dbatools Azure Lab Deployment

This repository contains an Azure Bicep deployment that will provide a quick start lab to work with SQL Server and testing or developing against the dbatools module.

Note: The Virtual Machines created using this deployment includes an auto-shutdown trigger for 7PM (19:00) your local time.

Why no Deploy to Azure button?

The Deploy to Azure button is commonly used with repositories on GitHub. It is not commonly used internally with companies that are creating the DevOps process and writing CI/CD deployments. The intention is to show and provide a real-world deployment for SQL Server and resources in Azure.

Deployment Process

A PSD1 file is used to input parameters to the Bicep template.

• baseName: [required] value used in naming resources
• location: [required] region to deploy to in Azure
• tenantId: [required] Azure Tenant ID
• subscriptionId: [required] Azure Subscription ID
• tags: [optional] Hashtable object of tag key/value pairs to assign to the resources

The subscription and tenant values are used to validate the context for Azure PowerShell session.

Deploy Script

flowchart
    PSD1 -->|deploy-parameters.psd1| deploy.ps1
    AdminPassword -->|SecureString for VMs| deploy.ps1
    deploy.ps1 -.-> GetResourceGroup
    GetResourceGroup -.-> | Not found | NewResourceGroup
    NewResourceGroup --> ResourceGroup
    GetResourceGroup --> ResourceGroup
    ResourceGroup --> NewResourceGroupDeployment
    NewResourceGroupDeployment -.-> Outputs

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Bicep

Bicep is a domain-specific language used to more easily define a resource to be deployed and configured in Azure. During the deployment process Azure Resource Manager (ARM) commands convert Bicep into an ARM template. If you have worked with creating ARM templates you will find that the syntax around string manipulation, calculations, and generating variables is much simplier in Bicep.

flowchart
    inputs --> main
    main --> keyvault
    main --> virtualNetwork
    keyvault --> secrets
    main --> | Windows 11+tools | devVM
    main --> | SQL 2022 | sqlVM
    main --> | SQL 2019 | sqlVM
    virtualNetwork -.-> sqlVM
    virtualNetwork -.-> devVM
    secrets -.-> sqlVM
    secrets -.-> devVM

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The structure of this deployment is using a module structure. Bicep templates can be reused as a module by adjusting to accept parameter inputs. The SQL VM module is written where you can provide a count input and it will loop over creating that number of VMs for you. By default you will only get one each of the following running Windows Server 2022.

• SQL Server 2022 Developer Edition
• SQL Server 2019 Developer Edition

Getting Started

Clone the repository and then create the file deploy-parameters.psd1 in the root directory. You can see sample content below for the PSD1 file.

@{
    tenantId       = '00000000-0000-000b-aa0a-000a000c0000'
    subscriptionId = '00000000-0000-000b-aa0a-000a000c0000'
    location       = 'eastus'
    baseName       = 'lab'
    emailAddress   = '<an email address>'
    vmCount        = 1
    adminUser      = 'labadmin'
    timezone       = 'Central Standard Time'
    userId         = '00000000-0000-000b-aa0a-000a000c0000'
}

Note: The User ID should by the ObjectID of your Azure AD account. This account requires Contributor role to either the subscription or a current Resource Group in the Azure Subscription

The deploy.ps1 script is the entry point for deploying these resources to an Azure Subscription.

If everything completes successfully you will see output as below:

You can use Get-AzResource to list out what exist in the Resource Group after the deployment completes.