Deploying an ADF Instance

The following steps describe how to create a new Azure Data Factory instance through the Azure Portal:

1. Log into portal.azure.com and search for Data factories in the search bar at the top of the page. Click Data Factories to go to the Data factories page in the Azure Portal.
2. Click Create to start choosing the configuration options for your ADF instance.
3. The Create Data Factory page includes six tabs to tailor the workspace configuration. Let’s start by exploring the options in the Basics tab. Just as with other services, this tab requires you to choose an Azure subscription, a resource group, a name, and a region for the instance. There is an option to choose an older ADF version, but it is recommended to use the most current version. Figure 5.16 is an example of a completed version of this tab.

FIGURE 5.16 Create an ADF Instance: Basics tab.

4. The Git configuration tab allows you to integrate the ADF instance with an existing Azure DevOps or GitHub repository. ADF entities (such as pipelines, activities, linked services, and datasets) are managed behind the scenes as JSON objects, which can be integrated with existing CI/CD repositories. Click the Configure Git Later check box if you would like to configure a Git pipeline later or save your ADF entities to the data factory service (see Figure 5.17).

FIGURE 5.17 Create an ADF Instance: Git configuration tab.

5. The Networking tab allows you to define the networking rules for the auto-resolve integration runtime as well as any self-hosted integration runtimes that you may provision.
6. The Advanced tab allows you to supply your own encryption key for blob and file data. Data is encrypted with Microsoft-managed keys by default, but can be changed to a customer-managed key as long as the key is stored in Azure Key Vault.
7. The Tags tab allows you to place tags on the ADF instance. Tags are used to categorize resources for cost management purposes.
8. Finally, the Review + Create tab allows you to review the configuration choices made during the design process. If you are satisfied with the choices made for the ADF instance, click the Create button to begin deploying the instance.