Deploy W&B Platform on Azure

If you’ve determined to self-managed W&B Server, W&B recommends using the W&B Server Azure Terraform Module to deploy the platform on Azure.

The module documentation is extensive and contains all available options that can be used. We will cover some deployment options in this document.

Before you start, we recommend you choose one of the remote backends available for Terraform to store the State File.

The State File is the necessary resource to roll out upgrades or make changes in your deployment without recreating all components.

The Terraform Module will deploy the following mandatory components:

• Azure Resource Group
• Azure Virtual Network (VPC)
• Azure MySQL Fliexible Server
• Azure Storage Account & Blob Storage
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Application Gateway

Other deployment options can also include the following optional components:

• Azure Cache for Redis
• Azure Event Grid

Pre-requisite permissions

The simplest way to get the AzureRM provider configured is via Azure CLI but the incase of automation using Azure Service Principal can also be useful. Regardless the authentication method used, the account that will run the Terraform needs to be able to create all components described in the Introduction.

General steps

The steps on this topic are common for any deployment option covered by this documentation.

1. Prepare the development environment.

• Install Terraform
• We recommend creating a Git repository with the code that will be used, but you can keep your files locally.

2. Create the terraform.tfvars file The tvfars file content can be customized according to the installation type, but the minimum recommended will look like the example below.

    namespace     = "wandb"
    wandb_license = "xxxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyyyyyzzzzzzz"
    subdomain     = "wandb-aws"
    domain_name   = "wandb.ml"
    location      = "westeurope"
   

   The variables defined here need to be decided before the deployment because. The namespace variable will be a string that will prefix all resources created by Terraform.

   The combination of subdomain and domain will form the FQDN that W&B will be configured. In the example above, the W&B FQDN will be wandb-aws.wandb.ml and the DNS zone_id where the FQDN record will be created.

3. Create the file versions.tf This file will contain the Terraform and Terraform provider versions required to deploy W&B in AWS

terraform {
  required_version = "~> 1.3"

  required_providers {
    azurerm = {
      source  = "hashicorp/azurerm"
      version = "~> 3.17"
    }
  }
}

Refer to the Terraform Official Documentation to configure the AWS provider.

Optionally, but highly recommended, you can add the remote backend configuration mentioned at the beginning of this documentation.

4. Create the file variables.tf. For every option configured in the terraform.tfvars Terraform requires a correspondent variable declaration.

  variable "namespace" {
    type        = string
    description = "String used for prefix resources."
  }

  variable "location" {
    type        = string
    description = "Azure Resource Group location"
  }

  variable "domain_name" {
    type        = string
    description = "Domain for accessing the Weights & Biases UI."
  }

  variable "subdomain" {
    type        = string
    default     = null
    description = "Subdomain for accessing the Weights & Biases UI. Default creates record at Route53 Route."
  }

  variable "license" {
    type        = string
    description = "Your wandb/local license"
  }

Recommended deployment

This is the most straightforward deployment option configuration that will create all Mandatory components and install in the Kubernetes Cluster the latest version of W&B.

1. Create the main.tf In the same directory where you created the files in the General Steps, create a file main.tf with the following content:

provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}

provider "kubernetes" {
  host                   = module.wandb.cluster_host
  cluster_ca_certificate = base64decode(module.wandb.cluster_ca_certificate)
  client_key             = base64decode(module.wandb.cluster_client_key)
  client_certificate     = base64decode(module.wandb.cluster_client_certificate)
}

provider "helm" {
  kubernetes {
    host                   = module.wandb.cluster_host
    cluster_ca_certificate = base64decode(module.wandb.cluster_ca_certificate)
    client_key             = base64decode(module.wandb.cluster_client_key)
    client_certificate     = base64decode(module.wandb.cluster_client_certificate)
  }
}

# Spin up all required services
module "wandb" {
  source  = "wandb/wandb/azurerm"
  version = "~> 1.2"

  namespace   = var.namespace
  location    = var.location
  license     = var.license
  domain_name = var.domain_name
  subdomain   = var.subdomain

  deletion_protection = false

  tags = {
    "Example" : "PublicDns"
  }
}

output "address" {
  value = module.wandb.address
}

output "url" {
  value = module.wandb.url
}

2. Deploy to W&B To deploy W&B, execute the following commands:

   terraform init
   terraform apply -var-file=terraform.tfvars
   

Deployment with REDIS Cache

Another deployment option uses Redis to cache the SQL queries and speed up the application response when loading the metrics for the experiments.

You must add the option create_redis = true to the same main.tf file that you used in recommended deployment to enable the cache.

# Spin up all required services
module "wandb" {
  source  = "wandb/wandb/azurerm"
  version = "~> 1.2"


  namespace   = var.namespace
  location    = var.location
  license     = var.license
  domain_name = var.domain_name
  subdomain   = var.subdomain

  create_redis       = true # Create Redis
  [...]

Deployment with External Queue

Deployment option 3 consists of enabling the external message broker. This is optional because the W&B brings embedded a broker. This option doesn’t bring a performance improvement.

The Azure resource that provides the message broker is the Azure Event Grid, and to enable it, you must add the option use_internal_queue = false to the same main.tf that you used in the recommended deployment

# Spin up all required services
module "wandb" {
  source  = "wandb/wandb/azurerm"
  version = "~> 1.2"


  namespace   = var.namespace
  location    = var.location
  license     = var.license
  domain_name = var.domain_name
  subdomain   = var.subdomain

  use_internal_queue       = false # Enable Azure Event Grid
  [...]
}

Other deployment options

You can combine all three deployment options adding all configurations to the same file. The Terraform Module provides several options that you can combine along with the standard options and the minimal configuration found in recommended deployment