VM Role Computer Name

Question

Hello,

Does the computer name of a VM Role remain constant? I know that for a Web Role the computer name will not remain the same. Is this true for VM Role as well?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Hi,

There’s no guarantee a node’s name will remain the same. I would like to know what is your scenario. You may want to use some alternative solutions. For example, if you want to communicate with another instance, please use internal endpoints, you can programmatically retrieve the internal IP addresses of the internal endpoint. If you want to communicate with an external client, then please use the load balancer’s domain (yourname.cloudapp.net) instead of a VM’s name.

Best Regards,

Ming Xu.

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Answer 2

Hi PDFCloud,

In my work during last 18 months in azure, I can say I never got a change in computer name of an instance given that I had no restart, reboot of this instance due to windows update or failure. I can say this because I am logging what's happening in every instance of my work.

But be careful: when I say computer name I mean the parameter COMPUTERNAME in the windows environment (that is something like RD001523362480).

Anyway, I am working mostly with roles, but I can say that the same will be true for VMs. After a restart or reboot for any reason, you cannot count that you will get the same name.

Dimitris

Answer 3

Hello Ming,

Thanks for the feedback, the scenario we are facing is that we have a software product for which the licensing is based on the computer name. Based on what you are saying we cannot sell the server name based licenses for Azure instances. We may have to look into other ways to license our product for Azure.

Answer 4

Hello Dimitris,

Thanks for the feedback, I did notice the compute name change for Web Role. I have recently started testing the VM Role so I was wondering if the name remains constant or not as we upload our own VM. Anyway it seems like we cannot rely on the computer name for any of the role types.

Answer 5

Hello Ming,

Thanks for the feedback, the scenario we are facing is that we have a software product for which the licensing is based on the computer name. Based on what you are saying we cannot sell the server name based licenses for Azure instances. We may have to look into other ways to license our product for Azure.

Hello Ming,

I have a follow up question on what I have mentioned above, instead of using the computer name to license the product, is there any other uniquely identifiable information for an Azure instance that we might be able to use to license our product per instance?

Answer 6

Hi,

As far as I know there’s an instance ID, but it will probably change if we redeploy the service. Actually each instance of the same role will run the same code. We'd better not try to perform any instance specific tasks. I would like to know why you need an instance based license model, from my experience, it would be better if we choose an account based model. As a matter of fact that a lot of SaaS products use account based license model.

Best Regards,

Ming Xu.

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