Intro

How to create an Azure custom image

Documentation

• Prepare a Windows VHD or VHDX to upload to Azure - Lots of good stuff here on sysprep, disabling Windows updates, minimum network services that need to be running, etc

• How to create a virtual machine using your own image

• Prepare and customize a master VHD image

• Create a managed image of a generalized VM in Azure

• Test a virtual machine image

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Tips and Tidbits

• One managed image supports up to 20 simultaneous deployments.

  • Attempting to create more than 20 VMs concurrently, from the same managed image, may result in provisioning timeouts due to the storage performance limitations of a single VHD.

  • To create more than 20 VMs concurrently, use a Shared Image Galleries image configured with 1 replica for every 20 concurrent VM deployments.

• After you have generalized the virtual machine, you can create an image.

  • The image will include all the disks associated with the virtual machine.

  • You can create an image from the generalized virtual machine by using the Azure portal, the Azure CLI, or PowerShell.

• A specialized virtual image is a copy of a live virtual machine after it has reached a specific state.

  • For example, a specialized image might contain a copy of the configured operating system, software, user accounts, databases, connection information, and other data for your system.

  • If you use a specialized image to create a new virtual machine, the new virtual machine will retain all of the data from the image.

  • That data includes the host name, user accounts, and other settings.

• The Certification Test Tool for Azure Certified runs on a local Windows machine but tests an Azure-based Windows or Linux VM.

  • It certifies that your user VM image can be used with Microsoft Azure and that the guidance and requirements around preparing your VHD have been me