Upload Azure Batch Job Application Package programmatically - azure

Question

I have found how to upload/manage Azure Batch job Application Packages through the UI:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/batch/batch-application-packages
And how to upload and manage Resource Packages programmatically:
https://github.com/Azure/azure-batch-samples/tree/master/CSharp/GettingStarted/02_PoolsAndResourceFiles
But I can't quite seem to put 2 and 2 together on how to manage Application Packages programmatically. Is there an API endpoint we can call to upload/manage an Application Package when setting up a batch job?

Answer 1

Since this is not quite straightforward, I'll write down my findings.
These are the steps to programmatically upload Application Packages via an application that is unattended - no user input (e.g. Azure credentials) is needed.
In Azure Portal:
Create the Azure Batch application
Create a new Azure AD application (as Application Type use Web app / API)
Follow these steps to create the secret key and assign the role to the Azure Batch account
Note down the following credentials/ids:
Azure AD application id
Azure AD application secret key
Azure AD tenant id
Subscription id
Batch account name
Batch account resource group name
In your code:
Install NuGet packages Microsoft.Azure.Management.Batch, WindowsAzure.Storage and Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory
Get the access token and create the BatchManagementClient
Call the ApplicationPackageOperationsExtensions.CreateAsync method, which should return an ApplicationPackage
ApplicationPackage contains the StorageUrl which can now be used to upload the Application Package via the storage API
After you have uploaded the ApplicationPackage you have to activate it via ApplicationPackageOperationsExtensions.ActivateAsync
Put together the whole code looks something like this:
private const string ResourceUri = "https://management.core.windows.net/";
private const string AuthUri = "https://login.microsoftonline.com/" + "{TenantId}";
private const string ApplicationId = "{ApplicationId}";
private const string ApplicationSecretKey = "{ApplicationSecretKey}";
private const string SubscriptionId = "{SubscriptionId}";
private const string ResourceGroupName = "{ResourceGroupName}";
private const string BatchAccountName = "{BatchAccountName}";
private async Task UploadApplicationPackageAsync() {
// get the access token
var authContext = new AuthenticationContext(AuthUri);
var authResult = await authContext.AcquireTokenAsync(ResourceUri, new ClientCredential(ApplicationId, ApplicationSecretKey)).ConfigureAwait(false);
// create the BatchManagementClient and set the subscription id
var bmc = new BatchManagementClient(new TokenCredentials(authResult.AccessToken)) {
SubscriptionId = SubscriptionId
};
// create the application package
var createResult = await bmc.ApplicationPackage.CreateWithHttpMessagesAsync(ResourceGroupName, BatchAccountName, "MyPackage", "1.0").ConfigureAwait(false);
// upload the package to the blob storage
var cloudBlockBlob = new CloudBlockBlob(new Uri(createResult.Body.StorageUrl));
cloudBlockBlob.Properties.ContentType = "application/x-zip-compressed";
await cloudBlockBlob.UploadFromFileAsync("myZip.zip").ConfigureAwait(false);
// create the application package
var activateResult = await bmc.ApplicationPackage.ActivateWithHttpMessagesAsync(ResourceGroupName, BatchAccountName, "MyPackage", "1.0", "zip").ConfigureAwait(false);
}

Answer 2

Azure Batch Application Packages management operations occur on the management plane. The MSDN docs for this namespace are here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.azure.management.batch
The nuget package for Microsoft.Azure.Management.Batch is here:
https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Azure.Management.Batch/
And the following sample shows management plane operations in C#, although it is for non-application package operations:
https://github.com/Azure/azure-batch-samples/tree/master/CSharp/AccountManagement