Getting Up and Running with Azure

Once Azure resources are in place with an account, the tasks of establishing components begins. Microsoft included Azure Resource Manager to handle quite a few tasks including monitoring, deployment and management. The single interface allows you to manage your Azure resources together, even if they encompass multiple components across your infrastructure.

Several components may work together within Azure which require grouping. A VM may include a storage account with virtual networking, a web app, an SQL database and other related pieces. These are not merely individual instances but related components which need to be managed as such. Azure Resource Manager (ARM) portal allows for the best management of resources in a variety of ways.

Benefits of Azure Resource Manager

There are a number of benefits to using the Resource Manager in Azure to better manage your virtual infrastructure, including:

  • Deploy components to your resources even within a group while managing and monitoring them from a central portal.
  • Organizational oversight of billing by viewing costs associated by group which can be sorted by custom tags.
  • Address management functions with the use of declarative templates which is probably the most powerful tool within ARM to quickly implement a variety of new virtual components along with storage containers while linking with applications including web and database applications.
  • Since Roll-Based Access Control is a native part of Resource Manager, you can apply access controls to any service by group. Security management is always available within ARM.
  • Deployment state consistency can be achieved throughout the lifecycle of a project, making the processes of development, staging and production implementation achievable in shorter work-cycles.
  • Dependencies can easily be defined so that resources are deployed in a correct order, based on the use of highly valuable templates.
  • Resources can be logically tagged, providing an organized infrastructure by which monitoring of cost, deployment and management is accomplished.

Azure Resource Manager provides everything that a business needs to effectively manage cloud-based resources. Subscriptions to Azure can be easily managed while implementations within new and existing cloud-based infrastructures can be brought on-line with ease, security and functionality. Templates are a powerful bridge between management and implementation, even saving money due to fast implementation and business consistency management. Corporations are frequently turning to the cloud and Azure’s powerful tools with Resource Manager to trust their infrastructure to a high standard of security and performance at reasonable costs.

Get Started With Azure Resource Manager Templates

Azure Resource Manager includes access to many templates which can be used for deploying infrastructure resources throughout your subscription in a consistent manner. Through the use of these declarative templates, new components can be created and deployed in an orderly fashion, while adhering to grouping structures you assign for consistent development of resources. Templates are a powerful way to implement an Azure infrastructure while providing cost and security management.

Once you create a resource group and begin development of your infrastructure, each new component created also has a new template available. Re-use the new templates to create other resources to consistently deploy your latest infrastructure additions. The repetition from template deployments provides assurance of operational consistency across dependent components where templates can be linked (nested).

Templates are saved in a JSON (Javascript Object Notation) file which will define one or several resources to be deployed to a resource group with a set of configurations which can be as simple or complex as you choose. These templates can also reach across defined types of resources to include a variety of services in the deployment, making it easy to start each resource as a readied component to put into development or production.

There are four main scripting modes to use to create robust templates in Resource Manager:

  • Azure PowerShell – with this installed module you can create local and external templates (for example on GitHub or an Azure storage account). Templates can also be created and loaded using Cloud Shell. Deployments can even be made across resource groups and subscriptions.
  • Azure CLI – load this module in Azure for this preferred method of accessing and creating templates. As with Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI can also be used to create and load templates from both local and external files or be created in Cloud Shell. Deployments can also reach across resource groups and subscriptions.
  • Azure ARM portal – from the portal, you can use quick-start templates or even a built-in the editor to make changes to JSON files to add your custom commands and configurations. There are also standard templates available from the Marketplace for download and use.
  • Resource Manager REST API – which allows for incremental and complete mode deployments to resources groups from templates you control.

When creating Azure resources, templates simplify the work and can be stored for organization-wide use. The Azure Resource Manager is the best way to access, create, customize and store your templates to get project deployments running as soon as possible.

When it comes to learning and using the variety of avenues to create and use custom templates there are any number of available resources to assist in learning, creating and troubleshooting within Azure, all using the Resource Manager. To access the Resource Manager in Azure, create your new account and try out a new subscription of cloud-based resources that can benefit your organization with lower cost and higher business efficiency. To learn more about Microsoft Azure and the benefits of the Resource Manager, contact our experts at RoyalDiscount.com your online resource for Microsoft OEM, Retail & Cloud products.