All Teramind solutions are available to deploy on Microsoft’s enterprise-ready Azure platform as a Private Cloud option. This deployment guide will help you discover what you can expect from your Teramind on Azure deployment and provide you with installation prerequisites, step-by-step instructions, technical and support information.

You can download a PDF version of the deployment guide by clicking the button below:

If you prefer on-premise deployments but unwilling to incur the cost and hassle of an in-house infrastructure or you want to move to the Cloud but have been concerned about compliance or security, or have made the transition and already host on Azure, then Teramind on Azure is the right choice for you. Here are some infrastructure benefits you can expect if you choose to deploy Teramind on Azure:

No upfront cost, you only pay for the resources you consume (i.e. CPU, storage, memory). Additionally, you can save even more if you already use Windows Server and SQL Server. Teramind’s configuration for a standard deployment (D4d v4 instance, supporting up to 100 users) costs only a few cents per hour. Note that infrastructure costs are set by Microsoft and subject to change.

Create a Teramind machine instance in minutes by launching the Teramind deployment from the Teramind Azure Marketplace page. Or, if you prefer, deploy programmatically using API calls, ARM templates, or the PowerShell console to automatically deploy without using the Azure Portal.

Vertical and horizontal scaling with optional auto-scaling allows you to scale the number of running instances up or down, based on telemetry data automatically with Azure Monitor.

With 54 regions* in 140 countries, Azure has the most coverage than any cloud provider. Global customers can reduce the infrastructure cost and complexity while meeting local residency requirements by hosting in an Azure data center. Moreover, you can pair regions and Availability Zones for your ideal Teramind setup. *Note that not all regions are currently available on Teramind. See the Regions/Data Centers section for a list of supported regions.

The majority of the Teramind Azure deployments come with SSDs designed for high-performance and low-latency disk support. Additionally, Teramind lets you choose from a range of instance types optimized for special purposes like Compute/Storage Optimized instances.

Your data stays resilient with Azure’s High Availability (HA), redundancy with multi-geo replications, on-demand backup, and offsite disaster recovery features.

Configure and manage all your deployments from one central location. Azure also comes with built-in support for application monitoring, log analytics, patching, backup, and site recovery so you can focus on your Teramind application and not worry about managing the infrastructure.

With 70+ compliance offerings, Azure has the largest portfolio in the industry when it comes to security, privacy, and transparency. Combining this with Teramind’s conformance with GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc. makes Teramind and Azure an ideal package for customers in government, healthcare, finance, and other regulated industries.

Deployments for under 1,000 concurrent users can be hosted on one all-inclusive server, in most cases. VM instance(s) should be provisioned based on the expected number of concurrent monitored sessions, according to the following table:

*The requirements are applicable for a typical user who works on a single computer with Full HD (1920x1080) screen resolution, doing regular office work. If the users have multiple screens, higher-resolution screens, or have an unusual work pattern (e.g., watching many videos) then the requirements will be higher.

*The requirements are applicable for a typical user who works on a single computer with Full HD (1920x1080) screen resolution, doing regular office work. If the users have multiple screens, higher-resolution screens, or have an unusual work pattern (e.g., watching many videos) then the requirements will be higher.

**Disk size is estimated for 1 year of average usage and may vary depending on monitored data, monitoring profiles, etc.

*The requirements are applicable for a typical user who works on a single computer with Full HD (1920x1080) screen resolution, doing regular office work. If the users have multiple screens, higher-resolution screens, or have an unusual work pattern (e.g., watching many videos) then the requirements will be higher.

The Teramind virtual appliance comes with a primary volume of 32 GB by default. This volume contains the Teramind server application and database. The size of this volume can be increased at a later point in time.

The simplest way to add scalable storage is to use Microsoft Azure Blob Storage. For instructions on how to do so, check out Step 3: Creating a Microsoft Azure Blob Storage.

Detailed agent specifications can be found here.
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Visit: www.teramind.co/deployment/azure and click the Check out Teramind on Azure Marketplace button.

This will launch the Azure Portal and take you to Teramind’s Home page. You might be asked to log in if you are not already..

