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User Guide for installing KX Insights on Azure Marketplace

This section details the steps to install the KX Insights Platform on Azure. It will walkthrough the following:

Prerequisites

Azure Namespaces

Cluster resources created using the Azure Marketplace are preconfigured to use various namespaces. In most cases, when running kubectl commands referenced in the documentation, remember to include the -n insights argument as well.

Before installing the KX Insights Platform on Azure you need the following:

  • Pilot customers in Private Preview stage must share the ID of the subscription where they want to deploy the solution to. The subscription ID needs to be configured in the offer in order to make it available to the customer. Adding a new subscription to the offer can take a few hours, therefore, it is important to configure this in advance.

  • The customer must state which subscription offer they have (i.e. Pay-As-You-Go, Enterprise, ...).

  • For the Customer Managed Plan, the individual performing the deployment must have Owner permissions on an empty resource group in the aforementioned subscription, or otherwise Owner permissions on the entire subscription. For the KX Managed Application, please refer to the Permissions Guidelines.

  • The following Resource Providers must be registered in the subscription. Consider the Microsoft Guidance to learn how to register resource providers:

    • Microsoft.Compute
    • Microsoft.ContainerService
    • Microsoft.Network
    • Microsoft.Diagnostics
    • Microsoft.OperationalInsights
    • Microsoft.Insights
    • Microsoft.Resources
    • Microsoft.ManagedIdentity
    • Microsoft.Authorization

  • The customer must share which Azure Region they will be interested in deploying the solution to.

  • Sufficient quotas for the planned deployment. The customer subscription must have a quota capacity equal or greater than the following numbers for each quota category in the selected Azure region from the previous pre-requisite. Check this link to learn how to raise resource quotas. The quota numbers below represent a minimum requirement for a successful deployment, however, they might be insufficient depending on the resources created within KX Insights after the deployment, therefore, it is recommended to have extra capacity in the resources below.

    • Compute
      • Total Regional vCPUs >= 18
      • Standard DDSv4 Family vCPUs >= 48
      • Standard DDv4 Family vCPUs >= 6
      • Virtual Machine Scale Sets >= 2
      • Virtual Machines >= 2
      • Standard Storage Managed Disks >= 6
      • StandardSSDStorageDisks >= 6
    • Networking
      • Static Public IP Addresses >= 2
      • Public IP Addresses >= 2
      • Public IP Addresses - Standard >= 2
      • Virtual Networks >= 1
      • Load Balancers >= 1
      • Standard Sku Load Balancers >= 1
      • Network Security Groups >= 1

  • An Azure Region with availability zones.

  • A VM choice that has temp storage available when selecting rook ceph.

Private AKS Cluster

Please be aware that KX Insights Platform on Azure Marketplace does not support Private AKS Clusters or air-gapped environments at this time.

Quotas

It is important to ensure that the chosen subscription and intended deployment region have sufficient available resources for a successful deployment.

It is possible to check for available resources prior to commencing the install workflow to ensure that a deployment does not fail, due to a lack of IP or CPU resources as an example.

A KX Insights Platform deployment requires 3 public IP addresses for each external stream (API Gateway, Service Gateway and Ingress Controller). Each stream that accepts data from a KX Insights SDK, requires an additional 3 public IPs.

Please check your quotas and current usage on the portal before the deployment as shown below:

PIP

You can request a quota increase for Azure by clicking on the Request Increase icon or by using the Azure CLI to list your public IPs in a given region as shown below:

az vm list-usage --location "West Europe" --query "[? currentValue != '0']" -o table

The KX Insights Platform requires a minimum of 3 nodes to deploy the system successfully. Using a particular node pool as an example; the deployment includes a 3 node system Node pool of Standard_D4ds_v4 VMs; this consumes 12 cores of your Standard DDSv4 Family vCPUs quota. By default the user Node pool is of the same size as the system Node pool so you would need at least 24 available vCPUs in the region of your choice.

Note

For more resource intensive deployments you might want to select a VM size that has 16 vCores and that would increase the total required vCPUs to 60.

Virtual machine cores have a regional total limits as well.

