Managing Hybrid environments with Azure
The original post of mine is available at https://www.gopithecheeta.com/post/managing-hybrid-environments-with-azure
If you are using Azure and you are workloads are deployed in multi cloud like AWS, GCP and on premises. So obviously looking for simple solution to manage workloads from Azure
Yes, there is a solution in Azure and we are going see the details in this article
Assume, you have on premises environment with combination of Physical and Virtual servers with Linux and windows Operating System running, first step is to bring the on-premises environment to Azure aware environment
How to enable on-premises environment to Azure aware? The answer is Azure Arc-enabled servers
So, what are Azure Arc-enabled servers?
Azure Arc-enabled servers enable you to manage your Windows and Linux physical servers and virtual machines hosted outside of Azure, on your corporate network, or other cloud provider
Once it is connected it will be treated as another Azure resource and each connected machine has a Resource ID enabling the machine to be included in a resource group.
How to enable the server outside of my Azure Arc-enabled servers and benefit from standard Azure constructs
To deliver this experience with your hybrid machines, you need to install the Azure Connected Machine agent on each machine.
Supported cloud operations
When you connect your machine to Azure Arc-enabled servers, it enables the ability for you to perform the following operational functions
The target machine also needs to be installed with Azure Log Analytics agent. Therefore you can get the service benefits depends on Log Analytics
· You want to proactively monitor the OS and workloads running on the machine,
· Manage it using Automation runbooks or solutions like Update Management, or
· Use other Azure services like Azure Security Center.
Supported operating systems
The following versions of the Windows and Linux operating system are officially supported for the Azure Connected Machine agent:
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, and 2022 (including Server Core)
- Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, and 20.04 LTS (x64)
- CentOS Linux 7 and 8 (x64)
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 and 15 (x64)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 and 8 (x64)
- Amazon Linux 2 (x64)
- Oracle Linux 7
More details about prerequisites — https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-arc/servers/agent-overview#supported-environm
Ok, now worrying about deploying the Azure Arc-enabled servers in all machines other than your Azure workload. Don`t worry here is the solution
Connect hybrid machines to Azure using a deployment script
There are details about how to generate the installation script from the Azure portal, check out below link
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-arc/servers/onboard-portal
This is one of the best solutions if you are using Azure and mange hybrid environment with Azure. As an extension of Azure, below services are comes with no costs
- Resource inventory and organization through Azure resource groups and tags
- Indexing and searching through Azure Resource Graph
- Access and security through RBAC and subscriptions
- Environments and automation through templates and extensions
Costs involves for Database, Azure Machine learning and Other arc enabled services that comes with a fee in Azure
