Microsoft has announced the general availability of tools that let customers with virtual machines manage them through the Azure Resource Manager rather than through older APIs — and with no VM downtime. The tools had been in preview mode since May 12.
Resource Manager is intended to control all elements of an application, including a VM, storage account, virtual network, web app, database, database server and third-party services. It’s designed to supplement or replace Azure’s so-called classic APIs, said Corey Sanders, Azure’s director of program management, in a video. Though not mandatory, making the switch gains a system administrator the ability to use role-based access control, tagging and templates, which are shortcuts toward building apps, Sanders said.
There is one exception to the no-downtime pledge, Microsoft said. VMs that aren’t part of a virtual network will have to undergo a reboot before they can be controlled from Resource Manager.
Microsoft is not deprecating the existing “classic” APIs, it said in documentation issued in mid-May.
