Tutorial / Cram Notes
Creating and managing offers in Microsoft Azure Stack Hub is a fundamental aspect for service administrators who seek to provide cloud services to end-users or tenants. An offer aggregates various Azure Stack Hub services and resources that tenants can subscribe to. The process involves several steps: creating a plan, bundling it into an offer, and managing those offers.
1. Understanding Plans, Quotas, and Offers
Before creating offers, you must understand the hierarchy of plans, quotas, and offers:
- Quotas define the limits of resources that a tenant can consume.
- Plans are collections of one or more services, along with their quotas.
- Offers bundle one or more plans into a package to which a tenant can subscribe.
2. Creating Quotas
Quotas are necessary to control the consumption of resources. To establish quotas, navigate to the user subscriptions area and select the types of resources you want to control, such as compute, storage, or network resources.
For example:
| Quota Type | Example Values |
|---|---|
| Compute | VM cores: 10, Memory: 50GB |
| Storage | Accounts: 5, Total Capacity: 1TB |
| Network | Public IPs: 5, VPN Gateways: 2 |
3. Creating Plans
Once quotas are established, you can create a plan. To create a plan:
- In the Azure Stack Hub administrator portal, select + New, then Offers + Plans, and then Plan.
- Provide a name and (optional) description for the plan.
- Select the services to include in the plan and associate the corresponding quotas.
- Review and create the plan.
4. Creating Offers
After creating one or more plans, you can combine them into an offer.
- Navigate to the Offers + Plans section of the administrator portal and choose + New, then Offer.
- Assign a name, description, and select the base plans to include in the offer.
- Configure any additional settings, like delegation or adding additional add-on plans.
For instance, you might create an offer with the following structure:
| Offer Name | Base Plan Included | Add-On Plans Available | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic VM Offer | Basic Compute Plan | – | Access to a set of VM sizes and storage quotas |
| DevTest Offer | DevTest Plan | Extra Storage Plan | Special resources and environments for development and testing |
5. Publishing Offers
Before an offer is available for tenants to subscribe to, it must be published.
- From the created offer, navigate to the offer details in the portal.
- Click on Change State and set the offer state to Public. Only public offers are visible and available to tenants.
6. Managing Subscriptions to Offers
Tenants will subscribe to the offers you’ve published. As an administrator, you must manage these subscriptions.
- Monitor active subscriptions to ensure tenants are adhering to their quotas.
- If necessary, you can add or remove subscribers from offers.
- Adjust quotas in response to tenant demands or to impose limits on resource utilization.
7. Add-On Plans and Delegated Providers
Some scenarios require the use of add-on plans, which allow tenants to augment their base offer with additional resources. Additionally, you can designate delegated providers to allow third-party vendors or departments to manage certain resources within an offer.
8. Managing Changes to Offers and Plans
As your cloud service evolves, you may need to update your offers and plans:
- Updating a plan within an offer will automatically reflect in all subscriptions that use that offer.
- If you update an offer directly, you might have to manually update existing subscriptions to the new version.
9. Monitoring Usage
An important part of managing offers is monitoring usage. This helps you understand tenant consumption and plan capacity. Azure Stack Hub provides tools to analyze usage data.
| Tool | Usage |
|---|---|
| Usage + Billing | Provides raw usage data and aggregation capabilities |
| Usage APIs | Allow programmatic access to usage data |
By carefully creating, managing, and monitoring offers in Microsoft Azure Stack Hub, administrators can ensure they provide a scalable and controlled set of services to their tenants. This orchestration of resources is critical in optimally maintaining a hybrid cloud environment, meeting service level agreements, and enabling efficient use of the underlying hardware.
Practice Test with Explanation
True/False: Offers in Azure Stack Hub can be created only by global administrators.
- False
Offers in Azure Stack Hub can be created by users with the appropriate role-based access control (RBAC) permissions, not just by global administrators. Service admins and owners of services can also create offers.
Multiple Select: Which of the following can be included in an offer in Azure Stack Hub? (Select all that apply)
- A. Virtual Machines
- B. Storage Accounts
- C. Plans
- D. Azure Resource Manager templates
Correct Answer: C) Plans, D) Azure Resource Manager templates
Offers in Azure Stack Hub are a collection of one or more plans, which contain services like virtual machines and storage accounts. Azure Resource Manager templates can be used to define resources that can be provisioned within those services.
True/False: An offer must always be made public right after it is created.
- False
Offers can be in private state after creation and only be made public when ready. This allows service administrators to control who can view and subscribe to an offer.
Single Select: What is the first step in creating an offer in Azure Stack Hub?
- A. Creating a plan
- B. Subscribing to an existing offer
- C. Defining quotas
- D. Publishing the offer
Correct Answer: A) Creating a plan
The first step in creating an offer is to create a plan which defines the services and quotas that will be included in the offer.
Single Select: Who can subscribe to a public offer in Azure Stack Hub?
- A. Only global administrators
- B. Only the user who created the offer
- C. Any user with a subscription
- D. Any user without a subscription
Correct Answer: C) Any user with a subscription
Any user who has an existing subscription can subscribe to a public offer in Azure Stack Hub.
