BrickStor SP 23.6 Microsoft Azure Installation Guide About The following guide will take you through the process of creating a Virtual Machine Image from the supplied BrickStor SP VHD file and creating a virtual machine (VM) in Microsoft Azure. Required Items Virtual Machine (VM) configured as described in System Requirements VM console access BrickStor SP installation media A MyRackTop customer portal login BrickStor SP license entitlement serial number System Requirements To install BrickStor SP on Azure, a VM must be configured meet or exceed the requirements outlined below. Minimum VM Hardware Requirements The below values represent the minimum required sizing of VMs. Certain components may need to be sized upward based on the expected workload profile. Resource Specification vCPU 4 vMemory 64GB OS (Operating System) disk sizing 128GB Data disk sizing Size per your requirements VM Generation Generation 2 Data Disk is a separate virtual disk for creating SMB/NFS shares. Allocate sufficient amount of capacity based on your application. Capacity is modifiable after install. It is strongly advised to allocate beyond the minimum recommended virtual memory. BrickStor SP uses memory for data caching, it will drastically improve sequential IO and overall performance. Software Requirements The BrickStor SP MyRack Manager application may be deployed on Windows 8 or newer. Overview of operating BrickStor SP in Microsoft Azure BrickStor SP is available as an Azure Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) image. This image is available for download through MyRacktop Portal. After downloading the VHD from myRack Portal, it must be uploaded to a Storage Account inside your Azure organization. From there, it will be imported as an Image, which will then permit Virtual Machines to be created from it. The following sections will walk you through this process, culminating in a VM running BrickStor SP that may then be licensed using the entitlement assigned to your organization in the MyRacktop Portal. Uploading the BrickStor SP VM image to Azure Log in to MyRacktop Portal and proceed to the Downloads section. Download the Azure Image for the latest available release of BrickStor SP. If the downloaded file is a .zip file, please extract the bsros_<version>_azure.vhd image file from it. Log in to the Azure Portal and navigate to the Storage Account tab, and select the storage account you wish to store the VHD under. Upload options will be available after you select the storage account you wish to use: Select the Upload action to upload the VHD file. A fly-out window will appear where you specify the VHD file and its storage options. Drag and drop the bsros_<version>_azure.vhd VHD image file into the upload box, or click the Browse for files link to select the VHD. Select the container within the storage account that the VHD image will be stored. If one does not exist, you will have the opportunity to create a new container. Press the Upload button to begin uploading the VHD. The BrickStor SP Azure image is now stored in your environment. Next, you must create an Image from it. Creating the BrickStor SP Azure image Navigate to the Images section in the Azure portal. If you cannot find this area, you can search for it in the Azure search bar. Press the + Create link at the top to open the image creation page. It is very important to correctly configure the image on the next screens. Some options, such as Resource Group, Region, Resiliancy level, and Subscription Type, are resources that are beyond the scope of this document and might be determined by your organization’s existing Azure use patterns and policies. Consult with your Azure administrator regarding these. This documentation will cover the required technical configuration options of the image. Name: The name of the image. We suggest naming the image in accordance with its version. For example: BSROS-23.6.2. OS type: Linux VM generation: Gen 2 Storage blob: Use the Browse link to navigate to the Storage Account and Container that you uploaded the VHD file into in the previous section. Select the bsros_<version>_azure.vhd file. Account type: This is somewhat discretionary, but RackTop suggests at least Standard SSD. Host caching: Read/write Data disk: We do not recommend adding a data disk with the image. These are typically specified later, at VM creation time. It is extremely important that you specify Gen2 for VM generation. Virtual machines created with Gen1 image types will see vastly reduced performance due to the OS disk being forced to being an emulated parallel ATA (PATA) drive type. This is sub-optimal. You may then select the Review + create button or go further into the Image creation wizard to assign tags and other information to the image you are about to create. Once you review the settings and Azure completes the validation of them, press the Create button to complete the Image creation process. A confirmation screen will appear when it has finished. Creating a BrickStor SP VM With the BrickStor SP image creation step completed, you are now able to create a virtual machine. It is extremely important to keep the Minimum VM Hardware Requirements in