Azure Spring Apps

 Spring Apps :

Microsoft Azure Spring Apps is a fully managed service that brings modern microservices patterns to Spring Boot and Steeltoe .NET core applications.

These resourcea are recommended for partners looking to expand their service offering. They can expect to learn how to develop and deliver Java or Steeltoe .NET core applications quickly, and understand how to build, deploy, and monitor Spring Cloud Apps on Azure for their customers.

These resources have a specific prerequisite: an understanding of the Spring and Spring Boot frameworks.

Building, Running, and Monitoring Microservices with Azure Spring Apps¶

• Provision an Azure Spring Apps Service, and Build and Deploy Apps
• Developing, Deploying, and Configuring Apps in Azure Spring Apps
• Scaling, networking, and securing apps with Azure Spring Apps Automating, Troubleshooting, and Migrating Apps to Azure Spring Apps

Accelerateing Azure Spring Apps Adoption¶

Provisioning Azure Spring App¶

• Provision using Azure Bicep
• Provision using ARM Template
• Provision using Azure CLI
• Provision using Terraform

Spring App Resources¶

• Azure Spring Apps Reference Architecture
• Azure Roadmap
• Azure Spring Apps FAQs
• Azure Spring Apps Troubleshooting Guide
• Spring Cloud Services for VMWare Tanzu Documentation
• Steeltoe
• Spring
• Spring Framework
• Spring on Azure

Azure Compete Scenarios¶

• AWS to Azure Services Comparison
• GCP to Azure Services Comparison

Fundamentals¶

• Introduction to Azure Spring Apps
• Quickstart: Deploy your first application to Azure Spring Apps (Self-Paced)
• Learning Path: Azure Fundamentals (Self-Paced) (10 Hours)
• Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (In-person Instructor Led)
• Video: Build and Deliver Apps with Spring Apps (Self-Paced)
• Azure Spring Apps FAQs (Self-Paced

¶

Azure Hosts

 HOSTS :

Azure Dedicated Host is a service that provides physical servers - able to host one or more virtual machines - dedicated to one Azure subscription. Dedicated hosts are the same physical servers used in our data centers, provided as a resource. You can provision dedicated hosts within a region, availability zone, and fault domain. Then, you can place VMs directly into your provisioned hosts, in whatever configuration best meets your needs.

Benefits

Reserving the entire host provides the following benefits:

• Hardware isolation at the physical server level. No other VMs will be placed on your hosts. Dedicated hosts are deployed in the same data centers and share the same network and underlying storage infrastructure as other, non-isolated hosts.
• Control over maintenance events initiated by the Azure platform. While the majority of maintenance events have little to no impact on your virtual machines, there are some sensitive workloads where each second of pause can have an impact. With dedicated hosts, you can opt in to a maintenance window to reduce the impact to your service.
• With the Azure hybrid benefit, you can bring your own licenses for Windows and SQL to Azure. Using the hybrid benefits provides you with additional benefits. For more information, see Azure Hybrid Benefit.

Groups, hosts, and VMs

A host group is a resource that represents a collection of dedicated hosts. You create a host group in a region and an availability zone, and add hosts to it.

A host is a resource, mapped to a physical server in an Azure data center. The physical server is allocated when the host is created. A host is created within a host group. A host has a SKU describing which VM sizes can be created. Each host can host multiple VMs, of different sizes, as long as they are from the same size series.

Azure Proximity placement groups

 

Proximity placement groups :

While Availability zones allow resources to be placed in the same group of physical data centers, this still could mean they’re in different data centres perhaps many kilometers apart…

Proximity Placement Groups assure that resources are placed in the same data centre…

By using PPGs absolute physical distance which is one of the main factors impacting network latency between VMs can be reduced.

PPGs can benefit all multi-tiered apps but are ideal in very latency sensitive applications such as those used in banking, trading etc. When combined with accelerated networking sub-millisecond latency times between VMs can be achieved.

