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Module 07: Deployment

Level: L200–L300 | Duration: 6 hours | Prerequisites: Modules 00–06 | Hands-on: Lab

Module Status

Framework module — content in development.

This module covers the end-to-end Azure Local cluster deployment workflow. The cluster lands at the end of this module ready for the post-deployment cluster configuration in Module 08.

Source of truth: azurelocal.cloud — Implementation Guide, Part 4: Cluster Deployment.

Learning Objectives

  • Choose between Storage Spaces Direct (S2D, hyperconverged) and SAN (disaggregated) storage architectures
  • Choose between Active Directory–joined and local-identity cluster identity models
  • Choose between Azure Portal and ARM Template deployment methods
  • Execute the cluster deployment end-to-end through the chosen path
  • Validate that cluster deployment succeeded before handing off to Module 08

Topics — mirrors implementation Phase 04 stages 11–15

  1. Hardware Provisioning — BIOS, iDRAC, DHCP reservations, hardware discovery
  2. OS Installation — Azure Stack HCI OS via USB / PXE, image verification
  3. OS Configuration — WinRM, RDP, static IPs, DNS, time sync, hostname, network adapter cleanup
  4. Arc Registration — connect each node to Azure Arc
  5. Cluster Deployment — actual cluster creation via the chosen method

Architectural choices

Storage architecture

Option Description When to choose
Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) Hyperconverged — storage is local to each compute node. Max 16 nodes. Rack-aware. General purpose, smaller clusters, no existing SAN
SAN (Disaggregated) External Fiber Channel SAN. Max 64 nodes. Independent scaling of compute and storage. NOT rack-aware. Larger clusters, existing SAN infrastructure (FC / FCoE), need to scale compute and storage independently

Identity architecture

Option When to choose
Active Directory–joined Enterprise deployments with existing AD, centralized identity, group policy
Local Identity Edge / disconnected scenarios, no AD dependency, simpler topology

Deployment method

Option When to choose
Azure Portal (wizard) First-time / learning deployments, ad-hoc, lower learning curve
ARM Template Production, repeatable, multi-site, CI/CD integrated. Recommended for production Azure Local Cloud deployments.

Together these produce 8 deployment combinations (S2D vs SAN × AD vs Local × Portal vs ARM). The implementation guide documents each combination separately under deployment-methods/.

SAN-specific pre-cluster tasks

For SAN deployments only, between Arc Registration and Cluster Deployment:

  • Install FC HBA drivers
  • Verify HBA ports (Get-InitiatorPort)
  • Enable MPIO (Add-WindowsFeature Multipath-IO)
  • Verify SAN disks are visible in RAW state
  • Configure FC zoning (WWPN) after Arc registration

Hands-on

Lab: Deploy a cluster end-to-end via the Azure Portal path on the chosen identity model (typically AD for the standard lab). Validate cluster deployment succeeded.

IaC: Bicep templates in labs/iac/07-deployment/ (planned).

What this module does NOT cover

  • Post-deployment cluster configuration (storage paths, VM images, logical networks, NSGs, SDN deploy, quorum, SSH, security groups) — Module 08
  • Day-to-day management — Module 09