Packer on Windows Server 2016

Build server images for Azure and other cloud platforms using Packer by HashiCorp. Packer automates the creation of any type of machine image. It embraces modern configuration management by encouraging you to use a framework such as Chef, Puppet, Ansible, PowerShell & others to install and configure the software within your Packer-made images.

Advantages of using Packer

Super faster infrastructure deployment - Packer images allow you to launch completely provisioned and configured machines in seconds, rather than several minutes or hours.

Multi-provider portability - Because Packer creates identical images for multiple platforms, you can run production in Azure, staging/QA and development. Each environment is running an identical machine image, giving ultimate portability.

Improved stability - Packer installs and configures all the software for a machine at the time the image is built. If there are bugs in these scripts, they'll be caught early, rather than several minutes after a machine is launched.

Greater testability - After a machine image is built, that machine image can be quickly launched and smoke tested to verify that things appear to be working. If they are, you can be confident that any other machines launched from that image will function properly.

Packer Features

Automate the creation of Azure server images

Pre bake images with software & configuration

Uses WinRM or SSH to build images

Build images for other cloud platforms in parallel

Use Packer with your CI/CD Automation

Use scripts to automate any server config

Azure Key Vault integration

Fast infrastructure deployment

Detailed logging, detect issues faster

Build any os, server or container type

Packer Documentation

Follow our post configuration steps on - Setup Packer for Azure

Disclaimer: Packer is a registered trademark of HashiCorp, Inc and is licensed under Mozilla Public License v2. No warrantee of any kind, express or implied, is included with this software. Use at your risk, responsibility for damages (if any) to anyone resulting from the use of this software rest entirely with the user. The author is not responsible for any damage that its use could cause.