Install Active Directory in Windows Azure in four simple steps

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Introduction:

There is a very long and complex way to install Active Directory in Windows Azure environment described in details in Windows Azure documentation here https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/networking/active-directory-forest/, what I will propose in this post is a simple way to install Active Directory in a new Windows Azure without the need to go through all steps listed in Microsoft Windows Azure documentations that include creation of the virtual machine for Domain Controller using PowerShell.

Install Steps:

Installation steps are simple as follows:

1. Create a storage account that is in the same region as the affinity group, more details about how to create a storage in Windows Azure can be found here https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/storage/how-to-create-a-storage-account/.

2. Create a new Network associated with the storage account created in step-1, create a Network subnet (for example 172.16.0.0/24), and select DNS to be same Network VLAN IP Address end with “.4” (follow the same example 172.16.0.4), more details about how to create a virtual network in Windows Azure can be found here https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/networking/create-a-virtual-network/.

3. Create the first virtual machine and associate it with the storage account and network created in steps-1 & step-2, this virtual machine automatically will take IP Address from network VLAN end with “.4” (follow the same example 172.16.0.4), more details about how to create a virtual machine in Windows Azure can be found here https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/tutorials/virtual-machine-from-gallery/.

4. Install Active Directory (Including DNS Service) on the first created virtual machine in step-3.

Now your Windows Azure environment is ready with Active Directory and all new virtual machines that will be created later will automatically point to the IP Address of the Active Directory Domain Controller IP Address as their primary DNS server in network cards.

Conclusion:

As a conclusion, you have the long professional way to install Active Directory, and in this post, you get how to install Active Directory in your new Windows Azure environment with simple way and very fast.

Hope that this will accelerate building your new Windows Azure environment in less than an hour.