Installation Using Azure Resource Manager Template

As an advanced user, you can deploy an Exasol on Azure using the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template. This section provides you with instructions on how to deploy Exasol on Azure using ARM templates.

Sizing Considerations

RAM

As a rule of thumb, the total amount of RAM of the cluster should be approximately 10% - 15 % of your raw data. However, based on your use case, you may need more RAM.

Instance

Exasol recommends Dsv3, Esv3, and Fsv2 category instances with more than 16 GiB of memory.

Example

If your raw data (uncompressed) size is 300 GiB one of the following instances will be a good choice for you:

• Standard_D8s_v3 with 8 CPUs, 32 GiB RAM
• Standard_E8s_v3 with 8 CPUs, 64 GiB RAM
• Standard_F16s_v2 with 16 CPUs, 32 GiB RAM

Storage

Exasol recommends Premium SSD for data storage and Azure Blob Storage for data backup. The data storage volumes should be properly sized to store the maximum recommended amount of data for this instance type, data replicas in case of a cluster configuration as well as index structures and space for temporary data.

The template configures the correct storage configuration for every instance type.

Deployment Steps

Step 1: Create Azure Portal Account

If you do not have an Azure account, create one at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/.

If you already have an Azure account, skip to Step 2.

Step 2: Download ARM Template

Based on your requirement, download the ARM templates from one of the following locations:

• Exasol Single Node with new VNet
• Exasol Single Node with existing VNet
• Exasol Cluster with new VNet
• Exasol Cluster with existing VNet

Step 2: Upload Template into Azure Portal

After you download the template, do the following on the Azure Portal:

1. Log in to Azure Portal and click Create a resource in the sidebar.

   

2. Search for template deployment in the search bar and select Template deployment (deploy using custom templates) from the result.

   

3. On the Template deployment (deploy using custom templates) page, click Create.

   

4. On the Custom deployment page, click Build your own template in the editor.

   

5. On the Edit template page, click Load file to load the downloaded template.

   

   You can also paste the content of the template here and skip to step 7.

6. Upload the downloaded template.

   

7. Click Save to save the template and continue.

   

8. You can further modify the template parameters on the Custom deployment page.

   After making the changes, click Purchase and provide further details (payment and so on).

   

Launch Instance

Once the instance is in running state, you can connect to it using the IP address or the DNS name displayed in the console. To launch the instance, follow these steps:

1. Copy and paste the IP address or the DNS name of the instance in a browser.
2. You will receive a digital certificate to confirm. Once you have confirmed this, the installation is initialized, and the following screen is displayed.



3. Once installation is complete, you will be redirected to the EXAoperation screen.

   It may take up to 45 minutes for the EXAoperation to be online after deployment.

Template Parameters

The following table lists the parameters used in the templates and their descriptions.

Parameter	Description
Subscription	Use subscriptions to manage costs and creation of resource by users, teams, projects
Resource group	Create a new or choose an existing resource group
Location	Edge location where to deploy the cluster
VNet Resource group	Name of the resource group of the external virtual network (This field can be left blank if the cluster is deployed into an existing resource group in which the VNet below already exists, not available if new VNet/Subnet is created)
VNet Name/ VNet CIDR Block	Name of the virtual network that shall be used or CIDR Block (depending on the template )
Subnet Name/ Subnet CIDR Block	Name of the subnet that shall be used or CIDR Block (depending on the template)
Public IP	If set to true, public IP addresses are assigned to all instances
Cluster Prefix	Set a prefix tag for every resource
License Server VM Size	Virtual machine size of the license server
Image Type	Chose the VM Image from the marketplace
Node VM Size	Virtual machine size of the data nodes
Number Exasol Nodes	Number of cluster data nodes
Node Ndisks	Number of storage volumes for each node
Node OS Disk Size GB	Device size for OS volume
Node Data Disk Size GB	Devices size for data volume
Node Data Storage Type	Device type for data volume
Number of Data Nodes	Number of cluster nodes
Node Disk Caching	Select caching behavior ["None", "ReadOnly", "ReadWrite"]
DNS Server	168.63.129.16 for the Azure internal DNS Server
NTP Server	For example, ntp.ubuntu.com
Default User	Default user for the created virtual machines for ssh access
SSH Key Data	RSA public key for ssh access
Exasol Operations Password	Password for the EXAoperation admin user)
Exasol Database Password	Password for the exasol database admin user (Exasol 'sys' user)
Timezone	Required timezone for the DB (default Europe/Berlin)
Database Standby Nodes	Specifies the number of standby node(s) that you want to add for failover. The replication factor is automatically set to two if there is more than one node in the system. You can implement any of the following two standby modes: Hot Standby: The standby node is always in active mode. It's a faster failover mechanism but it's more expensive. This is enabled by default when you add a standby node. Cold Standby: The standby node is in suspended mode. You need to shut down the stand by node to enable this option. It is a relatively slower failover mechanism but it's more cost-effective. In case of a failover, the node starts and it takes over for the failed node. To learn more about how these standby modes work, see Fail Safety (Cloud).
Database Name	Name of the generated database
License Server IP	IP address of the License Server (Data Nodes IP are counting upwards from this one)
First Data Node IP	Counting upwards for the IPs of the data nodes (FirstDataNodeIP > LicenceServerIP)
Security Group Access	Restrict access to specific ip addresses (0.0.0.0/0 results in access from everywhere)
License	In case of a BYOL image an already acquired license can be pasted here as string

Next Steps

Connect to Exasol

After installing Exasol on Azure, you can do the following:

• Install drivers required to connect to other tools.
• Connect SQL clients to Exasol.
• Connect Business Intelligence tools (BI tools) to Exasol.
• Connect Data Integration - ETL tool to Exasol.
• Connect Data Warehouse Automation tools to Exasol.

Load Data

After you have connected your choice of tool to Exasol, you can load your data into Exasol and process further. To learn more about loading data into Exasol, see Loading Data.

Administration

For the maintenance tasks related to Exasol on Azure, see Administration (Azure).