Deploy Service Point v3 to Azure - BlueCat Edge - Service Point v4.x.x

BlueCat Edge User Guide
Locale
English
Product name
BlueCat Edge
Version
Service Point v4.x.x

This section gives detailed instructions for deploying a BlueCat Edge service point to Azure.

Prerequisites

The following prerequisites must be met before you begin:
  • You need a configuration file for a service point. Don't include spaces in the service point configuration file name.
  • You need a valid Azure subscription.
Note: The IDs for these resources are referenced during the service point deployment, so before you begin, collect these IDs.
Attention: The service point version of the site must be v3.0.6 or greater to deploy a service point on Azure.

DNS resolver configurations

When provisioning your service point in Azure, BlueCat recommends configuring the service point to use the default cloud DNS resolver. When the service point is provisioned in Azure, the primary DNS resolver is 168.63.129.16.

Deploying the service point to Azure using BlueCat Edge Service Point:
Attention: The following steps go through configuring the BlueCat Edge Service Point: Advanced Setup VM. If you are configuring the BlueCat Edge Service Point: Quick Setup VM, not all fields listed in the following step section are applicable.
  1. Log in to the Azure portal.
  2. Click Create a resource.
  3. Search for BlueCat, and select BlueCat DNS Edge Service Point: Advanced Setup. Optionally, you can open the Marketplace blade from your Dashboard to search.
  4. Click Create.
  5. In the Basics tab, complete the following required settings:
    • Subscription: Select your subscription.
    • Resource Group: Create a new resource group or select an existing resource group.
    • Virtual machine name: Enter a name for the VM.
    • Region: Choose your Azure region. BlueCat recommends that you choose an Azure region where the BlueCat recommended default instance size of Standard_F2s is available.
    • Availability zone: Select the availability zone. For more information, refer to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=2189629.
    • Size: Select the size of the Azure image. BlueCat recommends selecting the default instance size of Standard_F2s.
    • Authentication type: Select SSH public key.
    • Username: Enter core as the username.
    • Set the SSH public key source to point to an existing key or create a new SSH public key.
  6. In the Disks tab, complete the following required settings:
    • OS disk type: Select your preferred disk type.
  7. In the Networking tab, complete the following required settings:
    • Virtual network: Select your virtual network.
    • Subnet: Select the subnet for your virtual network.
    • Public IP: Optionally, you can also add a public IP address.
    • Configure Network Security Group: Enter the network security group ID. By default, the BlueCat network security group ID is selected and contains all required inbound port rules. If you create a new security group, you must make sure inbound and outbound access is configured per the requirements listed in BlueCat Edge User Guide system setup.
    Note: You must configure your network so that the service point has internet connectivity to the BlueCat Edge Cloud Endpoints as outlined in the BlueCat Edge User Guide system setup.
  8. In the Management tab, you can configure optional monitoring and management options for your VM. For most environments, BlueCat recommends that you keep the default system settings values when possible. Only change these settings where your environment requires it.
  9. In the Advanced tab, paste the content of the decoded cloud configuration file into the Custom data field.
    Note:
    • You must download the service point configuration file from the Sites details page. For more information, refer to Sites.
    • The service point configuration file is a Base64 file. You must decode the file using any Base64 decoding tool.
  10. In the Tags tab, you can configure optional tags to which your VM will be associated.
  11. When you are done, click Review + create to start the validation process. When validation is complete, you can start the VM or download the template.
Attention: Once you have deployed a service point, use the service point diagnostics API to verify that the service point has successfully registered. The registrationStatus field within the service point diagnostics API response returns a value of SUCCESSFUL when the service point has successfully registered with the BlueCat Edge Cloud. If the value is not SUCCESSFUL, this may indicate that there is an issue with the service point deployment and the service point may not operate as intended.

For more information on the service point diagnostics API, refer to /v1/status/spDiagnostics.

Deploying behind a native load balancer

After you've deployed service points in Azure, you might want to configure a native load balancer.
  1. Create a load balancer following the Microsoft Azure instructions.
  2. Create a backend pool associated to the availability set.
  3. Create a health probe on HTTP, port 80, path "/v1/status/health".
    Note: Each time the health check API is called by the load balancer, a query will be logged in the UI for the TXT record "version.bind".
  4. Configure two load balancer rules; one for TCP and one for UDP, both on port 53 and using the backend pool and the health check probe.