Click the Create button.

This will take you to the Create a virtual machine page.

The Create a virtual machine page has several tabs.

Click the Basic tab if it’s not selected already.

Under the Project details section, select an existing Resource group. Or, create a new group by clicking the Create new link.

Under the Instance details section, enter a Virtual machine name and select a Region and Size for the machine.

Under the Administrator account, select the SSH public key for the Authentication type option. Enter a Username. Select Generate new key pair for the SSH public key source option. Enter a Key pair name.

Click the Next: Disks button to continue.

On the Disks tab, you can choose disk type, encryption, and other options. For this demonstration, we will keep the default settings for these options.

Click the Next: Networking button to continue.

Teramind already comes with a pre-configured network interface card (NIC) with the necessary NSG rules for use with the VM. So, unless you have special needs, you can keep the default settings on the Networking screen.

Click the Next: Management button to continue.

The Management screen let you turn the settings for Monitoring, Identity and Auto-Shutdown options.

Under the Monitoring section, Disable the Boot diagnostics option.

Click the Next: Advanced button to continue.

You can add post-deployment extensions, custom data such as a script or a file, and configure other options from the Advanced screen.

For this tutorial, we will not need any of these options.

Click the Next: Tags button near the bottom of the page to continue.

Tags allow you to categorize resources for consolidated billings. You can decide to use this feature if you want. For this tutorial, we will not use any tags.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Next: Review + create button. Azure will run a validation check for all the settings.

Wait while Azure runs a validation check for all the settings.

Once Azure is done with the checks, it will show a Validation passed message unless it encounters any errors.

Review all your settings and click the Create button near the bottom of the page to start creating the virtual machine.

Depending on your settings, it may take a few minutes to create the instance.

Since we used the SSH public key as the authentication type (Step 1.3: Configuring the VM Basics), Azure will generate a private key (PEM file) which you can download by clicking the Download private key and create resource button. Save the key in a secure place. You will need it in Step 1.15: Accessing the Teramind Server with SSH to log in to your instance.

Click the Return to create a virtual machine button when ready.

You will see a ‘Deployment is in progress’ message and a blue progress icon next to your instance while it is being created. It might take a few minutes to complete the deployment.

Once the VM is ready, you will see a ‘Your deployment is complete’ message.

Click the Go to resource button to continue to your VM’s resource page.

Make sure you are on the Overview tab (second tab from the left). You will see a summary of the VM’s settings and current status.

From under the Networking section, copy or write down the Public IP address for the virtual machine. We will use this IP for the next step.

Launch an SSH session. If you are on Windows, you can use a tool like Putty or a similar utility for the SSH. Make sure you have administrative access.

Type:

Press Enter.

Where <pem file> is the full path of the PEM file you downloaded in Step 1.11: Downloading the Private Key. <username> is the Username you used for the administrator account when creating the VM in Step 1.3: Configuring the VM Basics. And finally, <ip_address> is the public IP address you copied in the previous step (Step 1.14: Copying the VM's Public IP Address).

Press Enter. If you are asked to continue connecting, type yes and press Enter again.

Once the server is ready, you will be prompted for a Role (master). However, before we can do that, we need to take care of few other things.

Keep this command window open as you will use it to finalize the setup in Step 4: Finishing the Deployment.

External databases are not mandatory. However, using the Azure Database for PostgreSQL will improve the scalability of your server and is recommended for deployments over 100 concurrent users.

For this tutorial, we will show you how to create an Azure Database for PostgreSQL to use with Teramind.

If you already know how to create a database, you can skip the next step.

From the Azure Portal, click All resources from the left-sidebar.

Click the + Create button on top.

You will be taken to the Create a resource panel.

Select Databases from the list of resources (you can also use the search field to locate it).

Select Azure Database for PostgreSQL from the list of databases on the right.

You will be taken to the resource deployment page.

On the deployment option page, you will be asked how you want to use the service.

Click the Create button under the Single server plan.

On the Single server page, under the first tab, Basics, select the Resource group you want to use or click the create new link under it to create a new group.

