Cloud Engineer - Everton Collins

Work by Everton Collins

Azure Resource Manager templates

Azure Resource Manager templates

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A Resource Manager template is a JSON file, making it a form of declarative automation.  Azure Resource Manager Templates make the task of repetition simple and straight forward.

Why use Resource Manager templates?

  • Templates improve consistency
  • Template help express complex deployments
  • Template reduce manual, error-prone tasks
  • Templates are code
  • Templates promote reuse
  • Templates are linkable

Let say we sit in the infrastructure department and we are asked to spin-up over 6 months to a yr over 1,000 VM’s that will be used for migration machines, or financial runs.  Creating these VM’s from a template (ARM) makes things reliable and simplifies the tasks.

Check out Microsofts’ ARM template best practices

I wanted to test some of the ARM templates provided by Microsoft from the gallery.  Quickstart Azure Resource templates

I’ll use a Windows VM ARM deployment template.

This template allows you to deploy a simple Windows VM using a few different options for the Windows version, using the latest patched version. This will deploy an A2 size VM in the resource group location and return the FQDN of the VM.

 

Example Scripts:

PowerShell

New-AzResourceGroup -Name <resource-group-name> -Location <resource-group-location> 
#use this command when you need to create a new resource group for your deployment
New-AzResourceGroupDeployment -ResourceGroupName <resource-group-name> -TemplateUri 
https://github.com/Azure/azure-quickstart-templates/blob/master/101-vm-simple-windows/azuredeploy.json


Command line
az group create --name <resource-group-name> --location <resource-group-location> #use this 
command when you need to create a new resource group for your deployment
az group deployment create --resource-group <my-resource-group> --template-uri 
https://github.com/Azure/azure-quickstart-templates/blob/master/101-vm-simple-windows/azuredeploy.json

 Review Sizes for virtual machines in Azure

Simple ARM Template

 

I have spun up the VM and below is the local server.

 

