Note: Don’t get too excited that I left all sensitive details in the screenshot like keys etc. – once this article has been published, the Azure account will already be closed. I don’t have production experience with Azure so I won’t be much help when it comes to support. I therefore have as many screenshots as possible.
As VMware ANNOUNCED, vRealize Automation 7.2 now natively supports Azure as Endpoint.
Ironically the first which isn’t based on .NET 😛
Anyway, here I show how you get started quickly.
I haven’t done anything Azureish yet – so this will be interesting.
Jon Schulman from VMware did a guide also, but as I always say here – this is my own KB and I need to do stuff myself to ‘get it’ 🙂
His guide was pretty much a Blueprint to my own – so it was a big help – credit goes to him.
First thing I did was signing up for a trial – here in the UK you get free £125 credit if you do
First thing I need is a Subscription ID
First click Billing
Click the subscription to see your full Subscription ID
Make a copy of it. Here for me it is
1b2f3ad6-744a-45a2-9271-5b1cd76318e9
We also need the Tenant ID
You can get it in two ways. First browse to
http://manage.windowsazure.com
Click on Default Directory
The URL will now include your Tenant ID
Another way is to use the Diagnostic option and check the JSON details
Click Show Diagnostic
When you look for Tenant you can find your ID there as well
Here
9f82ecda-15dd-401c-be64-5159872e551a
Next we need to create some storage. From the Dashboard click Storage
Click Storage Accounts
Click Add
Here I select a subscription – as this is just a trial – that is the only one I got, give it a name, create a Resource Group and select the location. I am in Europe – so that is what I am going for.
This will not be instant so give it some time
But the creation should eventually finish
Next create a network. Click Virtual Network
Click Add
Enter a name and subnet. I just leave that all to default. Select the existing Resource Group and Location.
Again, this might take a few moments
But should eventually finish
Now we need to create a way for vRA to authenticate to Azure. This is done the Microshaftoft way.
Active Directory baby. Click Azure Active Directory
Click App Registrations
Click Add
Give it a Name, Tier and URL
Here I leave the tier as default and just use my vRA URL – can be anything really
Click Create
That should go fairly quick
Click the application you just created and note down the Application ID
Here
22a5be80-f685-4186-9483-40a7214ecb7f
Next, key-based authentication. Click Keys
Give it a name and duration. Click Save
Note down the key. You will not be able to retrieve it again
7jbasgyDPqMSRWR3C/8rGFaUl3vBMoavmBuIo0WIKPU=
Now click Required Permissions
Then click Add, Windows Azure Active Directory, Select an API
Select Windows Azure Service Management API. Click Select
Tick Delegated Permissions
Click Select
Note: If the button is greyed out for some reason, untick Access Azure Service Management …. and re-tick
Click Done
It should now show your delegated permissions
Still with me ? Good .. moving on ..
Last step is to plumb it all together. Click “>” and then Subscription
Click your subscription and Access Control (IAM)
Click Add
Click Select a role Contributor and Contributor
Click Add users and search for your application and click it. Then click Select
Click OK
Done
Next step is the Azure CLI – again, thanks Job for taking out all the pain 🙂
Download the Azure CLI
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/xplat-cli-install
Here I am installing the Windows version
Start the azure command prompt
azure.cmd
Click y/n depending on your preference
Type
azure login
This will prompt you with a URL and authentication code
To sign in, use a web browser to open the page https://aka.ms/devicelogin and enter the code D45FWNE65 to authenticate.
Browse to the URL mentioned, enter the code and click continue
You’ll be redirected to a login page. Login using your Azure account
Once succeeded you can close the browser window
The CLI should now also show that you are logged in
Now set the correct subscription. I only got a free trial
azure account set "Free Trial"
Now we need to register the Microsoft.Compute provider to the Azure subscription. As Jon pointed out – it seems to fail first time … all the time … So don’t worry if you have an error at first, just run it again.
