Moving Azure VM from one Subnet to another

Problem

As I built up my Azure lab I was learning. After a while I have learned quite a bit about how to manage resources on Azure, especially from an IaaS perspective. I love having my lab up on Azure. I get hours through my MSDN subscription and try to keep within those house so size of VMs and what is running at any given time is important to me.

One are that I don't have setup quite as optimally as I would like is my network. I have one Virtual Network and when I created my first subnet I did not allocate enough bits so there are few hosts that can take a spot. So I just created a second subnet (I actually created three). So, not great, but during the process I learned a lot about the Azure Virtual Network stack and it was well worth it.

So, today, I had a need to test something on an un-patched Windows Server 2008 R2 box. I don't tend to keep that server running. I have it in my Azure space but it is marked as 'StoppedDeallocated'. This means it is not taking up any 'billable' resources in Azure. It is there so when you need it you can grab it, but you are not charged for it on an ongoing basis. This is great for labs.

So, I went to launch the VM and it threw up all over the place... can't do it... error... blech.

Get-AzureVM scisrv2 |Start-AzureVM

Seems simple but no. I found a really nifty and quick way to address this. If you Bing around you will find lots of super convoluted ways to create new VMs attach to old disks etc. but this is likely newer... meaning a technique that wasn't available a couple of years ago. I believe this came from a MSDN doc but can't find the reference right now.

Get-AzureVM -Name <VMName> -ServiceName <ServiceName> | Set-AzureSubnet -SubnetNames subnet-2 | Update-AzureVM

Super simple and get's it back up and running. If you have many Azure VMs laying around de-allocated from a subnet, you may find this useful to get them reallocated then launched.

Hyper-V lab corrupt after Windows 10 upgrade?

OK, So I have no idea, yet, if this has anything to do with my upgrade to Windows 10 but the timing is suspicious.

I have a simple lab setup in Hyper-V running on my Windows 8.1 Lenovo w550s. Well it was running 8.1 until yesterday.

My lab consists of three VMs, one DC, one member Server and one client. I have three Virtual switches created, one internal and two external. The external switches are simply there so that I can quickly shift from traffic going through my wired network to traffic going through my wifi. There are surely lots of ways to do this but at the end of the day this is the most logical to me.

 


So, the member server is dual-homed and has one NIC on the Internal Network and one NIC on the external. The DC and the Client only have a single NIC each on the Internal Network. The member server runs RRAS and handles all traffic going in and out of the environment. It acts as a router for the Internal network.

"OK, blah, blah, blah. What is the point Kevin?"

I'm getting there... seriously. So, I was happily running this lab with all the great SDM solutions installed. Life was grand! Then I upgraded to Windows 10.

Now I'm a huge fan of Windows 10. I've been using it for months and I was seriously clicking the little logo in the tray of my new work laptop since July 29th to get the upgrade... it wasn't coming. Finally yesterday it is there! Yeah. Now, I'm not quite as excited as I am for the new Star Wars movie but my geek flag was flying.

The upgrade was smooth, really smooth, and quick. It was really nice. One minor issue, my dual monitor stopped working. I have a DisplayLink Thinkpad mini-doc thingy, it needed a new driver. That was it. I had heard some horror stories but my experience was great.

Then I launched my VMs and some super simple config was changed. I can't say it was the upgrade but I can't think of what could have done it. It didn't take long to diagnose but it could have. It wasn't super logical what happened, but it has to do with the above configuration. I just had to go into Hyper-V, check the Switch. My External Switch was changed to Internal. It just needed to be changed back.

I was showing how to do this in PowerShell and realized another issue. It appears the hyper-v help content, even after running update-help, isn't updating. Once I figure that out, I'll get a video posted of how to address this issue with hyper-v. But to get you started...

PS C:> Get-VMSwitch
PS C:> Set-VMSwitch

A bit more than that but you get the picture. 

Best,
Kevin