The data centre associated with a PPG is allocated when the first VM is added to the group. All subsequent VMs added to the PPG will get added to the same data centre as the first VM. A subsequent request for a different virtual machine SKU may fail since it’s not available in the data centre already selected. For this reason Microsoft recommends adding the most exotic SKU to your PPG first.

Creating Proximity Placement Groups in Azure Portal

Adding Azure Proximity Placement Groups in the Azure portal is easy. Search for ‘proximity placement groups’, visit the default listing page and click new.

All that’s needed is resource group, region and name. Obviously your region must be the same as where your virtual machines are located.

You can create PPGs via ARM templates, the CLI and PowerShell too.

Note that you need to create the Proximity Placement Group first using one of the above approaches before you can place a new or existing VM into it, there is no ability to create a new PPG inline (as you might with resource groups).

When creating a new VM, the PPG section is found near the end of the page on the Advanced tab.

When editing an existing VM the PPG section is found in Settings -> Configuration. Note the virtual machine needs to be stopped/deallocated to amend its PPG config.

 SAP HANA ON AZURE:

The Azure CAT Patterns & Practices team has published their first reference architecture on SAP NetWeaver and SAP HANA on Azure, which covers SAP workloads running in Azure. It provides prescriptive guidance on how to run SAP HANA on Azure including the following topics:

• Architecture resources necessary for the deployment, including recommendations.
• Scalability considerations.
• Availability considerations.
• Manageability considerations.
• Security considerations.

Like all reference architectures that can be found at the Azure Architecture Center, it provides a set of PowerShell scripts and Azure Resource Manager templates to deploy the reference architecture. The deployment time for this one is about 2 hours, making simple a task that previously would take days.

This reference architecture expands on the Hybrid VPN reference architecture that will typically be used in a production environment. However, this reference architecture does not deploy the Hybrid VPN resources. Instead, it deploys everything but the VPN gateway in the cloud. So, if you plan to implement the SAP HANA reference architecture in a production environment consider deploying the Hybrid VPN reference architecture first. Then, you’ll be able to deploy the SAP HANA reference architecture into your virtual network configured with VPN.

We invite you to review the reference architecture, try out the deployment, and even contribute to this and other reference architectures on GitHub.

 

 

The deployed resources have been tuned for SAP HANA, as follows:

• VM SKUs have been validated for small to medium SAP deployments.
• VM computer names are set up per SAP requirements.
• .NET 3.5 is loaded for the SCS machines, as required by SIOS DataKeeper.
• Health probe has been set up for TCP 59999 with a 10 second interval and 30 second idle.
• A jumpbox for administrative purposes was deployed.

Azure Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials

  Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials :

Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials allows you to deliver Windows applications and shared hosted desktops from Microsoft Azure to any user on any device. The service combines the industry-leading Citrix Virtual Apps service with the power and flexibility of Microsoft Azure. You can also use Virtual Apps Essentials to publish Windows Server desktops.

Server OS machines run multiple sessions from a single machine to deliver multiple applications and desktops to multiple, simultaneously connected users. Each user requires a single session from which they can run all their hosted applications.

The service is delivered through Citrix Cloud and helps you to deploy your application workloads within your Azure subscription with ease. When users open applications from the workspace experience, the application appears to run locally on the user computer. Users can access their apps securely from any device, anywhere.

Virtual Apps Essentials includes the workspace experience and the Citrix Gateway service, in addition to its core management services. Your app workloads run in your Azure subscription.

Deployment architecture

The following diagram shows an architectural overview of a basic Virtual Apps Essentials cloud deployment:

You can also allow users to connect to your on-premises data center. Connections between the Azure cloud and your on-premises data center occur through a VPN connection. Users connect through Virtual Apps Essentials to your license server, file servers, or Active Directory over the VPN connection.

Deployment summary

Follow these steps to deploy Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials:

• Buy Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials from the Azure Marketplace.
• Prepare and link your Azure subscription.
• Create and upload your master image.
• Deploy a catalog, publish apps and desktops, and assign subscribers

Azure Citrix Virtual Desktops Essentials

 Citrix Virtual Desktops Essentials :

Citrix Virtual Desktops Essentials allows management and delivery of Windows 10 virtual desktops from Microsoft Azure.

