Azure has finally released a public preview of a long anticipated feature:

Virtual machine serial console

This is an amazing day for a lot of reasons, the first being we will finally have visibility what happens on the machines before the OS loads! With a few clicks you will also now have access to the console to all of your VM’s. It also provides insight into what is happening on the VM without having to setup firewall rules to RDP or SSH. The burden to troubleshoot a VM for those who may work remotely or have limited access to the environment can now see what’s happening without the song and dance of having to crack a laptop, login, connect to a VPN, then RDP or SSH to the server just to find the RDP or SSH service is crashed or the OS isn’t loading due to a bevy of reasons. Nothing is sweeter than simplifying the process of troubleshooting an issue fast and efficiently with as little effort as possible. As an added bonus, those using Linux or Nano Server, this is going to be a godsend. Now you never have to leave the Azure portal to do just about everything that can be done for a VM!

With the ever increasing set of features Azure is offering for their IaaS and Paas offerings, operations teams are requiring fewer and fewer tools to get the same amount of work done. Microsoft’s public previews have generally always lead to valuable tools making it into production faster and this particular feature is a welcomed addition to an already comprehensive toolkit to manage your VM. Today was one small step for man, one giant leap for VM.

If I missed something or you just want to share your thoughts or something new, comment below! I look forward to hearing from you!