 Hey, I'm here with Lior to talk about the Azure Arc Jumpstart. So stay tuned. Hey, Lior, how are you doing? Hey, Thomas. How's it going? Good, good. Can't complain. I'm happy to have you on Azure Unblock today. Obviously, you did a lot of work on Azure Arc. Can you explain me a little bit about, first of all, who you are and what you're working on, and your thoughts on Azure Arc? Yeah, sure. So my name is Lior Kamrat. I've been to Microsoft for a bit more over than five years now. Currently, I'm a Cloud Solution Architect as part of the US One Commercial Partner subsidiary. I did multiple roles in Microsoft, including Microsoft or Azure Engineering, and now I'm leading the Azure Arc practice alongside with my colleagues in the US One Commercial Partner subsidiary. That's pretty cool. That's really cool. So obviously, you mentioned the Azure Arc Jumpstart project and that's why we're here. But first of all, obviously, the key thing is about Azure Arc. So what are your thoughts about Azure Arc here? Yeah, I think Azure Arc is pretty much a game changer when it comes to the hybrid play. I think I said it before, before Azure Arc, I don't believe we really had a hybrid story from the context of stretching control planes or more from the software layer. It was always about things like Azure Stack that I know you're very much involved with and all that. But those were pretty much like, I want to say hardware or physical oriented solutions. But I think that Azure Arc brings something a bit different. It looks at the hybrid notion from a very different angle, and that angle is really about stretching our control plane. Azure Resource Manager, or some may say the operating system of Azure, and that's really what we're talking about. This concept of looking at resources or infrastructure or services, applications that are deployed outside of Azure, to me it's very interesting because I think that we all, I think at this point, know that hybrid is here to stay. I actually like it. I don't think we need to be disruptive when it comes to how users are operating their business. I think we need to complement that. I think that's where Azure Arc comes into place and plays a key role in that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you hit a very important point there, and I think that is one of the key essential. Azure Arc is not just like some way you connect some resources, right? It really connects it in a way that it actually is an Azure resource and it is part of the Azure Resource Manager. So you created something very awesome for Azure Arc and it's called the Azure Arc Jumpstart Project. Can you tell me a little bit more about why you started that project and actually what the Jumpstart is? Yeah, sure. As you can see here in the screen that I'm sharing, this is the Azure Arc Jumpstart website. To give the audience a bit of background around the Jumpstart project, so the Jumpstart project really started from the notion of how do we go by and document processes and deployment guides for resources or infrastructure that is outside of Azure. Before I started the Jumpstart project, when I was starting looking at Azure Arc, I thought to myself, all right, it's all good but how do we actually go by and teach people how to use it if those resources or the resources that Azure Arc is looking at are deployed outside of Azure? So at this point, I just started to write few automations on different scenarios, write for Kubernetes and I started with servers and then I moved to Kubernetes and started looking at Google Cloud Platform and AWS and eventually I got to a point that I had like five, six or seven scenarios, something like that and at this point, I thought to myself, all right, I think I have something here. I think that we are starting to understand how to write documentations for deployment guides for things that are outside of Azure. If you look at the Azure docs, we're doing very good job on documenting our own stuff, but Azure Arc is unique in the sense that it literally by design touches everything that is outside of Azure. So that's how the Jumpstart project started and I really wanted to make these guides accessible. So that's really the history there. There are few design and key principles to this repository or this project. It started as a repository and then we launched the website that you guys are seeing right now. So I was joined by three other colleagues of mine, other Cloud Solution Architects from across the world. We have Lauren Nicolás, she's a CSA from Spain. We have Dale Kirby and Ali Hussain is, they are also CSAs as part of US and they joined me to do this project. So really the key design principles are to make it easy. Off-the-shelf scenarios, making sure that you're not going to fail, making sure that you will be successful with this technology, making sure that you will understand the value proposition of Azure Arc, and hopefully enjoy the ride while you're doing so. No, I'm super glad that you created that project. Because it makes it super easy for us to, when you create a demo or when you need to do a POC, then it makes it super easy to have these steps and just run these scripts and build that automation you build around it to make it super easy to try something out. This is especially helpful with things like Azure Arc, which covers so many different platforms and features and products and services and so it's very tough and a very large set. Speaking of that, so obviously, as I mentioned, Azure Arc is a large part and covers many different topics and features and products. What is covered by the Azure Arc Jumpstart? Yeah, good question. Really, this is what we are here to talk about. Azure Arc