Frequently asked questions about governance and control

  • FAQ

This article provides answers to frequently asked questions on governance and control through the commercial marketplace.

I'm already blocking marketplace applications using Azure Policy, how is private Azure Marketplace different?

Private Azure Marketplace allows more flexibility on restricting and allowing specific offers and plans. It informs end users of the availability for deployment in the marketplace gallery even before they try to deploy third-party services. Private Azure Marketplace can curate partner solutions not limited to virtual machines like with Azure policy. Private Azure Marketplace can curate at the plan level and can also set "Current and future plan." Private Azure Marketplace can inform the end users up front on what can and can't be deployed.

What's the difference between a private offer and private Azure Marketplace?

A private offer is created by a Microsoft partner for a specific customer, and might contain custom prices, terms and conditions and custom configurations of a solution. Private Azure Marketplace lets administrators preapprove which Microsoft partner solutions people can deploy.

I added a private offer to the private Azure Marketplace. Why is it not shown in the manage marketplace tab?

Subscription-based Private Offers are visible only for the listed subscriptions in the Private Offer settings. To view the Private Offer, ensure the global subscription filter is showing all the subscriptions.

Shows the private marketplace filter.

Can we include custom images in private Azure Marketplace?

No. Private Azure Marketplace allows any IT administrator to manage and curate third-party solutions from global Azure Marketplace. Since custom images aren't on global Azure Marketplace, the IT administrator can't pick and choose your custom images. If you would like to share custom images, use Azure Compute Gallery.

  1. Step-by-step guide Create an Azure Compute Gallery (CLI, PowerShell).
  2. Create an image definition within an Azure Compute Gallery. Customer should choose Generalized for the OS-state field. (CLI, PowerShell).
  3. Bring managed image into the Azure Compute Gallery (CLI, PowerShell).
  4. The Azure Compute Gallery VM images would reside in one subscription. To make it available to other subscriptions, use an app registration (CLI, PowerShell).

Why do I see some offers approved by default in private Azure Marketplace even though the partner isn't Microsoft?

Microsoft supports Linux and open-source technology in Azure. Endorsed Linux distributions are supported on Azure and the price is integrated in virtual machines. Because Azure Linux Agent is already preinstalled on Azure Marketplace, it's treated like a Microsoft offer. Since Microsoft offers are approved by default, endorsed Linux distributions can't be managed in private Azure Marketplace and are approved by default.