Deployment script for Microsoft Azure

Deploying N-able N-central to Azure is simplified by using a deployment PowerShell script. You can download the correct version of the script for your deployment from the corresponding version's download page.

The deployment script requires Microsoft PowerShell 7. PowerShell 7 is a cross-platform version of PowerShell (Formerly called PowerShell Core) that has installers for Windows, MacOS and Linux. You can download the latest version of Microsoft PowerShell on the Microsoft Learn site.

The script is pre-populated with the version of N-able N-central you downloaded it for. If you want to install a different version, download the updated version from the N-central Download Page for the version you want to deploy.

For more information on the Azure deployment process, see Install N-able N-central on Microsoft Azure.

Azure Deployment Script Customizations

Azure Subscription

You can retrieve your Azure subscription ID from the Subscriptions Blade in the Azure Portal.

Azure Region

Select the Azure region where N-able N-central will be located, for example:

  • ‘eastus’

Not all features are available in all regions. Check with Microsoft Azure for availability.

You can get all the Azure locations using the Azure PowerShell command:

Get-AzLocation

Resource Naming Prefix

The script is designed to use a naming prefix for naming all resources it creates.

With the default script configuration, keep this value between 1 - 18 characters, excluding any symbols to avoid exceeding other resource name length limits.

For more information, see Develop your naming and tagging strategy for Azure resources.

VM Size

You will need to define the size of the N-able N-central, Azure, Generation 2, VM Instance, for example, 'Standard_DS3_v2'. You can get all the VM sizes in the US East region using the Azure PowerShell command. Use the region where you plan to install N-able N-central:

Get-AzVMSize -Location 'eastus'

For more information, see Support for generation 2 VMs on Azure.

Operating System Disk

Starting with N-able N-central 2025.1, the OS disk is set to a static 80 GB. Increasing this size will not add any additional space to your N-able N-central server.

Operating System Disk Storage Type

Select the storage type for the Operating System disk. The valid options are:

Premium_LRS,

StandardSSD_LRS, and

Standard_LRS.

Azure does not support using the UltraSSD_LRS storage type for Operating System Disks. For more information, see

What disk types are available in Azure?

Azure Storage redundancy

Data Disks Sizes

You will need to set the size of the new Data disks in GB (each). All the Data disks will be combined into a striped LVM to take advantage of parallel disk writes, spreading the IOPs load across the total number of disks you select. The combined size of the data disk will need to be slightly more than 75 GB.

Number of Data Disks

Define the number of Data disks in the striped LVM. This value can be between 2 - 99, but the maximum number of Data disks is defined by the Azure VM Size.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/generation-2#generation-2-vm-sizes

Data Disk Storage Type

Select the storage type for the Data Managed Disk. The valid options are:

Premium_LRS,

StandardSSD_LRS, and

Standard_LRS.

UltraSSD_LRS is unsupported at this time but is planned to be added once the Azure PowerShell modules provide better deployment support.

For more information, see

What disk types are available in Azure?

Azure Storage redundancy

Boot Diagnostics Storage Account

Select the storage type for the Boot Diagnostics Storage Account. The valid options are:

Premium_LRS,

StandardSSD_LRS, and

Standard_LRS.

This storage account is used for the Azure VM boot diagnostic logs. It is also used during deployment to temporarily host the VHD image before it is imported to a Managed Disk. This is a seldom used storage account, so it does not have to be on the fasted storage types.

Boot Diagnostics Storage Account Type

Select the type of boot storage account you want to use for the VM Boot Diagnostics storage. N-able N-central requires either Storage or StorageV2.

Storage: General purpose Storage account that supports storage of Blobs, Tables, Queues, Files and Disks.

StorageV2: General Purpose Version 2 (GPv2) Storage account that supports Blobs, Tables, Queues, Files, and Disks, with advanced features like data tiering.

Accelerated Networking

The N-able N-central image for Azure has been configured to support Accelerated Networking, if desired. For more information, see Create a Linux virtual machine with Accelerated Networking using Azure CLI.

IPv6 Support

N-able N-central does not yet support IPv6 for monitoring, however the underlying operating system and services are ready to support it in the future. To future proof your deployment, you can configure the Azure deployment with IPv6 support.

Before you deploy a dual stack application in Azure, you must configure your subscription for this preview feature using the following Azure PowerShell commands:

Register-AzProviderFeature -FeatureName AllowIPv6VirtualNetwork -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Network

It takes up to 30 minutes for feature registration to complete. You can check your registration status by running the following Azure PowerShell command:

Get-AzProviderFeature -FeatureName AllowIPv6VirtualNetwork -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Network

After the registration is complete, run the following command:

Register-AzResourceProvider -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Network

You can generate a random Private IPv6 Network Prefix by going to https://simpledns.com/private-ipv6 .

N-central sizing for Azure Managed Disk deployment

Number of Devices Recommended Azure Size CPU Cores Memory OS Disk Data Disks (Total)
Up to 1,000 Standard_D2s_v6/Standard_D2as_v6 2 8 GB 80 GiB 150 GiB
Up to 3,000 Standard_D4ls_v6/Standard_D4als_v6 4 8 GB 80 GiB 200 GiB
Up to 6,000 Standard_D8ls_v6/Standard_D8als_v6 8 16 GB 80 GiB 350 GiB
Up to 9,000 Standard_D16ls_v6/Standard_D16als_v6 12 24 GB 80 GiB 450 GiB
Up to 12,000 Standard_D16ls_v6/Standard_D16als_v6 16 32 GB 80 GiB 600 GiB
Up to 16,000 Standard_D32ls_v6/Standard_D32als_v6 22 48 GB 80 GiB 800 GiB
Up to 20,000 Standard_F32as_v6/Standard_F32s_v2 28 64 GB 80 GiB 1 TiB
Up to 24,000 Standard_F48as_v6/Standard_F48s_v2 34 80 GB 80 GiB 1.2 TiB