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Enable Extensions on Azure Arc Connected Machines with Ansible Automation Platform

Last year, I blogged about how to use Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to migrate Azure Arc-enabled servers from Azure Log Analytics Agents (MMA/OMS) to Azure Monitor Agent (AMA).  Azure Arc supports a number of other extensions that can add additional value to your Arc-enabled infrastructure.  Since my previous article, all of these extensions have been added to the azure.infrastructure_config_demos collection that contains a role for managing Arc-enabled server VM extensions with Ansible.

Each extension offers unique capabilities to your Arc-enabled fleet, such as logging, vulnerability scanning, key vault cert sync, update management, and more.  Enabling these extensions is simple for small numbers of machines. When you need to scale out the work of enabling and configuring these extensions across hundreds or thousands of devices, then Ansible Automation Platform can help!

This article covers how to use Ansible Automation Platform to enable VM extensions supported in the azure.infrastructure_config_demos collection.  Within the collection, there are a number of playbooks and roles; the following are pertinent to this post.

File or Folder	Description
playbook_enable_arc_extension.yml	Playbook that will be used as a job template to enable Azure Arc extensions.
playbook_disable_arc_extension.yml	Playbook that will be used Continue reading

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Migrate to Azure Monitor Agent on Azure Arc using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Azure Arc is becoming the default Microsoft Azure service for connecting non-Azure infrastructure into Azure monitoring and administration.  Azure has also issued a deprecation notice for the Azure Log Analytics Agents; Microsoft Monitoring Agent and Log Analytics (OMS).  Azure Monitor Agent replaces these agents, introducing a simplified, flexible method of configuring collection configuration called Data Collection Rules. To leverage Azure Monitor Agent with their non-Azure servers, customers will need to onboard their machines to Azure Arc-enabled servers. 

This article covers how to use Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to migrate servers that are currently using Azure Log Analytics Agent to Azure Monitor Agent on Azure Arc using Ansible Automation Platform.  When you have completed the configuration in this blog, you will be able to run a workflow against an automation controller inventory that performs the following tasks:

1. Ensures that the Azure Arc agent is installed on each machine.  In cases where the agent is not installed, then it will be installed.
2. Enable the Azure Monitor Agent on Arc enabled machines.
3. Disable the Log Analytics Agent.
4. Uninstall the Log Analytics Agent.

Since the example workflow in this blog post is modular, you may also implement the Continue reading

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Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure – Network Access – blog #2

Thank you to Hicham Mourad and Scott Harwell for co-authoring this blog.

Introduction

In this blog series, we will continue discussing the deployment of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure.

The first blog covered the deployment process as well as how to access a Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Azure deployment that was deployed using the “Public” access option.

This blog we’ll cover how to access the managed application when it’s deployed using the “Private” access option.

 

Connecting to Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Microsoft Azure

There are three ways you can access Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Azure if you selected “Private” access.

• An Azure hosted virtual machine (VM)
• Azure VPN or Direct Connect
• SSH Tunnel

Let’s assume that you have already configured network peering between the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Azure deployment, on the Azure network and your existing Azure Virtual Networks.  Network peering is an Azure action for connecting two or more networks on Azure that route traffic to resources across those networks.  See Microsoft Azure documentation for more information on network peering types.

 

Access Details

Regardless of whether you selected public or private Continue reading