Early in October, announced a new set of tools as a simplified deployment method for Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, called Azure Building Blocks (ABB).

Put simply, you don’t have to create any ARM templates, you just need to create a parameter settings file, which is then used with best-practice defaults for the resource types you’re trying to deploy. However, the actual build execution is completed through the AZBB command-line tool.

Curious about this new simplified method, since I struggle sometimes with building fully functioning ARM templates, I decided to run through the first tutorial Microsoft provides.
In this mini-series, I will go through the process end-to-end for Azure Building Blocks, and then re-create the same components in a single ARM template in order to compare.
Let’s start with seeing Azure Building Blocks (ABB) in action.