Microsoft Azure
This topic explains how to get started with Azure in Commander.
Note: Azure Classic is no longer a supported cloud platform.
In this topic:
Getting started with Azure
To manage your Azure resources with Commander:
- Create a Microsoft Azure account.
Commander uses your account to connect to Azure.
- Create an Azure subscription.
You do this in the Azure Management Portal. All of the private images and instances belonging to that subscription become a single cloud account in Commander. It's a good idea to have a small number of Azure subscriptions, so that you can keep the number of cloud accounts to a minimum.
- Create an identity for the Commander application.
You do this in the Azure Management Portal. This involves creating an Azure Active Directory application and service principal that can access Azure resources. To learn how, see the following article in the Microsoft documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-create-service-principal-portal
- Record the Subscription ID.
You find this information in the Azure Management Portal, as shown below:
- Record the Application (client) ID and authentication key.
You find this information in the Azure Management Portal. To learn how, see the following article from the Microsoft documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-create-service-principal-portal#get-application-id-and-authentication-key
- Record the Directory (tenant) ID.
You find this information in the Azure Management Portal. To learn how, see the following article from the Microsoft documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-create-service-principal-portal#get-tenant-id
- Assign the Commander application to a role.
To learn how, see the following article from the Microsoft documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-create-service-principal-portal#assign-application-to-role
- Optional: If Internet access is established through a web proxy server, integrate your web proxy server with Commander.
For more information, see Connecting Public Clouds through a Web Proxy Server.
- Add your Azure subscription to Commander as a cloud account, using the Subscription ID, Directory (tenant) ID, Application (client) ID and authentication key.
For more information, see Adding Azure Cloud Accounts.
- Retrieve Azure billing data to ensure the accuracy of VM billing records.
For more information, see Retrieving Azure Billing Data.
Public Azure images
The Public Images folder in the Applications view provides a set of popular images from the Azure Marketplace. The default images provided can be deployed in any Azure region. You can add, remove and modify images in this folder by editing the following configuration file:
<Commander_install_dir>\tomcat\common\classes\arm-images.xml
Note: Save a backup copy of this file before editing.
Elements in the ARM Public Images XML Configuration File
Element | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
Image name | The display name of the image in Commander. You can set this name to whatever you like. | Ubuntu Server 16.04.0-LTS |
Region | The Azure region where you want Commander to look for the image, in command-line format. If the image isn't available in the specified region, deployment will fail. All of the default public images referenced in the file are available in all Azure regions. | Centralus |
Publisher | The publisher of the image. | Canonical |
Offer | The image offer. | UbuntuServer |
SKU | The image SKU. | 16.04.0-LTS |
OsDiskSizeGb | The default size of the OS disk, in GB. | 40 |
You can add these public images to the service catalog, and you can deploy them manually. Note that the cost of these templates is always displayed as 0 USD. For more information, see:
Costing
Commander includes an Azure cost model that's automatically applied when an Azure subscription is added as a cloud account. Azure doesn't provide a breakdown of CPU, memory, and operating system costs. Instead, Azure instance costs are taken from Azure's On-Demand Instance Prices for the particular instance type requested. For more information, see Cost Models.
Azure resource and storage costs are updated with every Commander release. However, if you have customized storage tier costs, your custom costs are not overwritten on upgrade.
To make sure your Azure list prices are current, you can use the command workflow Update Public Cloud List Prices. For more information, see Updating Public Cloud List Prices.