Setting up Azure NetApp Files for MSIX App Attach | Step-by-Step Guide

Microsoft

The purpose of this article is to combine content from already existing articles into a single article for how to set up Azure NetApp Files for MSIX App Attach. Content was taken from Create a profile container with Azure NetApp Files and AD DS and Register for Azure NetApp Files.

 

Prerequisites

  • Azure account with contributor or administrator privileges on the subscription
  • VM or physical machine joined to AD DS, and permissions to access it
  • WVD host pool in which all session hosts have been domain joined. Each session host must be in the same region as the region you create your Azure NetApp files in. The following regions are supported for Azure NetApp files: Australia East, Australia Southeast, Canada Central, Canada East, Central India, Central US, East US, East US 2, Germany North, Germany West Central, Japan East, Japan West, North Europe, South Central US, South India, Southeast Asia, UAE Central, UK South, UK West, West Europe, West US, or West US 2.
    • You will need to create new session hosts if they are not in one of the regions listed above

Process overview

  1. Confirm Azure NetApp Files is available in the region of your session hosts.
  2. Submit a waitlist request for accessing the service
  3. Register the NetApp Resource Provider
  4. Set up your Azure NetApp Files account
  5. Create a capacity pool
  6. Join an Active Directory connection
  7. Create a new volume
  8. Verify connection to Azure NetApp Files Share
  9. Upload MSIX Image to Azure NetApp Files Share

Submit a waitlist request for accessing the service

  1. Submit a waitlist request for accessing the Azure NetApp Files service through the Azure NetApp Files waitlist submission page. Please note that waitlist signup does not guarantee immediate service access.
  2. Wait for an official confirmation email from the Azure NetApp Files team before continuing.

Register the NetApp Resource Provider

  1. From the Azure portal, click on the Azure Cloud shell icon to the right of the search bar:

jushiah_0-1608053849095.png

 

  1. Switch to PowerShell mode if it defaults to bash.
  2. If you have multiple subscriptions on your account, select the subscription that has been approved for Azure NetApp Files with the following command:
az account set --subscription <subscription id>

 

  1. Register the NetApp resource provider with the following command:
az provider register --namespace Microsoft.NetApp --wait

 

  1. Navigate to the Subscriptions blade in the Azure portal and click on your subscription.
  2. In the settings tab, click Resource Providers to verify that the Microsoft.NetApp provider shows as registered:

jushiah_1-1608053849107.png

 

Set up your Azure NetApp Files account

  1. In the Azure portal, search for Azure NetApp Files and select the Add button.
  2. When the New NetApp Account page opens, enter the following values:
    • For Name, enter what you want your NetApp account name to be.
    • For Subscription, select the subscription that you registered with the Microsoft.NetApp provider.
    • For Resource group, select an existing resource group from the drop-down menu or create a new one by selecting Create new.
    • For Location, select your region for the NetApp account from the drop-down menu. As mentioned in the pre-requisites, this region must be in the same region as your session host VMs.
  3. When you’re finished, select Create to create your NetApp account.

Create a Capacity Pool

  1. Go to the Azure NetApp Files menu and select your new account.
  2. In your account menu, select Capacity Pool under Storage service.
  3. Select Add pool.
  4. When the New capacity pool tab opens, enter the following values:
    • For Name, enter a name for the new capacity pool.
    • For Service level, select your desired value from the drop-down menu. We recommend Premium for most environments. Note: The Premium setting provides the minimum throughput available for a Premium Service level, which is 256 MBps. You may need to adjust this throughput for a production environment.
    • For Size (TiB), enter the capacity pool size that best fits your needs. The minimum size is 4 TiB.
  5. When you’re finished, select OK.

 

Join an Active Directory Connection

  1. Navigate back to your NetApp account and select Active Directory connections under Azure NetApp Files.
  2. Select the Join button to open the Join Active Directory page.

jushiah_2-1608053849116.png

 

 

  1. Enter the following values in the Join Active Directory page to join a connection:
    • For Primary DNS, enter the IP address of the DNS server in your environment that can resolve the domain name.
    • For Domain, enter your fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
    • For SMB Server (Computer Account) Prefix, enter the string you want to append to the Computer account name.
    • For Username, enter the UPN of your AD admin.
    • For Password, enter the account’s password.

Create a new Volume

  1. Navigate back to your NetApp account and select Volumes under Storage service.
  2. When the Create a Volume tab opens, enter the following values:
    • For Volume name, enter a name for the new volume.
    • For Capacity pool, select the capacity pool you just created from the drop-down menu.
    • For Quote (GiB), enter the volume size that best fits your needs. The minimum size is 100 GiB.
    • For Virtual network, select an existing virtual network that has connectivity to the domain controller from the drop-down menu.
    • Under Subnet, select Create new. Keep in mind that this subnet will be delegated to Azure NetApp Files. Only one subnet per virtual network can be delegated to Azure NetApp Files. If for some reason you need to create a second subnet for Azure NetApp Files, you will have to create a new virtual network and connect it to your existing virtual network through a virtual network peering.
  3. Select Next: Protocol > to open the Protocol tab and configure your volume access parameters. Enter the following values:
  • For Protocol Type, select SMB.
  • For Active Directory, select the same directory that you originally connected in the Join an Active Directory connection section.
  • For Share name, enter the name of the share used by the session host pool and its users. This value must be unique within the subscription.
  • Select Review + create at the bottom of the page, which will open the validation page. After your volume is validated successfully, select Create.
  1. At this point, the new volume will start to deploy. Once deployment is complete, you can now start using your Azure NetApp Files share.
  2. To see the mount path, select Go to resource and look for it in the Overview tab. You can also find additional details for mounting by selecting Mount instructions under Storage service. Copy the Mount path to your clipboard as you will need this in the next section.

Verify connection to Azure NetApp Files Share

  1. Remote into the VM or physical machine joined to AD DS.
  2. Open File Explorer and click on Network.
  3. Navigate to the Mount path and verify that you are able to connect to the network. In the example below, the Mount path is \\netapp1-3671.jushiahwvdtest.onmicrosoft.com\testing1.

jushiah_3-1608053849139.png

 

 

Upload MSIX Image to Azure NetApp Files Share

  1. In each session host, install the certificate that you signed the MSIX package with. For the certificate store, make sure to put it in Trusted People.
  2. In File Explorer, navigate again to the Mount path and copy/paste the MSIX Image that you want to add into the Azure NetApps Files share.
  3. The MSIX image is now uploaded to the Azure NetApp Files share and is accessible by your session hosts when adding a MSIX Package through the Azure Portal UI or Powershell.

 

4 Replies

@jushiah I do not recommend ANF as an SMB share for MSIX App Attach.  If a failover occurs the file handles will be dropped and the app will fail to launch.  At this time ANF Continuous Availablilty that would prevent this is in public preview but is not compatible with AVD.  Enable Continuous Availability on existing Azure NetApp Files SMB volumes | Microsoft Learn


Please consider hosting MSIX containers on Azure Files.

Azure NetApp Files CA shares is compatible with AVD, that is explicitly with FsLogix user profiles containers. We will look into further improving documentation and guidance regarding MSIX.
All, circling back on this to close the loop. We've updated the documentation to clear up the full supportability status of MSIX app attach on Azure NetApp Files volumes:
https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/virtual-desktop/create-netapp-files