Azure local - LocalBox

[Başak AHLAT (BasakAHLAT)]

Hi, I’m an Azure engineer working at a Microsoft Partner. I’ve never had the chance to work with Azure Local before, but I’d like to research, learn, and practice it.
Would it be possible to deploy LocalBox on a lower-SKU VM for testing purposes?
Would that be sufficient for gaining hands-on experience, and can we think of Azure LocalBox as a demo environment for Azure Local?

[Jan Egil Ring (janegilring)]

Hi Başak AHLAT (@BasakAHLAT)

Would it be possible to deploy LocalBox on a lower-SKU VM for testing purposes?

We have not exposed parameters for doing this as of now, although we have it tracked in the backlog as part of cost optimization enhancements.

However, you can fork the repository and make these customizations:

1. Add the desired SKU (e.g. Standard_E16s_v6) as allowed on this and this location in the Bicep templates.
2. Update the value of this line to specify the amount of memory to assigned to the 2 nested Azure Local nodes. According to the documentation, 32 GB is the lowest which is supported. Setting a lower value makes the deployment checks to fail.

When that has been prepared, you can deploy from your own customized branch like this:

$githubAccount = "BasakAHLAT"
$githubBranch = "custom_localbox"
 
$RGname = "localbox-rg"
$Location = "australiaeast"
 
$TemplateFile = "C:\repos\azure_arc\azure_jumpstart_localbox\bicep\main.bicep"
$TemplateParameterFile = "C:\repos\azure_arc\azure_jumpstart_localbox\bicep\localbox.bicepparam"

New-AzResourceGroup -Name $RGname -Location $Location

In localbox.bicepparam, configure the value for vmSize to your desired SKU.

Would that be sufficient for gaining hands-on experience, and can we think of Azure LocalBox as a demo environment for Azure Local?
Yes, to get familiar with the management experience and see how things work without need for physical hardware it is sufficient.

[Başak AHLAT (BasakAHLAT)]

Hi Jan Egil Ring (@janegilring)

Thanks for your explanation and guidance.
I’ll start testing Azure Local using the Jumpstart LocalBox environment.

My goal is to get some hands-on experience and understand how Azure Local works in hybrid scenarios.