Book Image

Azure Resource Manager Templates Quick Start Guide

By : Ritesh Modi

Book Image

Azure Resource Manager Templates Quick Start Guide

By: Ritesh Modi

Overview of this book

Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are declarations of Azure resources in the JSON format to provision and maintain them using infrastructure as code. This book gives practical solutions and examples for provisioning and managing various Azure services using ARM templates. The book starts with an understanding of infrastructure as code, a refresher on JSON, and then moves on to explain the fundamental concepts of ARM templates. Important concepts like iteration, conditional evaluation, security, usage of expressions, and functions will be covered in detail. You will use linked and nested templates to create modular ARM templates. You will see how to create multiple instances of the same resources, how to nest and link templates, and how to establish dependencies between them. You will also learn about implementing design patterns, secure template design, the unit testing of ARM templates, and adopting best practices. By the end of this book, you will understand the entire life cycle of ARM templates and their testing, and be able to author them for complex deployments.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Free Chapter

Section 1: ARM Template Foundational Skills

Section 1: ARM Template Foundational Skills

Infrastructure as Code and Configuration Management

Infrastructure as Code and Configuration Management

What is configuration management?

Infrastructure as Code

What are ARM templates?

Designing ARM templates

A brief primer on JSON

Azure Resource Manager

Azure Resource Manager Templates

Azure Resource Manager Templates

Setting up the development environment

ARM template structure

Writing your first template

Template deployment

Understanding Core Elements of ARM Templates

Understanding Core Elements of ARM Templates

ARM template expressions

ARM template functions

A complete template

Nesting resources

Understanding dependsOn

Using references

Understanding resourceId

Using linked templates

Nested templates

Advance Template Features

Advance Template Features

Creating multiple instances of a resource type

Creating multiple instances of a resource type, using Serial mode

Creating multiple instances of a resource property

Using copy to generate multiple variables

Conditions in ARM templates

Advanced deployments

Section 2: ARM Template Advanced Concepts

Section 2: ARM Template Advanced Concepts

IaaS Solutions Using Templates

IaaS Solutions Using Templates

Configuration inside an Azure virtual machine

Protecting scripts using SAS tokens

Using protectedSettings

CustomScriptExtension as separate resource

Unit Testing ARM Templates

Unit Testing ARM Templates

Unit testing ARM templates

Retrieving outputs from ARM templates

Setting up the test harness

Design Patterns

Design Patterns

Why use modular ARM templates?

Technical prerequisites

Deploying the solution

Template patterns

Redefining resources in the same template

ARM Template Best Practices

ARM Template Best Practices

Use resourceId function

Generate Resource Identifier used multiple times

Use Tags for resources and resource groups

Use parameters sparingly

Group related parameters

Order parameters alphabetically

Constraint parameters if possible

Parameter's defaultValue and API versions

Declare All Resources as top-level resources

Output Resource Properties and Configuration

Resource-naming conventions

Storage of Linked templates

Resource Dependencies

Using Key Vaults for secrets

Using ContentVersion

Deployment – Best Practices

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Parameters

Parameters are well known constructs in programming languages. They are generally found within function declaration. They are placeholders filled up by values at runtime provided by the caller. Parameters in ARM templates are no different. Parameters are like fill-in-the-blanks, and these blanks are filled up with values by the caller.

Parameters help to make a template generic and customizable. Instead of hardcoding the values, data can be supplied at runtime and the template deployment can work with new set of incoming data. Parameters also make templates reusable across environments and subscriptions.

Note that there can be maximum of 255 parameters in an ARM template (there are ways to work around this limitation by using object data types for parameters) and using runtime values generated during deployment rather than defining parameters in ARM templates.

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