How to create a virtual machine scale set using the UKCloud Azure Stack Hub portal

Overview

Virtual machine scale sets (VMSS) in Azure Stack Hub are a compute resource that you can use to deploy and manage identical VMs. All virtual machine instances in a scale set are configured in the same way and do not require any provisioning beforehand.

Prerequisites

To complete the steps in this article, you must have appropriate access to a subscription in the Azure Stack Hub portal.

Creating a new virtual machine scale set

  1. Log in to the Azure Stack Hub portal.

    For more detailed instructions, see the Getting Started Guide for UKCloud for Microsoft Azure.

  2. In the favourites panel, select Create a resource.

    New option in favourites panel

  3. In the New blade, search for 'Virtual machine scale set' and then select it from the search results.

    Searching for scale set

  4. In the Virtual machine scale set blade select Create.

    Create scale set button

  5. On the Create virtual machine scale set blade, enter the following information:

    • Virtual machine scale set name - The name of the virtual machine scale set.

    • Operating system disk image – The operating system disk image for the virtual machines in the scale set.

    • Subscription - This is your UKCloud for Microsoft Azure subscription.

    • Resource group - Select an existing resource group, or create a new one by typing a name for your new resource group.

    • Location - This will be frn00006, which is the Azure Stack Hub region.

    • Username – Admin username for the virtual machines.

    • Password – Admin password for the virtual machines.

    • Instance count – The number of virtual machines in the scale set (0 - 100).

    • Instance size – The size of each virtual machine in the scale set.

    • Use managed disks – Managed disks is a feature that simplifies disk management for Azure IaaS virtual machines by handling storage account management for you. For more information, see Managed Disks overview.

    • Choose load balancing options - Select between Load balancer or None. If None is selected, then the Public IP address name and Domain name label fields will be hidden.

    • Public IP address name – The name of the public IP address for the load balancer in front of the scale sets.

    • Public IP allocation method – Select between Dynamic or Static IP addresses.

    • Domain name label – Domain name label for the load balancer in front of the scale set.

    • Virtual network – This is the virtual network you would like the scale set to be connected to.

    • Subnet – This is a subnet within the selected virtual network.

    • NIC network security group - The network security group contains security rules that allow or deny inbound network traffic to, or outbound network traffic from, the virtual machines in the scale set.

    • Public inbound ports - Allow traffic on a subset of common inbound ports.

    Create scale set

  6. When you are done, click Create.

  7. You can monitor the progress of your scale set's deployment by clicking the Notifications icon.

    Deployment in progress notification

  8. When the deployment is finished, the notification will change to Deployment succeeded.

    Deployment complete

  9. After the scale set has deployed, you can view it by clicking All Services in the favourites panel, then select Virtual machine scale sets from the compute section.

    All resources menu

  10. Select your scale set from the list.

    All resources list

  11. In the blade for your scale set, you can view and monitor the scale set, change its settings and perform diagnostics and troubleshooting.

    Scale set overview

Modifying the instance count of your scale set

Note

Auto-scaling is currently unsupported on Azure Stack Hub.

  1. In the blade for the scale set, select Scaling under Settings.

    Scale set scaling button

  2. Increase or decrease the number of instances using the slide bar, then click Save to commit the change.

    Scaling slide bar

  3. A prompt will notify you once the configuration has been updated.

    Instance count updated notification

  4. In the blade for the scale set, select Instances under Settings.

    Scale set instances button

  5. Depending on how you modified the instance count, there will either be new instances in the Creating state, or existing ones in the Deleting state.

    Scale set instances updating

Feedback

If you find a problem with this article, click Improve this Doc to make the change yourself or raise an issue in GitHub. If you have an idea for how we could improve any of our services, send an email to feedback@ukcloud.com.