You can also use Azure CLI to check usage in a given region as follows:

$ az network public-ip list --query "[? location == 'westeurope'].{ipAddress: ipAddress, resourceGroup: resourceGroup, sku: sku.name, publicIpAllocationMethod: publicIpAllocationMethod, location: location}" -o table
IpAddress       ResourceGroup           Sku       PublicIpAllocationMethod    Location
--------------  ----------------------  --------  --------------------------  ----------
20.103.202.177  AWKX10-aks              Standard  Static                      westeurope
20.101.205.189  insights-on-azure1-aks  Standard  Static                      westeurope
20.101.207.38   insights-on-azure1-aks  Standard  Static                      westeurope
20.101.207.47   insights-on-azure1-aks  Standard  Static                      westeurope
20.101.204.20   insights-on-azure1-aks  Standard  Static                      westeurope
20.101.207.44   insights-on-azure1-aks  Standard  Static                      westeurope
20.101.207.45   insights-on-azure1-aks  Standard  Static                      westeurope
13.94.188.195   windowsvm_group         Basic     Static                      westeurope

To obtain a successful deployment, please select an available region with sufficient resources.

Configuring and Deploying KX Insights on Azure

Getting Started

  1. Ensure your approved subscription is selected in the global subscription filter in the Azure Portal.

  2. Open the left-hand Portal menu and click Create a resource.

    Create a Resource

  3. You should see a light purple band with a link to 'View private products' once your subscription has been whitelisted.

    Private Products

  4. Search for KX Insights under Private Products.

    Other Offers

    KX Insights Core Offer is also publicly available on the Azure Marketplace. This User Guide is specific to the KX Insights Platform (preview) Offer.

  5. Select KX Insights Platform (preview). Can also be found here.

    Kx Preview

  6. Review the Offer Details,

    1. The Overview section includes a summary description about KX Insights Platform,
    2. The Plans + Pricing tab outlines each Plan which is available under the Offer, with a summary description for each Plan and the Price,
    3. The Usage Information + Support tab includes useful links for getting started, a link to our Support site where you can raise support tickets as well as links to the License Agreement and Privacy Policy.

    Offer Overview

    KX License Agreement

    By clicking through the Marketplace and deploying the Software, you have Accepted the Terms & Conditions in the KX License Agreement.

  7. Select a Plan from the dropdown and click Create and you will be taken to the 'Basics' section:

    1. Customer Managed App

    2. KX Managed App

Customer Managed Plan

Basics

  1. Select the Subscription in which to install the infrastructure and application.

  2. Create a new resource group, or select an existing empty resource group from the dropdown. Do not select an existing resource group which is not empty.

    Create New

    Deploying multiple instances

    If you plan to deploy multiple instances of KX Insights Platform, then each deployment from the Azure Marketplace must have a unique resource group name.

  3. Select the Region in which to deploy KX Insights Platform.

    Availability Zones

    Remember to select an Azure region that has availability zones.

  4. Click Next and you will be taken to the the 'General Configuration' section.

General configuration

  1. Add a valid email address for license and certificate registration.

  2. Create a Keycloak admin password and make note of it.

    Password

    Password

    This will be required later to access the Keycloak Url Output from the deployment. Some special characters are not supported. Please pay attention to the information box image above.

  3. Tick Show Advanced Settings.

  4. For security purposes, you can choose to set authorized IP ranges, this is not mandatory at the time of deployment. Any IP ranges defined at time of deployment can be updated and edited post deployment.

  5. Select Deploy Rook Ceph if desired. Otherwise, the Storage Class default options can be used.

    Rook Ceph

  6. The default VM sizes for the System node pool and the User node pool are suitable for deployment purposes. Please refer to the Prerequisites section if changing the node pool VM size.

    Note

    You may select an alternative VM size if you have specific workload requirements.

  7. In the Storage Class selector, if you have chosen to Deploy Rook Ceph please select Rook Ceph Block for Read Write Once volumes and Rook CephFS for ReadWriteMany volumes.

