It's very exciting that users can create Windows/Linux Virtual Machines with Azure. I'd like to know whether the Virtual Machine can support getting instance metadata from Azure storage just like EC2 [0] does?

Thanks.

[0] http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/AESDG-chapter-instancedata.html

I'm not sure what instance metadata do you want to get. But the management API may help: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee460799

Thanks Arwind, what I want is: inside the VM, get information like "instance ip address", "instance dns name" or retrieve a customized script from API.

It seemed I cannot do that now, right?

If you want to get local machine's information, you don't need a REST API. Both Windows and Linux provide native methods to query such information. For example, getaddrinfo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getaddrinfo) can give you the local IP address, and it works on both Windows and Linux.

OK, what if I want retrieve a customized script or store some data in a file, related to this instance, can I do that in Azure?

Hi Xiangjun,

It is not recommended to perform instance specific tasks. All instances of the same role should use the same logic. If you need different logic, you can use multiple roles.

-- All instances of the same role should use the same logic. If you need different logic, you can use multiple roles.

This is not completely true. There can be valid reasons for doing different processing on different instances. For example, Windows Azure Diagnostics does this with any of its instance-specific methods such as on-demand transfers.

• Marked as answer by Arwind - MSFTModerator Monday, July 30, 2012 9:29 AM

Hey, all.
Currently I'm interested in the same question and can't get the answer anywhere. 
AWS and OpenStack does provide this feature in the following way: 

http://docs.openstack.org/user-guide/content/user-data.html
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/AESDG-chapter-instancedata.html

I can't see how I can use VM roles for solving this question.

Thanks for answering.

I'm not sure why this is marked as an answer when it's not particularly relevant to the original question. 

This is very ridiculous answer :( You don't even know what topic starter is asking, and did not even looked on documentation in reference. :( I had the same question, but I see that it wasn't resolved for years. Very disappointing. :( 

• Edited by Vladimir Glafirov 11 hours 3 minutes ago

This is very ridiculous answer :( You don't even know what topic starter is asking, and did not even looked on documentation in reference. :( I had the same question, but I see that it wasn't resolved for years. Very disappointing. :( 

• Edited by Vladimir Glafirov Wednesday, July 01, 2015 8:14 PM