Managing Virtual Networks for the Azure Provider

This topic describes how to customize BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management to manage the Azure Virtual Networks. The topic includes the following sections:

About Virtual Networks

A Virtual Network enables you to create a logically isolated section in Microsoft Azure and securely connect it to your on-premises datacenter or a single client machine using an IPsec connection. A Microsoft Azure Virtual Network allows you to extend your data center, build distributed applications, and debug your applications remotely. For more information, see Microsoft Azure Virtual Network in the Microsoft online technical documentation.

To understand how BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management objects correspond to the Microsoft Azure constructs, see the "Azure construct mappings" section in Product compatibility and limitations for the Azure provider.

You can perform the onboard, edit, offboard, and mapping a tenant operations on a Virtual Network on the Network Container tab (part of the logical hosting environment) of the Resource Management workspace.

Before you begin

• Ensure that you have installed and configured the Azure Provider.
• Ensure that you have at least one virtual network in the Microsoft Azure management portal. For more information, see About Virtual Network Settings in the Management Portal.
• Ensure that you have registered the Azure Provider and defined the Azure account credentials; otherwise, Virtual Network search will not display results.
• Ensure that you have created and imported the tenant for which you want to onboard the Virtual Network. For more information, see Creating and importing tenants.
• To use a third-party external IPAM (Infoblox or VitalQIP) with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, ensure that you have the third-party external IPAM solution configured with your BMC Network Automation. (See Enabling IP address management for details.) The following topics details the steps to be followed for installing and configuring a third-party external IPAM with BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management:
  • VitalQIP setup
    
  • Infoblox setup
    
  • Configuring BMC Network Automation to support a third-party IPAM solution
    
  • Creating and configuring BMC Atrium Orchestrator modules to communicate with other third-party IPAM systems

To onboard a Virtual Network

1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window and select Resources.
2. On the Resource Management page, click Network Containers.
3. Click Onboard Logical Data Center .
4. In the Onboard Logical Data Centers dialog box, select the Provider name; for example, Azure.
   
   
   

5. Select the Azure account name to be used for onboarding the resources; for example, QuickD.
   
   
   
   From the Available Logical Data Centers list, select a Virtual Network entry, as shown in the following figure, and click Add.

   Information

   The Available Logical Data Centers list displays the name of all the Affinity Groups and the virtual networks associated with your Azure account. The name of a Logical Data Center (Affinity Group) is displayed as Your Account Prefix:Region Name-Affinity Group Name; for example AzureJD:East Asia-BMCAG and the name of a Logical Data Center (Virtual Network) is displayed as Your Account Prefix:Region Name-Affinity Group Name#Virtual Network Name; for example QuickD:East Asia-QA-AG-EastAsia#JD-VN.

   If the Virtual Network is directly created in a region in Microsoft Azure, the name of a Logical Data Center (Virtual Network) is displayed as Your Account Prefix:Region Name-AG_DEFAULT#Virtual Network Name; for example QuickD:East Asia-AG_DEFAULT#JD-VN1.

   
   

6. Click Onboard.
   The selected Logical Data Center is added to the Network Containers workspace, as shown in the following figure:
   
   

To edit a Virtual Network

1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window and select Resources.
2. On the Resource Management page, click Network Containers.
3. Select the Virtual Network that you want to edit.
4. Click Edit .
   
   
   
   

5. In the Edit Logical Data Centers window, you can perform the following actions for an Azure Virtual Network:

   1. Define or edit the tag values of the Virtual Network and click Save.

      Information

      For tagging requirements, see Tagging recommendations and examples.

      The tag details of Virtual Network are added, as shown in the following figure. For more information, see Creating tag groups and tags.
      
      

   2. Check Use External IPAM to enable the External IP Address Management for the Virtual Network and click Save.
      

      Information

      See To use an external IPAM solution for Azure Provider for details on the guidelines implied while using any IPAM solution for the Azure Provider.

