Hi,

Can I do the followings?

Step 1: Create a cloud

Step 2: Create an instance with Win 2008 R2, inside the cloud

Step 3: Configure the instance for remote desktop

Step 4: Install and configure custom web application, IIS, ASP.NET and SQL Server 2008 R2 on the server via remote desktop

Step 5: Access the application via the cloud's URL

Please kindly advise if above is feasible for Azure Cloud Services. For step 2, how can I create an instance without any role?

Thanks for your kind attention.

• Edited by Thom9189 4 hours 42 minutes ago

Hi,

  What you are trying to achieve is not recommended using Cloud services (Web and Worker) roles.
  Firstly Cloud Services Deployments are essentially Roles deployed on a PAAS instance VM, where you do not have much control over the VM infrastructure.
  Secondly Cloud Services VM's are not Persistent, so any customization you make to the OS by Remoting into it will be lost if a Service Healing occurred in background due to Hardware Failures.
 
  What I would suggest in your case, is to use the IAAS VM offered by Azure, where you have Full control over the entire VM, and the VM VHD's are Geo-Replicated by default, so you always have 3 copies of your VHD maintained at different Datacenter Regions.
 
  You can check this blog on a more detailed advantages/disadvantages between Azure IAAS (VM) and PAAS (Cloud Service).
  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hanuk/archive/2013/12/03/which-windows-azure-cloud-architecture-paas-or-iaas.aspx
 
Regards,
Nithin Rathnakar

• Proposed as answer by Nithin.RathnakarMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator 2 hours 50 minutes ago
• Marked as answer by Thom9189 24 minutes ago

Thanks for your helpful advice. Have a great day :)