When do we use Chef or Azure SDK to create VM and deploy in automation

Question

I can create the azure VM by following ways:

1.  From C#
2. By using Chef

What is the difference and what flexibility can be achieved using the process defined, as we can manage VM from the Azure portal such as Chef Server.

I want to achieve complete automation in creating the azure VM and deploy the app package on it after installing the IIS.

Can anyone help me with this.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can create VM in azure through many ways  6 or so different SDK's such as

• Powershell
• Cli
• Cli2
• Rest Request
• Arm Template

Chef uses one of the above ways internally to create a vm in Azure. How much you know about one of the method is what matters.

You can automate the deployment of an application to an Azure VM by using different means like:

• Script extension
• DSC
• Ansible
• Chef
• Puppet

I hope that the above information will be helpful to you.

Answer 2

The solution to the automated deployment in Azure is use ElasticBox.

I will skip the details of all the configuration options for Azure supported by ElasticBox, as they are detailed in the documentation section: http://elasticbox.com/documentation/deploying-and-managing-instances/using-azure/.

You only need to create a box (abstraction unit that ElasticBox uses to define the installation and configuration of the deployment of a service or application in any cloud) that takes care of the steps you need to be automated. So finally you will deploy the vm with near no manual intervention, just one click or a command with some parameters.

A box includes the variables necessary for your deployment and your scripts (In this case probably PowerShell, but they could be bash, python, perl, java, etc.)

When you deploy the box you create to deploy your application, ElasticBox will:

• Create a Cloud Service or VM. (ElasticBox takes care of provision the vm in your Azure provider, or any of your preferred cloud provider).

• Install a specific build of the product (as a standalone exe or Windows service, not IIS) -> This should be your install event script.

• Tweak the configuration files(s) -> This should be part of your configure event script.

• Set up user account(s) -> This should be part of your configure event script.

• Run the exe/service -> This should be part of your start event script.

ElasticBox has a command line tool that enables to do VM deployments of your boxes and also you can manage your deployed vms with it: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ebcli

It also support automatic termination of the vm after a custom time value.