Working with Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is a subscription-based cloud computing platform. The following information is provided to Rapid Recovery customers to facilitate using Azure with our product.
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- Azure interface disclaimer
- Country codes used on the Azure website
- Creating an Azure storage account
- Creating a container in an Azure storage account
- Creating an Azure Active Directory web application
- Obtaining Azure subscription information
- Obtaining a secret key for your Azure web application
- Microsoft Azure documentation
Azure interface disclaimer
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Caution: The Microsoft Azure interface is subject to change. |
The information provided in this document relating to steps required in Azure were current as of the date of publication. This information is provided as a service to our customers to assist them with Azure prerequisites.
However, when working with Azure, be aware that specific steps, URLs or even the Azure interface may change at any time, which is beyond our control.
If you are having difficulty performing any steps related to your Azure subscription, please seek the advice of a Microsoft Azure representative.
Country codes used on the Azure website
The Azure website uses language and country codes for its web addresses, which affect display of the content in the appropriate language. The typical URL construction uses the format: https://[Microsoft or Azure domain]/[country-code]/[destination]/, in which the country code controls the language display and the remainder of the URL specifies the content.
For example, when viewing the documentation center for US English, the URL is https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/. If viewing the same page for Spanish (Spain), the correct URL is https://docs.microsoft.com/es-es/azure/.
The URLs for Azure used throughout this document include the country code for English in the United States. For other languages, URLs may differ based on the settings on your computer, and the languages and country codes Microsoft supports.
If you are browsing in a language other than US English, or if your machine settings are configured for a different language, the language and country code portion of the various URLs cited in this guide may differ accordingly.
Before virtual export to Azure
Before you can perform virtual export to Azure, you need to meet all of the following prerequisites.
- You must have a protected machine with at least one recovery point in a Rapid Recovery Core that you want to export as a VM to Azure.
- Remote access must be enabled on the protected machine for the deployed VM to boot successfully.
- You must have administrative access to an account on Azure.
- You must have an Azure Active Directory (AD) web application. Each web application must have the following characteristics:
- A secret key. Immediately save the secret key to a secure location, as it cannot be recovered or viewed later.
- A valid URL. The URL that you assign to your web application must contain valid URL syntax. However, from a Rapid Recovery perspective, this URL is not required to be active.
- Appropriate permissions. An Azure administrator for your subscription must grant the web application the appropriate Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions (specifically, the Owner role).
NOTE: For details on creating and setting up your AD web application, see Creating an Azure Active Directory web application.
- Your Azure subscription must be associated with a resource group created using Azure Resource Manager. If using an older resource group created using Azure Service Manager, create a new resource group, since Microsoft no longer supports ASM objects.
- Within Azure, you must create (or have access to) a virtual network that is associated with your Azure subscription, location, and resource group. Since this controller is required when deploying a VM to Azure, it is a prerequisite for performing one-time virtual export, or for deploying a continual export (virtual standby) to an active VM in Azure.
- You must have access to specific information for your Azure subscription, as described in Required Azure subscription information later in this topic.
About Azure storage containers
Before performing virtual export to Azure, you must have an Azure storage account. For information about creating a storage account, see Creating an Azure storage account.
When you complete the one-time VM export, the necessary files are exported to the specified storage account in format <storageAccountName>/<exportContainer>/<export_folder>. The default name for the export container is "export" and the default name for the export folder is the name of the protected VM.
Since one-time virtual export automatically includes deployment of the exported VM, the export files are then copied into a deployment folder (of the same name) within a deployment container (named "deploy" by default). The VM is then deployed from this second location.
If you select Show advanced options in the Storage page of the export wizard, you can select different existing container names, or you can enter new names for the export container and folder name and the deployment container.
Required Azure subscription information
When adding an Azure cloud account to your Rapid Recovery Core, or when performing virtual export to Azure, you must be able to identify specific information related to your Azure account. You are required to have details about your account or subscription (including account name and ID), region or location, your Azure web application and its appropriate role (Owner) and properties (directory or tenant ID, secret key, and virtual network). You must identify your resource group, and you must know the name of your storage accounts and their containers and sub-folders. Some of this information is described using more than one term.
The following matrix can help guide you to the Azure information you may be asked to identify, and how to find it.
| Rapid Recovery text box label | Corresponding Azure item label | Description | ||
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Cloud account name
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Subscription name (or Subscription)
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Using the Cloud account name drop-down menu in the Virtual Machine Export Wizard is optional. The first time you perform virtual export to Azure, no information is available from this menu. After you successfully enter all credentials for an Azure subscription into the Rapid Recovery Core Console, the information is cached. Subsequently, instead of entering all credential information, you can select the appropriate subscription from the Cloud account name drop-down menu. | ||
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Region
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Region
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Each Azure portal is associated with a geographic region. Choose the region your portal is accessed from. Options include:
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Application ID
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Application ID
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Each Azure AD web application created is assigned an application ID. For information about creating an Azure AD web application and its associated secret key, see Creating an Azure Active Directory web application. | ||
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Secret key
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Keys
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Each web application must have one or more secret keys that you can use to authenticate using Azure APIs.
For information about creating an Azure AD web application and its associated secret key, see Creating an Azure Active Directory web application. | ||
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Tenant ID
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Directory ID
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This is the directory ID for the AD web application that connects the Core to your Azure subscription. | ||
| Subscription ID | Subscription ID | This ID is associated with your Azure subscription and your unique subscription name. | ||
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Storage account name |
Resource group |
The resource group is a container for resources that share a common life cycle. Using resource groups, you can deploy, manage, and monitor all the services for your solution as a group.
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Export container
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Storage container
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An export container is a child object of the Azure storage container (resource group). When deploying a VM to Azure, this information is stored in a storage container within its parent resource group. Optionally, before exporting, you can create an appropriate storage container from within Azure into which the exported data is stored. You can also create the export storage container dynamically. In Rapid Recovery6.4, the default name provided is "export." Storage requirements grow as your protected machine protects more data. In your Azure account, the container you specify must be associated with a storage location with sufficient space to accommodate the VM. For more information, see the topic Creating a container in an Azure storage account. | ||
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Export folder name |
None |
By default, this folder is named after the VM you want to export. | ||
| Deployment container | None |
This is the container name into which the VM is deployed. The default name provided is "deploy." | ||
| Resource group | Specify the resource group to be used. | |||
| Virtual network |
Specify the virtual network to be associated with the selected resource group. You must create this in Azure before deploying a VM to Azure. Thus, it is required before performing a one-time virtual export, or before deploying an existing continual export to a VM. |
For more information
- For more information on working with Azure, see Working with Microsoft Azure.
- For a detailed description of aspects of virtual export that are unique to Azure, see Exporting and deploying VMs for Azure.
- For more information on Azure configurations and pricing, see the virtual machines pricing page on the Azure website.
- For links to other useful Azure-related references on Microsoft websites, see Microsoft Azure documentation.
Related topics:
For procedures related to exporting or deploying VMs on Azure, see the following topics: