Now in public preview is the new VM Applications features and capabilities.
Using VM Applications, you can define application packages and then duplicate, share and implement them automatically to your VM and Virtual Machine Scale Sets through ARM templates, the portal, CLI or Powershell. You can then add an app to VM or VMSS at creation, or you can add, remove and alter applications on your existing resources.
This gives more flexibility and simplicity in managing, sharing and implementing apps. Some features of this involve:
- Custom configuration of apps at time of deployment
- Require certain applications or version through DeployIfNotExist policies
- Create several copies per region for reliability
- Limitations on which VMs and VMSS can install an app
To read the official announcement click here