Infrastructure as code

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In a production scenario, create Azure Service Fabric clusters using Resource Manager templates. Resource Manager templates provide greater control of resource properties and ensure that you have a consistent resource model.

Sample Resource Manager templates are available for Windows and Linux in the Azure samples on GitHub. These templates can be used as a starting point for your cluster template. Download azuredeploy.json and azuredeploy.parameters.json and edit them to meet your custom requirements.

Note

We recommend that you use the Azure Az PowerShell module to interact with Azure. See Install Azure PowerShell to get started. To learn how to migrate to the Az PowerShell module, see Migrate Azure PowerShell from AzureRM to Az.

To deploy the azuredeploy.json and azuredeploy.parameters.json templates you downloaded above, use the following Azure CLI commands:

ResourceGroupName="sfclustergroup"
Location="chinanorth"

az group create --name $ResourceGroupName --location $Location 
az deployment group create --name $ResourceGroupName  --template-file azuredeploy.json --parameters @azuredeploy.parameters.json

Creating a resource using PowerShell

$ResourceGroupName="sfclustergroup"
$Location="chinanorth"
$Template="azuredeploy.json"
$Parameters="azuredeploy.parameters.json"

New-AzResourceGroup -Name $ResourceGroupName -Location $Location
New-AzResourceGroupDeployment -Name $ResourceGroupName -TemplateFile $Template -TemplateParameterFile $Parameters

Service Fabric resources

You can deploy applications and services onto your Service Fabric cluster via Azure Resource Manager. See Manage applications and services as Azure Resource Manager resources for details. The following are best practice Service Fabric application specific resources to include in your Resource Manager template resources.

{
    "apiVersion": "2019-03-01",
    "type": "Microsoft.ServiceFabric/clusters/applicationTypes",
    "name": "[concat(parameters('clusterName'), '/', parameters('applicationTypeName'))]",
    "location": "[variables('clusterLocation')]",
},
{
    "apiVersion": "2019-03-01",
    "type": "Microsoft.ServiceFabric/clusters/applicationTypes/versions",
    "name": "[concat(parameters('clusterName'), '/', parameters('applicationTypeName'), '/', parameters('applicationTypeVersion'))]",
    "location": "[variables('clusterLocation')]",
},
{
    "apiVersion": "2019-03-01",
    "type": "Microsoft.ServiceFabric/clusters/applications",
    "name": "[concat(parameters('clusterName'), '/', parameters('applicationName'))]",
    "location": "[variables('clusterLocation')]",
},
{
    "apiVersion": "2019-03-01",
    "type": "Microsoft.ServiceFabric/clusters/applications/services",
    "name": "[concat(parameters('clusterName'), '/', parameters('applicationName'), '/', parameters('serviceName'))]",
    "location": "[variables('clusterLocation')]"
}

To deploy your application using Azure Resource Manager, you first must create a sfpkg Service Fabric Application package. The following Python script is an example of how to create a sfpkg:

# Create SFPKG that needs to be uploaded to Azure Storage Blob Container
microservices_sfpkg = zipfile.ZipFile(
    self.microservices_app_package_name, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
package_length = len(self.microservices_app_package_path)

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(self.microservices_app_package_path):
    root_folder = root[package_length:]
    for file in files:
        microservices_sfpkg.write(os.path.join(
            root, file), os.path.join(root_folder, file))

microservices_sfpkg.close()

Virtual machine OS automatic upgrade configuration

Upgrading your virtual machines is a user initiated operation, and it is recommended that you enable virtual machine scale set automatic image upgrades for your Service Fabric cluster node patch management. Patch Orchestration Application (POA) is an alternative solution that is intended for non-Azure hosted clusters. Although POA can be used in Azure, hosting it requires more management than simply enabling scale set automatic OS image upgrades. The following are the virtual machine scale set Resource Manager template properties to enable automtic OS upgrades:

"upgradePolicy": {
   "mode": "Automatic",
   "automaticOSUpgradePolicy": {
        "enableAutomaticOSUpgrade": true,
        "disableAutomaticRollback": false
    }
},

When using automatic OS upgrades with Service Fabric, the new OS image is rolled out one Update Domain at a time to maintain high availability of the services running in Service Fabric. To utilize Automatic OS Upgrades in Service Fabric, your cluster must be configured to use the Silver Durability Tier or higher.

Ensure the following registry key is set to false to prevent your windows host machines from initiating uncoordinated updates: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU.

Set the following virtual machine scale set template properties to disable Windows Update:

"osProfile": {
        "computerNamePrefix": "{vmss-name}",
        "adminUsername": "{your-username}",
        "secrets": [],
        "windowsConfiguration": {
          "provisionVMAgent": true,
          "enableAutomaticUpdates": false
        }
      },

Service Fabric cluster upgrade configuration

The following is the Service Fabric cluster template property to enable automatic upgrade:

"upgradeMode": "Automatic",

To manually upgrade your cluster, download the cab/deb distribution to a cluster virtual machine, and then invoke the following PowerShell:

Copy-ServiceFabricClusterPackage -Code -CodePackagePath <"local_VM_path_to_msi"> -CodePackagePathInImageStore ServiceFabric.msi -ImageStoreConnectionString "fabric:ImageStore"
Register-ServiceFabricClusterPackage -Code -CodePackagePath "ServiceFabric.msi"
Start-ServiceFabricClusterUpgrade -Code -CodePackageVersion <"msi_code_version">

Next steps