Microsoft Launched Azure Automanage for virtual machines under the preview and this service that eliminates the need to discover, know how to onboard, and how to configure certain services in Azure that would benefit customers virtual machine.
These services are considered to be Azure best practices services, and help enhance reliability, security, and management for virtual machines.
Example services include Azure Update Management and Azure Backup which is some critical services among the operational services.
After onboarding customers virtual machines to Azure Automanage, each best practice service is configured to its recommended settings based on the policies specific to the environment .
An example might be Azure Backup, where the policy might be to back up the virtual machine once a day and have a retention period of six months.
Azure Automanage also automatically monitors for drift and corrects for it when detected. What this means is if the virtual machine is onboarded to Azure Automanage, tool not only configure it per Azure best practices, but tool will monitor machine to ensure that it continues to comply with those best practices across its entire lifecycle.
If the virtual machine does drift or deviate from those practices (for example, if a service is off boarded), tool will correct it and pull machine back into the desired state.
Best part is automanage doesn’t store/process customer data outside the geography your VMs are located. In the SoutheastAsia region, Automanage does not store/process data outside of SoutheastAsia.
Below are the prerequisites to successfully onboard the Virtual Machine to Azure Automanage
- Supported Windows Server versions and Linux distros
- VMs must be in a supported region (see below)
- User must have correct permissions (see below)
- Automanage currently does not support Sandbox subscriptions
- Automanage currently support Windows 10
- Supported regions
Bellow regions are currently supporting Automanage
- West Europe
- North Europe
- Central US
- East US
- East US 2
- West US
- West US 2
- Canada Central
- West Central US
- South Central US
- Japan East
- UK South
- AU East
- AU Southeast Southeast Asia
In coming days will post a detailed step by step guide about how to configure Azure Automanage will be published
