials. The values that you enter are configured as the user name and password for the virtual machine.

# Define a credential object
$cred = Get-Credential

# Create a virtual machine configuration
$vmConfig = New-AzVMConfig -VMName myVM -VMSize Standard_DS1_v2 -Zone 2 | `
    Set-AzVMOperatingSystem -Windows -ComputerName myVM -Credential $cred | `
    Set-AzVMSourceImage -PublisherName MicrosoftWindowsServer -Offer WindowsServer `
    -Skus 2016-Datacenter -Version latest | Add-AzVMNetworkInterface -Id $nic.Id

Create the virtual machine with New-AzVM.

New-AzVM -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Location eastus2 -VM $vmConfig

Confirm zone for managed disk

You created the VM's IP address resource in the same availability zone as the VM. The managed disk resource for the VM is created in the same availability zone. You can verify this with Get-AzDisk:

Get-AzDisk -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup

The output shows that the managed disk is in the same availability zone as the VM:

ResourceGroupName  : myResourceGroup
AccountType        : PremiumLRS
OwnerId            : /subscriptions/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.
                     Compute/virtualMachines/myVM
ManagedBy          : /subscriptions/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx//resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.
                     Compute/virtualMachines/myVM
Sku                : Microsoft.Azure.Management.Compute.Models.DiskSku
Zones              : {2}
TimeCreated        : 9/7/2017 6:57:26 PM
OsType             : Windows
CreationData       : Microsoft.Azure.Management.Compute.Models.CreationData
DiskSizeGB         : 127
EncryptionSettings :
ProvisioningState  : Succeeded
Id                 : /subscriptions/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.
                     Compute/disks/myVM_OsDisk_1_bd921920bb0a4650becfc2d830000000
Name               : myVM_OsDisk_1_bd921920bb0a4650becfc2d830000000
Type               : Microsoft.Compute/disks
Location           : eastus2
Tags               : {}

Next steps

In this article, you learned how to create a VM in an availability zone. Learn more about availability for Azure VMs.