Change the availability set for a VM using Azure PowerShell

Applies to: ✔️ Windows VMs

The following steps describe how to change the availability set of a VM using Azure PowerShell. A VM can only be added to an availability set when it is created. To change the availability set, you need to delete and then recreate the virtual machine.

This article applies to both Linux and Windows VMs.

This article was last tested on 2/12/2019 using the Azure Cloud Shell and the Az PowerShell module version 1.2.0.

This example does not check to see if the VM is attached to a load balancer. If your VM is attached to a load balancer, you will need to update the script to handle that case. Some extensions may also need to be reinstalled after you finish this process.

Change the availability set

The following script provides an example of gathering the required information, deleting the original VM and then recreating it in a new availability set.

# Set variables
    $resourceGroup = "myResourceGroup"
    $vmName = "myVM"
    $newAvailSetName = "myAvailabilitySet"

# Get the details of the VM to be moved to the Availability Set
    $originalVM = Get-AzVM `
       -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
       -Name $vmName

# Create new availability set if it does not exist
    $availSet = Get-AzAvailabilitySet `
       -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
       -Name $newAvailSetName `
       -ErrorAction Ignore
    if (-Not $availSet) {
    $availSet = New-AzAvailabilitySet `
       -Location $originalVM.Location `
       -Name $newAvailSetName `
       -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
       -PlatformFaultDomainCount 2 `
       -PlatformUpdateDomainCount 2 `
       -Sku Aligned
    }
    
# Remove the original VM
    Remove-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName    

# Create the basic configuration for the replacement VM. 
    $newVM = New-AzVMConfig `
       -VMName $originalVM.Name `
       -VMSize $originalVM.HardwareProfile.VmSize `
       -AvailabilitySetId $availSet.Id
 
# For a Linux VM, change the last parameter from -Windows to -Linux 
    Set-AzVMOSDisk `
       -VM $newVM -CreateOption Attach `
       -ManagedDiskId $originalVM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.ManagedDisk.Id `
       -Name $originalVM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.Name `
       -Windows

# Add Data Disks
    foreach ($disk in $originalVM.StorageProfile.DataDisks) { 
    Add-AzVMDataDisk -VM $newVM `
       -Name $disk.Name `
       -ManagedDiskId $disk.ManagedDisk.Id `
       -Caching $disk.Caching `
       -Lun $disk.Lun `
       -DiskSizeInGB $disk.DiskSizeGB `
       -CreateOption Attach
    }
    
# Add NIC(s) and keep the same NIC as primary; keep the Private IP too, if it exists. 
    foreach ($nic in $originalVM.NetworkProfile.NetworkInterfaces) {	
    if ($nic.Primary -eq "True")
    {
            Add-AzVMNetworkInterface `
               -VM $newVM `
               -Id $nic.Id -Primary
               }
           else
               {
                 Add-AzVMNetworkInterface `
                -VM $newVM `
                 -Id $nic.Id 
                }
      }

# Recreate the VM
    New-AzVM `
       -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
       -Location $originalVM.Location `
       -VM $newVM `
       -DisableBginfoExtension

Next steps

Add additional storage to your VM by adding an additional data disk.