Azure Resource Manager Templating
Over the last several months, I’ve noticed a common thread among people who are new to Azure. In almost every discussion, when I bring up ARM templating, the immediate response is “that’s too confusing.”
After a bit, I find out that they created a Virtual Machine in the portal, exported the resource as a template and parameters file, and then found it very difficult to edit the templates for further use. Typically, after changing a few things, the template failes to validate. As one person succinctly put it…
I have attempted to go the ARM template route by simply running through the GUI, spinning up a test VM, and actually downloading the template at the end of the wizard that Azure presents. I have updated what I thought was all the pertinent and the validation fails when I go to deploy.
Creating a Virtual Machine in the portal, exporting the template, and trying to learn ARM templating off that template and giving up is almost a rite of passage. I know when I first started learning ARM templating, that was exactly how I approached it and how I responded.
Since this has been a common thread, I started working on a series of blog posts showing how I learned ARM templating by working through progressively more complicated templates from the Azure Quickstart Repo on GitHub. However, last week I was listening to the Azure Podcast in the car and came across episode 218; Ramping up on ARM templates.
In that episode, they mentioned an online training platform called Azure Citadel that included an excellent tutorial on ARM templating.
Long story short, that tutorial was better than what I was working on in almost every way. I highly recommend if you’ve tried and given up on ARM templating to work through the tutorial. The first couple of workshops should get you past that initial “learning hump.” If they don’t, please let me know and I’ll do what I can to help you out.
Finally, Azure Citadel has a ton of other workshops — I definitely highly recommend it in addition to the other free Azure training available.