has different types of solutions, right? It's a set of technologies that, again, is all about governing and managing resources and applications outside of Azure. So today with Azure Arc, as you know, we have Azure Arc enabled servers, Kubernetes SQL server and data services, and to this point we're covering all of these four pillars. If you look at the structure of the project and the website, you're going to see that we have, for example, let's take data services. If I'll go into data services, you will see that we are covering all three biggest hyperscalers, obviously ourselves, AWS and Google platform, we also have automation for on-premises. If I'll go into each one of those, I'll go to Google Kubernetes Engine, just as an example, what we're trying to do, we're trying to cover all our bases. We're trying to make sure that if you want to do SQL Managed Instance with data services, you will have the automation for that. Or if you want to do Postgres, you are going to have the automation for that. For automations that are not Azure Resource Manager templates based ARM, we are actually providing Terraform plans because it became the de facto standards for infrastructure as code and automation. So why not? So really the Jumpstart covers all the Arc pillars. I'll go to Kubernetes, you're going to see that we even have more options. You can see the amount of platforms that we have automations for, and this is what we're trying to achieve. Besides the fact that we're providing the bootstrap automations, the automation that will get you up and running, I think the more important piece is, what do you actually do with Azure Arc? So now you have a Kubernetes cluster or a server in GCP or in AWS. That's fine, but what do you do with that? For each section, what we have is we have the unified operations use cases. In the unified operation use cases, you're going to see some scenarios, again, automated ones that highlight the value proposition. So for example, with Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, if you want to do GitOps, you have that there or if I'll go to servers. I'll go to servers and I see unified operation here, and you can see the amount of integrations that we have, and again, everything is documented in an automated fashion. So really, the jumpstart covers all of that. Today, we have probably around 60 scenarios already for Azure Arc and more to come. Wow, that's insane. That's a huge amount of work your team did there, especially because I know you obviously have these different platforms. As you said, it's not just Azure, it's really connecting all these different platforms. So if I'm, for example, want to connect my Kubernetes cluster running in AWS, I could just go to the jumpstart platform and actually see how that would be on-boarded and how it would add that, especially how that works, and I would have my scenario. The same thing if I would do the same thing on a v-appare platform or if I do it on a Hyper-V platform. So that is absolutely great. I have to ask, obviously, you were involved in writing all these different scenarios. What was one of the most interesting ones to write? Obviously, when you build something like this, there must be also a lot of testing and automation in place. So can you share some insights how that works? Yeah. So we have a lot of unique scenarios in the way that we are approaching them. The first thing that we're doing is we're trying to understand what will be the end result, what will be the user experience. I'll take the data services, for example. If you look at Azure Arc-enabled data services, it has these layers of infrastructure complexity. At first, you have Azure and then you have Kubernetes and then you have the data services components and from there, you actually have the services, SQL or Postgres. So the level of complexity can be pretty big. You have multiple layers. So if I'll go to the data services here for a second, and again, I'll go to Google and I'll take the SQL managed instance just as an example. Under this scenario, to answer your question here, also as you can see, we have all the prerequisites, how you actually go by and set up your Google environment. We're not assuming that you know Google, but we want you to know the fundamental building blocks in order for you to get started. So we also document in this. But what I wanted to show you is this section right here, the automation flow. The reason I'm showing you this because you asked, what are the interesting scenarios? So obviously, all of the scenarios are unique in their own way, but I think that the data services are weird in the sense that we have the automation that will spin up the Kubernetes environment and the Kubernetes environment then will go and will have all the data services on top of. But as part of that automation, we're also creating what we call a client tools virtual machine. That virtual machine, if you're doing that in Google, you're going to have a virtual machine in Google. If you're doing that in AWS, you're going to have an EC2 instance, or if you're doing that on top of Azure Kubernetes service or AKS, you're going to have an Azure VM. That client tools VM will have all the necessary tools in order for you to get going with the environment. So AZ Data CLI and Azure Data Studio. As part of the automation, when you're logging for the first time to that VM, it will complete the automation because one part is really the infrastructure as code piece, which is Terraform in that case. Then you also have a login script that will go and deploy all the data services on top of that Kubernetes cluster. Eventually, the kick is you're going to have Azure Data Studio open and ready