Azure Thoughts, EAI Challenges

In my previous post I discussed ways to setup a BizTalk Server 2010 R2 CTP Virtual Machine in Azure. The post demonstrates how a VM with the BizTalk Server 2010 R2 is provisioned using CREATE CREATE . However the BizTalk Server 2010 R2 is installed on the VM, but not yet configured! Ergo you have to do that yourself! This is pointed out in Getting started with BizTalk Server 2010 R2 CTP in Windows Azure Virtual Machines post by BizTalk Server Team. However, it explains to do a basic configuration, while I choose to do a custom configuration of the all the features. Note: On first logon, a few start up tasks will be executed. Wait until the SQL Server – Getting Started link is created on desktop. The configuration is the same as for BizTalk Server 2010 setting up SSO, Group, Runtime and so on. Some of the other BizTalk components like adapter pack are not installed on this Virtual Machine either. This explains presence of the BizTalk Server 2010 R2 CTP folder and SQLServ...

Fellow BizTalk MVP Stephen W. Thomas has created two excellent posts on setting up a BizTalk Server 2010 CTP in Azure: Setting Up BizTalk 2010 R2 CTP in an Azure Virtual Machine using the Gallery Running a Windows Azure Virtual Machine Locally with Hyper-V or VMware 8 / VMware 9 In this post I like to share my experience and do a follow up on my post BizTalk IaaS solution: Provisioning Developer Environment . Now I have an Azure subscription through my MSDN account, yet you can setup a trail subscription (see Stephen’s post) or have a paid subscription. Look at the pricing page to see the options for yourself and choose what is best fit in case you do not have an MSDN account. MSDN provides some benefits when it comes to Windows Azure. With any subscription you can log into the portal. You can then on left hand side choose virtual machines. You can then select CREATE A VIRTUAL MACHINE . You will then see a dialog appear as below. You can choose to use QUICK CREATE of...

In my previous post I showed how to provision a Virtual Machine in Windows Azure. The Virtual Machine was used to create a BizTalk 2010 Development environment. Now in this post I would like to go into creating an image of this Virtual Machine and then use it to create a new Virtual Machine. An image is a virtual hard disk (VHD) file that is used as a template for creating a virtual machine. This can be useful when you want to create multiple virtual machines that are set up the same way. Another reason can be to capture the image as you do not want to use it for a while and prevent incurring costs. Capturing a Virtual Machine To capture a Virtual Machine you need to perform a few steps. One is to sysprep the virtual machine. For Window Server 2008 R2, like my BizTalk Development environment, I followed instructions from article " How to Capture an Image of a Virtual Machine Running Windows Server 2008 R2 ". After sysprepping your machine you need to capture it. Sy...

One of the new Windows Azure services is Virtual Machines (see announcements ). Virtual Machines in Window Azure support the ability to deploy and run durable VMs in the cloud. You can easily create these VMs using a new Image Gallery built-into the new Windows Azure Portal, or alternatively upload and run your own custom-built VHD images. Virtual Machines Virtual Machines give you application mobility, allowing you to move your virtual hard disks (VHDs) back and forth between on-premises and the cloud. You can migrate existing workloads such as Microsoft SQL Server or BizTalk Server to the cloud, or bring your own customized Windows Server or Linux images, or select from a gallery. As you see from the screenshot above there are compatible operating systems and images available in the online gallery; Windows Server Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 May 2012  Windows Server 2008 R2 with SQL Server 2012 Evaluation Windows Server 2012 RC Linux: OpenSUSE 12.1 CentOS 6...