Securing Emails Outside of Your Organization With Office 365 Message Encryption

3rd of August, 2014 / / 1 Comment

​For those of you who have been concerned about email security for a number of years, you may remember a solution from Microsoft called Exchange Hosted Encryption (EHE).  This was a cloud based service which allowed organizations to encrypt emails according to certain defined rules.  For example, you could encrypt emails where the intended recipient was outside of your organization and certain keywords or regular expressions where detected such as a credit card number.  This was a very useful service for protecting emails sent to ANY user, regardless of the relationship with the user’s company. … [Keep reading] “Securing Emails Outside of Your Organization With Office 365 Message Encryption”

Azure Mobile Services and the Internet of Things

30th of July, 2014 / / 11 Comments

The IT industry is full of buzzwords and “The Internet of Things” (IoT) is one that’s getting thrown about a lot lately. The IoT promises to connect billions of devices and sensors to the internet. How this data is stored, sorted, analysed and surfaced will determine the amount of value it is to your business. With this in mind I thought it’s time to start playing around with some bits and pieces to see if I could create my very own IoT connected array of sensors.… [Keep reading] “Azure Mobile Services and the Internet of Things”

What Is The Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite?

13th of July, 2014 / / No Comments

Microsoft released the Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) back in April 2014. This was a major announcement for Microsoft which has typically focused on traditional information workers (IWs) who sit at a desk for most of the day. The EMS is a license designed for a mobile worker who uses a range of different devices including a PC, tablet, and mobile phone. The EMS assumes that the mobile worker will take advantage of BYOD and choose to use a non-corporate device for accessing corporate data.… [Keep reading] “What Is The Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite?”

Portable Inversion of Control (IoC) Container for Mobile Development

4th of July, 2014 / / 3 Comments

TDD in Mobile Development – Part 2

This post is the second in a series that talks about TDD in Mobile Development, the links below show the other parts of the series.

TDD in Mobile Development
1. Unit Testing of Platform-Specific Code in Mobile Development.
2. Portable IoC (Portable.TinyIoC) for Mobile Development
3. Mobile Test-Driven Development – Running your unit tests from your IDE

[Update Date = 3rd July 2015]

I wrote this post sometime back when TinyIoC was the only one that I know that worked well on Xamarin.… [Keep reading] “Portable Inversion of Control (IoC) Container for Mobile Development”

Claims-Based Federation Service using Microsoft Azure

6th of June, 2014 / / 16 Comments

In this post I will discuss how you can setup Microsoft Azure to provide federation services with claims authentication in the same way that an Active Directory Federation Service (ADFS) farm would on-premises. This can be achieved with an Azure subscription, Access Control Services (ACS) and an Azure Active Directory (AAD) instance. The key benefit of using Azure SaaS is that Microsoft have taken care of all the high availability and load scaling configuration, therefor you have no need to manage multiple ADFS servers to gain the same desired functionality.… [Keep reading] “Claims-Based Federation Service using Microsoft Azure”

Downloading Azure Friday videos from Channel 9 with one line of PowerShell

23rd of May, 2014 / / No Comments

As it’s Friday, I’ve set myself the challenge of downloading all the Azure Friday videos from the Channel 9 website with a single line of PowerShell. If you’re not familiar with this fantastic series, Scott Hanselman talks to the actual engineers who build Microsoft Azure to discuss cloud development in small bite-sized episodes. It’s great, and soon you’ll be able to watch it offline from the comfort of your own mobile device.

Here goes.

First, I’ll need to get a catalogue of all the video titles and their corresponding download links. … [Keep reading] “Downloading Azure Friday videos from Channel 9 with one line of PowerShell”

How to install Magento on Azure Websites

23rd of May, 2014 / / 10 Comments

This blog explains in a step-by-step how to install (fresh install or migrate) a Magento package into Azure websites

Background

1. What is Magento?
Magento is an eCommerce software platform used by some of the world’s leading brands. More details could be found here on Magento.

2. Why install Magento on Azure?
There is a long list of reasons of why would somebody wants to migrate to the cloud, but few of these reasons could be 1) Cost saving 2) Load Balancing 3) Scalability 4) Less maintenance.… [Keep reading] “How to install Magento on Azure Websites”

Protect Your Identity in the Cloud With Multi-Factor Authentication

16th of April, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Multi-factor authentication is now available for both administrator and end user accounts.  This service is now available Office 365, Windows Intune, and Microsoft Azure.

One of the risks of cloud technologies is that they are accessible from anywhere.  This means that any hacker can try to log into your account from anywhere in the world.  User names are usually public and widely known (i.e. an email address).  The only thing standing between the hacker and your personal data is a password. … [Keep reading] “Protect Your Identity in the Cloud With Multi-Factor Authentication”

New backup to Azure feature in SQL Server 2014

10th of April, 2014 / / No Comments

SQL Server 2014 went RTM a couple of weeks ago and today it hits general availability for on-premises users via MSDN download, and for the cloud, where you can now spin one up as a VM from the Azure image gallery.  So let’s saddle up and take Microsoft’s new Pegasi workhorse for a flying gallop through the hybrid cloud. Giddyup!

Installation

First to download the SQL Server 2014 Developer Edition (x64) from MSDN.  It’s a hefty 2.6 GB image, meaning it’s time to put the new Kloud HQ 100 Mbps fibre link through its paces… four minutes later and we’re done, nice. … [Keep reading] “New backup to Azure feature in SQL Server 2014”

Windows Azure Self-Service Management with System Center App Controller

25th of February, 2014 / / No Comments

Windows Azure empowers everyone access to world-class Cloud computing and its potential. Few questions came up from enterprises:

  • How do we delegate authority on my Enterprise Azure subscription?
  • How do we create a user role with the authority to carry out specific tasks?
  • How do we provide self-service portal with Active Directory integration?

App Controller can be the answer for all the questions above. App Controller is one of the System Center family products. App Controller provides a single interface for admins to manage both public and private clouds.… [Keep reading] “Windows Azure Self-Service Management with System Center App Controller”