Overview

This guide will cover how to deploy and configure your environment using the Azure Marketplace App: Discovery Hub with SQL Managed Instance

The deployment of the Azure resources will vary depending on Azure resource availability. Deploying Azure SQL Database Managed Instance generally takes 3-6 hours. Configuring your Discovery Hub environment generally takes ~20 minutes.

Complete the following steps to configure TimeXtender with Azure SQL Managed Instance:

1. Deploy TimeXtender and SQL Managed Instance
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 with SQL Managed Instance

1. Go to https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/timextender.timextender_dh_mi?tab=Overview
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.
Managed Instance Name	The name of the managed instance	dhmanagedinstance	Must be between 3 and 63 characters and contain lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only.
Analysis Services Name Prefix	Prefix for the Azure Analysis Services	discoveryhubas	A randomly generated suffix will be applied. Must be between 3 and 24 characters long (with suffix) and only contain lowercase letters.
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 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	See networking requirements below
Managed Instance Subnet name	Name of the subnet that will contain the managed instance	miSubnet
Managed Instance Subnet Address Prefix			See networking requirements below
Management Subnet Name	Name of the subnet for the managed instance subnet	managementSubnet
Management Subnet Address Prefix	Address range for the management subnet	10.0.1.0/24	See networking requirements below

 Networking Requirements

When designing the Managed Instance network, keep the following in mind:

• When choosing an existing virtual network, Azure will “grey out” any network that does not satisfy the requirements.
• The subnet that the Managed Instance is deployed to must be empty
• If more instances, resources or connections are needed then adequate space is needed for them.
• When deciding on the virtual network address space, keep in mind that Azure requires the following IP addresses for the Managed Instance subnet:
  • Five addresses for its own needs
  • Each General Purpose instance needs an additional 2 addresses
  • Each Business Critical instance needs an additional 4 addresses
• The virtual network address space needs a minimum of 64 addresses (/26 prefix)
• While Azure only requires a subnet size with a minimum of 16 IP addresses, we follow their recommendations and therefore require the managed instance to have at least a /27 prefix (32 addresses).
• The management subnet has a minimum of a /29 prefix (8 address, 3 usable). Keep in mind that Azure reserves the first 3 possible addresses for its own use.

8. In Step 3 of the Wizard, configure the managed instance resources and settings and click ok.

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 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 Managed Instance and click on it.

3. While viewing your managed instance, there will be a field called Host that contains your server name. Save this name somewhere safe because it will be needed for your configuring 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.