Don't buy a new computer - create a Virtual Machine in Azure Cloud instead 

This video is for those intending to do short-term labs. I cover that in the video and believe I am clear on that point very early on, but maybe folks are confused. It’s not intended as a permanent VM. This affects cost, security, and over-all use. If you need a persistent VM for production - consider Windows365 - I have videos on that as well. The entire point of this video is to help students to save money by not having to buy a new PC for school when they can use their existing one and save money by doing labs on an Azure VM. I think a certain number of people just read the title without watching and think I’m saying you can use an Azure VM as a replacement to having a personal computer. Before making that assumption, it might be best to watch the video. Given the stats on the percentage viewed, it’s evident that the bulk of critical comments most likely did not watch the video. So I don’t think that comments related to cost, security, and daily use are well formed at all - it’s saving students from spending money unnecessarily and using temporary resources in a lab scenario while not having to purchase a new, over-powered new PC. Add: a lot of my students do labs on Azure services specifically - because that’s what they need to learn for the work they do.

We are coming full circle... we started off with the the 3270 terminal and had to beg for resources from IT running the data center... we were freed from it by the personal computer. Now, we are talking about giving back control again. No thanks.

What you should carefully consider is this: who has full control of your data?

A basic virtual machine with 1Tb of blob storage is $173 per month. You could get a very good gaming machine for the cost of a years basic VM+ "cheap" storage. Renting short term compute power is useful but this is definitely NOT a good idea for a desktop replacement. The computer I set up in the cost calculator you could buy for less than two months rental.

"Some inexpensive device like an iPad ..." LOL.

I like how you mentioned the raspberry pi 🙂 using the raspberry pi and piggy backing off cloud Data server hardware is the ultimate frugal conservative combo. Simple yet effective

This is an interesting option for people that use the computer very little, but for the ones that use it a lot, it would be much more expensive.

Thanks for taking the time to do this video. It was very informative

You are a great teacher. 👍👍👍 I am a 60 yrs old man trying to understand those new stuff.

This is great conceptually. The trick is not to forget to scale down when you don't need it. You go to bed and there's nothing happening during that time, scale it down. You can even shut it down to save money. You can script all of that, if you want.

Very nice walk-through, well done

This means a lot to me. Keep going with your channel.

Thanks for the video. I created a virtual machine too and it works perfectly fine.

The cost can't be less than the cost of another system when you think about the cost of internet data, and that of the cloud system monthly for a long period of time. But for a specific task or project. Yes I support this theory.

Don't buy a computer that you might control (if you put on an OS that gives you control over that computer). Instead put everything on someone else's computer, so that other people get control over your data and software. Ingenious!

Great video Frank. Keep up the good work. I have also learnt a thing or two from the “not-so-positive” comments.

You have super excellent video and audio quality and clarity. Thank you for your great content

14:18 Frank you state there that you are eligible for licencing and which is now a mandatory selected option. Do you happen to know how a private user who does not have an O365, Azure or MSDN business subscription of some kind can get a licence to use this system?

Perfect tutorial, thanks Frank

Clear, concise, professional. Great video.

I wanted to say this was a very interesting video. I felt it was a little simple at the start with all the explanations on what a PC is and all. (But I also recognize there are those who don't really know and it can be quite helpful them. And there is of course fast-forward and rewind for those times). But once you got into creating the VM and showing its operation, it really made me think about its power. I agree with you on the consideration of your needs. But for doing normal operations, I think this could be a great solution. As you stated, it's not for playing video games or watching movies. It's for doing work... calculations, word processing, data management. One could manage multiple systems from something like this. Azure's not for everyone, but the more I learn about, the more interesting it becomes. I also wanted to say that I have enjoyed reading the replies you have given to some of the comments below. I think you've nailed everyone one of them. People make so many baseless comments these days, especially in the political realm, based on an instant, uninformed opinion. I like your responses to those kinds of comments. Thank you for speaking out to that stuff. If someone disagrees, no problem and no explanation required. But if you're gonna throw out some silly, baseless, off the cuff comment, the least you can do is give a reasonable reply as to the disagreement. Maybe everyone could actually learn something from it. Great video and thanks for sharing!

Hi Frank. Good video, but I have two big concerns, maybe three. First, I use my computer for heavy video processing and working with large files. I just don't see the internet as robust enough to handle large files efficiently, for storage and retrieval. Secondly, I am concerned with long-term security. Not hackers so much but getting my files should something happen to the cloud service. Or worse, losing my access through forgetting passwords, etc. And finally, you mentioned Europe and the US. Good point, but what about when I might travel to restricted countries, like China. I might have a VPN, but then maybe not, and even if I do, unless I have tested it in that country, it might not give me access when I need it most.

Fantastic information. Subscribed.

