Overview
This guide will cover how to deploy and configure your environment using the Azure Marketplace App: Discovery Hub and Azure SQL DB and AAS
The deployment of the Azure resources will vary depending on Azure resource availability. Deploying Azure SQL Single Database and Azure Analysis Services generally takes ~15 minutes. Configuring your Discovery Hub environment generally takes ~20 minutes.
Complete the following steps to configure TimeXtender with Azure Single Database and Azure Analysis Services:
- Deploy TimeXtender and Azure SQL Database and Azure Analysis Services
- Configure Accounts and Permissions
- On-Premise Data Gateway Setup and Configuration
- Find the server names
- Connect to the virtual machine
- Configure the TimeXtender Environment
- Configure the ODX Server
- Additional Information
1. Deploy TimeXtender and Azure SQL Database and Azure Analysis Services
- Go to https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/
- If you are not signed in to your account, sign in now
- In the Azure Marketplace, perform a search for TimeXtender
- Select the deployment option from the search results.
- 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.
- 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. |
| 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 Analysis Services resources and settings, and then click OK.
|
Setting |
Description |
Default Value |
Requirements |
|
Pricing Tier |
Choose the tier (size) of Azure Analysis Services |
|
Must be a valid Azure Active Directory user |
|
Administrator |
Administrator of Azure Analysis Services |
|
Must be a valid Azure Active Directory user |
9. In Step 4 of the Wizard, configure the Virtual Machine’s resources and settings and 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 |
- In Step 5 of the Wizard, confirm the summary settings by clicking
- In Step 6 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 time 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 Names
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. To find the server name for Azure Analysis Services, go back to your Resource Group, find your Analysis Services resource and click on it.
5. When viewing the Overview section of the menu bar, there will be a field named Management Server name. Save this name somewhere safe because it will be needed for AAS endpoint.
4. On-Premise data gateway setup and configuration
If you are connecting to on-premises data sources, you will need to configure an on-premises data gateway to provide secure data transfer between on-premises data sources and your Azure Analysis Services servers in the cloud.
- Follow this Microsoft guide for installing and configuring the on-premise data gateway: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/analysis-services/analysis-services-gateway-install
5. 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.
6.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
7. Configure the ODX Server
Please see the article, Configure and Manage the ODX Server, for configuring the ODX Server using SQL Server data storage.
Additional Information
Azure SQL Database
When using an Azure SQL Database for your MDW, it is important to note that Azure SQL DB does not currently support cross-database queries. Because of this, if you want to create a MDW and a staging database you cannot use direct read to transfer data between databases. Direct read uses a stored procedure containing a simple SELECT statement to transfer data, which offers better performance than ADO.NET. And the use of SSIS is not available. Due to the limitation of cross-database queries, it is highly recommended to place all Discovery Hub databases (Staging, MDW, etc.) on the same Azure SQL database.
When placing your staging layer and MDW on the same Azure SQL Database, you will need to configure a different default schema for each layer (e.g. Staging, MDW, etc.).
In this setup, it is also important that Direct Read is set to Matching Server and Database on the Data Warehouse in order to leverage direct read.
Azure Analysis Services
Multidimensional models are currently not supported in Azure Analysis Services.
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