    Storage

    Storage

  8. You can choose to Deploy Kafka. We recommend selecting this if you intend to build any pipelines for data to stream from or to Kafka.

    Kafka

  9. There is an option to enable email notifications to your desired email address by selecting Turn on client alert notifications. KX have pre-packaged some useful Alert logic to assist you with monitoring the health of the application. Please refer to the following documentation.

    Alerts

  10. Click Next.

  11. At this stage you should have a Validation Passed message which brings you to 'Review + Create' final page.

    Warning

    Do not select 'Download a template for automation'. There is no 'Back' button available if you select this option and you will need to start the workflow again. It is possible to download a template post deployment but KX do not recommend this because we only support the Marketplace deployment method on Azure in this scenario.

  12. Click Create to deploy.

  13. When your deployment is complete, follow these steps to access keycloak.

    Deployment Failures

    Please see Potential Deployment Issues for resolutions to errors that may arise if a deployment were to fail.

KX Managed App Plan

Basics

  1. Select the Subscription in which to install the infrastructure and application.

  2. Create a new resource group, or select an existing empty resource group from the dropdown. Do not select an existing resource group which is not empty.

    Create New

    Deploying multiple instances

    If you plan to deploy multiple instances of KX Insights Platform, then each deployment from the Azure Marketplace must have a unique resource group name.

  3. Select the Region in which to deploy KX Insights Platform. Remember to select an Azure region that has availability zones.

  4. Under the Managed Application Details, provide a name for your managed application and its managed resource group.

  5. Click Next and you will be taken to the the 'General Configuration' section.

General configuration

  1. Add a valid email address for license and certificate registration.

  2. Create a Keycloak admin password and make note of it.

    Password

    Password

    This will be required later to access the Keycloak Url Output from the deployment. Some special characters are not supported. Please pay attention to the information box image above.

  3. Tick Show Advanced Settings.

  4. For security purposes, you can choose to set authorized IP ranges, this is not mandatory at the time of deployment. Any IP ranges defined at time of deployment can be updated and edited post deployment.

  5. Select Deploy Rook Ceph if desired. Otherwise, the Storage Class default options can be used.

    Rook Ceph

  6. The default VM sizes for the System node pool and the User node pool are suitable for deployment purposes. Please refer to the Prerequisites section if changing the node pool VM size.

    Note

    You may select an alternative VM size if you have specific workload requirements.

  7. In the Storage Class selector, if you have chosen to Deploy Rook Ceph please select Rook Ceph Block for Read Write Once volumes and Rook CephFS for ReadWriteMany volumes.

    Storage

    Storage

  8. You can choose to Deploy Kafka. We recommend selecting this if you intend to build any pipelines for data to stream from or to Kafka.

    Kafka

  9. There is an option to enable email notifications to your desired email address by selecting Turn on client alert notifications. KX have pre-packaged some useful Alert logic which will trigger email notifications to the Insights Managed Service operational team to assist with monitoring the health of the application. This field is to add a distribution list of email address in addition to the KX IMS Support team. Please refer to the following documentation.

    Alerts

  10. Click Next.

  11. At this stage you should have a Validation Passed message which brings you to 'Review + Create' final page. You must agree to the terms and conditions in order to proceed as KX require this access in order to provide the Managed App Service.

    Managed App

    Warning

    Do not select 'Download a template for automation'. There is no 'Back' button available if you select this option and you will need to start the workflow again. It is possible to download a template post deployment but KX do not recommend this because we only support the Marketplace deployment method on Azure in this scenario.

  12. Click Create to deploy.

  13. When your deployment is complete, follow these steps to access keycloak.

Deployment Failures

Please see Potential Deployment Issues for resolutions to errors that may arise if a deployment were to fail.

Create KX Insights Platform roles

When the deployment is successful, locate the deployment outputs by clicking on Outputs in the left-hand navigation menu to obtain the keycloak URL.

First, you need to add the administrator and any other required roles into the KX Insights Platform. Follow the steps below to log in to Keycloak, which KX Insights uses as its Identity and Access Management component.

