My upcoming series of post will include the steps to build  System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 Lab in the Cloud.

Getting Started in the cloud

1. Sign-up for your FREE Microsoft Azure

Before you getting into Azure portal, you need to activate Free trail subscription  by following the step given the         below link.

      http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/?WT.mc_id=A24158309&CR_CC=200256621

 

2. Login into Azure Management Portal

 Once you activated the Free Trail subscription, Login into http://manage.windowsazure.com/

Azure management portal and you will be taken into Windows Azure Management portal dashboard as like below      screenshot.

3. Create an  Microsoft Azure Affinity Group.

Affinity group is used to group your cloud services together such as Storage, Network & Virtual machines in                  order to provide optimal performance. It will keep all services within the same data center as close to increase              performance.

To Create Affinity Group, Select SETTINGS in the  side navigation bar in the portal. Click ADD and enter the       following details..

4. Create a Microsoft Azure Storage group.

Create Storage group by clicking the +NEW on the bottom tool bar -> DATA SERVICES -> STORAGE

 ->QUICK CREATE. 

URL : Provide unique name.

LOCATION/AFFINITY GROUP :  Select the Affinity group that you have created.

REPLICATION : Leave it as default (Geo-Redundant)

 

LAB 2 : Build-a-windows-server-2012-active-directory-in-the-cloud