Virtual Desktops Essentials is designed specifically for the Azure Marketplace. Citrix and Microsoft partner to deliver an integrated experience for Virtual Desktops Essentials and Azure IaaS. This partnership gives you a single interface to deliver a complete Windows 10 digital workspace from Azure.

Using Virtual Desktops Essentials, you can:

• Deploy and secure Windows 10 virtual desktops on Azure
• Deliver best-in-class user experience by using Citrix HDX capabilities
• Provide secure access on any device by using Citrix Workspace app
• Manage and administer the deployment from Microsoft Azure and Citrix Cloud

Citrix Virtual Desktops Essentials simplifies Windows 10 deployment. You can deploy desktops quickly, manage at scale, and deliver a rich user access experience from a single management plane.

You manage the Windows 10 desktops using Studio and monitor sessions using Director. Users connect to their Windows 10 virtual desktops by logging on with Citrix Workspace app.

After you configure Citrix Virtual Desktops Essentials, you provide your users with a URL to Citrix Workspace. Users connect to their desktops through the Citrix Workspace app on their devices, with the URL you provide. When users log on to the Citrix Workspace app, the Windows 10 desktop icon appears in the workspace window.

The diagram shows an architectural overview of a Virtual Desktops Essentials deployment.

VM images (classic)

 VM Image :

Once you have a virtual machine set up and configured as you want, you can capture the instance as a VM Image.  During the capture process, all relevant properties of the virtual machine and disks are stored and copies of the backing VHD page blob(s) are made.  The copy of each VHD is stored in the same storage account and container as the original VHD being copied.  If you are interested in finding the copied VHDs in Azure Storage, search for page blobs with the following naming convention: for the OS VHD, we use <VM Image Name>-os-YYYY-MM-DD<-ZZ> and for the copied data VHDs, we use <VM Image Name>-datadisk-<Lun>-YYYY-MM-DD(-ZZ).  The date is when the VM Image was captured and the -ZZ is a number, added only if there is a collision, to make the name unique.  During capture, no in-memory state is saved and as such, this feature is not meant to replace the current backup and restore options for Microsoft Azure.  If you are interested in more information about backup and restore. If the OS has been generalized/deprovisioned, the virtual machine must be shut down in order to capture it as a VM Image.  Once the VM has been captured as a VM Image, the virtual machine will automatically be deleted.  If the OS is specialized, the virtual machine can be captured while it is running or shut down.  The captured virtual machine remains untouched.  If an application consistent or cross-disk capture is needed, we recommend the virtual machine is shut down prior to capturing the VM Image.

 Use a VM Image :

You can use a VM Image when creating a virtual machine as part of a new or existing deployment.  To deploy a new VM, make sure the virtual machine and VM Image location are the same and then simply provide the name of the VM Image to use.  If the VM Image is generalized, provisioning information and network configuration should also be provided, like with an OS Image today.  Once the virtual machine has been deployed, it behaves the same as any other VM created from OS Images or OS disks.  The role can be updated, additional disks may be attached, or the existing disks detached. If the VM Image is specialized, no provisioning information is needed, like with an OS disk today.  When a virtual machine is deployed from a VM Image, a copy of the VHDs are made for the new VM; in other words, the existing VHDs are not attached directly.  After deploying a virtual machine from a specialized VM Image, the VM will spin up and look to be in a running state very quickly after deployment, since provisioning was not required.  However, the virtual machine may still be booting up, requiring a few additional minutes for remote desktop/SSH to be ready. Once again, after the virtual machine is deployed and running, it behaves the same as any other VM created from OS Images or OS disks.  One small caveat to this statement is when you deploy a new virtual machine from a specialized Windows VM Image that was captured from a running VM. When using such a VM Image, you may see a dialog pop up stating the VM was not properly shutdown when you first remote desktop into the newly deployed VM.

 

Get-AzureVMImage

To list all VM Images in the image repository, use the Get-AzureVMImage cmdlet:

Get-AzureVMImage