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.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: ARM Template Foundational Skills
6
Section 2: ARM Template Advanced Concepts

Nested templates

Nested templates are similar in nature to linked templates. Just as linked templates allow the execution of a separate template from the master template, nested templates help to execute others. However, there are notable differences between the two types.

While linked templates are separate templates and thus stored separately, nested templates are instead defined within the same master template file. While linked templates should be available at a well-defined URI accessible to the master template, there is no such requirement for a nested template. In addition, linked templates should be protected from unauthorized access, while nested templates need not.

However, there are certain constraints to consider before working with nested templates. For example, nested templates do not have the ability to define their own parameters; nor do they return any values...