If you’re getting started with Azure Local and want a clear, practical path to creating and managing virtual machines (VMs) on‑premises with a cloud‑native experience, this walkthrough is for you. In the companion video, I demo three approaches side‑by‑side—Azure Portal, Azure CLI, and Infrastructure‑as‑Code (IaC) with Bicep—so you can pick the workflow that fits your team and governance model. Azure Local brings Azure’s control plane to your datacenter via Azure Arc, so you can run VMs, containers, and select Azure services with consistent tooling and policy.
Why Azure Local for VMs?
Azure Local extends Azure to customer‑owned environments while keeping a consistent management plane—Azure portal, Azure CLI, ARM/Bicep—and unifies operations with Azure Arc. It’s designed for low‑latency scenarios, regulated workloads, and sovereign/private cloud needs, while still letting you use familiar Azure services (Policy, Defender for Cloud, Monitor, and more) from a single pane of glass.
Key benefits for VM admins include:
- Centralized, RBAC‑driven self‑service VM management via Azure—create, modify, delete VMs and VM resources (disks, logical networks, NICs, images) without hopping between tools.
- Multiple automation paths: Portal, Azure CLI, ARM/Bicep (and Terraform) for repeatable deployments.
What you’ll learn (and what I show in the video)
- Create a VM on Azure Local using the Azure Portal
- Deploy a VM using the Azure CLI
- Automate VM creation with Bicep (IaC)
- Perform basic VM operations and guest management
Chapters (from the video)
- 00:00 Intro
- 01:14 Create VM on Azure Local using the Azure Portal
- 08:42 Manage VMs on Azure Local
- 15:55 Azure Local Docs for VMs
- 19:56 Deploy VM on Azure Local using the Azure CLI
- 23:30 Infrastructure‑as‑Code with Bicep on Azure Local
- 25:53 Outro
Links to learn more
For more detailed information, check out the official documentation:
- Azure Local solution overview
- Azure Local Overview Video
- What is Azure Local VM management?
- Create Azure Local virtual machines enabled by Azure Arc
