Rick Claus wrote:
... I figured I would make a new Windows Server 2019 CORE image (default deployment option) instead of a full desktop. I always found it strange you didn't have an option to deploy a Core server deployment of Windows Server from Azure Marketplace.
Time to fix that.
Shout out to ALL the MVPs (and other friends) who pointed out my statement about "Core images not being available in Azure Marketplace" being incorrect and keeping me honest. I was working on old info from my days in the Azure Compute group where i worked next to the team who built and published images for Windows Server. I thought it would be a good subtext storyline starting the blog post instead of just a click-walk-through on the actual meat of the article with is about making a Custom Image and bringing it to Azure.
Brings up a good discussion point: Why SHOULD you use an image in Marketplace over a Custom image.
- Marketplace images of Windows Server are refreshed / updated on a monthly basis and are rolled out in stages through our private canary regions before scaling out to public azure in a phased approach. Why? We can catch bad images before widespread use!
- All the Azure bits and magic sauce configurations are already in place - you don't need to tweak them for optimal performance and security
- You can pay for the license as you need OR you could save money with running your own licenses from on-prem, provided you have Hybrid Use Rights (I-am-not-a-licensing-specialist-check-with-your-local-expert🤣). That's the checkbox at the end of deploy (via portal) or a setting you can programmatically throw based on your automation tool of choice.
and when would it make MORE sense to use Custom image
- Specific additional software or custom settings you want to bake in as a starting point because its very complex and cant be automated in your timeframe OR its so old it can't be automated at deploy time.
- Custom images can be used as a stop gap measure to get projects up and running quickly for a project while you figure out the automated configuration at deploytime to a vanilla marketplace image.
- Speed of Deploy is critical, for scale like a VM ScaleSet for a project, where the configurations are baked in and can be provisioned quickly instead of waiting on post deployment configuration scripts running from DSC, PowerShell, Cloud.init etc
So SHOUT OUT to Drew_kk , Niklas Akerlund, janakarangama here and MANY MORE on the socials who raised the question "why NOT use a pre-made image, since CORE is available".
Microsoft