Work with Azure infrastructure documents in Lucidscale

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Access imported Azure infrastructure

Once you import the Azure subscription data into the Lucid Data Hub, you can automatically render the subscription data in a diagram by creating a Lucidscale document.

After choosing an import method and completing the import, your account will be rendered in the "Azure: Imported Accounts” section of the Data Hub. You can also find it listed as an existing Azure account in the modal after clicking + New > Lucidscale > Azure

From the Data Hub, click Create document to render your Azure infrastructure as a diagram in a new document's workspace.

Documents you have created previously are stored in the "Documents" section of your Lucid Home Page. Hover over a document with your cursor and click Open to access the rendered Azure infrastructure.

Navigate the workspace

After you import the Azure architecture and generate a Lucidscale document, Lucidscale will automatically render its components in the workspace of a document.

Create and save views

Your Lucidscale document contains a single cloud frame, and views are the different visualizations you create within it. Views allow you to display infrastructure from various perspectives—each one applies a different configuration of structure, filter, and layout settings to the same imported data. 

Create new views, manage existing views, and toggle between views using the tabs in the Views menu (shown above). When you generate a new document, the rendered infrastructure will automatically display in the Summarized Infrastructure view.

You can rename a view, duplicate a current view with auto layout or manual layout, export configuration as a JSON, or delete a view from the down arrow for the Views tab.

Create other views using any of our standard view templates by selecting the plus icon to the right of any existing View tabs.

Here is a list of our view templates for Azure:

• Summarized Infrastructure
• Infrastructure
• Virtual Network Topology
• Resources
• Shared Virtual Network Infrastructure
• Cost Saving Insights
• Security Insights
• Compliance Insights
• Azure Security Groups

Cost Savings Insights View provides insights into specific resources and services that could enable you to optimize cloud spend and decrease cost.

Security Insights View enables you to gain general insights into services configuration that could pose security threats.

Compliance Insights View highlights potential compliance issues within the infrastructure.

Manual layout views can be created from scratch or by duplicating an existing view. This option allows you to access a freeform layout where you have control over the shape placement and can make manual changes. For example, you can click and drag resources onto the canvas of your document or resize individual containers.

You can save collections of settings and filters as a view. This allows you to quickly render infrastructure from various perspectives. Any changes made to settings and filters while in a particular view will be automatically saved to that view, allowing you to display different representations of the infrastructure in the workspace.

Azure Security Groups View shows a high level view of all your network security groups and application security groups.

Navigate and customize a document

Show and hide resources

All Azure resource types supported by Lucidscale are listed in the Resources panel of an open document. The search bar can be used to access a specific resource type in this list. The resources are categorized first by whether they are mapped or unmapped followed by their functional use in the infrastructure. 

Toggle on and off resources

Select a mapped category (e.g. Management Group) to render every supported resource type in that category. The numbers shown on a resource type indicate resources currently rendered/total resources imported. Select specific resource type to render a list of the individual resources of the chosen resource type present in a document. 

You can show and hide entire classes of mapped resources by toggling the “Eye” icon next to a resource. This also applies to unmapped resources, as long as they’ve been manually placed on the canvas. For example, if you toggle off Resource Groups, Lucidscale will hide all Resource Group containers from a document but continue to display the resources that were inside of them. You can also show/hide resources on an individual basis by toggling the same “Eye” icon rendered on an individual resource. To show/hide an individual container, use a Filter.

Show lines between resources

You can render lines between resources in a document that represent the relationships between resources (resources that explicitly reference another in the metadata). 

All supported lines are categorized by the type of relationship they represent. Check the box rendered on a category to show/hide all relationships within that category. Check the box on a specific relationship to show/hide any lines representing that relationship in the document.

To display customization options for a specific line type, hover over the line type and click the pencil icon. From the menu that appears, you can modify the line’s color, style, and type. 

Select a line rendered in a document to indicate the relationship represented by the line in the Data panel to the right of the workspace.