Parameters for the Script

Parameters

JSON script

{
“$schema”: “https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#”,
“contentVersion”: “1.0.0.0”,
“parameters”: {
“adminUsername”: {
“type”: “string”,
“metadata”: {
“description”: “Username for the Virtual Machine.”
}
},
“adminPassword”: {
“type”: “securestring”,
“minLength”: 12,
“metadata”: {
“description”: “Password for the Virtual Machine.”
}
},
“dnsLabelPrefix”: {
“type”: “string”,
“defaultValue”: “[toLower(concat(parameters(‘vmName’),’-‘, uniqueString(resourceGroup().id, parameters(‘vmName’))))]”,
“metadata”: {
“description”: “Unique DNS Name for the Public IP used to access the Virtual Machine.”
}
},
“publicIpName”: {
“type”: “string”,
“defaultValue”: “myPublicIP”,
“metadata”: {
“description”: “Name for the Public IP used to access the Virtual Machine.”
}
},
“publicIPAllocationMethod”: {
“type”: “string”,
“defaultValue”: “Dynamic”,
“allowedValues”: [
“Dynamic”,
“Static”
],
“metadata”: {
“description”: “Allocation method for the Public IP used to access the Virtual Machine.”
}
},
“publicIpSku”: {
“type”: “string”,
“defaultValue”: “Basic”,
“allowedValues”: [
“Basic”,
“Standard”
],
“metadata”: {
“description”: “SKU for the Public IP used to access the Virtual Machine.”
}
},
“OSVersion”: {
“type”: “string”,
“defaultValue”: “2019-Datacenter”,
“allowedValues”: [
“2008-R2-SP1”,
“2012-Datacenter”,
“2012-R2-Datacenter”,
“2016-Nano-Server”,
“2016-Datacenter-with-Containers”,
“2016-Datacenter”,
“2019-Datacenter”,
“2019-Datacenter-Core”,
“2019-Datacenter-Core-smalldisk”,
“2019-Datacenter-Core-with-Containers”,
“2019-Datacenter-Core-with-Containers-smalldisk”,
“2019-Datacenter-smalldisk”,
“2019-Datacenter-with-Containers”,
“2019-Datacenter-with-Containers-smalldisk”
],
“metadata”: {
“description”: “The Windows version for the VM. This will pick a fully patched image of this given Windows version.”
}
},
“vmSize”: {
“type”: “string”,
“defaultValue”: “Standard_D2_v3”,
“metadata”: {
“description”: “Size of the virtual machine.”
}
},
“location”: {
“type”: “string”,
“defaultValue”: “[resourceGroup().location]”,
“metadata”: {
“description”: “Location for all resources.”
}
},
“vmName”: {
“type”: “string”,
“defaultValue”: “simple-vm”,
“metadata”: {
“description”: “Name of the virtual machine.”
}
}
},
“variables”: {
“storageAccountName”: “[concat(‘bootdiags’, uniquestring(resourceGroup().id))]”,
“nicName”: “myVMNic”,
“addressPrefix”: “10.0.0.0/16”,
“subnetName”: “Subnet”,
“subnetPrefix”: “10.0.0.0/24”,
“virtualNetworkName”: “MyVNET”,
“subnetRef”: “[resourceId(‘Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets’, variables(‘virtualNetworkName’), variables(‘subnetName’))]”,
“networkSecurityGroupName”: “default-NSG”
},
“resources”: [
{
“type”: “Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts”,
“apiVersion”: “2019-06-01”,
“name”: “[variables(‘storageAccountName’)]”,
“location”: “[parameters(‘location’)]”,
“sku”: {
“name”: “Standard_LRS”
},
“kind”: “Storage”,
“properties”: {}
},
{
“type”: “Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses”,
“apiVersion”: “2020-06-01”,
“name”: “[parameters(‘publicIPName’)]”,
“location”: “[parameters(‘location’)]”,
“sku”: {
“name”: “[parameters(‘publicIpSku’)]”
},
“properties”: {
“publicIPAllocationMethod”: “[parameters(‘publicIPAllocationMethod’)]”,
“dnsSettings”: {
“domainNameLabel”: “[parameters(‘dnsLabelPrefix’)]”
}
}
},
{
“type”: “Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups”,
“apiVersion”: “2020-06-01”,
“name”: “[variables(‘networkSecurityGroupName’)]”,
“location”: “[parameters(‘location’)]”,
“properties”: {
“securityRules”: [
{
“name”: “default-allow-3389”,
“properties”: {
“priority”: 1000,
“access”: “Allow”,
“direction”: “Inbound”,
“destinationPortRange”: “3389”,
“protocol”: “Tcp”,
“sourcePortRange”: “*”,
“sourceAddressPrefix”: “*”,
“destinationAddressPrefix”: “*”
}
}
]
}
},
{
“type”: “Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks”,
“apiVersion”: “2020-06-01”,
“name”: “[variables(‘virtualNetworkName’)]”,
“location”: “[parameters(‘location’)]”,
“dependsOn”: [
“[resourceId(‘Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups’, variables(‘networkSecurityGroupName’))]”
],
“properties”: {
“addressSpace”: {
“addressPrefixes”: [
“[variables(‘addressPrefix’)]”
]
},
“subnets”: [
{
“name”: “[variables(‘subnetName’)]”,
“properties”: {
“addressPrefix”: “[variables(‘subnetPrefix’)]”,
“networkSecurityGroup”: {
“id”: “[resourceId(‘Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups’, variables(‘networkSecurityGroupName’))]”
}
}
}
]
}
},
{
“type”: “Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces”,
“apiVersion”: “2020-06-01”,
“name”: “[variables(‘nicName’)]”,
“location”: “[parameters(‘location’)]”,
“dependsOn”: [
“[resourceId(‘Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses’, parameters(‘publicIPName’))]”,
“[resourceId(‘Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks’, variables(‘virtualNetworkName’))]”
],
“properties”: {
“ipConfigurations”: [
{
“name”: “ipconfig1”,
“properties”: {
“privateIPAllocationMethod”: “Dynamic”,
“publicIPAddress”: {
“id”: “[resourceId(‘Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses’, parameters(‘publicIPName’))]”
},
“subnet”: {
“id”: “[variables(‘subnetRef’)]”
}
}
}
]
}
},
{
“type”: “Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines”,
“apiVersion”: “2020-06-01”,
“name”: “[parameters(‘vmName’)]”,
“location”: “[parameters(‘location’)]”,
“dependsOn”: [
“[resourceId(‘Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts’, variables(‘storageAccountName’))]”,
“[resourceId(‘Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces’, variables(‘nicName’))]”
],
“properties”: {
“hardwareProfile”: {
“vmSize”: “[parameters(‘vmSize’)]”
},
“osProfile”: {
“computerName”: “[parameters(‘vmName’)]”,
“adminUsername”: “[parameters(‘adminUsername’)]”,
“adminPassword”: “[parameters(‘adminPassword’)]”
},
“storageProfile”: {
“imageReference”: {
“publisher”: “MicrosoftWindowsServer”,
“offer”: “WindowsServer”,
“sku”: “[parameters(‘OSVersion’)]”,
“version”: “latest”
},
“osDisk”: {
“createOption”: “FromImage”,
“managedDisk”: {
“storageAccountType”: “StandardSSD_LRS”
}
},
“dataDisks”: [
{
“diskSizeGB”: 1023,
“lun”: 0,
“createOption”: “Empty”
}
]
},
“networkProfile”: {
“networkInterfaces”: [
{
“id”: “[resourceId(‘Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces’, variables(‘nicName’))]”
}
]
},
“diagnosticsProfile”: {
“bootDiagnostics”: {
“enabled”: true,
“storageUri”: “[reference(resourceId(‘Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts’, variables(‘storageAccountName’))).primaryEndpoints.blob]”
}
}
}
}
],
“outputs”: {
“hostname”: {
“type”: “string”,
“value”: “[reference(parameters(‘publicIPName’)).dnsSettings.fqdn]”
}
}
}

 

Next Steps:

Wildcard SSL Certificates