Thank you. Best video for a beginner to understand that we can do virtual desktop in the cloud. Kick Ass

You need to understand difference between owing a car and getting an uber . Both have there merits and issues.

This will be viable when you can use personal pc on cloud for 10$/month

this just saved me!!! thank you for your clear and step-by-step help!!

Thank you so much! I’ve been tryna do that for 2 years now!

I'm a year and a half late to the party, but thank you for the video! As of now, cloud gaming has already gotten to be quite good, my low end laptop now doubles as an xbox! Many things are done best at scale and computing seems to be one of them. Our home computers can't compete with today's AI sitting in huge clusters, but they can interface with them. Power consumption and electronic waste is more readily manageable when centralized, and if old computers remain useful, then landfills aren't loaded with barely aged obsolete electronic waste. Every force seems to be moving us in this direction. Some may argue, but I see this as the end of the home computing era for the at least the casual user, and with github's codespace, even for developers.

Great tutorial! Tried it and it worked great! :D

Thank you so much Mr. Frank. It's a very good tutorial

Two years in, and this is still relevant/helpful. I'm on a Mac so this represents a perfect solution for the 10 hours a month I need a PC. Well done and thanks!

Quality and informative vid, thanks buddy

Wow, this is huge! 👍👍👍

Very interesting, useful to know and thorough introduction, thank you.

Thinking in long-term it's a good solution. I have a few of burstable vms on Azure for work with option to scale up and down the capabilities as needed and the cost is quite cheaper wich having to buy a only one pc for the next 2 years. Memory and microchips begone more rare and more expensive, so maintaining a physical reliable machine will be a big challenge.

Anyways, it gives me immense happiness when something is physically with me rather then being with someone else 😄

Thank you sir, needed this for android studio for short period

This looks like a super interesting option. Got to check this out. Thank you 🙏

This helped me get a computer set up for my wife because she is studying and i cant afford to pay for a new pc just yet. one thing, you talked about how you want the pc to shut down if not in use or if you forget that way you dont pay for services you arent using. after i shut down the pc do i go and stop the resource? or just shutting down the pc in the virtual machine enviroment is enough?

Cloud VM practically useless if your connection is freaking slow as hell.

Subscribed, thank you for share your knowledge . From Brazil.

Thanks for this tutorial, nice and simple

I see this more for a high-school setting but still is years away from viability.

I think that for the “general / common home computer user”, who does some Word , Excel (or Google Docs / Sheets), RU-vid / Netflix, other internet (paying bills online), etc., the VM on Cloud solution ends up being overall pricier than purchasing a reasonably priced desktop / laptop.

Very interesting learned something new today.....never heard about this till I watched your vid......thks!

Very Cool Info! Thank You.

Useful, need to consider to how to further tighten as now the personal pc is in the cloud prone to scanners picking up machines with public ip for possible next lvl of recon or attack.

Very informative, and thanks for the tutorial. One possible correction: I think instead of "SDD" you meant "SSD" (Solid State Drive). Am I right on that?

Have a PC that can fulfil your normal workloads. For heavy duty computing, hire a VM for limited time, get your work done, and shut it down. Save money.

Yes I will implement and inform the performance

Hey thank you for letting me know about Cloud Computing.

And what if any of those cloud providers decides to cut any access to my vm and data for my own sake?

thanks for the video so now i am able to run windows software in my linux with a cloud?

amazing!!!!! thank you so much sooo clear!!!

Great stuff, thank you

What about using a specialized software like AutoCAD or STAAD etc on Azure machine? Do we need to install our specialized software on Azure?

Hi Frank thanks for the tutorial! I'm considering buying a 16/32 RAM laptop for engineering simulation purposes. For the same price, I can get over one yr (10hrs/day) VM. So after consideration, for daily uses, I think it's better to get a pc. But just in case that the pc couldn't handle the tasks. getting a powerful VM for a short period would be a good choice. BTW, in VM, can I use my OneDrive so that I don't have to pay more for the storage? Also, to use VM to run simulations, do I need to install the software that I use for simulations on the VM, or if there's a way using only the VM's power (RAM, CPU, etc) with my local software?

Thank you for the awesome information... was really helpful in taking a decision... As per the documentation azure provides linux and windows server OS. Could not find windows 10 pro in the list. Unless we sign up and try to create VM not able to verify for sure that windows 10 pro is available. Would be great help if you could reconfirm that windows 10 pro os is available so would go ahead with cloud VM instead of a new laptop. Thank you.

This is how we can learn in a single glance. Appreciate this man. Hats off

You get a good desktop PC for the price of Ipad. Second problem is that a cloud PC cannot fix the most annoying thing, by other words, slow UI. Most software what normal people run isn't that heavy anyway that you would need a lot of CPU, memory, or GPU power. But you need those enough to run the UI smoothly and to keep load times low. Azure VM doesn't help much with that. Third thing is that in a long run, own PC is a lot cheaper. For short need cloud VM may make sense though and in in some other use cases it makes sense, like school offering software and environment to its students or company to its employees.

