Azure Resource Manager – Deployment options

Hi all,

This is just a quick blog post to demonstrate how to provision an IaaS environment in Azure with the VM DSC extension to instantiate a new Web Server (IIS).

Say what?

You have probably seen many examples of this already, so I won’t try to sell you something new here.

However, I want to point out the difference of using an Azure Resource Manager template (.json, declarative) compared to using PowerShell – in an imperative way.

The reason for this blog post is the newly released AzureRM PowerShell module which introduces us to a new set of cmdlets (the downside here is that I am now forced to update the whitepaper… https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Cloud-Consistency-with-0b79b775 ).

Where we are coming from

Previously with the Service Management API, we normally created our virtual machines in a similar way to this:

$image = Get-AzureVMImage -ImageName "a699494373c04fc0bc8f2bb1389d6106__Windows-Server-2012-R2-201412.01-en.us-127GB.vhd"

$vnet = Get-AzureVNetSite

$vm = New-AzureVMConfig -Name $VMName -InstanceSize "Basic_A2" -ImageName $image.ImageName

### Deploy a new domain joined VM

$vm = Add-AzureProvisioningConfig -VM $vm -AdminUsername $username -Password $pwd -WindowsDomain -JoinDomain "azure.systemcenter365.com" -Domain "azure" -DomainUserName "knadm" -DomainPassword "superPWD" | Set-AzureSubnet -SubnetNames $vnet.subnets.name | Set-AzureStaticVNetIP -IPAddress "10.0.40.52"

New-AzureVM -VM $vm -Location "North Europe" -VNetName $vnet.name -ServiceName $ServiceName -Verbose -WaitForBoot

Also, if I wanted to add DSC to my VM using the Service Management API, I would have to do something like this:

# Fire and forget some DSC

$dscvm = Get-AzureVM -ServiceName $ServiceName -Name $VMName

Set-AzureVMDSCExtension -VM $dscvm -ConfigurationArchive "azureDSCDemo.ps1.zip" -ConfigurationName "tester" | Update-AzureVM

This has drastically changed with Azure Resource Manager, which introduces us to a new world with a lot of more opportunities (someone would also say more complexity).

Where we are going

In order to show you where we are heading with this, I would like to point you to my GitHub repo where you can find some learning examples on how this looks like by using Azure Resource Manager templates – but also the new AzureRM PowerShell module

ARM Template with a single-button deployment + PowerShell cmdlet for deployment

https://github.com/krnese/AzureDeploy/tree/master/DSCExample

PowerShell script using the new AzureRM Module to create IaaS environment with DSC

https://github.com/krnese/AzureDeploy/blob/master/PS/AzureRM%201.0.ps1

Here’s the example using PowerShell:

# Connect to your Azure subscription

Add-AzureRmAccount -Credential (get-credential)

# Add some variables that you will use as you move forward

# Global

$RGname = "KNRGTest01"

$Location = "west europe"

# Storage

$StorageName = "Knstor5050"

$StorageType = "Standard_LRS"

# Network

$vnicName = "vmvNic"

$Subnet1Name = "Subnet1"

$vNetName = "KNVnet01"

$vNetAddressPrefix = "192.168.0.0/16"

$vNetSubnetAddressPrefix = "192.168.0.0/24"

# Compute

$VMName = "KNVM01"

$ComputerName = $VMName

$VMSize = "Standard_A2"

$OSDiskName = $VMName + "osDisk"

# Create a new Azure Resource Grou

$RG = New-AzureRmResourceGroup -Name $RGname -Location $location -Verbose

# Create Storage

$StorageAccount = New-AzureRmStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName $RGname -Name knstor5050 -Type $StorageType -Location $Location

# Create Network

$PIP = New-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -Name $vnicName -ResourceGroupName $RGname -Location $Location -AllocationMethod Dynamic

$SubnetConfig = New-AzureRmVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name $Subnet1Name -AddressPrefix $vNetSubnetAddressPrefix

$vNET = New-AzureRmVirtualNetwork -Name $vNetName -ResourceGroupName $RGname -Location $Location -AddressPrefix $vNetAddressPrefix -Subnet $SubnetConfig

$Interface = New-AzureRmNetworkInterface -Name $vnicName -ResourceGroupName $RGname -Location $Location -SubnetId $vnet.Subnets[0].Id -PublicIpAddressId $pip.Id

# Create Compute

# Setup local VM object

$Credential = Get-Credential

$VirtualMachine = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName $VMName -VMSize $VMSize

$VirtualMachine = Set-AzureRmVMOperatingSystem -VM $VirtualMachine -Windows -ComputerName $ComputerName -Credential $credential -ProvisionVMAgent -EnableAutoUpdate

$VirtualMachine = Set-AzureRmVMSourceImage -VM $VirtualMachine -PublisherName MicrosoftWindowsServer -Offer WindowsServer -Skus 2012-R2-Datacenter -Version "latest"

$VirtualMachine = Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface -VM $VirtualMachine -Id $interface.Id

$OSDiskUri = $StorageAccount.PrimaryEndpoints.Blob.ToString() + "vhds/" + $OSDiskName + ".vhd"

$VirtualMachine = Set-AzureRmVMOSDisk -VM $VirtualMachine -Name $OSDiskName -VhdUri $OSDiskUri -CreateOption fromImage

# Deploy the VM in Azure

New-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $RGname -Location $Location -VM $VirtualMachine

# Publish DSC config to your newly created storage account

Publish-AzureRmVMDscConfiguration -ResourceGroupName $RGname -ConfigurationPath .\webdsc.ps1 -StorageAccountName knstor5050

# Add DSC Extension with config to the newly created VM

Set-AzureRmVMDscExtension -ResourceGroupName $RGname -VMName $virtualmachine.Name -ArchiveBlobName webdsc.ps1.zip -ArchiveStorageAccountName knstor5050 -ConfigurationName webdsc -Version 2.7 -Location $location

# Good night

Please have a look at these examples, and I encourage you to explore the new opportunities with the AzureRM module.

Happy ARMing!

Azure Resource Manager - Linking Templates

This summer, we wrote a whitepaper named «Cloud Consistency with Azure Resource Manager» that you can download from here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Cloud-Consistency-with-0b79b775

This whitepaper will soon be updated with new content, more examples and guidance around best practices for template authoring.

In the meantime I’ve been writing some templates that can be used by you to learn how you can link templates to have a nested deployment.

The basic example is available on GitHub - https://github.com/krnese/AzureDeploy/tree/master/Basic

You can explore all templates, but in essence I’m doing the following:

·         Have a dedicated template for storage that takes some input parameters and can be used separately

·         Have a dedicated template for virtual network that takes some input parameters and can be used separately

·         Have a master template that also contains compute, vNic and publicIP resource types that links to the storage and vnet templates

Again, this is a very easy example and I will provide you with a more advanced example in a couple of days where we split this up even further and are able to have a much more flexible and dynamic deployment scenario around IaaS/PaaS.

Pay attention to the resource section in the azuredeploy.json document, where we are using the API version “2015-01-01” and the resource type “Microsoft.Resources/deployments”.

Here I am linking to a public Uri for the template (hosted on my github) and specify the parameters I’d like to use in my configuration.

You can hit the “Deploy to Azure” link in order to explore the json structure in Azure and do an actual deployment.

If you want do deploy it through PowerShell, you can also see that the “Microsoft.Resources/deployments” resource types are being used.

Happy authoring – and see you next time.