Installing Windows SQL 2016 Enterprise On The Azure Portal Cloud

Today, we are showing you how to install SQL Server 2016 Enterprise Virtual Machine, using Azure. Cloud Server gives us the ability to host our machine on the same. An Azure-hosted machine's speed and performance will be much better than a hosted server. Also, the internet speed on Azure Servers will be faster.

We are creating this with our Azure subscription; if you don't have an Azure subscription, you can create a free account in just a couple of minutes.

• Login to the Azure portal site, using your subscription Id and password.
  
  
  
  
• Once you login to Azure portal, dashboard will appear on the page.
  
• Now, click new option from Virtual Machines, then select the Server, as shown below.
  
  
  
  
• Choose the VM image from the marketplace here, as mentioned above.
  
  Currently, we are creating Virtual SQL 2016 Server (Using Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter). 
  
  
• On the Hub menu, click New and select Virtual Machines. Select Windows SQL 2016 Enterprise on Windows Server 2012 R2 ( Windows Server will be 2012 and now 2016 has already released, so you can go ahead with this also).
  
  
• On SQL Server 2016 Enterprise page, select a deployment model, verify that Resource Manager is selected. Click Create to create the same.
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  Install MS SQL server 2016 Enterprise Virtual Machine, using MS Windows 2012 R2.
  
  After you select the image, you can use Azure's default settings for most of the configuration and quickly create the Virtual Machine.
  
• A few of the tips are here. On the Basics blade, enter a name for the Virtual Machine. As per Azure policy, the name must be 1-15 characters long and it cannot contain special characters.
  
• The username is assigned, which is going to enter a username and a strong password that will be used to create a local account on the VM. The local account is used to log on to and manage VM.
  
• Select an existing Resource group or type the name for a new one. Type an Azure datacenter location such as the western U.S.
  
• When you are done, click OK to continue to the next section.
  
  
  
  
• Choose a VM size and click select to continue.
  
  
  
  
• On the Settings blade, you can change the storage and the networking options. For a first Virtual Machine, we can generally accept the default settings. If we select a Virtual Machine size that supports it, we can try out Premium Storage by selecting Premium (SSD) under disk type. When we are done with making the changes, click OK.
  
  
• Specify Server settings
  
  
  1. Storage account
  2. Network.
  3. Subnet.
  4. Public IP address.
  5. Network security group.
  6. Monitoring and Availability
     
     
• Click OK to continue.
  
  
  
  
• Specify SQL Server settings
  
  
  1. SQL connectivity.
  2. SQL Port
  3. Storage configuration
  4. Automate patching
  5. Automated backup
  6. Azure Key Vault integration
     
     
• Click OK to continue.
  
  
  
  
• Review your configuration in the summary page and click OK to deploy SQL Server 2016 on Azure VM before proceeding to finish the same.
  
  
  
  
• Click Summary to review your choices. When you're done, click OK.
  
  
  
  
• While Azure creates the Virtual Machine, you can track the progress under Virtual Machines in the hub menu.
  
• Once you click on create button, it will start creating the Server.
  
  
  
  
• It will show the deployment running status at the left corner, so now wait for the completion.
  
• Once installation is done, it will provide a completion message.
  
• Connect to the Virtual Machine and log on.
  
  
  

Thanks.