mind when choosing the Size and OS and Data disk types. Choosing options below the minimum requirements will result in the degraded performance of BrickStor SP. Virtual machine sizing should be made in accordance with your anticipated use patterns and I/O loads with the associated Azure costs taken into consideration. Navigate to the Virtual Machines tab in the Azure portal and select the + Create link at the top. Select Azure virtual machine from the list of options. Basics Virtual machine name: The hostname you wish to assign the VM Image: Select See all images, then My Images. Select the image you created in the previous section. VM architecture: x64 Size: At least 4 vCPUs and 64GiB of memory. You may explore the available VM sizes to determine the best cost/performance combination for your usage scenario. Enable hibernation: Unselected License type: Other Inbound port rules: Permitting several inbound TCP ports is necessary: SSH – port 22 HTTPS – port 443 SMB – port 445 NFS – port 2049 BrickStor SP Manager – 8443 Hub Local - 8123 Be aware that setting the source of a rule to Any might permit unrestrained inbound connections to the port and pose a security hazard for your Azure environment. All access rules must be considered in the context of your organization’s wider Azure network design and ACL policies. The Administrator account section must be completed per your organization’s policies to satisfy the Azure VM creation wizard. BrickStor SP does not currently use the SSH public key facility of Azure as administrative user creation is part of the BrickStor SP setup routine. It is possible that the SSH public key and account name feature may be utilized in a future release of BrickStor SP. Disks OS disk size: 128GB or larger. Refer to the Minimum Hardware Requirements OS disk type: Premium SSD Enable Ultra Disk compatibility: Unselected Data disks: BrickStor SP operates fine with one or more data disks in the Azure environment, however the usual number of disks initially configured is one. Muliple disks may be needed only if your storage needs exceeds the capacity of a single Azure disk device of the chosen type. Networking: Networking options for the VM should be set in accordance with your Azure environment’s policies and requirements. Ensure that subnet and access lists assignments are such that the intended clients may reach the BrickStor SP VM. Press the Review + create button to initiate VM creation. BrickStor SP configuration This section covers how to apply your BrickStor SP license and configure the system for basic operation. The VM will automatically boot up following the creation steps covered in the previous section. Start the VM and open a serial console session with it by navigating to the Help section in the VM’s options bar and clicking Serial Console. If the serial console window appears to not be fully displayed, pressing Ctrl+L will force a refresh. Begin the BrickStor SP installation process: Using a client machine, open a modern internet browser and enter https://<BrickStor IP address or hostname>/ into the browser’s address bar. Press Enter. A screen will prompt for input of an Access Code. The Access Code is displayed on the VM Console screen. Once the Access Code has been entered, click the Login button. The installer Home page will show. Begin installation by clicking the Install button. On successful completion of each stage a green checkmark will be shown next to the step in the list. Next, read and accept the End User License Agreement. The Activate screen will show. Click the Activate Now button. You will be redirected to the MyRackTop customer portal Log in. Next, you will be prompted to select your order entitlement to activate this installation. Click the Activate button. A prompt will show successful activation. Click the Continue Installation button to be redirected back to the installer. The installer wizard will show a green check mark and a message confirming successful activation. Next, Select a boot device. Select the Primary boot device from the provided device options. If a new device is introduced after booting into the installer, click the Refresh Devices button to refresh selection. For Virtual Machine installations only Primary boot device is sufficient. When a secondary disk is selected, a drive mirror (RAID-1) will be created for redundancy. Secondary drives must be of the same type and capacity. SAS, SATA and NVMe device types are supported, but cannot be mixed. Once the correct boot device(s) has been selected, click the Next button to continue. Next, set default admin user password. The default admin username is bsradmin and cannot be changed. Enter a strong password using the Password field. Password must be at least 8 characters long. Re-enter the password in the Confirm field. Click the Next button to continue. Upon successful completion of all steps the Install screen will show. Click the Install button to begin the installation. A progress bar and description of the installation process will be displayed. Closing or refreshing the page will not interrupt the installation. Once the installation is completed a prompt will ask to reboot the system. Click Reboot.