Building a SharePoint 2010 Farm on Windows Azure with PowerShell

With the new Azure Virtual Machines it is now possible to run SharePoint 2010 and 2013 workloads. In my TechEd talks you can learn about the various options to run SharePoint on Azure.

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/AZR327

and

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Europe/2012/OSP334

I won’t rehash those talks again here. What I do want to share is some of the PowerShell code I used to build the farms. First a caveat that these are just rough scripts that I used to build the demo and have lots of opportunities for improvements. The script are good at demonstrating the various steps that are involved with building the Farm. Here is a diagram of the farm that we will build.

To get started read Automating Windows Azure Virtual Machines with PowerShell. Also if you are new to Azure Virtual Machines here is a crash course on the features that we will cover in the PowerShell scripts: Learn about Windows Azure Virtual Machines. With that out of the way let’s get started.

Create VNet

The first step is to create the virtual network. In the past the Cloud Service (previously called hosted services) was the container for multiple VMs to talk to each other. Now the Virtual Network (VNet) allows multiple Cloud Services to talk to each other. So in the case of our Farm we want the Active Directory/Domain Controller (AD/DC) to be in one Cloud Service and talk to the rest of our farm in another Cloud Service. By using 2 Cloud Services, you can start the AD/DC first and have the other Cloud Services join the domain, since we do not have static IPs. Here is the script to create the VNet.

CreateVnet.ps1

1. # To get started
2. # https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156055.aspx
3.  
4. CLS
5.  
6. # List imported subscriptions
7. # get-AzureSubscription | Select SubscriptionName
8.  
9. # your imported subscription name
10. $subscriptionName = "My Azure Subscription"
11. $storageAccount = "2010storage"
12. Select-AzureSubscription $subscriptionName
13. Set-AzureSubscription $subscriptionName -CurrentStorageAccount $storageAccount
14.  
15. # List all locations to determine $AGLocation
16. #Get-AzureLocation | Select Name
17.  
18. # Affinity Group parameters
19. $AGLocation = "West US"
20. $AGDesc = "SharePoint 2010 Affinity Group"
21. $AGName = "SP2010-AG"
22. $AGLabel = "SP2010-AG"
23.  
24. # Create a new affinity Group
25. New-AzureAffinityGroup -Location $AGLocation -Description $AGDesc `
26.                                         -Name $AGName -Label $AGLabel
27.  
28. # Clear current settings
29. Remove-AzureVNetConfig -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
30.  
31. # Apply new network
32. $configPath = (Split-Path -Path $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition -Parent) `
33.                     + "SharePointFarmVNET.xml"
34.  
35. Set-AzureVNetConfig -ConfigurationPath $configPath
36.  
37. # Check results
38. #Get-AzureVNetConfig | Select -ExpandProperty XMLConfiguration
39.  
40. #Create Storage account for SP Farm
41.  
42. # The storage account name must be unique to Windows Azure and
43. # must be between 3 and 24 characters in length and
44. # use lowercase letters and numbers only.
45.  
46. #$storageAccountName = "sharepointfarm"
47. #$label = "SharePoint Storage Account"
48. #New-AzureStorageAccount -StorageAccountName $storageAccountName `
49. # -Label $label -AffinityGroup $AGName

Create AD/DC

Once the VNet is in place you can create the Active Directory/Domain Controller. All this script does is create a VM in a Cloud Service. Once the VM is started you will need to manually RDP connect to the machine and run DCPROMO. Once DCPROMO is finished run ipconfig to determine the IP of the machine, which will be used in the Farm setup script.

