Automanage

Azure Automanage, which became generally available in Oct. 2022, simplifies the setup of management tasks for Azure VMs and Azure Arc–enabled servers running Windows Server, Linux, and Windows client OSs. Leveraging best practices documented in Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework (a guide to planning, migration, management, and governance of applications in Azure), Automanage applies standard configuration policies to managed nodes and onboards them to several commonly used management services in Azure, reducing IT effort and improving management consistency.

Service Overview

Automanage allows enrollment of VMs and servers via the Azure portal. An Automanage SDK supports Go, Java, JavaScript, and Python to enable Automanage enrollment as part of scripted deployments. Profiles are used to determine which tasks and services are set up, and administrators assign profiles to systems as they are enrolled.

Automanage does not provide a consolidated “single-pane-of-glass” console for the tasks and services it configures. Instead, administrators use the Azure portal to view the activities and results of each of the services that Automanage onboards, using each service’s interface in the Azure portal. Automanage is best leveraged for establishing and maintaining a consistent configuration baseline across a fleet of servers.