Enter a name in the Server name field under the Server Details section.

Provide your admin username and password to authenticate the account.

For this tutorial, you can keep other options to their default values.

Click the Next: Additional settings button to continue.

Additional settings tab allows you to customize additional configuration parameters such as data encryption.

For this tutorial, we will keep the default configurations.

Click the Next: Tags button to continue.

Tags allow you to categorize resources for consolidated billings. For this tutorial, we will not use any tags.

Click the Next: Review + create button to continue.

On the Review + create tab, you will be able to see the estimated cost per month to use the database and a summary of your configurations.

Review all your settings and click the Create button near the bottom.

It might take a few minutes to create the database.

You will see a ‘Deployment is in progress’ message and a blue progress icon next to your database server while it is being created. It might take a few minutes to complete the deployment.

Once the database is ready, you will see a ‘Your deployment is complete’ message.

Click the Go to resource button to continue to your database’s resource page.

Select the Connection security tab (2nd tab from the left).

Turn the Allow access to Azure services option ON.

DISABLE the Enforce SSL connection option near the bottom.

Click the Save icon on top to save the changes.

We will connect to this database later in Step 4: Finishing the Deployment.

External storage is not mandatory for Teramind deployments. However, Teramind uses file storage for OCR screen recordings, and Microsoft Azure Blob Storage is an efficient, secure, scalable, and redundant solution to store such data within Azure. External storage is recommended for deployments of over 100 concurrent monitored users.

From the Azure Portal, click All resources from the left-sidebar.

Click the + Create button on top.

You will be taken to the Create a resource panel.

Select Storage from the list of resources (you can also use the search field to locate it).

Select Storage account from the list of storage options on the right.

You will be taken to the Create a storage account page.

On the Create storage account page, under the first tab, Basics, select the Resource group you want to use or click the create new link under it to create a new group.

Enter a name in the Storage account name field under the Instance Details section.

You can configure other options such as Region, Performance, and Redundancy. For this tutorial, we will keep them to their default values.

Click the Next: Advanced button to continue.

On the Advanced tab, configure as follows:

Click the Next: Networking button to continue.

On the Networking tab, configure as follows:

Click the Next: Data protection button to continue.

On the Data protection tab, configure as follows:

Click the Next: Tags button to continue.

Tags allow you to categorize resources for consolidated billings. For this tutorial, we will not use any tags.

Click the Next: Review + create button. Azure will run a validation check for all the settings.

Azure will confirm with a 'Validation passed' message unless it encounters any errors.

Review all your settings and click the Create button near the bottom of the page when ready.

It might take a few minutes to create the storage.

You will see a ‘Deployment is in progress’ while your storage account is being created. It might take a few minutes to complete the deployment.

Once the storage is ready, you will see a ‘Your deployment is complete’ message.

You can see your newly created storage by clicking the Go to resource button.

We will connect to this storage in Step 4: Finishing the Deployment.

As the last step of the server deployment process, you will need to assign the external database and storage to your master instance, setup the Teramind Server using the SSH and finally, configure your account settings on the Teramind Dashboard..

Go back to the SSH window you used in Step 1.16: Getting Ready for the Next Step.

Give the master role a name (e.g. ‘master’) at the ‘Role (master)’ prompt.

At the ‘Use external database?’ prompt enter yes.

Next, Teramind will ask for the connection details for the database.

Go back to the Azure portal.

Click All resources.

Click your database (e.g. ‘newdatabase2’) from the list of resources. You can narrow down the list using the Filter option on top.

It will open the database Overview panel.

From the database’s Overview panel, near the top-right corner, copy or write down the Server name and the Admin username.

Go back to the SSH window you opened in Step 4.1: Confirming the Master Role and Use of External Database.

Paste or type the database host name (the Server name you copied in the previous step), and press Enter.

Paste or type the database username (the Admin username you copied in the previous step), and press Enter.

Type the database password you used when you created the database in Step 2.4: Configuring the DB Basics, and press Enter.

Once the database setup is done, Teramind will ask if you want to use Azure storage.

