Automate dynamic provisioning of cloud resources with the new plug-in for Microsoft Azure

How many times have you wasted cloud resources because your virtual machines were underutilized? And how often have you needed additional cloud resources because performances were not optimal?  
 
A new solution pack is available on top of Workload Automation, provided by HCL Product and Platform, to automate dynamic provisioning and deprovisioning of cloud resources, on as-needed basis. We have already presented this solution pack in a previous blog, Why you should manage cloud resources as an integral part of your business workflow, let’s know more about the new plugin for Microsoft Azure.  

Using this plug-in, you can provision Windows and Linux virtual machines in a few seconds. You can select from a wide variety of images and virtual machine sizes.  All you need to do is to create and submit a Microsoft Azure job.  

Let's Start!

First of all, log in to the Dynamic Workload Console and open the Workload Designer. Choose to create a new job and select Azure job type in the Cloud section. 

At this point you can choose to manage an existing virtual machine or to create a new one. 

Provisioning of Resource

Do you need to create a new resource? Select “Create New Virtual Machine” and specify the settings of the new machine such as the name, resource group, private and public IP address, size, user credentials. Save the job definition, submit it and it’s done! 

Once you have submitted the job definition into the current plan, you can switch to the Monitoring View of the Dynamic Workload Console where you can monitor the job execution. When it completes successfully, you can see the job log and check the extra information, such as the machine’s hostname or the IP assigned to the new resource. You can also pass these information as input to the successor job in the job stream.  

Manage Your Resource

Do you already have virtual machines? Microsoft Azure plug-in can help you manage your virtual computing environment, create screenshots of an existent virtual machine and create new virtual machines from them.  Select “Manage Existing Virtual Machine”, choose an available virtual machine from the list and select the action to perform. You can change the power status, add a tag to your virtual machine and, if you no longer need it, you can delete it! 

For additional information about the plug-in or about the job definition’s panel, see the documentation at the following link: HWA Solutions. 

Automates Your Business Process Flow!

You can add one or more Microsoft Azure jobs in the job stream that automates your business process flow, to provide a flexible and dynamic allocation of cloud resources to your workload.

Microsoft Azure is just one of the Cloud Automation plug-ins available in the solution pack. You have also Amazon EC2 and IBM SoftLayer plug-ins.  

With the new solution pack for cloud automation you can implement elastic scaling of your cloud resources: what you need, when you need it, all automatically!  

If you want to know more about HCL Products and Platforms Solution Pack and the Azure plug-in, contact:  Gerald Sood Jerry.sood@hcl.com for US, or FRANCESCA CURZI francesca.curzi@hcl.com for EMEA. 
 
And let me know what you think about the new Microsoft Azure plug-in leaving a comment below or writing to Elvira Zanin elvira.zanin@hcl.com. 

Elvira Zanin is a Software Engineer on the Workload Automation development team located in HCL Rome Hub. She is currently based in the Add-ons development team but she’s involved in Test automation team also. Elvira has experience with Dynamic Workload Console. She completed her degree in Computer Science at University of Salerno and currently lives in Rome, Italy.