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

Using copy to generate multiple variables

It is also possible to generate multiple variables at runtime using the copy object. There are times when multiple variables are required and the count and values for them are not known at the time of design. The number of variables and their values is known only during deployment time.

For example, creating multiple subnets for virtual networks based on user inputs is related to its count, name, and values. We could create few variables for subnet names, but we can never be certain about them, since the count is dynamic. Instead of declaring each one separately, it is possible to generate those variables using the copy object.

The example shown next generates an array comprising multiple JSON objects, each in turn comprising multiple properties. Only the variables section is shown here from the code perspective. It creates an array of...