Type yes and press Enter.

Next, you will need to provide the Azure storage account name and the access key to connect.

Go back to the Azure portal.

Click All resources.

Click your storage account name (e.g. ‘teststoragename2’) from the list of resources. You can narrow down the list using the Filter option on top.

Click Access keys from the right panel.

On the Access keys panel, click the Show keys / Hide keys button to show/hide keys.

Copy or write down the Storage account name.

Copy or write down the key under key1 too.

Go back to the SSH window.

Paste or type the Storage account name you just copied, and press Enter.

Paste or type the storage key1 you copied in the previous step and press Enter.

Teramind will configure the storage and finalize the server installation.

Once you have entered the bucket Teramind will set up the servers. Finally, you will be provided with a link to your dashboard. Click the link or enter it on your browser to continue.

You can close the SSH window.

When you open the Teramind Server link in the browser, you might see a warning message on your browser saying the connection is not private or secure. This is normal. The warning is shown because you haven’t assigned any SSL certificate to your server. You can upload your own certificate later from the Teramind Dashboard (for more information, check out the Settings > Security > SSL section of the User Guide).

If you are using Google Chrome, you can click the Advanced button on the warning page and then click the Proceed to… link to continue. Other browsers have similar options to bypass the warning.

When you enter the Teramind Dashboard for the first time, you will see the End-User License Agreement screen.

Scroll down and click the Accept & Continue button.

On the Welcome to Teramind screen, select your language and timezone and click CONTINUE.

On the Lets secure your Teramind installation screen, enter an email and a password for your Admin account.

Open a new browser tab and go to: https://www.teramind.co/portal. Login with the admin email and password.

Click the Licenses tab.

From the list of licenses, click the Key link under the Actions column. A pop-up will display the license key.

Copy the license key or write it down.

Go back to your Teramind Dashboard. Enter the license key and click the CONTINUE button.

At this stage, you can install the Teramind agent and start monitoring the targeted computer(s). Or, you can do it later.

To install the agent, click one of the options under Install agents. If you need help installing the agent, check out this article on our Knowledge Base. You can also watch this short video: Downloading and Installing Teramind's Hidden Agent

To install the agent at a later time, click the SKIP TO DASHBOARD button.

If you want to use the OCR feature, you will need to setup two VMs/nodes in addition to a master node.

Create the master VM/node as usual.

Then, create two additional VMs/nodes. The first node is for the OCR database. In Teramind, we will refer to it as elastic. This node will be used by the OCR engine for metadata and other processing activities. The second node is for storing the videos. In Teramind, we will refer to it as teracv.

It does not matter how you name the databases, just make sure to assign the correct database to the correct role later in the SSH steps. Also, please make sure that all the nodes are in the same Resource group.

Click All resources from the left panel of the Azure Portal and open the elastic instance (e.g. ‘TeramindElastic’).

Click the Overview tab and copy the Public IP address located under the Essentials section.

Launch an SSH session. If you are on Windows, you can use a tool like Putty or a similar utility for the SSH. Make sure you have administrative access.

If you used the username/password option for your elastic VM’s Authentication type, then use the following command:

Type:

Press Enter.

Where <username> is the Username you used for the administrator account when creating the VM and <ip_address> is the Public IP address you copied in the previous step.

Type the password and press Enter.

lick All resources from the left panel of the Azure Portal and open the master instance (e.g. ‘Teramindtest’).

Click the Overview tab and copy the Private IP address located under the Networking section.

Go back to the command prompt window.

When asked, enter elastic at the Role (Master) prompt.

At the Enter master address prompt, type/paste the Private IP address you copied in the previous step.

It might take a few minutes for Teramind to set up the elastic node.

Click All resources from the left panel of the Azure Portal and open the teracv instance (e.g. ‘TeramindTeracv’).

Click the Overview tab and copy the Public IP address located under the Essentials section.

Go back to the SSH window or launch a new one.

If you used the username/password option for your teracv VM’s Authentication type, then use the following command:

Type:

Press Enter.

