With the November release of VMware Aria Automation, we are adding support for Microsoft Azure plug-in based resources. You can create plug-in based virtual machines, networks, disks, storage accounts, and more. The Azure account used with classic resources can also be used to provision plug-in based resources.

Using plug-in based resources to build your infrastructure allows for faster access to Azure resources and properties as they become available. You can also use allocation helpers with Azure plug-in based resources in your cloud templates.

VMware Aria Automation supported plug-in based Azure Resources

  • Azure virtual machines
    • VMware Aria Automation supports provisioning virtual machines (VM) hosted on Microsoft Azure. This is now possible through the plugin-based architecture. The classic Azure Machine object in Aria Automation Assembler has limited properties. With the Azure plugin-based architecture, the new Azure Machine object provides all the available properties in Microsoft Azure. The Azure plugin-based architecture allows greater flexibility when designing VMware Aria Automation Templates.

      You can easily configure your VMs to support your infrastructure needs using the latest Azure properties. For example, if you want to enable boot diagnostics for your VM, you can use the boot_diagnostics property in your cloud template.
  • Azure disks
    • VMware Aria Automation supports the creation, update, and deletion of unmanaged disks with the Azure plug-in based resources.
    • As a cloud administrator, you can create plug-in based, Azure disks in Automation Assembler. You can attach new and existing disks to your plug-in based Azure virtual machines.

      You can easily configure your disks to support your infrastructure needs using the latest Azure properties. For example, you can use the encryption property to configure disk encryption options, such as enabling encryption at rest.

      If you want to enable encryption for your disk, you must create a disk encryption set in your Azure portal. After you create the disk encryption set, copy the resource ID, and use it as the value for disk_encryption_set_id:
    • encryption:
      disk_encryption_set_id: <resource id>
      type: EncryptionAtRestWithCustomerKey

      https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/managed-disks-overview
  • Azure storage accounts
    • As a cloud administrator, you can leverage the Microsoft Azure plug-in based resources to create storage accounts using templates in VMware Aria Automation. You can attach the storage account to an Azure resource to ensure that your data objects are only accessible through the storage account.

      You can easily configure your Azure storage accounts to support your infrastructure needs. With VMware Aria Automation, you can use encryption properties in your cloud templates to control access to the storage account.

      Creating, updating, and deleting storage account resources is supported in VMware Aria Automation.
      https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/
  • Azure virtual networks
    • As a cloud administrator, you can leverage the Microsoft Azure plug-in based resources to provision plug-in based virtual networks to support your infrastructure needs. Also, allocation helpers can be used to provide allocation logic for virtual networks.

      You can easily configure your Azure virtual networks to support your infrastructure needs. VMware Aria Automation supports creating virtual networks, virtual network peering’s, network interfaces, and more.
      https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/network-overview

  • Azure SQL databases
    • As a cloud administrator, you can leverage the Microsoft Azure plug-in to provision plug-in based SQL databases to support your infrastructure needs. Additionally, you can also use allocation helpers to provide allocation logic for your database.

      You can easily configure your Azure SQL databases to support your infrastructure needs. Creating, updating, and deleting Azure SQL databases is supported in VMware Aria Automation.
      https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/


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