Deploying multi-tier line of business (LOB) applications as virtual machines in Azure is a combination of:

• What you already know, which is how to configure the servers and the overall application in your local datacenter.

• What you might not already know, which is how to adapt and design the application for the networking, storage, and compute elements of Azure infrastructure services.

To help with what you might not already know, you can step through a design methodology that incorporates the following:

1. Resource groups
2. Connectivity
3. Storage
4. Identity
5. Security
6. Virtual machines

To understand this design methodology and use it for your own LOB application, see the Design and Build an LOB application in Azure IaaS video and slide deck of the November 2016 webinar for the Cloud Adoption Advisory Board (CAAB).

The webinar video has the following sections:

• Definitions and assumptions (starts at 3:12)
• Design process (starts at 8:05)
• Design example (starts at 38:50)
• Build with Azure PowerShell (starts at 50:30)

The result of the design process, which incorporates Azure Patterns and Practices recommendations and best practices, is a table of virtual machines and their Azure infrastructure-specific settings. Here is an example:

After you have determined the table entries, it’s much easier to build out the elements and get all the Azure infrastructure settings correct. For example, here is how you might use the table and a PowerShell command block to create a virtual network and its subnets:

Additionally, here is how you might use the table and a PowerShell command block to create a virtual machine:

The slide deck has the following appendices that were not covered in the webinar:

• PowerShell command blocks  Each slide is a fill-in-the-blanks set of Azure PowerShell commands to build an element of Azure infrastructure services.
• Design your naming conventions  Tips for determining how to name your Azure infrastructure elements.

Use this design methodology for accelerated and successful deployments of LOB applications hosted in Azure infrastructure services.