Why Add Additional Azure Subscriptions?
Ah, cloud environments—dynamic, ever-expanding, and, let’s be honest, occasionally a hot mess of resource sprawl. Sometimes your business grows faster than a teenage beanstalk, leaving a trail of extra Azure subscriptions in its wake. Perhaps a new team or project has spun up its own subscription, or maybe you’re just the type who likes to keep production and test environments as separate as oil and water. Whatever the reason, you want one thing: robust, centralized backup coverage for all your Azure goodies.
Enter today’s topic: integrating secondary Azure subscriptions into your already humming N2W server. Because your precious data deserves a blanket that covers everything.
Step One: Know Thy Subscription (And Copy That ID)
Before you run headlong into the console, take a zen moment. Identify which Azure subscription you’re ready to add. Sounds trivial, right? But as Mike Rider—our ever-wise solutions architect—points out, you need that all-important subscription ID to move any further. Go ahead, copy it now. Bookmark it, write it on your hand, or just keep it handy in a notepad, because we’ll need it soon.
Step Two: Creating a Custom IAM Role (The Secret Sauce)
Now for the real magic: permissions. Azure’s not in the habit of letting just anyone tinker with resources, so you’ll need to create a custom IAM (Identity and Access Management) role. Don’t panic—this isn’t as daunting as it sounds.
Lucky for us, N2W kindly provides pre-configured JSON templates tailored to your specific license (standard, advanced, enterprise—take your pick). No need to reinvent the wheel. Download the zip file straight from their knowledge base library, extract it, and you’re ready to inject these pre-baked permissions right into your Azure subscription.
Hot tip: When you load the template, Azure’s UI helpfully pre-populates the role name and permissions. If you run into a name collision, just tweak the name with a number or your favorite animal emoji. Consistency is nice, but uniqueness is necessary.
Remember that subscription ID? Time to paste it into the template and finish setting up your role. Click “create,” and bask in the glow of your new, finely-tuned access controls.
Step Three: Register Your Application (The VIP Pass)
With roles out of the way, it’s off to Azure’s App Registrations. Create a new app registration, name it something meaningful (or just “Azure Tutorial” if you, too, appreciate clarity), and move on to the next step.
Copy down your application (Client) ID and Directory (Tenant) ID. Right after, you’ll need to create a client secret—a little string of characters as precious as your Netflix password. Be sure to save the value (not the ID); that’s what will let your backup server talk to Azure, handshake-style.
Step Four: Power Up With Role Assignment
So far, you’ve defined a role and registered an app. Now you need to introduce them. Head to IAM > Add Role Assignment in your Azure portal, pick out the role you made (remember its name!), then assign it to your shiny new app registration.
Presto—the app and your Azure subscription are now the best of friends, with the precise permissions needed to make backup magic happen.
Step Five: Bringing It All Together in N2W
With all the groundwork laid, it’s time for the big finale: adding your secondary Azure subscription to the N2W console. Log in, go to the account section, and add a new Azure account. Friendly names help you keep things organized, so call it whatever makes sense to you.
Paste in those IDs (application, tenant, client secret) like the pro you are, and hit save. N2W will now check permissions faster than you can say “all systems go.” If all is well, you can begin adding backup policies for your newly-integrated subscription—and rest easy knowing that your resources across all Azure lands are now under one watchful backup umbrella.
Because Your Data Deserves the Best Coverage
Integrating additional Azure subscriptions might sound like a marathon, but with the N2W tools and a clear roadmap, it’s more of a brisk stroll. Your data stays protected, your policies are unified, and you—dear cloud wrangler—can breathe just a bit easier as another layer of “what if” melts away.
Because when backup is this easy (and this centralized), disaster recovery is barely a blip on your radar. Now go forth, conquer those extra subscriptions, and let your backup plan be the envy of your IT department!
