Final answer:
Azure Resource Manager is recommended to minimize administrative effort for deploying and managing Azure virtual machines, as it automates deployment and management through infrastructure as code.
Step-by-step explanation:
If you need to minimize the administrative effort required to deploy and manage virtual machines (both Windows and Linux) in Azure, the service I would recommend is b) Azure Resource Manager (ARM). With Azure Resource Manager, you can automate the deployment, configuration, and management of resources using templates. This service benefits from infrastructure as code, which makes it possible to define the infrastructure and dependencies for your app in a single declarative template file, giving you the ability to deploy and redeploy your solution throughout the development lifecycle and have confidence your resources are deployed in a consistent state.
By using Azure Resource Manager, you are also able to define dependencies between resources so they are deployed in the correct order. A key feature of ARM is that you can use it to manage all the components of your solution as a group, rather than handling them individually or sequencing them manually. Additionally, ARM provides features like access control, auditing, and tags to secure and organize your resources after deployment.