What is Azure Deployment Manager ?

[HPE_Alliances]

By Chris Jeffrey

Recently, Microsoft announced its new preview feature to Azure, Azure Deployment Manager (ADM) at Microsoft Ignite 2018.  Simply put ADM allows for the ability to stage rollouts of resources region by region.  But what does this really mean? 

For Agile companies adopting a DevSecOps approach to cloud technology this feature will be invaluable.  Essentially ADM allows for the control of region by region deployments of your application or services based on their health. For example, should a deployment in West Europe go as planned, but the second phase in East US show issues based on health status or performance the deployment will cease, allowing you time to review the issues and rectify. Essentially a built-in level checking on top of the traditional Route to Live (RTL) foundation.

ADM adds new features to Azure Resource Manager for Service Topology and Rollouts.

Service Topology

Service Topology allows for parameters for Service Units, which in turn form a Service. Many Services exist within a Service Topology.

Rollout

Rollout is essentially the Step by Step deployment of Service Units. Step Groups are created in a processable order, allowing for Pre-Deployment, Deployment and Post Deployment operations.

Pre and Post deployment steps examples include, Wait, Custom Node Extension or Health Checks, and more options are to be announced with the GA release.

How to preview?

For full information from Microsoft on the Preview release and how to gain access you can use the following link http://aka.ms/admsignup .

Note than Cloud Technology Partners (CTP) can provide consultative assistance for deploying and optimizing Azure Deployment Manager with new or existing Microsoft Azure deployments, by encompassing the technology into the Minimal Viable Cloud (MVC) offering from CTP.

Chris Jeffrey is a Senior Cloud Architect covering Microsoft Azure for Cloud Technology Partners, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise compnay. He has extensive background knowledge and experience in Microsoft O365, Hyper-V, Windows Server and Desktop technologies, VMWare and Citrix. Chris has additional experience with HCI and HPE server hardware such as C7000 and core server offerings.