Where <username> is the Username you used for the administrator account when creating the VM and <ip_address> is the Public IP address you copied in the previous step.

Type the password and press Enter.

When asked, enter teracv at the Role (Master) prompt.

At the Enter master address prompt, enter the Private IP address you copied in Step 5.4: Copying the Master Node's Private IP Address.

It might take a few minutes for Teramind to set up the teracv node.

Once done, you can exit the SSH session.

We will now need to approve the two nodes on the Teramind Dashboard.

Login to your Teramind Dashboard on the master server.

Click the Cog Wheel icon near the top-right corner of the dashboard and select Settings from the pull-down menu.

From the Settings screen, click the Server management tab.

Turn on the ENABLE MULTI-NODE DEPLOYMENT option under the Security settings section.

Under the Nodes section, you will notice the Screen mining database node and the Screen mining node.

Approve both nodes by clicking the APPROVE buttons.

You are now all setup for the OCR.

Teramind Agent can be installed both locally and remotely. Check out this article to learn how to download and install the agent: How to download and install the Teramind Agent.

In most cases, you should not have to change any settings to get Teramind to work. By default, the Teramind Agents communicate with the Teramind server on two ports: 443, and 10000.

The Teramind management interface is entirely web driven and runs over HTTPS (port 443). This means that most proxies will allow the traffic through, provided you properly installed your SSL certificates.

For live and recorded screen playback, as well as live sessions listing, Teramind uses WebSocket. Although the WebSocket operates as HTTPS over port 443, some older proxies may not recognize this protocol. In either case, if you are experiencing trouble accessing your Teramind dashboard, try to disable your proxy temporarily to isolate the cause.

Also note that, if audio recording is enabled, Teramind Agent will connect to the server on a random UDP ports in the range 1000-65535 to send the audio recordings. Make sure UDP ports in that range are enabled and open from the endpoint to the server.

Teramind Agent and its drivers come digitally signed with an extended-validation certificate. We’ve made every effort to coordinate our signature with the major antivirus vendors, and as a result, Teramind should work normally with the vast majority of antivirus software.

Once you have installed Teramind successfully, you can configure other aspects of the server, agent and other settings entirely from the web-based dashboard.

Check out this article for help: How to change the license key (On-Premise / Private Cloud Deployment).

Check out the Settings > Active Directory section on the Teramind User Guide to learn how to setup an Active Directory / LDAP integration.

Configuring the SMTP settings is necessary for the Teramind server to be able to send outbound emails such as the daily digest emails sent to administrators, scheduled reports, low storage notifications, license alerts, and password recovery emails.

You can configure the SMTP from the Settings > SMTP tab.

Check out this article for help: SMTP Configurations (On-Premise).

Teramind strongly recommends proper configuration of SSL in order to avoid browser warnings and restrictions. Some browsers will not allow WebSocket communications if the certificates are invalid. This may prevent you from watching live screens or screen recordings.

Configuring the SMTP settings is also necessary for the Teramind server to be able to send outbound emails such as the daily digest emails sent to administrators, scheduled reports, low storage notifications, license alerts, and password recovery emails.

You can upload your SSL certificate from the Settings > SSL tab.

Check out the Settings > SSL section on the Teramind User Guide for more information. You can also create your own SSL certificates for use with your on-premise deployments.

To learn how to generate such self-signed certificates, check out this article.

To learn how to use a third-party certificate, check out this article.

1. Teramind Agent asks Management Server for an Application Server IP and port

2. Management Server responds

3. Teramind Agent connects to the assigned Application Server

A. OCR Miner talks to the Management Server and asks for a record to process

B. Management Server fetches a screen file from the Microsoft Azure Blob Storage and sends it to the OCR Miner Node

C. Once OCR is done, the OCR Miner sends results as text to the Management Server

D. Management Server writes the OCR result text to Elasticsearch

The Management Server serves the admin dashboard, load balances agents, and provides data to the OCR Miner Nodes. Teramind Agent connects to an Application Server via an always-on, TLS-encrypted connection, using our own protocol based on Google Protocol Buffers. OCR Miners are stateless and work with spot instances.

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