Deploying infrastructure ARM Templates to Azure, but using Tags and their respective value as the parameter configuration settings

In a post earlier, we look at using arm to lookup the value of tags’ at both the Subscription and Resource Level.

With Bicep this is much easier to understand. This is the same lab configuration as in the original post, but this time to code should be a lot more readable.

Mixup some Vyinl Oldies, a little Ice to cast, and a PI for some energy, and your ready to go

A little known trivia - I was once a Disc Jokey, and spent a lot of my youth behind the decks, in clubs around the West Of Ireland. Today, I still am the proud owner of a very large collection of Vynil and CD music, which of course deserves to get a second life with my digital streaming audio system powered by Sonos

Deploying infrastructure ARM Templates to Azure, but using Tags and thier respective value as the parameter configuration settings

In the post, I am going to introduce a concept which will allow you to greatly up your Infrastructure as Code game, by using Azure as a State Machine!

One of the typical challenges when deploying ARM templates, is the sheer number of parameters which we find as a requirement to complete a deployment; which as you will appreciate gets considerably harder as we target many environments.

Oxidized is a Linux based service which has the ability to monitor a device’s configuration, including software and hardware. Current configuration is backed up from each device and stored to a GIT repository to maintain history of changes.

The process is very simple:

1. Login to each device in the router list router.db,
2. Run Commands to get the information that will be saved
3. Clean the output
4. Commit the Changes to GIT Repository

The tool is coded in Ruby, and implements a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for interaction.

Delegating Azure Enterprise Agreement Owner privileges to a Service Principal (SPN)

Under the Enterprise agreement we have some different Persona’s, which have quite different abilities and operations upon which they are permitted to preform.

Before we being the process of delegation, It is important to understand this Hierarchy, so we can correctly proceed with the technical work ahead.

Enterprise Administrator

Has the ability to add additional Enterprise and Department Administrators, Additional this persona can

Retrieve the Function Host Keys while deploying an ARM template

Todays conundrum: As I deploy a new Function Application, I need a simple methodology to retrieve the Host Keys for the function application so that I validate the deployment has been successful; and potentially pass on the key to related services, for example API Management.

As before, I am leveraging templates, and will stay cloud native; this time depending on the functions Output ability to present the keys.

Dynamically appending Tags to our ARM template with the union function

Todays conundrum: As I am leveraging templates, there will always be some standard tags I require to implement within the template, but I also require to provide additional tags as a parameter to be appended with the deployment.

My objective is to set up tags within an ARM template in accordance with good governance and the Cloud adoption framework.

The Journey started with the concept of VNets, with work loads, and have evolved in the direction of Subnets, and quickly became a very complex list of islands which were disconnected

• Security
• Public Cloud
• SaaS, Internet
• Users
• Branch Offices

Virtual WAN is a managed service

• Managed by Microsoft with global scale, and multplie endpoints.
• Each Hub can support 60Gb of connectivity;
  • Including 20Gb of ExpressRoute.
  • 20Gb of User VPN
  • 20Gb Site to Site
• Supports 10K users per hub, 1000 sites per hub
• Transit Routing
• Cloud Network orchestration
  • Automation large scale branch, SDWAN CPE connectivity

Overview

Simplified networking, ease of user operations, and cost savings:

Magnify the power of extending Azure platform by enabling customers and partners to easily bring in custom solutions to azure. These can be scoped for offering to our own enterprise, or just some selected customers; or even all customers.

Challenges with extending azure include many of the typical thoughts we face

• As part of my deployment i need to do extra works
• Need to interface with external APIs, create users, storage tables, calling APIs external to Azure, while deploying ARM templates
• 200 Services, which service should i be selected, What is the correct VM SKU? what would be more cost efficient
• How do I integrate my service into Azure; What is the correct option to expose my service to my enterprise, or all azure users

How do we deploy and offer?

Deployment Script

New resource type - Microsoft.Resources/DeploymentScripts