Overview

This guide will cover how to deploy and configure your environment using the Azure Marketplace App: Discovery Hub Application Server

The deployment of the Azure resources will vary depending on Azure resource availability. Deploying the necessary Azure resources generally takes ~15 minutes. Configuring your Discovery Hub environment generally takes ~20 minutes.

Complete the following steps to configure Stand-Alone TimeXtender Application Server on Azure:

1. Deploy TimeXtender Application Server
2. Configure Accounts and Permissions
3. Find the server name
4. Connect to the virtual machine
5. Configure the TimeXtender Environment
6. Configure the ODX Server

1. Deploying TimeXtender Application Server for Azure

1. Go to https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/
2. If you are not signed in to your account, sign in now
3. In the Azure Marketplace, perform a search for TimeXtender
4. Select the deployment option from the search results.
5. Scroll down and select Get it Now and then select Continue. You will be redirected to a page that contains a wizard for creating your resources.
6. In Step 1 of the wizard, configure basic settings, and then click OK.

Setting	Description	Default Value	Requirements
Virtual Machine Name	The name of the virtual machine	Discoveryhub-vm	Must be between 3 and 79 characters long and contain letters, numbers and hyphens only.
Username	Administrator for Azure SQL logical server		Alphanumeric characters between 2-30 characters long. Cannot contain any invalid usernames (i.e. admin, root, etc.)
Password	Administrator password for Azure SQL logical server		Must contain at least 12 characters, with at least 1 letter and 1 number.
Confirm Password
Subscription	The subscription to place the resources in
Resource Group	The resources group that will contain all deployment items		Must be an empty resource group
Location	Location of the resource group

 

7. In Step 2 of the wizard, configure the SQL Server’s resources and settings, and then click OK.

Setting	Description	Default Value	Requirements
Admin Username	Administrator for Azure SQL logical server		Alphanumeric characters between 2-30 characters long. Cannot contain any invalid usernames (i.e. admin, root, etc.)
Admin Password	Administrator password for Azure SQL logical server		Must contain at least 12 characters, with at least 1 letter and 1 number.
Confirm Password			Must contain at least 12 characters, with at least 1 letter and 1 number.
Enable Advanced Threat Protection	A unified security package for discovering and classifying sensitive data, surfacing and mitigating potential database vulnerabilities, and detecting anomalous activities that could indicate a threat to your database.	No
Allow Azure services to access server	Enable this to allow applications from Azure to connect to this server. Examples of when you would want to enable this: using the Query editor in the portal or connecting your Azure VM to your Azure SQL database.	Yes

 

8. In Step 3 of the wizard, configure the virtual machine’s resources and settings, and then click OK.

Setting	Description	Default Value	Requirements
Virtual machine password	Administrator username for the virtual machine		Cannot be the name “Administrator”
Administrator’s password	Password for the virtual machine administrator		The password must contain at least 12 characters, with at least 1 letter and 1 number
Confirm Password			Must contain at least 12 characters, with at least 1 letter and 1 number
Virtual Machine Size	Size of the virtual machine	Standard_DS2_V2
Diagnostic storage account	Select an existing storage account or create a new one.	<virtual machine name>-randomly generated number	Must be unique
Public IP Address for the VM	Select an existing IP address or create a new one	<virtual machine name>-ip
DNS Prefix for the public IP Address	DNS prefix for the public IP address	<virtual machine name>-randomly generated number	Must be unique
Virtual Network	Select an existing virtual network or create a new one	VirtualNetwork
Virtual Network Address Space	Address space for the virtual network	10.0.0.0/16	Minimum /29 prefix
Subnet name	Name of the subnet that will contain the application server	Subnet
Subnet Address Prefix	Address range for the managed instance subnet	10.0.0.0/24	Minimum /29 prefix

 

9. In Step 4 of the Wizard, confirm the summary settings by clicking OK.
10. In Step 5 of the wizard, review the terms of the agreements and click Create to initialize the deployment to the resource group you chose.

 

*Please note that deployment will vary depending on Azure resource availability. Select the Notifications icon at the top to view the status of your deployment

2. Configure Accounts and Permissions

Ensure the users, user groups, and service accounts have the necessary access and rights to the new server. Refer to Configure User Accounts & Permissions to view the requirements.

3. Find the Server Name

1. Once your items have been deployed to your resource group, navigate to the resource group in Azure that contains all of the deployment items. This was assigned when configuring basic settings.

2. While viewing the Resource Group that contains all of your deployment items, find the SQL Server and click on it.

3. Scroll-down the menu bar to find Properties and click on it. Once you click on Properties there will be a field called Server Name. Save this name somewhere safe because it will be needed for configuring your Discovery Hub^®

4. Connect to the Virtual Machine

1. In order to activate and configure Discovery Hub, connect to the application server deployed on Azure. Navigate to the resource group in Azure that contains all of the deployment items. 

2. Locate the Virtual Machine in the resource group and click on it.

3. While viewing the page for the virtual machine, click Connect and download the RDP

4. Open the RDP file once it has downloaded and click Connect

5. Enter in the credentials to connect to the virtual machine that you created earlier and click Ok to connect.

5. Configure the TimeXtender Environment

Once you are connected to the Virtual Machine, activate your Discovery Hub instance following the instructions in this article: First Time Set-Up of TimeXtender.

6. Configuring the ODX Server

Please see the article, Configure and Manage the ODX Server, for configuring the ODX Server using SQL Server data storage.