CreateDC.ps1

1. # To get started
2. # https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156055.aspx
3.  
4. CLS
5.  
6. # List imported subscriptions to determine $subscriptionName
7. # get-AzureSubscription | Select SubscriptionName
8.  
9. # List storage accounts to determine $storageAccount
10. #Get-AzureStorageAccount | select StorageAccountName
11.  
12. # your imported subscription name
13. $subscriptionName = "My Azure Subscription"
14. $storageAccount = "2010storage"
15. Select-AzureSubscription $subscriptionName
16. Set-AzureSubscription $subscriptionName -CurrentStorageAccount $storageAccount
17.  
18. #List all images to determine $imagename
19. #Get-AzureVMImage | Select ImageName
20.  
21. #List Vnet config to determine $vnetname and $subnetname
22. #Get-AzureVNetConfig | Select -ExpandProperty XMLConfiguration
23.  
24.  
25. ## Domain Controller 1 Paramaters
26. $vmName = 'SP2010-DC1'
27. $imageName = 'MSFT__Win2K8R2SP1-120612-1520-121206-01-en-us-30GB.vhd'
28. $size = "ExtraSmall"
29. $vmStorageLocation = "https://2010storage.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/SP2010Farm/SP2010-DC1.vhd"
30. $deploymentName = "SP2010-DC1-Deployment"
31. $deploymentlabel = "SharePoint 2010 DC1 Deployment"
32. $subnet = 'SP2010AD-Subnet'
33. $password = 'pass@word1'
34.  
35. ## Create VM Configuration
36. $dc1 = New-AzureVMConfig -Name $vmName -InstanceSize $size `
37.     -ImageName $imageName -MediaLocation $vmStorageLocation
38. Add-AzureProvisioningConfig -Windows -Password $password -VM $dc1
39. Set-AzureSubnet -SubnetNames $subnet -VM $dc1
40.  
41. ## Cloud Service Paramaters
42. $serviceName = "SP2010DC-Service"
43. $serviceLabel = "SP2010DC-Service"
44. $serviceDesc = "Domain Controller for SharePoint 2010"
45. $vnetname = 'SP2010-VNET'
46. $ag = 'SP2010-AG'
47.  
48. ## Create the VM(s)
49. New-AzureVM -ServiceName $serviceName -ServiceLabel $serviceLabel -ServiceDescription $serviceDesc `
50.                         -AffinityGroup $ag -VNetName $vnetname -VMs $dc1

Create Farm

The last step is to create the SharePoint Farm.

CreateSPFarm.ps1

1. # To get started
2. # https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156055.aspx
3.  
4. CLS
5.  
6. # List imported subscriptions to determine $subscriptionName
7. # get-AzureSubscription | Select SubscriptionName
8.  
9. # List storage accounts to determine $storageAccount
10. #Get-AzureStorageAccount | select StorageAccountName
11.  
12. # your imported subscription name
13. $subscriptionName = "My Azure Subscription"
14. $storageAccount = "2010storage"
15. Select-AzureSubscription $subscriptionName
16. Set-AzureSubscription $subscriptionName -CurrentStorageAccount $storageAccount
17.  
18. # Cloud Service Paramaters
19. $serviceName = "SP2010-Service"
20. $serviceLabel = "SP2010-Service"
21. $serviceDesc = "Cloud Service for SharePoint Farm"
22.  
23. #List Vnet config to determine $vnetname and $subnetName
24. #Get-AzureVNetConfig | Select -ExpandProperty XMLConfiguration
25.  
26. # Gallery Images
27.   $spimage= 'MSFT__Win2K8R2SP1-120612-1520-121206-01-en-us-30GB.vhd'
28. $sqlimage = 'MSFT__Sql-Server-11EVAL-11.0.2215.0-05152012-en-us-30GB.vhd'
29. $vnetname = 'SP2010-VNET'
30. $subnetName = 'SP2010Farm-Subnet'
31. $ag = 'SP2010-AG'
32. $primaryDNS = '192.168.1.4'
33.  
34. # Availability Sets
35. $avsetwfe = 'avsetwfe'
36. $avsetapps = 'avsetapps'
37. $avsetsql = 'avsetsql'
38.  
39. # Domain Settings
40. $domain = 'contoso'
41. $joindom = 'contoso.com'
42. $domuser = 'administrator'
43. $dompwd = 'pass@word1'
44. $advmou = 'OU=AzureVMs,DC=contoso,DC=com'
45.  
46. # MediaLocation
47. $mediaLocation = "https://2010storage.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/SP2010Farm/"
48.  
49. ## Create SP WFE1
50. $size = "ExtraSmall"
51. $vmStorageLocation = $mediaLocation + "SP2010-WFE1.vhd"
52. $spwfe1 = New-AzureVMConfig -Name 'SP-WFE1' -AvailabilitySetName $avsetwfe `
53.             -ImageName $spimage -InstanceSize $size -MediaLocation $vmStorageLocation |
54.         Add-AzureProvisioningConfig -WindowsDomain -Password $dompwd `
55.             -Domain $domain -DomainUserName $domuser -DomainPassword $dompwd `
56.             -MachineObjectOU $advmou -JoinDomain $joindom |
57.         Add-AzureEndpoint -Name 'http' -LBSetName 'lbhttp' -LocalPort 80 -PublicPort 80 `
58.             -Protocol tcp -ProbeProtocol http -ProbePort 80