to go for you to start using. So that's one of the weirdest scenarios to design, but to answer your question here. So just to think about the data services part. So you're not just deploying obviously the data services part, but you're actually giving me my admin or demo machine, which then allows me to actually interact with the data services part and I already have all the tools I need. So if I'm, for example, not an expert on Ziko, but I want to show it to my peers or others and I'm setting this up, I even get the machine, is that correct? Exactly. What you see here, I'm showing the screenshots as part of the automation and you can see, this is the process of deploying the data controller and from that point, you're getting to a point that here you go, you have Azure Data Studio open and to give you just a bit more, we're also restoring a simple database or a demo database into the environment. So you will not just have SQL instance, you're also going to have a database to show and to start playing with. So it's really an end-to-end user experience that we're trying to provide. That's super handy again. That makes it my life super easy. If I want to demo something, I can quickly go and deploy a jumpstart without spending much time on it. By the way, speaking of time, so obviously you built automation, I know some scenarios are obviously different from others. But what do you expect? So if I want to try out, let's say, a service scenario or what if I want to try out the data services scenario? If I start with the jumpstart until it's deployed, how long does it take? So depending on obviously depending on the scenario. Right. Well, the most complex scenarios which are the data services and when I'm saying complex, it's really about how much time it takes to deploy the thing. The moment that you're setting up your environment variables, and that's the only requirement we actually have, because you need to set up your Azure subscription ID, tenant ID, secrets and all that. But after you're doing that, really you can be up and running in less than 30 minutes for the most complex scenarios. We have scenarios that will get you going after 10 minutes. Really depends on the scenario and the automation, but it's really fast and this is by design. That's the user experience that we wanted to provide you. So yeah. That's awesome. So I heard that the Jumpstart project now also has a YouTube channel. Right. So in this ignite, we are announcing the Azure Arc Jumpstart YouTube channel. The reason that we created the Azure Arc Jumpstart YouTube channel is to provide you with what we like to call lazy demos. Lazy demos are basically five to 12, 13 minutes demos that are showing you how a Jumpstart scenario will look like if you don't want to do it yourself. Because some people, for them, it's good enough to see the demo and understand the concept. So we wanted to provide them with a way to see the experience without actually doing the work. That's why we're calling them lazy demos. So we're going to launch with this ignite, like I said, and we're going to have around 15 demos to get started with. And obviously we're going to add more of these demos in the future to cover all the Arc technologies that we have in the Jumpstart and the ones that are going to come and they are in the roadmap. Awesome. Now I really like the idea with these short videos and explain the scenario and showing how it works. Really happy. Looking forward to the YouTube channel, obviously, absolutely going to subscribe to it. Then obviously, I mean, this is a lot of work, right? And you already mentioned you're working with a couple of people. Is there anything like anyone else in the team you want to mention and who you're working with? Yeah. So besides the fact that we are a core team of four architects, we are working super closely with the product group and the engineering folks in the Azure Arc, right? And the Jumpstart project is actually internally being endorsed by the product group. So obviously, the level of support and the partnership that we have with the Azure Arc engineering and Azure in general, right? It's just amazing to take an open source project and a community-driven open source project and to have that endorsed by Azure engineering and Azure marketing and the field is just amazing. And we are super appreciate everyone's support and we're looking to go bigger with this. So yeah, there's a lot of people that contribute. There's also people to contribute outside of the project, right? External to Microsoft. So again, our goal is to make this a very much community, 100% driven project. Oh, that's awesome. I love that we obviously can also help and contribute to the project itself. So with that, I'm obviously super interested in Jumpstart project and obviously I wanna learn more. So quick question, where do I go if I wanna learn more? Yeah, so it's pretty straightforward. The Azure Arc Jumpstart project is in azurearchjumpstart.io. You can go today, you can start looking at this. Obviously the project is backed by a GitHub repository. So if you prefer that, you can go into the GitHub repository in the about page of the project and that's how you get started. No, that's super cool. No, thank, I have to say thank you very much for being on Azure Unblocked. It was super good to have you here and speak about the Azure Arc Jumpstart project. A lot of good stuff there. And again, I hope everyone tries out some of the Jumpstarts and joins the YouTube channel. With that, I wanna say thank you, Lior. And thank you obviously also goes to the team for providing all these Jumpstarts. And for you guys, thank you for watching and hopefully see you in another video.