Deploying a BMC Discovery virtual appliance into Microsoft Azure

To convert the Discovery VMDK file to VHD

Microsoft Azure requires the disk image to be in VHD format, rather than the VMDK format in which the BMC Discovery VA is supplied.

You must download a BMC Discovery VA from the BMC EPD site.

Follow the steps appropriate for your Microsoft Azure or Hyper-V from the Microsoft Azure Migrate site.

When you have created a VHD image, you can upload it to Microsoft Azure.

To upload the VHD file to Microsoft Azure

This procedure uploads the VHD file to a new Storage Account and Resource Group in Microsoft Azure.

1. Follow the steps to install the Azure Az PowerShell module as described on this Microsoft site.

2. Log in to your Microsoft Azure account. Enter:

   Connect-AzAccount

3. Set some variables to be used in the following commands, changing the region as required. The Storage Account name must be unique in Azure. Enter:

   $UploadRGName = "DiscoveryUpload"
   $UploadRegion = "West US"
   $UploadStorageAccount = "discoveryuploadstorage"

4. Create a new Resource Group. Enter:

   New-AzResourceGroup -Name $UploadRGName -Location $UploadRegion

5. Create a new Storage Account. Enter:

   New-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName $UploadRGName `
           -Name $UploadStorageAccount -Location $UploadRegion `
           -SkuName "Standard_LRS" -Kind "Storage"

6. Set a variable for the upload destination. Replace the version number in the .vhd file name to match the version of BMC Discovery that you are uploading. Enter:

   $VHDurl="https://$UploadStorageAccount.blob.core.windows.net/discoveryupload/discovery_<version number>.vhd"

7. Upload the VHD file. Replace the path to the .vhd file as required. Enter:

   Add-AzVhd -ResourceGroupName $UploadRGName -Destination $VHDurl `
           -LocalFilePath C:\temp\Discovery_<version number>.vhd

   Note

   You may need to enable the Hyper-V Windows feature for this to work. The command error output will tell you if that is the case.

To create an Azure image from the uploaded VHD

The following steps create an Azure Image that can be used to deploy BMC Discovery VM instances.

1. Create a new image configuration. Enter:

   $imageConfig = New-AzImageConfig -Location $UploadRegion

2. Configure the OS disk for the image. Enter:

   $imageConfig = Set-AzImageOsDisk -Image $imageConfig `
           -OsType Linux -BlobUri $VHDurl

3. Create the Image. Replace the Image name value as required. 

   $image = New-AzImage -ImageName Discovery-12-3-0-2-Image `
           -ResourceGroupName $UploadRGName -Image $imageConfig

To create a new VM from the Azure image

The following steps create an Azure Virtual Machine from the image.

1. In the Azure Portal, navigate to the upload Resource Group DiscoveryUpload and locate the image created in the previous steps.
2. Click through to the image and click Create VM.
3. Set values as required for the VM. Specify a username and use password authentication. The username and password are required by Microsoft Azure for the deployment, but the user is not created. Any valid values for the username and password can be used.
4. Set a size for the VM according to your requirements.

5. Set the Networking values for the VM. 

   Note

   It is safest to not configure a Public IP address at this point.
   However, If you do choose to have a Public IP address for the machine, you should modify the default inbound security rule to restrict SSH access appropriately, for example, restricted to the IP address from which you plan to access it.

6. Set any other options as required. The storage for the VM is set as Managed Disk and cannot be changed.

7. Proceed to create the VM. 

   Note

   The deployment job shows as failed unless the Azure Virtual Machine Agent is installed on the BMC Discovery VM before the deployment timeout period (approximately 30 minutes). This failure is not a problem, and after installing the agent in the following section the VM is reported to be "Running OK".