Creating a NAV Server Availability Set using the Azure Load Balancer

This post describes the steps needed to setup NAV Virtual Machines in an Availability Set behind an Azure Load Balancer. This provides high availability for an NAV Server and simple load distribution. Before reading you should already be familiar with the NAV Azure Image, the NAV Demo Environment and the Azure Resource Manager. You can read more about the Load Balancer here: Azure Load Balancer Overview

The following Azure PowerShell script creates an Azure Resource Group with two NAV Virtual Machines in an Availability Set and a Load Balancer with rules configured for the NAV demo environment on the Dynamics NAV 2016 gallery image.

Before running the script you need to be connected to your Azure Subscription using the Login-AzureRmAccount cmdlet and you need to update the $testName variable to something unique and meaningful. The script will prompt for the admin credentials for the virtual machines to be created.

When the script completes and the Virtual Machines are created, you can then connect to the virtual machines using via RDP using the Azure Portal and run the “Initialize Virtual Machine” script to create the demo environment. When prompted for the cloud service name you should provide the FQDN for the Load Balancer PublicIP, the FQDN is displayed at the end of running the script. If you are using self-signed certificates you can use the certificate generated for the first virtual machine, when running the script on the second virtual machine.

The Load Balancer has rules that enable requests to the default site on Port 80, the NAV Web Client on port 443 (HTTPS) and the NAV Client Service on port 7046. These ports works with the NAV demo environment on the Dynamics NAV 2016 gallery image.

The Azure Load Balancer distributes requests between the two virtual machines. The Load Balancer rules for port 443 and port 7046 are configured with session persisitence so that once a client creates a session with on of the virtual machines the load balancer continues to direct requests from the client to that virtual machine where the NAV client session has been created.

 

Here is the script which is hosted in a Gist:

 

	$testName = "unique-resource-name"
	$resourceGroupName = $testName
	$location = "northeurope"
	$domainName = $testName
	$subnetName = "Subnet-1"
	$publisher = "MicrosoftDynamicsNAV"
	$offer = "DynamicsNAV"
	$sku = "2016"
	$version = "latest"
	$cred = Get-Credential
	New-AzureRmResourceGroup -Name $resourceGroupName -Location $location
	$vip = New-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Name "PublicIP1" `
	-Location $location -AllocationMethod Dynamic -DomainNameLabel $domainName
	$subnet = New-AzureRmVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name $subnetName `
	-AddressPrefix "10.0.64.0/24"
	$vnet = New-AzureRmVirtualNetwork -Name "VNET" `
	-ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
	-Location $location -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/16" -Subnet $subnet
	$subnet = Get-AzureRmVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name $subnetName -VirtualNetwork $vnet
	$feIpConfig = New-AzureRmLoadBalancerFrontendIpConfig -Name $testName -PublicIpAddress $vip
	$inboundNatRule1 = New-AzureRmLoadBalancerInboundNatRuleConfig -Name "RDP1" `
	-FrontendIpConfiguration $feIpConfig `
	-Protocol TCP -FrontendPort 3441 -BackendPort 3389
	$inboundNatRule2 = New-AzureRmLoadBalancerInboundNatRuleConfig -Name "RDP2" `
	-FrontendIpConfiguration $feIpConfig `
	-Protocol TCP -FrontendPort 3442 -BackendPort 3389
	$beAddressPool = New-AzureRmLoadBalancerBackendAddressPoolConfig -Name "LBBE"
	$healthProbe = New-AzureRmLoadBalancerProbeConfig -Name "HealthProbe" `
	-RequestPath "Default.aspx" -Protocol http -Port 80 `
	-IntervalInSeconds 15 -ProbeCount 2
	$lbrule1 = New-AzureRmLoadBalancerRuleConfig -Name "HTTP" `
	-FrontendIpConfiguration $feIpConfig -BackendAddressPool $beAddressPool `
	-Probe $healthProbe -Protocol Tcp -FrontendPort 80 -BackendPort 80
	$lbrule2 = New-AzureRmLoadBalancerRuleConfig -Name "HTTPS" `
	-FrontendIpConfiguration $feIpConfig -BackendAddressPool $beAddressPool `
	-Probe $healthProbe -Protocol Tcp -FrontendPort 443 -BackendPort 443 -LoadDistribution SourceIPProtocol
	$lbrule3 = New-AzureRmLoadBalancerRuleConfig -Name "NAV" `
	-FrontendIpConfiguration $feIpConfig -BackendAddressPool $beAddressPool `
	-Probe $healthProbe -Protocol Tcp -FrontendPort 7046 -BackendPort 7046 -LoadDistribution SourceIPProtocol
	$lbrule4 = New-AzureRmLoadBalancerRuleConfig -Name "NAVHELP" `
	-FrontendIpConfiguration $feIpConfig -BackendAddressPool $beAddressPool `
	-Probe $healthProbe -Protocol Tcp -FrontendPort 49000 -BackendPort 49000
	$alb = New-AzureRmLoadBalancer -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
	-Name "ALB" -Location $location -FrontendIpConfiguration $feIpConfig `
	-InboundNatRule $inboundNatRule1,$inboundNatRule2 `
	-LoadBalancingRule ($lbrule1,$lbrule2,$lbrule3,$lbrule4) -BackendAddressPool $beAddressPool `
	-Probe $healthProbe
	$nic1 = New-AzureRmNetworkInterface -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
	-Name "nic1" -Subnet $subnet -Location $location `
	-LoadBalancerInboundNatRule $alb.InboundNatRules[0] `
	-LoadBalancerBackendAddressPool $alb.BackendAddressPools[0]
	$nic2 = New-AzureRmNetworkInterface -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
	-Name "nic2" -Subnet $subnet -Location $location `
	-LoadBalancerInboundNatRule $alb.InboundNatRules[1] `
	-LoadBalancerBackendAddressPool $alb.BackendAddressPools[0]
	New-AzureRmAvailabilitySet -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
	-Name "AVSet" -Location $location
	$avset = Get-AzureRmAvailabilitySet -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Name "AVSet"
	New-AzureRmStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
	-Name $testName -Location $location -Type Standard_LRS
	Get-AzureRmStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName
	[array]$nics = @($nic1,$nic2)
	For ($i=0; $i -le 1; $i++) {
	$vmName = "$testName-w$i"
	$vmConfig = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName $vmName -VMSize "Standard_DS1" `
	-AvailabilitySetId $avSet.Id |
	Set-AzureRmVMOperatingSystem -Windows -ComputerName $vmName `
	-Credential $cred -ProvisionVMAgent -EnableAutoUpdate |
	Set-AzureRmVMSourceImage -PublisherName $publisher -Offer $offer -Skus $sku `
	-Version $version |
	Set-AzureRmVMOSDisk -Name $vmName -VhdUri "https://$testName.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/$vmName-os.vhd" `
	-Caching ReadWrite -CreateOption fromImage |
	Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface -Id $nics[$i].Id
	New-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Location $location `
	-VM $vmConfig
	}
	$ipAddr = Get-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName
	$ipAddr.IpAddress
	$ipAddr.DnsSettings.Fqdn
	Find-AzureRmResource -ResourceGroupNameContains $resourceGroupName | Select Name, ResourceType
	<#
	Remove-AzureRmResourceGroup -Name $resourceGroupName
	#>

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LoadBalancedVM.ps1

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