View shape metadata

Select an individual resource in the Resources tab to navigate to its location in the document. This will display the metadata associated with that individual resource in the Data panel to the right of the workspace. You can also click directly on a resource in the document to display the associated metadata. Lucidscale pulled this metadata when you originally imported the cloud infrastructure to the Lucid Data Hub.

View nested metadata fields and their values by selecting fields that have a grey arrow next to their title. Metadata values can be rendered on resources as text and used to create filters and conditional formatting in a document. For more on creating conditional formatting in a Lucidscale document, read the following resources: 

• Conditional formatting with resource metadata in Lucidscale 
• Lucid formulas for developers

Layout settings for resources

You can apply layout settings to specific resource types in a document as well as the container type resources they are rendered in. Click an individual resource in the Resources tab or select a rendered resource in the document to access the option to apply layout settings to all resources of that type. Click the "Layout Settings" option from the Data panel to display the Layout Settings panel in its place.

From the Layout Settings panel, you can make the following adjustments to a document's layout:

• Determine whether containers in the same row will expand to match the height of the tallest container or resize to fit around their contents. 
  • This setting will apply to the container entity selected, rather than the contained resources.
• Group resources within a container by type.
• Adjust the alignment of resources in a container.
• Adjust the number of columns that shapes within a container are arranged in.
• Adjust the horizontal and vertical spacing between shapes within a container.
• Sort contained items by alphabetical order (A to Z or Z to A).

Display metadata values

In this menu, you can customize what metadata values you want to display under a resource’s shape. To configure the metadata values displayed, either click on the resource type in the Resources tab or select a rendered resource in the document to access the "Layout Settings" panel for that resource. Then, under the “Text Fields” section, you can either type to search or manually search and select a metadata field.

A selected field appears with a checkbox under the input field. You can then check or uncheck the fields you want to display under the resource icon. Drag and move the fields to reorder how the metadata values are displayed on the resource icons.

Some of the selected fields may have empty/null values in the metadata. To hide empty fields created when the text field is checked, click the menu next to the field and choose the “Hide Empty Field”.

Summarize resource shapes

You can summarize shapes for the same resource type into a single shape with a badge identifying the number of individual resources summarized.

There are two ways to summarize shapes. You can access this feature in the Layout Settings panel for a selected resource and toggle on "Summarize Shapes" to summarize the shapes of the selected resource type.

You can also right-click the resources you want to summarize and select the “Summarize All” option. To un-summarize the shapes, perform the same action.

Structure control

You can control the organizational hierarchy of the entities in a document through the Structure control menu. Click + Add Group to add containment levels (containers) to the schema. After adding a group, Lucidscale automatically renders and places the associated container(s) according to the schema. You can remove them from the hierarchy by hovering over the group and clicking X.

You can add the following groups to a Lucidscale document's hierarchy:

• Subscriptions
• Resource Groups
• Virtual Networks
• Subnets

Apply filters

You can filter out resources rendered in a document based on metadata associated with the resource.

Note the following about filters:

• You can save filters to one view or across all views. To save a filter across all views, enable “Advanced Rule Options” when creating or editing the filter and check the box labelled “Apply to all views”. Unchecking the box on an existing filter will remove that filter from all other views.
  
   
• Enabling Advanced Rule Options allows you to use formulas in a filter and add multiple conditions to the filter. For more information on formulas please see our ​​Lucid formulas resource.
• Filters can be checked or unchecked to apply/unapply.
• If you filter out an individual container entity (Subscriptions, Resource Groups, Virtual Networks, this will also filter out the contents of that container.
• Filters work as "OR" relationships. If you have two filters, eg. Filter1 and Filter2, the document will display anything that matches the criteria in Filter1 OR Filter2.
• When you apply a filter, you must select an entity type to apply it to, and for non-container entities the filter will only apply to the entity type that you selected. For example, if you apply the filter of “Name contains ‘test’” to the Virtual Machines entity type, this will not apply to any resource groups, regardless of whether their names contain ‘test.’

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