Deploying the vNIOS Instance on a Managed Disk on Azure Public Cloud

After uploading the vNIOS image, you are ready to create a VM instance and deploy it from the Azure CLI.

vNIOS instances running on NIOS 9.0.5 or later support virtual Accelerated DNS Protection (vADP), virtual DNS Caching Acceleration (vDCA), and dnstap. To achieve better performance when using these features, Azure recommends that you enable accelerated networking on the VM instances. The recommended configuration is:

• Accelerated networking must be enabled on LAN1 and HA (in case of HA deployments) interfaces to enable vADP and vDCA.

• Enabling accelerated networking on the MGMT interface is not recommended. 

Note that virtual Accelerated DNS Protection, virtual DNS Caching Acceleration,, and dnstap do work when network interfaces are not enabled with accelerated networking, but the performance will be impacted. To enable accelerated networking on an existing VM, you must stop and deallocate a VM, enable the option, and then start the VM.

To deploy a vNIOS image, complete the following steps in the Azure CLI:

1. Create a managed disk with the following details:
   az disk create --name <managed_disk_name> --resource-group <resource_group_name> --size 250 --sku Premium_LRS --source "https://<resource_group_name>.blob.core.windows.net/<storage_container_blob_name>/<vhd_image_name>" --source-storage-account-id "/subscriptions/<subscription_name>/resourceGroups/<resource_group_name>/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/<storage_account_name>" --os-type Linux

   Note: For better performance, specify Premium_LRSas thesku.

   Example:
   az disk create --name nios-managed-disk --resource-group rg-east-01 --size 250 --sku Premium_LRS --source "https://rgeastcloudautomation.blob.core.windows.net/images/nios-image.vhd" --source-storage-account-id "/subscriptions/1abcd012-2abc-123a-4abc-12a345678ab1/resourceGroups/rg-east-01/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/rgeastcloudautomation" --os-type Linux

    

2. Create LAN1 and MGMT network interfaces by specifying the resource group, subnet, and virtual network names corresponding to the interfaces:
   Note: When you need to add or delete a network interface to an existing vNIOS for Azure instance, you must power off the instance, add or delete the interface, and then start the instance. Adding or deleting an interface when the instance is powered on, can result in unexpected behavior.
   
   

   • LAN1 interface: Based on whether you want to enable accelerated networking, use one of the following commands:

     • Without accelerated networking:
       az network nic create --name <LAN1_name> --resource-group <resource_group_name> --subnet <subnet_name> --vnet-name <virtual_network_name>

     • With accelerated networking:
       To enable accelerated networking for vADP, vDCA, or dnstap, configure accelerated-networking on the LAN1 interface:
       az network nic create --name <LAN1_name> --resource-group <resource_group_name> --subnet <subnet_name> --vnet-name <virtual_network_name> --accelerated-networking true --network-security-group all_allowed

   • MGMT interface:

     az network nic create --name <MGMT_name> --resource-group <resource_group_name> --subnet <subnet_name> --vnet-name <virtual_network_name>
     
     

3. Create a NIOS instance by attaching the network interfaces and managed disk to it. Provide the following details:
   az vm create --resource-group <resource_group_name> --name <instance_name> --nics <NIC-1_name> <NIC-2_name> --attach-os-disk "/subscriptions/<Subscription_ID>/resourcegroups/<resource_group_name>/providers/Microsoft.Compute/disks/<managed_disk_name>" --size <VM_size> --location <location_name> --os-type Linux
   
   Example:
   az vm create --resource-group rg-east-01 --name nios-vm-with-managed-disk --nics nic1 nic2 --attach-os-disk "/subscriptions/1abcd012-2abc-123a-4abc-12a345678ab1/resourcegroups/rg-east-01/providers/Microsoft.Compute/disks/nios-managed-disk" --size Standard_DS14_v2 --location eastus --os-type Linux
   Note:
   When configuring the VM size for an instance, make sure that the setting for NUMA node is NUMA=1. This is required for using accelerated networking enabled features such as vADP, vDCA, or dnstap. When you choose high-end Infoblox models such as IB-V4126, the vNIOS instance may get automatically assigned with NUMA=2 in which case the stated features will not run.
   
   

4. If you are deploying the vNIOS instance for reporting, you must attach a data disk to the reporting VM for installing the reporting vNIOS license. Infoblox recommends that you allocate a minimum of 250 GB of additional disk space for the reporting storage requirements. To attach a second disk:
   az vm disk attach -g <MyResourceGroup> --vm-name <vm_name> --name <disk_name> --new --size-gb <disk_size>
   
   Example:
   az vm disk attach -g rg-east-01 --vm-name vm-reporting --name data-disk --new --size-gb 500