Thanks for the tutorial, it open my mind on a point: I'm surprised general purpose instances can run a GUI at all. I was supposing only GPU powered can support this. So my question is if these instances does have in fact a GPU attached (even if this it's not specified) or are using the CPU for running the graphics.

Subscribed👍👍 Thank u very much

I set up a 'free' VM on Azure cloud. The smallest, slowest option just to test something. They charged me an amount that would have paid for a new and excellent notebook in 4 months. Maybe I made a mistake somewhere but I did get an email confirming my free account when I set it up.

I just retired from teaching Comp Sci at a local university. So often my freshman students would come to class with a new gaming laptop. Wrong PC for school! I would recommend students get a Chromebook (with 1080 video resolution) and do this. The price is low and if you have your laptop stolen on campus, it's just a bad day and not a ruined semester. Some of the comments seem ultra critical. You might be charged for data send into the VM, so watching a video on your VM might cost extra, but who would do such a thing; watch it on your Chromebook. It's my opinion that this would work for all under-gad courses in a CompSci program with the possible exception of a Data Science course. For that semester, just pay more for more storage and processing power. Brilliant!

Thumbs up for a detailed tutorial of cloud PC. Though this is not quite there nowadays. The network latency is still terrible, especially for media playback and UI interactions. I personally cannot stand for that. Also for your device that used as a "screen" for that remote machine, you'll need a fast enough one because you are basically just doing a streaming. The stability of internet connection is also a concern. Finally, 2 vcpu plus 7gib ram is terrible and there are tons of no-brainer killers like the m1 MacBook air, surface pros.

Cloud rendering for animation's is also an important topic in cloud computing

I'm an IT admin and I have to admit I never would have thought to use an Azure VM for personal use. I still don't think I would be the right demographic for this idea, but I could definitely see it being useful for someone who needs a good computer in a pinch, depending on what they need it for. There are even pre-made scripts and templates for spinning it up, deleting it when you're done, and creating a new one again. However if you go that route it may be even cheaper to just find a container template, rather than a vm

My opinion : If you dont want to do anything graphic related sure this is a great option but for addition CPU, RAM and HDD Space you will have to create a Recuring Payment method which will become more costly than actually buying a PC.

awesome content dude :)

Thanks for the idea. Could you also make a film on how to secure it? Because just a RD connection does not seem enough.

I highly disagree with this video, it's just Microsoft taking your money on a month to month basis, better buy an actual machine, which you pay once off for. but good presentation thou.

Hi Frank thanks for the awesome video. I have a question. I'm currently working on my desktop locally for some paperwork tasks. I would like to move my current working environment from local desktop to VM (cloud desktop). So that I could work at anywhere anytime with maybe a simple laptop or ipad. I mainly work with microsoft office 365, acrobat pro, foxit and photoshop. Is it possible for me to use vm on cloud to complete my work? I wonder if I can install those software on the cloud VM. Look forward for your advice, thanks in advance.

Thanks for the video. But I was wondering if there was an option to turn on virtual machine and shutdown manually instead of setting a timer.

Great tutorial thanks for sharing.

Why do I see the bitter end of this. Microsoft: "Give us all your resources and when you misbehave we will block your access."

I get that this method can be good for some very specific use cases but I think there is another cost that is not being discussed here and should be included. In order to run a Windows 10 client in the cloud you must have a multi-tenant license for Windows 10. I think this adds at least $99/month that you cannot "turn off" in order to have a subscription that provides that license.

Great video . Thanks.

This is really helpful. I have an old Mac and I didn't wanted to create partition for bootcamp. How much is the cost for personal computer needs?

I thought this was a good idea when I was implementing Citrix into companies twenty years ago. Most applications these days are virtual, it's called a browser.

What if I told you I had an on-prem VDI solution that cuts TCO by 90% or more compared to Vsphere/Azure? It even competes dollar for dollar with Dell's cheapest.

Thank you for the wonderful video...!!

Great explanation I subbed and liked

You can built decent performance pc just for 450$, Azure it's not worth for daily usage, and it's price is too high. And you need some devices and high speed Internet connection to use that stuff! 🙄

Once again the single most important question goes unanswered....... "But will it run Crysis?" "0_o"

what program do you use to write, put and manipulate images on the go in this video? seems pretty useful for designing and planning.

Thank you for sharing this resource. I recently signed up for Windows 365. Can you tell me or point me to a RU-vid that explains the basic differences of Windows 365 Cloud service and Azure Cloud service? Looking forward to your response.

Skip to 10:15 if you already know what a computer does lol

me: my pc is broken. i need a new one dude: just use an azure vm me: how do i access it?

