Getting Started with Azure Automation for Cloud Management

Azure Automation is a cloud-based automation service that helps you manage and monitor your Azure resources. It provides a single interface for automating tasks across multiple Azure services.

To get started with Azure Automation, you'll need to create a new Azure Automation account. This can be done from the Azure portal by navigating to the Automation section and clicking on the "Create a resource" button.

Azure Automation accounts can be created in any Azure subscription, but you'll need to have the necessary permissions to do so. You'll also need to choose a location for your Automation account, which will determine the region where your automation assets are stored.

With Azure Automation, you can create and manage runbooks, which are essentially scripts that automate tasks and processes.

To get started with Azure Automation, you'll first need to create an Automation account. This is done on the Basics tab, where you'll provide essential information for your account.

You'll need to select a subscription from the drop-down list. This is a required field, so make sure you choose the correct one.

The resource group is also a required field, and you can select an existing one or create a new one.

Your Automation account name must be unique for its location and resource group. Make sure to enter a name that meets this requirement.

You'll also need to select a region for your account from the drop-down list. This will determine where your account is hosted.

By default, a system-assigned managed identity is enabled for the Automation account. This is an optional field, but it's worth noting that it's enabled by default.

You can choose to further customize your Automation account by setting options on the other tabs, or you can select Review + create to accept the default options and proceed to validate and create the account.

Here's a summary of the required fields on the Basics tab:

Azure Automation provides capabilities to simplify cloud management, including process automation, update management, desired state configuration, track changes, and collect inventory.

Process automation is priced per job execution minute, making it a cost-effective solution for automating frequent, time-consuming, and error-prone tasks.

With Azure Automation, you can automate all your frequent, time-consuming, and error-prone IT management tasks, both in the cloud and on-premises, freeing up your time to focus on work that adds business value.

Here are the key features of Azure Automation:

These features work with all the Azure services you know and love, as well as on-premises systems and those in other clouds, giving you the flexibility to manage your resources from a single platform.

Configuration management is priced per managed node, providing a predictable cost structure for managing your resources.

Configuration management with Azure Automation allows you to manage all your DSC configurations, resources, and target nodes from the Azure portal or from PowerShell.

Azure Automation State Configuration provides several advantages over using DSC outside of Azure, including scalability across thousands of machines quickly and easily from a central, secure location.

You can easily enable machines, assign them declarative configurations, and view reports showing each machine's compliance with the desired state you specify.

Azure Automation State Configuration is priced per managed node, making it a cost-effective solution for managing your DSC resources.

By using Azure Automation State Configuration, you can manage your DSC resources in Azure Automation and apply configurations to virtual or physical machines from a DSC pull server in the Azure cloud.

**Key Features of Configuration Management with Azure Automation**

To ensure seamless integration with Azure Automation, you need to meet the DSC requirements. For all Windows nodes running in Azure, WMF 5.1 is installed when machines are enabled.

WinRM is also enabled for nodes running Windows Server 2012 and Windows 7. This is a crucial consideration when setting up your infrastructure.

Here's a quick rundown of the DSC requirements for Windows nodes:

For Linux nodes running in Azure, PowerShell DSC for Linux is installed when machines are enabled. This simplifies the process of managing your Linux infrastructure.

By meeting these DSC requirements, you'll be well on your way to streamlining your configuration management processes with Azure Automation.

The built-in pull server in Azure Automation is a game-changer for configuration management. It eliminates the need to set up and maintain your own pull server, which can be a tedious and time-consuming task.

Target nodes can automatically receive configurations, conform to the desired state, and report on their compliance. This makes it easy to manage large numbers of machines quickly and easily from a central, secure location.

The built-in pull server is available for both Windows and Linux machines, whether they're in the cloud or on-premises. This means you can use it to manage your entire infrastructure, no matter where your machines are located.

Here are some key benefits of using the built-in pull server:

Overall, the built-in pull server in Azure Automation is a powerful tool for configuration management. It makes it easy to manage large numbers of machines and ensures that they're always in a desired state.

Update is a crucial aspect of configuration management, and Azure Automation provides a feature to help you manage updates for your machines across Azure and non-Azure environments.

With update management, you can enable update management for your machines in a few clicks, regardless of where they are located.

You can schedule update deployments according to your business needs and preferences.

Update management can save you time, effort, and resources while ensuring that your machines are always up-to-date and compliant.

You can view update compliance and manage update exceptions for your machines in a single dashboard.

You'll receive alerts and notifications on the status and results of your update deployments.

Note that the update management feature of Azure Automation and the Log Analytics agent it uses will be retired on 31 August 2024.

You'll need to begin assessing and patching your virtual machines using Azure Update Manager by that date.

Azure Update Manager is available at no charge for managing Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Stack HCI VMs.

For Azure Arc-enabled servers, the price is $5 per server per month.

Here's a summary of the pricing for Azure Update Manager:

Process automation is a key component of configuration management, allowing you to automate frequent, time-consuming, and error-prone management tasks.

By using process automation, you can reduce manual intervention, improve consistency, and increase efficiency. This can be particularly helpful when dealing with complex and multi-step workflows.

Process automation supports the integration of Azure services and other third-party systems, making it easier to deploy, configure, and manage your end-to-end processes. You can author graphical, PowerShell, and Python runbooks to define the logic and steps of your automation tasks.

To run runbooks directly on the Windows or Linux machine or against resources in the on-premises or other cloud environment, you can deploy a Hybrid Runbook Worker to the machine. This allows you to manage those local resources.

Process automation includes runbook jobs and watchers. Billing for jobs is based on the number of job run time minutes used in the month, and for watchers, it's based on the number of hours used in a month.

Here's a breakdown of the pricing for process automation:

Some common scenarios where process automation can be used include deploying resources, responding to events, and orchestrating workflows.