Microsoft Azure Linux Out Of Box Catalog items

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Microsoft Azure Linux Out Of Box Catalog items

    This catalog item enables ServiceNow customers to request and deploy Linux virtual machines (VMs) on Microsoft Azure with flexible configurations. It supports essential production requirements such as Agent Client Collector (ACC) installation, security group assignments, additional disk attachments, and scalable VM deployment via scale sets. The catalog automates compliance checks and approval workflows to ensure governance and security during deployment.

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    Key Features

    • Linux VM Provisioning with ACC: Automatically installs the Agent Client Collector on production VMs, which is mandatory for production environments. ACC deployment requires appropriate admin role permissions to select credential alias keys.
    • Instance Type Approvals: Ordering VM sizes other than StandardA1v2 and StandardA2v2 requires administrator approval based on configured policies.
    • Additional Disks: Allows attaching up to 10 additional disks to a VM. Up to two disks can be added without approval; requests for more require policy-based administrative approval.
    • Security Groups: Enables assigning one or more security groups to restrict network access to the VM. Security groups are selected based on the chosen Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and subnets.
    • Linux VM Scale Sets: Supports deployment of identical VMs with automated scaling and high availability. The requester receives an email with the application's endpoint URL after deployment.
    • Compliance and Governance: The deployment triggers a Cloud Configuration Governance (CCG) scan to check compliance with policy rules. Non-compliant deployments are flagged as 'Follow up required' for corrective action.
    • Resource Tagging: All deployed resources (VMs, network, storage) are tagged with key-value pairs recorded in the CMDB. Note that tags are not yet updated in the public cloud but will be in future releases.

    What Customers Can Expect

    Customers can efficiently request customized Linux VMs on Azure with built-in governance to meet production standards. The solution streamlines approvals for specific VM sizes and additional storage, ensures security through network restrictions, and supports scalable deployments for high availability. Automated compliance scans and tagging enhance visibility and management of cloud resources, simplifying ongoing cloud operations within ServiceNow.

    Cloud Services Catalog Linux VM with agent client collector (ACC), up to 10 additional disks, security groups or with scalable web servers or with security groups.

    This is a fully functional sample catalog item that can be used to request a Linux instance of any instance type from Microsoft Azure.

    Order Features

    Order a Linux virtual machine on Microsoft Azure, that allows installation of agent client collector. ACC is compulsory for production instances. VM sizes other than Standard_A1_v2 and Standard_A2_v2 require approval. Cloud configuration scan is run for compliance checking.

    For instance types other than Standard_A1_v2 and Standard_A2_v2, approval is needed from administrator by policy. The catalog item has built in client rules to drive a ACC (Agent Client Collector) installation, when the deployment environment is marked for production.

    To select the credential alias key for ACC deployment from mid, the appropriate ACC admin role permissions are required to be bestowed to the user.

    The work-flow automation runs a CCG scan on the deployed Linux instance, and checks the policy rule with the configuration of the VM. If there is any violation, the stack will be set with 'Follow up required' state to notify that the stack deployment is not as per norms.

    Order a Linux virtual machine and specify up to 10 additional disks. For up to two disks, no approval is necessary. Seek approval for anything beyond that.

    This catalog item form allows ordering up to 10 additional disks (volumes) attached to the VM of varying sizes and types. If more than two additional disks are added to the request, seek approval from administrator, by policy.

    Order a secure Linux virtual machine, assign security groups. Select as many you require, for the highest level of security.

    This catalog item form allows capability to assign one or more security groups (firewall-port rules) to the compute instance so that the network access to the VM is restricted. Security groups are listed for the selected VPC and subnets.

    Order a Linux virtual machine scale set to deploy identical virtual machines, enabling automated scaling and ensuring high availability.

    This catalog item provides the capability to deploy identical virtual machines using a Linux virtual machine scale set, which supports automated scaling for enhanced availability. Email URL is added as a post provision operation which emails the deployed application's end point URL to the requester.
    Note:

    Tag (key-value) is assigned to all deployed resources. Example: VM, network, storage as present in the stack.

    The key-value is updated only in the cmdb_key_value table, not in public cloud at this time. This will be fixed in future releases to update the tags in cloud.