To enable VM placement in single or multiple subnets for a Virtual Network

To enable VM placement in the Virtual Network subnets, you must define single or multiple subnets in a Virtual Network address space using the Azure Management Portal. Subnets allow you to better organize the storage and applications for your virtual network. An address space of a Virtual Network (as shown in the figure below) defines the IP address ranges to assign to resources deployed to the virtual network. You can create subnets within this address range to further define IP address allocation for resources.

When creating subnets, follow these guidelines from Microsoft:

• You can name the subnets nearly anything you would like, as long as the name conforms to Microsoft subnet naming standards and contains no spaces. The names are there to help you identify what you will be placing on the subnets.
• When naming subnets, the name GatewaySubnet is a reserved subnet name. Do not use this name when naming a subnet.
• The subnets must have names that are unique within your virtual network.
• The IP address ranges must be fully contained within the virtual network’s address space.
• You cannot overlap address ranges within any other subnet within the virtual network.
• The smallest supported subnet is a /29 (8 IP addresses).

For more information, see About Configuring a Virtual Network using the Management Portal.

When you have onboarded a virtual network in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, the subnets are also onboarded and are visible in the Summary > Network panel as shown in the figure below:

To enable VM placement in specific subnets you must tag the subnet individually (as shown in the figure below) and also define the same Network Type tags in the Azure service blueprint. For a suggested tagging strategy, see Tagging recommendations and examples. To create or manage tag groups and tags from the Service Designer workspace, see Managing blueprint tags.

To use an external IPAM for a Virtual Network

When you use an external IPAM for a Virtual Network of the Azure Provider, follow these guidelines:

• Ensure that you have manually registered the IPs of the existing Azure VMs in the BMC Network Automation or any third-party external IPAM solution (Infoblox or VitalQIP), as well as the used IP address in the IP Address Pool of BMC Network Automation or third party-external IPAM solution (as applicable).

  Information

  Azure reserves first 4 IP addresses and the last IP address of the subnet range for protocol conformance, so when an Azure Virtual Network is registered with IPAM some of the IPs are marked as Reserved and are not available for use.

• You must not define overlapping IP addresses for your subnets in the Microsoft Azure portal.

• You can define the address pool under the Network section in Azure Management Portal

• You are not required to use the on-premises BMC Network Automation default or a third-party IPAM (through an integration with BMC Network Automation and BMC Atrium Orchestrator).
  • If you do not use one of these IPAMs, no address pools are created in BMC Network Automation or a third-party IPAM.
  • If you want to use the on-premises BMC Network Automation default or a third-party IPAM, then after successfully onboarding the virtual networks as LDCs in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, you must edit the LDC and select the Use External IPAM check box to register the IP pool in BMC Network Automation (or third-party IPAM solution). At this point, the IP address pools are created in BMC Network Automation or the third-party IPAM. (If the default IPAM from BMC Network Automation is used, you do not need a pod or container construct in BMC Network Automation for the address pools to be created).

When you have enabled an external IPAM system, the Azure Virtual Network details are displayed in the external IPAM system (for example: Infoblox), as shown in the figure below:

You can click the network to see the details of the used, reserved, and unused IP addresses, as shown in the figure below:

For details about how to manage an external IPAM system (such as including, excluding, and viewing excluded IP addresses of an external IPAM system), see Managing the integrated IP Address Management system.

To offboard a Virtual Network

1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window and select Resources.
2. On the Resource Management page, click Network Containers.
3. Select the Virtual Network that you want to offboard, and click Offboard Logical Data Center .
4. When the confirmation dialog box is displayed, click OK.

To map a tenant with a Virtual Network

1. From the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console, click the vertical Workspaces menu on the left side of the window and select Resources.
2. On the Resource Management page, click Network Containers.
3. Select the Virtual Network that you want to map with a tenant.
4. Click Manage Tenant Mappings .
5. Select a tenant name from the Available Tenants list, as shown in the following figure.
   
   
6. Click Add.
   The selected tenant is displayed in the Mapped Tenants list, as shown in the following figure:
   
   
7. Click Save.

Where to go from here

Building service blueprints for an Azure service