ComUnity Platform - Azure Marketplace Deployment Guide

Overview

The ComUnity Developer Toolkit is available as a managed application on Azure Marketplace under the name "City-as-a-Platform: Digital Service Platform for Cities (preview)". This guide walks you through deploying the toolkit from marketplace purchase to accessing your fully functional development environment.

What Gets Deployed

Your deployment creates a complete ComUnity Platform Toolkit Development environment including:

  • Virtual Machine hosting all platform components

  • SQL Server and databases for platform and project data

  • Container Apps Environment with observability stack (Grafana, Loki, Tempo, Prometheus)

  • Application Insights, App Configuration, and Key Vault

  • Networking components (Virtual Network, NSG, Public IP)

  • Approximately 30 Azure resources in total

Deployment Timeline

Phase
Duration

Infrastructure provisioning

10–15 minutes

Toolkit installation scripts

30–45 minutes

Total deployment time

45–60 minutes

Available Plans

Seven plans are available, scaled by target municipality size:

Plan
Target Use Case

Innovator

Sandbox/testing environments (recommended for initial setup)

Town

Small municipalities

Small City

Small city deployments

Medium City

Medium city deployments

Large City

Large city deployments

Metropolis

Metropolitan areas

Mega City

Major metropolitan regions

Note: All plans deploy identical toolkit resources. The difference is in billing structure.

Prerequisites

Required Access & Permissions

  • ✓ Azure Subscription – Active subscription with Contributor or Owner role

  • ✓ Azure Portal Access – Logged in with the correct account

  • ✓ Correct Directory – Ensure you're in the correct Azure directory/tenant (the offer won't appear in wrong directory)

Planning Information

  • ✓ Chosen Azure region for deployment (select closest to your users)

  • ✓ Resource group naming convention decided

  • ✓ Password ready (12+ characters with upper, lower, numbers, special characters)

  • ✓ 90 minutes available for deployment and initial setup

Deployment Process

Step 1: Access the Marketplace Offer

  1. Log into Azure Portal at portal.azure.com

  2. Verify your directory: Check the directory indicator in the top right. Switch directories if needed.

  3. Click Create a resource or navigate to Marketplace

  4. Search for "City-as-a-Platform" or "ComUnity"

  5. Select "City-as-a-Platform: Digital Service Platform for Cities (preview)"

Step 2: Select Your Plan

On the offer page, you'll see the plan selection dropdown with all seven options available:

  1. Select your Subscription

  2. Click the Plan dropdown to see all seven options

  3. Select Innovator for testing (as recommended in the listing)

  4. Click Create to proceed to the configuration form

Step 3: Configure Basics

Complete the Basics tab with the following settings:

Project Details

Field
Action

Subscription

Select the Azure subscription for deployment

Resource group

Click Create new and enter a name

Instance Details

Field
Action

Region

Select the Azure region closest to your users (e.g., South Africa North)

Password

Enter a strong password (this is used for VM administrator access)

Confirm password

Re-enter the password

⚠️ Password Requirements: Minimum 12 characters, must include uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and special characters. Save this password securely!

Managed Application Details

Field
Action

Application Name

Enter a unique name for your deployment

Managed Resource Group

Auto-populated (e.g., mrg-city-as-a-platform24_4-preview-20251201140556). Cannot be edited.

Click Review + create to proceed.

Step 4: Review and Create

  1. Wait for Azure to complete "Running final validation..."

  2. Review the configuration summary under Basics

  3. Read the Co-Admin Access Permission section

  4. Check the box: "I agree to the terms and conditions above"

  5. Click Create to begin deployment

Note: The Co-Admin Access Permission grants ComUnity administrative access to your Azure resources for support and management purposes.

Monitoring Deployment

Deployment Started

After clicking Create, you'll see the deployment in progress notification:

Understanding the Resource Structure

The deployment creates a nested structure:

Your Resource Group (e.g., JPGTestMarketplaceDec)
└── Managed Application (e.g., JPGTestMarketPlaceApp)
    └── Managed Resource Group (e.g., mrg-city-as-a-platform24_4-preview-...)
        └── ~30 Platform Resources (VM, SQL, Container Apps, etc.)

