Azure · Virtual machines
Build one machine.Then run many.Keep them available.
Start with a single virtual machine and its resources, then separate hardware risk, spread across zones, and scale a group with demand.
Physical serverCPU · memory · disk · network, racked in an Azure datacenter
You choose the operating systemEndorsed Linux distributions
Contoso's VM estate
One shop. Nine decisions, from the first machine to day-to-day operations.
Availability setsFault + update domains
Availability sets are a separate placement choice, not part of the zonal design shown here.
05
Size the machineCPU, memory, quota
03
Availability zones
04
Scale set - Flexible
01
Build a VMShop instance A
Shop instance BPrepared separately
OS + data disksDurability, capacity, snapshots
07
Recovery Services vaultBackup + restore
08
Monitor + updateSignals, alerts, patches
09
Plan the moveDependencies + destination
Contoso customersConfigured load balancingEach VM has its own disks. Application data resilience is configured separately.
Connections show relationships, not a complete network or deployment blueprint.
Find out who Contoso is
Contoso is the fictional company Microsoft uses across its official documentation and training, so examples stay consistent from one article to the next. It is not a real organization, and no name, value or resource here belongs to one. These lessons follow a small retail part of it.
- Contoso RetailThe online shop these lessons build and run
Go deeper on Microsoft Learn
Each explainer is grounded in official documentation. Open the source for any stop.