Completing your automated VM deployments with the DSC VM extension
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are a great resource for deploying Azure infrastructure, including virtual machines, in a declarative manner. However, using an ARM template to deploy a VM will only get you as far as having a VM deployed and the operating system installed and running. The next step is to get any applications and supporting software installed on those machines. Of course you can RDP to machine and do this manually, but this breaks down quickly if you have lots of machines or need to regularly deploy VM’s.