This procedure use Azure Logic Apps to stop/start VMs on Azure using any schedule. This is an alternative instead of Azure Automation. Also you can use this method for Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD).
- Open Azure Portal, click + Create a Resource , type Logic App and press ENTER
- At this point you can use an existing Resource Group or create a new one. I recommend you to create a test environment before use on production.
- Logic App will be created and you can click to configure. On Templates section click on Blank Logic App to create your first workflow.
- Type Schedule on Search bar
- Click on Schedule. The Trigger option will appear and then select Recurrence.
- On Interval field type 1. Select Week on Frequency field. Use the other options for Parameters field:
After selecting all (you don't have to select start time) you can define each one.
- Time zone: based on your location you can define your currently Time Zone. In my case I'm using UTC-03:00 Brasília.
- On these days: Define wich day of week this Logic App will work.
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- If you want to use everyday just change the Frequency parameter to Day (with interval = 1) instead of Week.
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- If you want to setup a different schedule for weekend then you have to create another Logic App with a different schedule (1 Logic app for week days and other for weekends)
- At these hours: select wich hour you want to execute this Logic App. For this test I'm defining the exactly hour (19:00hr) that this Logic app will Stop/deallocate the VMs.
- At these minutes: just set here if you want a specific minute. Otherwise you can remove this parameter.
After finishing these parameters click on NEXT button to choose an action
- On Search type Azure VM and select Deallocate virtual machine (preview)
Note: The option Deallocate will stop the VM and them will deallocate. You don't need to select the option Power off virtual machine. Deallocate will stop incurring costs to your virtual machine.
- Select your Tenant. Also you have 2 options here and it's very important an short explanation:
- Sign in: if you click here this Logic App will be executed based on your credentials.
- Connect with Service Principal: this option will execute this Logic App using a specific Service Principal and strongly recommended.
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- if you want to create a Service Principal just follow the steps here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/howto-create-service-principal-portal
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- Don't forget to assign permission to allow this Service Principal on the Resource Group to manage virtual machines. You can use the built-in role Virtual Machine Contributor
For this lab I'm selecting the option Sign in
- Select the parameters for the virtual machine
- Subscription ID
- Resource Group
- Virtual Machine
Note: Don't worry if you want to add more virtual machines to be stopped. Also you don't need to create 1 Logic App per virtual machine. If you just want to stop/start 1 virtual machine just skip to step
- To add more Virtual Machines just click on + sign between the Recurrence block and Deallocate virtual machine block. The pop-up will appear with the option Insert a next step. Select the option Add a parallel branch
Now a new parallel task will open and you can do the same for other virtual machine
This step is easy but if you have more than 5 virtual machines to include could be a problem. To avoid this just click on Save and then click on Logic app code view.
A JSON format will appear and look at the actions section. You will see that the 2 virtual machines created before are listed here. You can copy/paste the lines and just change the line path. With this method you can easily add more virtual machines.
After adding the virtual machines click on save and then click on designer to return the previous view.
- Now you can setup the start time. Click on + New Step button, type SCHEDULE, click on Delay Schedule to add another Recurrence.
The tip here is to input X hours after the first Recurrence to execute another task. For this test I will use 8 hours.
Click on + New step and type Azure VM.
Select Start virtual machine option. Now you have to do the same from previous steps when you had added the same virtual machines. Also you can repeat the same steps openning the Logic app code view and adding the required virtual machines.
Now you can save the Logic App. If you want to test just change the Step 11 (use 10min for example) and click on Run to execute manually. After the tests just remember to change back the paramenters.