True/False: You can add multiple plans to a single offer in Azure Stack Hub.
- True
Offers can include one or more plans, which allows administrators to bundle multiple services and resources into a single offer.
Multiple Select: What actions can be performed on an offer after it has been created? (Select all that apply)
- A. Cloning the offer
- B. Changing the offer’s name
- C. Adding additional services to the offer
- D. Deleting the offer
Correct Answer: A) Cloning the offer, C) Adding additional services to the offer, D) Deleting the offer
After an offer has been created, it can be cloned, additional services can be added, or the offer itself can be deleted. However, changing the offer’s name is not something that can be done; a new offer would need to be created with the desired name.
True/False: Quotas are set at the offer level in Azure Stack Hub.
- False
Quotas are set at the plan level, not at the offer level. Offers contain plans, which have associated quotas.
Single Select: What must be defined in order to meter the usage of resources in an offer?
- A. Plans
- B. Quotas
- C. Base subscriptions
- D. Billing adapter
Correct Answer: D) Billing adapter
A billing adapter must be defined to meter the usage of resources in an offer. This allows for tracking and potentially charging for resource consumption.
Single Select: What is the effect of deactivating an offer in Azure Stack Hub?
- A. It deletes the offer and its associated resources.
- B. It prevents the creation of new subscriptions to the offer.
- C. It immediately terminates all existing subscriptions to the offer.
- D. It upgrades the offer to include additional services automatically.
Correct Answer: B) It prevents the creation of new subscriptions to the offer.
Deactivating an offer prevents new subscriptions to that offer but doesn’t affect existing subscriptions. Existing subscribers can continue to use the resources as per the terms of the offer until their subscriptions are deactivated or removed.
True/False: You can add Azure Marketplace items to an Azure Stack Hub offer.
- True
Azure Stack Hub allows administrators to add Azure Marketplace items to an offer so that users can deploy them within their subscriptions.
Multiple Select: To create an offer in Azure Stack Hub, which entities do you need to associate with it? (Select all that apply)
- A. Resource Groups
- B. Plans
- C. Permissions
- D. Subscriptions
Correct Answer: B) Plans, C) Permissions
Offers are associated with plans, which include the services and resources, and permissions, which define who can access the offer. Resource groups and subscriptions are related to the deployment and management of resources but are not directly associated with the creation of an offer.
Interview Questions
What is an offer in Azure Stack?
An offer is a way of packaging and selling services to tenants in Azure Stack.
How do you create an offer in Azure Stack?
To create an offer in Azure Stack, you can use the Azure Stack Administrator portal, PowerShell, or the REST API.
What are the components of an offer in Azure Stack?
An offer in Azure Stack consists of a plan, quotas, and prices.
What is a plan in Azure Stack?
A plan in Azure Stack is a pre-defined set of services, service levels, and features that can be offered to tenants.
How do you create a plan in Azure Stack?
To create a plan in Azure Stack, you can use the Azure Stack Administrator portal, PowerShell, or the REST API.
What is a quota in Azure Stack?
A quota in Azure Stack is a limit on the amount of resources that a tenant can consume.
How do you create a quota in Azure Stack?
To create a quota in Azure Stack, you can use the Azure Stack Administrator portal, PowerShell, or the REST API.
What is a price in Azure Stack?
A price in Azure Stack is the cost that a tenant must pay to consume a service.
How do you create a price in Azure Stack?
To create a price in Azure Stack, you can use the Azure Stack Administrator portal, PowerShell, or the REST API.
How do you manage offers in Azure Stack?
You can manage offers in Azure Stack using the Azure Stack Administrator portal, PowerShell, or the REST API.
What actions can you perform on an offer in Azure Stack?
You can create, update, delete, publish, and unpublish offers in Azure Stack.
How do you assign an offer to a tenant in Azure Stack?
To assign an offer to a tenant in Azure Stack, you can use the Azure Stack Administrator portal or PowerShell.
How do you manage quotas and prices for an offer in Azure Stack?
You can manage quotas and prices for an offer in Azure Stack using the Azure Stack Administrator portal, PowerShell, or the REST API.
How do you monitor usage of an offer in Azure Stack?
You can monitor usage of an offer in Azure Stack using the Azure Stack Administrator portal, PowerShell, or the REST API.
How do you customize the branding of an offer in Azure Stack?
You can customize the branding of an offer in Azure Stack using the Azure Stack Administrator portal or PowerShell.
The process of creating and managing offers in Azure Stack Hub is quite straightforward but can get cumbersome if not properly organized.
Does anyone have a best practice guide for isolating workloads while creating offers?
Appreciate the insights shared in this blog post!
Thanks for this post, it helped me understand the intricacies of handling subscriptions in Azure Stack Hub.
I find it challenging to manage multiple offers efficiently. Any advice?
What are the main differences between Azure Stack Hub and Azure in terms of capacity and offer management?
Does the billing model differ significantly when comparing standalone Azure to Azure hybrid cloud models?
How do I update an existing offer without affecting current subscriptions?