Tutorial: Transform data with Azure Stack Edge Pro

Article
03/30/2021

This tutorial describes how to configure a compute role on your Azure Stack Edge Pro device. After you configure the compute role, Azure Stack Edge Pro can transform data before sending it to Azure.

This procedure can take around 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

In this tutorial, you learn how to:

Configure compute
Add shares
Add a compute module
Verify data transform and transfer

Prerequisites

Before you set up a compute role on your Azure Stack Edge Pro device, make sure that:

You've activated your Azure Stack Edge Pro device as described in Activate your Azure Stack Edge Pro.

Configure compute

To configure compute on your Azure Stack Edge Pro, you'll create an IoT Hub resource.

In the Azure portal of your Azure Stack Edge resource, go to Overview, and select IoT Edge.
In Enable IoT Edge service, select Add.

In Create IoT Edge service, enter settings for your IoT Hub resource:

Field	Value
Subscription	Subscription used by the Azure Stack Edge resource.
Resource group	Resource group used by the Azure Stack Edge resource.
IoT Hub	Choose from Create new or Use existing. By default, a Standard tier (S1) is used to create an IoT resource. To use a free tier IoT resource, create one and then select the existing resource. In each case, the IoT Hub resource uses the same subscription and resource group that is used by the Azure Stack Edge resource.
Name	If you don't want to use the default name provided for a new IoT Hub resource, enter a different name.

Get started with compute 2

When you finish the settings, select Review + Create. Review the settings for your IoT Hub resource, and select Create.

Resource creation for an IoT Hub resource takes several minutes. After the resource is created, the Overview indicates the IoT Edge service is now running.
To confirm the Edge compute role has been configured, select Properties.

When the Edge compute role is set up on the Edge device, it creates two devices: an IoT device and an IoT Edge device. Both devices can be viewed in the IoT Hub resource. An IoT Edge Runtime is also running on this IoT Edge device. At this point, only the Linux platform is available for your IoT Edge device.

Add shares

For the simple deployment in this tutorial, you'll need two shares: one Edge share and another Edge local share.

Add an Edge share on the device by doing the following steps:
1. In your Azure Stack Edge resource, go to Edge compute > Get started.
2. On the Add share(s) tile, select Add.
3. On the Add share blade, provide the share name and select the share type.
4. To mount the Edge share, select the check box for Use the share with Edge compute.
5. Select the Storage account, Storage service, an existing user, and then select Create.
If you created a local NFS share, use the following remote sync (rsync) command option to copy files onto the share:

rsync <source file path> < destination file path>

For more information about the rsync command, go to Rsync documentation.

Note

To mount NFS share to compute, the compute network must be configured on same subnet as NFS Virtual IP address. For details on how to configure compute network, go to Enable compute network on your Azure Stack Edge Pro.

The Edge share is created, and you'll receive a successful creation notification. The share list might be updated, but you must wait for the share creation to be completed.
Add an Edge local share on the Edge device by repeating all the steps in the preceding step and selecting the check box for Configure as Edge local share. The data in the local share stays on the device.
Select Add share(s) to see the updated list of shares.

Add a module

You could add a custom or a pre-built module. There are no custom modules on this Edge device. To learn how to create a custom module, go to Develop a C# module for your Azure Stack Edge Pro device.

In this section, you add a custom module to the IoT Edge device that you created in Develop a C# module for your Azure Stack Edge Pro. This custom module takes files from an Edge local share on the Edge device and moves them to an Edge (cloud) share on the device. The cloud share then pushes the files to the Azure storage account that's associated with the cloud share.

Go to Edge compute > Get started. On the Add modules tile, select the scenario type as simple. Select Add.

In the Configure and add module blade, input the following values:

Field	Value
Name	A unique name for the module. This module is a docker container that you can deploy to the IoT Edge device that's associated with your Azure Stack Edge Pro.
Image URI	The image URI for the corresponding container image for the module.
Credentials required	If checked, username and password are used to retrieve modules with a matching URL.
Input share	Select an input share. The Edge local share is the input share in this case. The module used here moves files from the Edge local share to an Edge share where they are uploaded into the cloud.
Output share	Select an output share. The Edge share is the output share in this case.
Trigger type	Select from File or Schedule. A file trigger fires whenever a file event occurs such as a file is written to the input share. A scheduled trigger fires up based on a schedule defined by you.
Trigger name	A unique name for your trigger.
Environment variables	Optional information that will help define the environment in which your module will run.

Add and configure module

Select Add. The module gets added. Go to the Overview page. The Modules tile updates to indicate that the module is deployed.

Verify data transform and transfer

The final step is to ensure that the module is connected and running as expected. The run-time status of the module should be running for your IoT Edge device in the IoT Hub resource.

To verify that the module is running, do the following:

Select the Add module tile. This takes you to the Modules blade. In the list of modules, identify the module you deployed. The runtime status of the module you added should be running.
In File Explorer, connect to both the Edge local and Edge shares you created previously.
Add data to the local share.

The data gets moved to the cloud share.

The data is then pushed from the cloud share to the storage account. To view the data, you can use Storage Explorer.