Escape Double Quotes For Strings in ARM Templates

Recently I’ve came into the following situation. I needed to store a json as Azure Automation string variable. To do that is easy as you just need to pass the json as text by first escaping it. That is easy peasy when using PowerShell. But what if you want to pass the json as object parameter via ARM template parameters file and do the escape completely within the ARM template. Apparently that is possible as well and I will show you how.

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Azure Linked Subscription Level Template Deployment Requires Location

Subscription Level Template deployments is relatively new feature. Support for Azure CLI was added in version 2.0.40 and for AzureRM PowerShell module is yet to come. Basically instead of deploying resources at resource group you are doing that at subscription level. This opens a lot of possibilities some of which are:

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Defining Input Parameters For Policy Definitions in ARM Template

My good friend and fellow MVP Tao Yang wrote a great post on Using ARM Templates to Deploying Azure Policy Definitions That Requires Input Parameters. Azure Policy has two terms that you should be aware:

  • Policy Definition – This is the policy itself. This is the definition of what will be governed. The policy definition when created does not do anything until it is assigned. There are policy definitions available out of the box (created by Microsoft) and such that can be created on your own. Out of box policies are of type built-in and the ones created by you are custom.
  • Policy Assignment – This assigns policy definition to be applied at specific level like subscription, management group or resource group.

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Programmatically Change Azure Log Analytics Pricing Model

Microsoft recently introduced a new model for purchasing Azure Log Analytics. To use this new model you will basically have to enable it on per subscription bases. In short you can either continue to use the old models or flip a switch on your subscription to use the new model. You cannot use both models for different workspaces in your subscription and you cannot move between the old models and the new ones without flipping that switch. Of course flipping that switch is easy as going into the Azure Portal -> Azure Monitor -> Usage and estimated costs blade but what about if you want to do this programmatically? Apparently there is a way to do it that way and in this blog post I will show you how.

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ARM Templates for Service Map Dependency Agent Deployment

Yesterday Dave announced that there is a new Azure VM extension that deploys the Service Map Dependency Agent. The example provided was only for PowerShell so it was natural that we need ARM template as well. Continue reading “ARM Templates for Service Map Dependency Agent Deployment”