General Availability: Azure Automation Hybrid Runbook Worker Extension
Published date: December 05, 2022
Azure Automation provides a unified platform for execution of customer provided scripts to manage Azure, Arc-enabled and multi-cloud workloads. User Hybrid Worker enables execution of the scripts directly on the machines for managing guest workloads or as a gateway to environments that are not accessible from Azure. Azure Automation announces General Availability ofUser Hybrid Worker extension, that isbased onVirtual Machine extensions framework and provides a seamless and integrated installation experience. There is no dependency on Log Analytics agent and Log Analytics workspace, and authentication using VM System-assigned managed identities takes away the need to manage certificates. It also offers Automatic upgrade of minor versions by default and simplifies at-scale management of Hybrid Workers through the Azure Portal, PowerShell cmdlets, Azure CLI, Bicep, ARM templates and REST API.
Note: The extension-based Hybrid Runbook Worker only supports the User Hybrid Worker type and does not include the System Hybrid Worker required for Azure Automation Update Management. It is supported for Windows & Linux Azure VMs and Azure Arc-enabled Servers. It is also available for Azure Arc-enabled VMware vSphere VMs in preview.
Call to Action
- Migrateyour existing agent-based User Hybrid Workers to extension-based Workers as both types can co-exist on the same machine. Once you are confident with the extension-based Hybrid Worker experience and use, you can remove the agent-based Worker.
- Upgrade Hybrid Worker extension to latest version, if you had installed Hybrid Worker extension during public preview. Since it is a major version upgrade from preview to GA, it must be managed manually.
- Add more machines as extension-based Hybrid Runbook Workers and manage your hybrid and multi-cloud workloads using a single orchestration service.
Refer to the blog for more details.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please reach out to Azure Automation Q&A forum.