Cloud Management with System Center - Connecting App Controller to Azure Part 2

This is Part 2 of my post on 'Connecting App Controller to Azure'.These posts are part of a bigger series titled 'Cloud Management with System Center' and if you haven't read any of the other posts in the series, you can start from the links below:

Installing System Center App Controller 2012

Cloud Management with System Center - Building a Private Cloud with SCVMM 2012


In Part 1 of 'Connecting App Controller to Azure', I walked through the steps required to create a self-signed certificate on your App Controller server and how to export that into both .PFX and .CER formats.

With the certificates exported you are now ready to start working in Azure to get the connection created.

Adding your management certificate to Azure

The following procedure presumes that you already have a subscription setup within Windows Azure and are ready to add a management certificate to that subscription. If you haven't yet got a subscription or an Azure account, you can get more information here on whats needed to get you started.

First up, you need to login to the Windows Azure Platform Management Portal with the relevant credentials that allow you permissions on the subscription to add management certificates.

In the navigation pane, click 'Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN' and then at the top of the navigation pane, click Management Certificates.

On the ribbon at the top left hand side of the screen, in the Certificates group, click Add Certificate

The Add New Management Certificate dialog box opens.

In Choose a subscription, select the Windows Azure subscription to add the management certificate to.

In Certificate file, use the Browse button to select the .CER file for the exported certificate

When you have all of the information added in, click 'OK'

Once created, you should see it listed under your subscription as below

Now that we have added the .cer certificate file to our Azure subscription, we need to create the connection between App Controller and Azure while adding the .pfx file with the encryption key to the App Controller connection.

Connecting App Controller to your Windows Azure Subscription

Open up the System Center App Controller 2012 console and click on the 'Clouds' link on the left hand side of the screen

Now click the 'Connect' button and then select 'Windows Azure Subscription' from the drop-down menu

In the 'Connect' dialog box, enter a name for this subscription. This name is displayed in the Name column of the Clouds page.

Add an optional description in the Description text box.

In the Subscription ID field, enter the subscription ID for this connection. The Windows Azure subscription ID is a GUID and can be found in the Windows Azure Management Portal.

To import the required management certificate, select the Personal Information Exchange (.pfx) file for the public key you uploaded to Windows Azure and enter the password for the certificate

Click 'OK' to create the connection

Once the connection is verified and complete, you will see your Azure Public Cloud available in App Controller for management under a single console

This completes the steps required to create the connection between your public Azure subscription and System Center App Controller 2012.

This series of posts also coincide with the new Microsoft Private Cloud Community Evaluation Program starting up and you can sign up at any time to the CEP by clicking on the link below (you will need a Microsoft Live ID to sign in):

https://connect.microsoft.com/site799/program7383