  1. Login to the Keycloak Web UI by navigating to the keycloakUrl available in the 'Outputs' of the deployment, or the insightsUiUrl appended with /auth/, in a web browser.

    Keycloak

  2. Click on Administration Console and log in with the Keycloak admin user giving the password you created in the General Configuration step of the installation process.

    SignIn

  3. Create the administrator role:

    • Click on Roles in the left-hand menu then click on the Add Role button.

    • Enter the Role Name: insights.admin, make sure you add some description and click Save.

    • Turn Composite Roles ON.

    • Associate it with the following roles:

      insights.role.maintainer

      InsightsAdmin

Please refer to the documentation on Keycloak and the role based permissions.

Log in to KX Insights

Once the deployment is complete and you have used Keycloak to create a standard user role and an admin role, follow the steps below to log in to the KX Insights Platform application:

  1. Click on Outputs in the left-hand navigation menu.

  2. Copy the insightsUiUrl value and navigate to this URL in a new browser tab.

  3. Log in with the below username and password:

    1. name: demoinsights
    2. auth: Pa$$w0rd!

  4. You will immediately be asked to update your password and log in again with the new credentials.

    KXUi

  5. You will then be directed to the KX Insights Platform User Interface.

    KXUi

  6. See KX Insights Overview for an introduction to the User Interface.

There are additional tools and services available on Nexus such as the KX Insights SDKs and KXI CLI.

Azure Namespaces

Remember! Cluster resources created using the Azure Marketplace are preconfigured to use various namespaces. In most cases, when running kubectl commands referenced in the documentation, remember to include the -n insights argument as well

Please follow the documentation to Install the SDKs or to Install the KXI CLI.

Azure Active Directory integration

Follow the instructions provided here to integrate Insights with Azure Active Directory and allow your users to log in to KX Insights with their existing credentials.

Potential deployment issues

Failed Deployments

If a deployment fails for any reason, once the root cause analysis is complete, we recommend that you delete the whole resource group to free up any resources that may be left in the deployment, before starting a fresh install. If you keep the resources and start a fresh install, please remember to create a new resource group name. The deployment will fail if you try to select an existing resource group name.

Missing Subscription Registration error

If your deployment fails with the below error message this is an indication that you need to register the Microsoft.OperationsManagement resource provider in your Azure Subscription:

{
    "status": "Failed",
    "error": {
        "code": "AddContainerInsightsSolutionError",
        "message": "Code=\"MissingSubscriptionRegistration\" Message=\"The subscription is not registered to use namespace 'Microsoft.OperationsManagement'. See https://aka.ms/rps-not-found for how to register subscriptions.\" Details=[{\"code\":\"MissingSubscriptionRegistration\",\"message\":\"The subscription is not registered to use namespace 'Microsoft.OperationsManagement'. See https://aka.ms/rps-not-found for how to register subscriptions.\",\"target\":\"Microsoft.OperationsManagement\"}]"
    }
}

To resolve this issue:

  1. Go to the subscription.

  2. Select Resource Providers on the left menu.

  3. Search for the Microsoft.OperationsManagement provider.

    SubscriptionResProv

  4. Register it.

    Registered

Please refer to the Prerequisites section for the full list of required resource providers.

Quota issues

Please refer to the Prerequisites section. The deployment can fail if the subscription does not have sufficient quota for the selected configuration. Error messages can highlight a need for more IP addresses, CPU etc which you can increase with Azure in order to deploy successfully.

Azure Regions

There may be resource limitations in certain Regions which are due to Azure specific resource availability. For example, if you select 'Australia' as the Region, the KX Insights Platform deployment will not be possible due to the lack of required resources in that Region.

Azure Redeploy Button

Please do not try using the 'Redeploy' button if there are any failures in the initial deployment. This does not function as expected and cannot be removed from the Marketplace. Please always reach out to KX Support for assistance by following the Support section of the documentation.

Support

Please be aware that there is a link to the KX Support Portal on the Azure Marketplace Offer.

Support

For first time deployments, please select the Sign Up button. If you deploy multiple instances of KX Insights thereafter, please use the same account to login when raising any Support tickets.

Support