I want to start and stop my Azure Analysis Services from within Azure Data Factory, but I don't want write code or use other Azure services like Azure Automation or Azure Logic Apps to do this. Is there an Azure Data Factory-only solution where we only use the standard pipeline activities from ADF?
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| Save some money on your Azure Bill by pausing AAS |
Solution
Yes you can use the Web Activity to call the Rest API of Azure Analysis Services (AAS), but that requires you to give ADF permissions in AAS via its Managed Service Identity (MSI). If you already used our Process Model example, then this is slightly different (and easier).
1) Add ADF as contributer to AAS
Different than for processing one of the AAS models we don't need SSMS to add ADF as an Server Administrator. Instead we will use Access control (IAM) on the Azure portal to make our ADF a contributor for the AAS that we want to pause or resume.
- Go to your AAS the Azure portal
- In the left menu click on Access control (IAM)
- Click on + Add and choose Add role assignment
- In the new Add role assignment pane select Contributor as Role
- In the Assign access to dropdown select Data Factory
- Select the right Subscription
- Now Select your Data Factory and click on the Save button
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| Add ADF as Contributor to AAS |
2) Add Web Activity
In your ADF pipeline you need to add a Web Activity to call the Rest API of Analysis Services. First step is to determine the Rest API URL. Replace in the string below, the <xxx> values with the subscription id, resource group and servername of your Analysis Services. The Rest API method we will be using is 'Suspend' but you can replace that word by 'Resume' to startup the AAS:
https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<xxx>/resourceGroups/<xxx>/providers/Microsoft.AnalysisServices/servers/<xxx>/Suspend?api-version=2017-08-01
Example:
https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/a74a173e-4d8a-48d9-9ab7-a0b85abb98fb/resourceGroups/bitools/providers/Microsoft.AnalysisServices/servers/bitools2/Suspend?api-version=2017-08-01
Second step is to create a JSON message for the Rest API. Well the Rest API doesn't use it, but it is required in the Web activity when you use POST as method. So you just need to create a dummy json message:
{
"Dummy": "Dummy"
}
- Add the Web activity to your pipeline
- Give it a descriptive name like Pause AAS (or Resume AAS)
- Go to the Settings tab
- Use the Rest API URL from above in the URL property
- Choose POST as Method
- Add the dummy JSON message from above in the Body property
- Under advanced choose MSI as Authentication method
- Add 'https://management.azure.com/ in the Resource property (different than process example)
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| Web Activity calling the AAS Rest API |
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| Then Debug the Pipeline to check the suspend/resume action |
3) Retrieve info
By changing the method type from POST to GET (body property will disappear) and removing the method (suspend or pause) from the URL, you can retrieve information about the AAS. Like status and pricing tier. You could for example use that to first check the status before changing it.
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| Retrieve service info via GET |
Summary
In this post you learned how pause and resume your Analysis Services to save some money on your Azure bill. The big advantage of this method is that you don't need other Azure services which makes maintenance a little easier. In a next post we will also show you how to change the pricing tier via the Rest API.