Thanks for the clear overview and examples! Would this work from a Chromebook as well?

This could be a good choice, if I want to upgrade a machine for specific tasks. Once that task isover, we can purge the machine while storing this somewhere else... like datalakes, one drive, drive etc....

I once worked for Digital Equipment Corp. The CEO. Ken Olsen, was roundly criticized when he said all home users would need is a terminal and a communication connection. No Home PC was necessary in the home. Well, now we have exactly that. The terminal is the KVM device.. Ken was right way before his time

AZURE COST VIDEO ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1k9QywEIevs.html ADDRESSING SOME OF THE NEGATIVE COMMENTS Hey everyone - thank you for all the views and comments - even those that disagree. I wanted to add a quick note to remind folks that while I invite disagreement, it does have to be respectful - so please watch language choices on that. Anyhow, I wanted to address a few blanket comments that seem to pop-up. Specifically around some assumptions people are making: 1) It is not an Either/or choice. You can use BOTH a personal computer AND an Azure system - more on this below. 2) Generally speaking - the vast majority of people do not use their computers 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. So you have to consider that 3) You don't need to mimic personal computer specs in Azure - most people never use 100% of their computer's power. Low powered systems are often just fine for most tasks 4) If you don't have Internet - or if you have poor Internet - then Cloud services are not for you most of the time 5) Not everyone is able to maintain hardware, install Operating Systems, or manage a computer - especially if they aren't all that interested in doing so (or have experience with other Systems) 6) Yes - you need a computer to access Azure - but you don't need the SAME type of computer - this is really where this video came from... here is a use-case: Every time I teach Data Analytics, I have some students with Mac computers or a family computer that is shared or even an older computer. They ask me: "should I buy a new computer?" - now you know where this video title comes from! What they need is to be able to run a basic Windows 10 PC for a few hours a week for three months, and then a slightly more powerful system for more hours per week during the last month of their 4-month program. What should they do? Well - this video presents an option! They can run an Azure VM for their needs :) If you see my cost video, then you can see that it isn't expensive at ALL if you are running it a few hours a week for specific needs. In fact, as students they get $100 in free Azure credits - which generally covers the entire cost for this use-case and even gives them extra credits to play with. However, not everyone gets that $100 - so you have to do your own cost/benefit analysis. So before you start to comment on cost, specs, etc, etc. - maybe ask yourself if you are falling into certain assumptions listed above. Expand your thinking to consider that there are many cases where an Azure VM is the solution (and some cases where it isn't - I even have a video on that). Also, please watch the entire video. I am pretty sure I don't tell people that Azure is the ONLY solution. I tend not to speak in absolutes. UPDATE UPDATE: Hey everyone - some great discussions happening here! Lots of folks are expressing opinions regarding cost, access, and more. I’m creating some follow-up content as well. For those of you wanting some expert ROI and Security analysis - check out Gartner Group. Basically, the Cloud is growing, the benefits are real, and the cost is lower. Not in EVERY case, but as a whole. Make sure to do your own analysis to see if it’s right for you. UPDATE: I created two newer videos on the “Top 5 Reasons to use a Cloud VM” and “Top 5 Reasons NOT to use a Cloud VM” There are solid reasons for both. Quick add: just to clarify: there are cases where having local compute/storage is still your best option. Multimedia and Video Games come to mind. It will be interesting to see how things evolve, but if you are moving large files, or fast frame rates to and from the cloud - it will result in poor performance. Going with a cloud VM is an ideal solution if you are just moving KVM and doing the “work” in the cloud, but looking at the results on the device in front of you.

Thank you very much!

Nice video. So, how do i suppose to connect to azure if i don't have the computer? still need to buy computer to access azure right? If you are suggesting, don't buy expensive laptop, yes, cloud computing is an option. I still prefer to buy my own computer, rather than "renting". It is due to security/confidentiality, and the trust i can still access it when i need it without internet. Azure is excellent choice for temporary demo or testing. I can setup complicated system such as sharepoint in just less than 1 day in azure, compare to setup my own sharepoint on my own server which takes days.

my thoughts: 1) from an EDUCATIONAL point of view, building a physical machine is much better 2) I prefer to own my devices 3) azure??? Microsoft? windows 365? absolutely no thanks.

The title is so misleading, may be remove "Dont buy a new computer" because you still need a new/old PC to access a VM, on top of your own PC, you have to pay monthly subscription to use your VM, and other fee like compute, storage, I/O fee... However, it is good for learning a new OS, hosting your own web applications, create your own cloud storage and manage yourself...

OK, yet another way to run Windows on a Mac :-). After studying my weekly business usage with e.g. RescueTime I could cost this pretty accurately. Thanks for an absolutely great video!

Great video.

Him: dont create a virtual machine to Watch movies from diffrent country. Me: uses a vpn