ARM & Bicep

Watch the presentation

Se presentationen på svenska

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) lets us define Azure resources declaratively and deploy them repeatably. This week we move from Portal & CLI to templates that describe our Ubuntu VM and its network—clean, versioned, and testable.

Why IaC (for our VM)

• Consistent: same template → same VM, NIC, NSG, Public IP every time
• Auditable: templates live in Git; PR review replaces “click ops”
• Safe changes: use what-if to see impact before applying

ARM vs Bicep (quick compare)

• ARM: verbose JSON; native to Azure Resource Manager
• Bicep: concise DSL that compiles to ARM; better ergonomics, modules, linter
• Engine: both deploy via Azure Resource Manager

Template anatomy (mini-map)

• parameters: inputs (location, namePrefix, adminUser, sshKey, myIp)
• resources: VNet/Subnet, NSG rules, Public IP, NIC, Ubuntu VM
• outputs: public IP address (so we can browse Nginx)

Commands you’ll use

• az deployment group what-if -f main.bicep -p dev.bicepparam
• az deployment group create -f main.bicep -p dev.bicepparam
• bicep decompile main.json and bicep build main.bicep