the virtual machine. This helps me check whether my son is playing when he should
be doing his homework. Notice that you have full console access to this virtual
machine and can do anything you want within the capabilities of Microsoft Azure
IaaS.
Figure 12.5 A connection to my Minecraft server running in Microsoft Azure
It should be noted that the Microsoft Azure IaaS virtual machine is not the same as
the previously available VM role that was part of PaaS; that was a stateless virtual
machine that had no persistent state. The Microsoft Azure IaaS virtual machine is a
fully persistent solution.
Let’s look at the capabilities of Microsoft Azure IaaS in more detail, starting with the
list of supported operating systems. Microsoft Azure IaaS supports only 64-bit
operating systems, specifically these:
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2016
A number of Linux distributions, which is constantly expanding but includes
Oracle Linux, openSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(RHEL), Ubuntu Server, and OpenLogic (CentOS). The full list can be found at
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-
linux-endorsed-distros/.One easy way to check supported operating systems is to look at the templates
provided in Microsoft Azure itself through its Marketplace. However, just because an
image is not provided in the Marketplace does not mean that it is not supported in
Azure. Figure 12.6 shows the Marketplace search results screen that you see when