Viewing Deployment Progress

  1. Navigate to Resource Groups in the left menu

  2. Click on your resource group

  1. Click on the Managed Application

  1. Click the Managed resource group link in the Essentials section

  2. Under Settings in the left sidebar, click Deployments to see detailed progress

Viewing Operation Details

Click on any resource to see operation details including duration and status:

Deployment Phases

Phase 1: Infrastructure Resources (10–15 minutes)

Resources being created include:

  • Storage accounts, Virtual Network, Network Security Groups

  • Public IP, Virtual Machine, SQL Server and databases

  • Container Apps (grafana, loki, tempo, prometheus, thanos, otel-collector)

  • Key Vault, App Configuration, Application Insights

Phase 2: Custom Script Extension (30–45 minutes)

This is the longest step. The script installs all platform components on the VM including:

  • Config Hub

  • Auth Server

  • Core Web Services

  • Deployment Agent

  • Communications Server

  • And more...

Note: You can safely close your browser – deployment continues in the background. Use the Refresh button to check status.

Viewing Created Resources

Once deployment progresses, you can see all resources in the Managed Resource Group:

Confirming Successful Deployment

Deployment is complete when the Deployments view shows all items as "Succeeded" with green checkmarks, especially the Custom Script Extension.

Accessing Your Toolkit

Step 1: Get the Public IP Address

  1. Navigate to the Managed Resource Group

  2. Click the Type column header to sort resources by type

  3. Click on the Virtual Machine resource

  4. In the VM Overview, locate and copy the Public IP address

Step 2: Access the Toolkit

  1. Open a new browser tab

  2. Enter the IP address (e.g., http://42.212.32.44)

  3. The ComUnity Platform Toolkit login page should load

Note: If the page doesn't load, wait 2–3 minutes for services to fully start.

Step 3: Log In

Use the default credentials:

Field
Value

Username

admin@communityplatform.com

Password

admin

⚠️ SECURITY: Change these default credentials immediately after first login.

Post-Deployment Setup

Immediate Actions

  • [ ] Change the default admin password

  • [ ] Update the admin email address

  • [ ] Create additional user accounts as needed

App Registration Setup (Required for Project Building)

⚠️ IMPORTANT: You cannot build projects until App Registration is configured.

The Deployment Agent needs Azure permissions to create databases. Without App Registration, project builds will fail. Contact ComUnity support for assistance with this setup.

Additional Configuration (Optional)

Configuration
Description

Custom Domain & SSL

Configure a domain name and SSL certificate for HTTPS access

Observability URLs

Connect observability dashboard endpoints

Additional Environments

Use Infrastructure Management to create QA and Production environments

Troubleshooting

Deployment Fails with Password Error

Cause: Password doesn't meet complexity requirements.

Solution: Delete the failed deployment and create a new one with a password meeting all requirements (12+ characters, uppercase, lowercase, numbers, special characters).

Deployment Takes Too Long

Situation
Action

Normal

45–60 minutes total. Custom Script Extension alone takes 30–45 minutes.

Exceeds 90 minutes

Contact support. Redeploying to the same resource group may resolve transient issues.

Toolkit Login Page Doesn't Load

  • Verify Custom Script Extension shows "Succeeded"

  • Wait 2–3 minutes for services to start

  • Use HTTP (not HTTPS) – SSL is not configured by default

  • Check your network allows access to the VM's public IP

Project Build Fails

Most likely cause: App Registration not configured.

Solution: Contact support to complete App Registration setup.

Deleting Your Deployment

⚠️ WARNING: Deletion permanently removes all data and cannot be undone.

When to Delete

  • Completing a test deployment

  • Starting fresh after a failed deployment

  • Decommissioning the platform

How to Delete

  1. Navigate to Resource Groups

  2. Find your marketplace resource group

  3. Click Delete resource group

  4. Type the resource group name to confirm

  5. Click Delete

This should delete both the marketplace resource group and the managed resource group with all platform resources.

Related Documentation

Document
Description

Azure Marketplace Reference

Technical specifications and credentials

Infrastructure Management Guide

Creating QA and Production environments

App Registration Setup Guide

Configuring Azure AD for project builds(Coming soon..)

Observability Setup Guide

Configuring monitoring and analytics

Last updated