App Layering - Azure - no unmanaged disk option for new machines from gallery images

[Chris Hahn1709163280]

Citrix says app layering doesn't support managed disks

 

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-app-layering/4/known-issues.html

 

It looks like Microsoft made a change this month and new windows VMs from gallery images no longer have the option to use unmanaged disks.  The "use managed disks" option is now greyed out and says gallery package requires managed disks.  Has anyone else run into this? Is there any workaround if you want to create a new OS image on Azure? Are custom images now needed?

 

[Daniel Lazar]

Hi Chris,

 

In Azure, offload compositing is only available for the initial OS import to create the OS layer. We've not yet extended it to include packaging and publishing operations in Azure.

 

For the specific issue you are facing, where you are creating the initial image from the Azure Marketplace, you should be able to run the importOsLayer PowerShell script to create that initial version of the OS layer using offload compositing. From that point, you can use the Azure connector to update that layer, and create the other layer types from it (using traditional compositing on the ELM).

 

We will be looking at enhancing our Azure support in the future to incorporate full offload compositing among other improvements.

[Rob Zylowski]

Hi Chris,

 

I let the Product Manager know.  In the meantime to get you running I would try something like this script to copy the managed disk into a storage accounts blob storage.

https://github.com/Azure/azure-docs-powershell-samples/blob/master/virtual-machine/copy-managed-disks-vhd-to-storage-account/copy-managed-disks-vhd-to-storage-account.ps1

[Daniel Lazar]

Hi Chris,

 

One option is to use offload compositing to import the OS layer. This is a newer capability for working with images and layers, and we recently extended this to Azure for OS import. Refer here for guidance:

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-app-layering/4/layer/create-os-layer.html#import-the-os-using-the-importoslayerps1-script

 

Since you initiate the import from within the image itself, you can create the image using any platform features, including using managed disks in Azure.

[Chris Hahn1709163280]

Thanks for the tip. I was trying to figure out if offload compositing was available in Azure as I didn't see it in the connector configuration options.  I tried both "Azure" and "Machine Creation for Azure" connector types on App Layering 2203 but there is no offload compositing option. How is offload compositing enabled for Azure?

 

The documentation I found below said it was only for Google Cloud, Hyper-V or vSphere.

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-app-layering/4/connect.html

About offloading layer compositing (Google Cloud, Hyper-V, and VMware vSphere only)

[John Raley1709163267]

On 3/23/2022 at 8:27 AM, Daniel Lazar said:

Hi Chris,

 

One option is to use offload compositing to import the OS layer. This is a newer capability for working with images and layers, and we recently extended this to Azure for OS import. Refer here for guidance:

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-app-layering/4/layer/create-os-layer.html#import-the-os-using-the-importoslayerps1-script

 

Since you initiate the import from within the image itself, you can create the image using any platform features, including using managed disks in Azure.

The documentation for setting up App Layering in Azure still states to use unmanaged disks. The section "Install the OS on a Virtual Machine" is out of date.