Both types have advantages, disadvantages, and prerequisites. These types define how the platform will handle the VM when it turns it on. The terms generalized and specialized are originally Windows terms which migrated in to Azure. Generalized and specializedĪzure offers two main image types, generalized and specialized. Azure also provides advanced management capabilities for images, like global replication and versioning through Azure Compute Gallery (formerly known as Shared Image Gallery). This allows managed images to support reusing the same image for multiple VMs. When you use a managed image to create a VM, the platform makes a copy of the image and uses that to create the VM. You won't be able to modify any OS properties as Azure will just try to turn on the VM and start up using that disk.Īzure images can be made up of multiple OS disks and data disks. You can create VMs from managed disks by attaching the disk to the VM, but you can only use a VHD with one VM. You can either take an existing VHD and create a managed disk from it, or create an empty managed disk from scratch. Difference between managed disks and imagesĪzure allows you to bring a VHD to the platform to use as a Managed Disk or as a source for an image.Īn Azure managed disk is a single VHD. This article will talk through the image decision points and requirements as well as explain key concepts so that you can follow this and be able to create your own custom images to your specification.

Before you bring a custom image to Azure, you need to be aware of the types and options available to you.

This overview covers the basic concepts around imaging and how to successfully build and use Linux images in Azure.

Applies to: ✔️ Linux VMs ✔️ Flexible scale sets ✔️ Uniform scale sets

Centos linux virtual image