And yes, same for me, failed first time but second time succeeded
Now we need to retrieve some example VM images available on azure – these are the ones we will plumb into using vRA
You need a few things to ‘find out’
- Location
- Mine is “North Europe”
- Publisher
- I will use “Canonical” (publisher providing Ubuntu)
- Offer
- What OS – here I will be using ubuntuserver
- Sku
- Version
Here a few commands to find out what is available
This will show a list of publishers – here I am looking to see if there is Canonical available
azure vm image list-publishers --location "North Europe" | more
Next I need to find out what they have on offer
azure vm image list --publisher canonical --location northeurope
Here I will just take 14.04.4-LTS for no reason whatsoever apart for the fact I am testing 🙂
The resulting command to check the exact image name would be
azure vm image list --location northeurope --publisher canonical --offer ubuntuserver --sku 14.04.0-LTS
Now take note of the Urn
Here
canonical:ubuntuserver:14.04.0-LTS:14.04.201407240
So you should now have the following
- Subscription ID
- 1b2f3ad6-744a-45a2-9271-5b1cd76318e9
- Tenant ID
- 9f82ecda-15dd-401c-be64-5159872e551a
- Storage Account Name
- open902storage
- Resource Group Name
- open902resources
- Location
- North Europe / northeurope
- Virtual Network Name
- open902network
- Client Application ID
- 22a5be80-f685-4186-9483-40a7214ecb7f
- Client Application Secret Key
- 7jbasgyDPqMSRWR3C/8rGFaUl3vBMoavmBuIo0WIKPU=
- VM Image URN
- canonical:ubuntuserver:14.04.0-LTS:14.04.201407240
Now time to go back (finally) to vRA.
Go to Administration > vRO Configuration > Endpoints
Create a new Endpoint by selecting the Azure Plugin
Give it a Name
Enter the relevant details. Note that Client Application ID is here Client ID
Click Finish
Ensure the Endpoint is created without errors
Assuming you had an vRO Endpoint configured prior all this – you should now see the Azure Endpoint in vRO created and see that you can connect to it and see the details of your account
Next, create a Reservation. If you don’t have a Fabric Group yet, create one first.
Click New > Azure
Enter Name and the Business Group. Here I am not using any Reservation Policies
Enter once more the Subscription ID and Location. Also enter the Location, Resource Group ….
… and Storage Group
And of course the Network.
Click OK
You should now have your Azure Reservation configured
Create a Machine Prefix
Next I configure a Business Group for Azure deployments
Select who can consume Azure
Select the newly created prefix
That’s it
Now the best (ish) part. Create a Blueprint
Drag an Azure object onto the canvas
Here I am personally not interested in scale. “1” max will do
Now under Build Information
Select the Location again and also the Urn retrieved earlier
The next bit (scroll down) is a bit more annoying as the UI jumps a bit back and forth, but here enter the credentials for the VM.
Enter the username on the right as well – otherwise the deployment will ask for it
I just selected the first instance size from the drop down – assuming that is the smallest.
As I say – I don’t really have much experience with Azure and haven’t RTFMd it …
Enter your Resource Group from Azure
Under Storage same thing – enter the Storage Group. I leave the rest by default
I won’t touch the Network settings.
Now publish your Blueprint
Now entitle the blueprint etc. – you can find plenty of articles here how to do that 🙂
Here you can see I created a Service specific to Azure and said blueprint (ok, renamed it to Ubuntu lol)
Time to test it
As you can see you can change all details if you want – in theory I should have set everything needed via the Blueprint
For some reason I was still not able to deploy the blueprint as it was missing the VM size
It seems, despite it being in the Blueprint, I had to select a different Series and just go back to ‘A’
Anyway, let’s hit Submit and watch in ‘awe’ (or not).
Eventually your virtual machine should pop up in your Azure Control Panel
And hopefully vRA also thinks it is all good
Now here the fun bit – there isn’t a console !!
The first indication that the VM is actually up are the performance statistics
So next step is adding a public IP I guess 🙂
Under IP Configurations enable Public IP address
I just left the default. Click OK
Click Save
Wait ….
Once done, the IP should refresh
Next, SSH to it using the credentials configured in the Blueprint
That is really it 🙂
Once again a huge thanks goes to Jon for taking the initial pain out of the process !!!