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Deploy SQL Managed Instance enabled by Azure Arc using Kubernetes tools

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This article demonstrates how to deploy Azure SQL Managed Instance for Azure Arc with Kubernetes tools.

Prerequisites

You should have already created a data controller.

To create a SQL managed instance using Kubernetes tools, you will need to have the Kubernetes tools installed. The examples in this article will use kubectl, but similar approaches could be used with other Kubernetes tools such as the Kubernetes dashboard, oc, or helm if you are familiar with those tools and Kubernetes yaml/json.

Install the kubectl tool

Overview

To create a SQL Managed Instance, you need to:

  1. Create a Kubernetes secret to store your system administrator login and password securely
  2. Create a SQL Managed Instance custom resource based on the SqlManagedInstance custom resource definition

Define both of these items in a yaml file.

Create a yaml file

Use the template yaml file as a starting point to create your own custom SQL managed instance yaml file. Download this file to your local computer and open it in a text editor. Use a text editor such as VS Code that support syntax highlighting and linting for yaml files.

Note

Beginning with the February, 2022 release, ReadWriteMany (RWX) capable storage class needs to be specified for backups. Learn more about access modes. If no storage class is specified for backups, the default storage class in Kubernetes is used. If the default is not RWX capable, the SQL Managed Instance installation may not succeed.

Example yaml file

See the following example of a yaml file:

apiVersion: v1
data:
  password: <your base64 encoded password>
  username: <your base64 encoded username>
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: sql1-login-secret
type: Opaque
---
apiVersion: sql.arcdata.microsoft.com/v12
kind: SqlManagedInstance
metadata:
  name: sql1
  annotations:
    exampleannotation1: exampleannotationvalue1
    exampleannotation2: exampleannotationvalue2
  labels:
    examplelabel1: examplelabelvalue1
    examplelabel2: examplelabelvalue2
spec:
  dev: true #options: [true, false]
  licenseType: LicenseIncluded #options: [LicenseIncluded, BasePrice].  BasePrice is used for Azure Hybrid Benefits.
  tier: GeneralPurpose #options: [GeneralPurpose, BusinessCritical]
  security:
    adminLoginSecret: sql1-login-secret
  scheduling:
    default:
      resources:
        limits:
          cpu: "2"
          memory: 4Gi
        requests:
          cpu: "1"
          memory: 2Gi
  services:
    primary:
      type: LoadBalancer
  storage:
    #backups:
    #  volumes:
    #  - className: azurefile # Backup volumes require a ReadWriteMany (RWX) capable storage class
    #    size: 5Gi
    data:
      volumes:
      - className: default # Use default configured storage class or modify storage class based on your Kubernetes environment
        size: 5Gi
    datalogs:
      volumes:
      - className: default # Use default configured storage class or modify storage class based on your Kubernetes environment
        size: 5Gi
    logs:
      volumes:
      - className: default # Use default configured storage class or modify storage class based on your Kubernetes environment
        size: 5Gi

Customizing the login and password

A Kubernetes secret is stored as a base64 encoded string - one for the username and one for the password. You will need to base64 encode a system administrator login and password and place them in the placeholder location at data.password and data.username. Do not include the < and > symbols provided in the template.

Note

For optimum security, using the value sa is not allowed for the login . Follow the password complexity policy.

You can use an online tool to base64 encode your desired username and password or you can use CLI tools depending on your platform.

PowerShell

[Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes('<your string to encode here>'))

#Example
#[Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes('example'))

Linux/macOS

echo -n '<your string to encode here>' | base64

#Example
# echo -n 'example' | base64

Customizing the name

The template has a value of sql1 for the name attribute. You can change this value, but it must include characters that follow the DNS naming standards. You must also change the name of the secret to match. For example, if you change the name of the SQL managed instance to sql2, you must change the name of the secret from sql1-login-secret to sql2-login-secret

Customizing the resource requirements

You can change the resource requirements - the RAM and core limits and requests - as needed.

Note

You can learn more about Kubernetes resource governance.

Requirements for resource limits and requests:

  • The cores limit value is required for billing purposes.
  • The rest of the resource requests and limits are optional.
  • The cores limit and request must be a positive integer value, if specified.
  • The minimum of 1 core is required for the cores request, if specified.
  • The memory value format follows the Kubernetes notation.
  • A minimum of 2 GB is required for memory request, if specified.
  • As a general guideline, you should have 4 GB of RAM for each 1 core for production use cases.

Customizing service type

The service type can be changed to NodePort if desired. A random port number will be assigned.

Customizing storage

You can customize the storage classes for storage to match your environment. If you are not sure which storage classes are available, run the command kubectl get storageclass to view them.

The template has a default value of default.

For example

storage:
    data:
      volumes:
      - className: default

This example means that there is a storage class named default - not that there is a storage class that is the default. You can also optionally change the size of your storage. For more information, see storage configuration.

Creating the SQL managed instance

Now that you have customized the SQL managed instance yaml file, you can create the SQL managed instance by running the following command:

kubectl create -n <your target namespace> -f <path to your yaml file>

#Example
#kubectl create -n arc -f C:\arc-data-services\sqlmi.yaml

Monitoring the creation status

Creating the SQL managed instance will take a few minutes to complete. You can monitor the progress in another terminal window with the following commands:

Note

The example commands below assume that you created a SQL managed instance named sql1 and Kubernetes namespace with the name arc. If you used a different namespace/SQL managed instance name, you can replace arc and sqlmi with your names.

kubectl get sqlmi/sql1 --namespace arc

kubectl get pods --namespace arc

You can also check on the creation status of any particular pod. Run kubectl describe pod .... Use this command to troubleshoot any issues. For example:

kubectl describe pod/<pod name> --namespace arc

#Example:
#kubectl describe pod/sql1-0 --namespace arc

Troubleshoot deployment problems

If you encounter any troubles with the deployment, please see the troubleshooting guide.

Related content

Connect to SQL Managed Instance enabled by Azure Arc