Microsoft Azure deploy tasks

 Deploying to Microsoft Azure involves the following tasks:

Topics

Before you begin

  • You’re familiar with Azure GUI and CLI, commands, and concepts.
    Wherever possible both the UI and CLI instructions are provided.

Microsoft Azure deployment tasks

Process overview

To create an instance of Access Gateway within Microsoft Azure, you must create a VM and then associate it with a disk image. Microsoft requires the use of fixed size disk files. So, disks, such as the Access Gateway disk, must be expanded to their full size before being used. Expanding the provided disk locally would require an upload to Microsoft Azure, which is greater than 200gb.  To avoid this, create a second temporary VM, and use it to create a disk in the Microsoft Azure Cloud. Next, directly copy the Access Gateway Microsoft Azure disk image to the disk associated with the VM, expanded and then attached to the second, actual Access GatewayVM. The original, temporary VM, is then deleted to conserve resources.

Tasks

Task Description Related Topics
Install and configure Microsoft Azure CLI The Microsoft Azure command line utility is used extensively through the MS Azure deployment process.
Define an resource group Microsoft Azure uses resource groups to contain related resources.
Access Gateway VM and disk must be created within the same resource group.
Create Temporary VM To create a VM in Microsoft Azure we must define a virtual machine and associate it with a previously uploaded disk image.

Prepare Temporary Disk

The Temporary VM is used for the purpose of creating a disk to contain the OAG image.
This task walks through that process.

Create and populate managed disk Upload Microsoft Azure disk to the new disk and decompress.
Use the Microsoft Azure CLU and AZcopy to create a manage disk and copy the uncompressed image to it.

Create snapshot and replicate

Create a disk snapshot and then replicate disks as required for clustering.
This step is only required if creating an Access Gateway cluster.

Create Access Gateway VM

Create a virtual machine and attach it to the previously created disk.

Open Ports

Open port 80 and 443 to new VM.

Cleanup

Clean up the temporary VM and disk.

Post deployment tasks

All Access Gateway deployments require a set of common tasks:

Task Description Related Topics

First sign in
  • Reset the Access Gateway Management console password.
  • Reset the virtual appliance at the command line.

[Optional but recommended]
Specify the hostname
  • Access Gateway defaults to a known gateway hostname which can be changed.

[Optional] Specify a fixed IP address
  • Many installations require Access Gateway to use a fixed known IP address.

[Optional] Specify DNS servers
  • Many installations use a split DNS process where multiple DNS servers are required.

[Optional] Specify proxy
  • Some installations require a proxy server for Access Gateway
Determine the IP Address assigned and configure DNS
  • Determine Access Gateway IP address.

  • Configure required /etc/hosts admin entry.
  • Configure required DNS entries.

First login to the Access Gateway Admin UI console

  • Connect to the Access Gateway Admin UI console and reset the default password.
  • First sign in to Access Gateway Admin UI console
Initialize Access Gateway
  • Initialize the cookie domain and instance hostname.
Configure an identity provider
  • Configure Okta tenant as an identify provider.

Configure SAML access to Access Gateway from your Okta tenant
  • Configure Okta tenant to allow access to Access Gateway using SAML.

Review security best practices

  • Examine and execute a set of common Access Gateway security best practices.
Important Note

Important

When creating a set of Access Gateway nodes for use in a high availability cluster, ensure that nodes are named appropriately.
Also, node names must be resolvable between Access Gateway instances before configuring high availability.

High availability and load balancer tasks

Organizations which are implementing high availability and load balancing will also want to perform the following tasks.

Task Description Related Topics
Configure Load Balancer
  • Configure a load balancer and related health checks.

Configure Microsoft Azure load balancers

Manage TLS termination
  • Determine where certificates and TLS will be managed.

Managing SSL/TLS termination