What is Azure Automation, and what are the reasons for implementing it
Azure Automation is a cloud-based service you can implement for cloud-only resources or hybrid clouds. Azure Automation provides many features that make our automation more secure and manageable.
Out of the box, you will get the following features:
- Shared Resources – you can remove the sensitive parts from your scripts and move them to different containers
o Credentials
o Connections
o Certificates
o Variables - Job Statistics – visualized overview of job executions, etc
- RBAC – You can delegate different permission for different parties in your organization
- Schedules– you can schedule your scripts
- Runbooks – all the scripts that you can run on Azure only or in your datacenters
o These can be PowerShell or Python scripts - Hybrid-Worker – you can extend the Azure Automation service to your data centers or other clouds. Hybrid-Worker is just a virtual machine that you can deploy.
- Azure Log Analytics Integration – send all logs to Log Analytics and create different dashboards or alerts.
This post will show you how to configure the Azure Automation Visual Studio Code extension.
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Requirements for VS Code Extension
- Azure Automation Account
- Permission to manage Azure Automation Account
- Azure AD Application for Visual Studio Code
- Permission to create Azure AD Applications
- Visual Studio Code
Azure AD Application Configuration
- Open Azure Portal – portal.azure.com
- Select Azure Active Directory and choose App Registrations.
- Select + New Application Registration.
- Fill out the details:
a. Name: Azure Automation Runbook Manager
b. Supported Account Types: Accounts in this organizational directory only - Click Register.
- Copy the Application ID to Notepad.
- Click Certificates & secrets and choose Client Secrets.
- Click +New Client Secret
- Fill out the Key description and duration and click Add.
- Copy key value to Notepad.
- Close the Azure AD Application configuration panels and return to the main Azure AD configuration panel.
- Select Properties and copy the Directory ID to Notepad.
Visual Studio Code configuration
- Install Visual Studio Code
a. https://code.visualstudio.com/download - Open Visual Studio Code
- Select Extensions and search for Azure Automation
- Click Install
- After the installation, click Manage and choose Extension Settings
- On the Extension Settings page, configure the following values
a. Automation Account: Azure Automation Account name
b. Client ID: Azure AD Application ID
c. Client Secret: Azure AD Application Keys value
d. Resource Group: Azure Automation Resource Group Name
e. Subscription ID: Your Azure subscription where you have the Azure Automation Account.
f. Tenant ID: Azure AD Tenant ID - Close the settings panel
Azure Automation Account Configuration
- Open Azure Portal – portal.azure.com
- Choose your Azure Automation Account
- Select Access Control (IAM)
- Choose +Add and select +Add Role Assignment
- On the Add Role Assignment page, choose Automation Contributor
- Click Next
- Select +Select Members
- Search the service principal that you created previously
- Click Select
- Click Review + assign
Testing
- In VS Code, select Automation Explorer
- Click the + Sign and fill out the Runbook name
- Select the language PowerShell or Python
- Select the Runtime Version
- Write your script and Publish 😊
Available Extension Commands
- Create Credential Asset
- Create New Runbook
- Create Variable Asset
- Insert Credential Asset
- Insert Variable Asset
- Open Runbook from Azure
- Publish
- Run
- Save Draft
- Update Personal Information
