First steps with Azure Arc

Last updated on 9. October 2022

Managing servers in multiple sites can be a hassle. To make things easier, Microsoft released a tool to manage servers in multiple sites. It is known as a multi-cloud management service.

At first sight the possibilities seem endless. To put things simple, I will provide multiple blog posts to go through every available function.

Let’s start with the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about multi-cloud management: Adding servers from on-premises.

1. Navigate to Azure Arc. Open the service. Now you need to navigate to the “Servers” item.

2. Click “Add” to get into the dialog box. Now you have the possibility to add a server into Arc.

3. As you can see, there are multiple options to add the server. In our case we will just select “Add a single server”. Other options enable you to automatically add servers into Azure Arc from other solutions you have deployed already like Azure Migrate or Update Management. If you choose to add multiple servers, a Service Principal will be created that will manage the authentication to Azure. In our case a device login URL is shown.

4. Skip the dialog with clicking on “Next”.

5. At the configuration site we have well-known options at the top to specify our Subscription and the Resource Group. Then the region and the operating system must be selected. Attention to the choice of region. You cannot reverse your choice. Instead you have to unregister the server and register it again. The choice of the operating system generates the correct script at the end. “Connectivity method” can be of interest to you, if your environment has specific regulatory. For example “Proxy server” can be used if communication is allowed through proxy only. “Private endpoint” can be utilized if communication runs over VPN and not public WAN. In our case we choose “Public endpoint” to connect with Azure Arc.

6. If you fulfilled step 1 to 5 you will get the following script for Linux and for Windows. Start the download and transfer it to your server you want to onboard.

7. When the upload is done, start an administrative PowerShell. Navigate to the correct directory and run the script. It checks all prerequisites and installs the agent. To authenticate against the Azure Cloud a link will be presented that must be followed. Login with your account that has correct permission inside Azure and enter the code.

8. Congrats, you did it! The server should be visible in the portal. Or at least soon, because it may take some time until the registration process is completed.

9. Done! Please leave a comment 😉