Power BI: Using anonymous authentication on Web data sources with a API key in URL

23rd of July, 2018 / / No Comments

Currently, there are some challenges on Power BI service when trying to Schedule Refresh from a Web API data source that uses an API key for authentication. On this post, I will talk about a way to work around this problem by using an Azure Functions Proxy. The proxy will be used the override the request to the Web API and successfully use anonymous authentication.

Scenario overview

I have some reports on Power BI that get the data from WorkflowMax API, they have been published on Power BI service and embedded on SharePoint Online.… [Keep reading] “Power BI: Using anonymous authentication on Web data sources with a API key in URL”

Measure O365 ATP Safe Attachments Latency using PowerShell

19th of July, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Microsoft Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is a cloud based security service that is part of the O365 E5 offering. Also can be separately added to other O365 subscriptions. Now a lot can be learned about ATP from here. But in this post we’re going to extract data corresponding to one of ATP’s primary features; ATP Safe Attachments.

In short, ATP Safe Attachments scans documents for malicious content and can block these attachments depending on the policy configuration.… [Keep reading] “Measure O365 ATP Safe Attachments Latency using PowerShell”

Why is the Azure Load Balancer NOT working?

12th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

Context

For most workloads that I’ve deployed in Azure that have required load balancing, for the Azure Load Balancer (ALB) used in those architectures, the out of the box experience or the default configuration was used. The load balancer service is great like that, whereby for the majority of scenarios it just works out of the box. I’m sure this isn’t an Azure only experience either. The other public cloud providers have a great out of the box load balancing service that would work with just about any service without in depth configuration.… [Keep reading] “Why is the Azure Load Balancer NOT working?”

Bots: An Understanding of Time

9th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

Some modern applications must understand time, because the messages they receive contain time sensitive information. Consider a modern Service Desk solution, that may have to retrieve tickets based on a date range (the span between dates) or a duration of time.
In this blog post, I’ll explain how bots can interpret date ranges and durations, so they can respond to natural language queries provided by users, either via keyboard or microphone.
First, let’s consider  the building blocks of a bot, as depicted in the following view:

The client runs an application that sends messages to a messaging endpoint in the cloud.… [Keep reading] “Bots: An Understanding of Time”

Querying against an Azure SQL Database using Azure Automation Part 1

5th of July, 2018 / / 1 Comment

What if you wanted to leverage Azure automation to analyse database entries and send some statistics or even reports on a daily or weekly basis?
Well why would you want to do that?

  • On demand compute:
    • You may not have access to a physical server. Or your computer isn’t powerful enough to handle huge data processing. Or you would definitely do not want to wait in the office for the task to complete before leaving on a Friday evening.
… [Keep reading] “Querying against an Azure SQL Database using Azure Automation Part 1”

PowerShell gotcha when connecting ASM Classic VNETs to ARM ExpressRoute

5th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

Recently I was working on an Azure ExpressRoute configuration change that required an uplift from a 1GB circuit to a 10Gb circuit. Now thats nothing interesting, but, of note was using some PowerShell to execute a cmdlet.
A bit of a back story to set the scene here; and I promise it will be brief.
You can no longer provision Azure ExpressRoute circuits in the Classic or ASM deployment model. All ExpressRoute circuits that are provisioned now are indeed Azure Resource Manager (ASM) deployments.… [Keep reading] “PowerShell gotcha when connecting ASM Classic VNETs to ARM ExpressRoute”

Using your Voice to Search Microsoft Identity Manager – Part 2

5th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

Last month I wrote this post that detailed using your voice to search/query Microsoft Identity Manager. That post demonstrated a working solution (GitHub repository coming next month) but was still incomplete if it was to be used in production within an Enterprise. I hinted then that there were additional enhancements I was looking to make. One is an Auditing/Reporting aspect and that is what I cover in this post.

Overview

The one element of the solution that has visibility of each search scenario is the IoT Device.… [Keep reading] “Using your Voice to Search Microsoft Identity Manager – Part 2”

Securing your Web front-end with Azure Application Gateway Part 2

4th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

In part one of this post we looked at configuring an Azure Application Gateway to secure your web application front-end, it is available here.
In part two we will be looking at some additional post configuration tasks and how to start investigating whether the WAF is blocking any of our application traffic and how to check for this.
First up we will look at configuring some NSG (Network Security Group) inbound and outbound rules for the subnet that the Application Gateway is deployed within.… [Keep reading] “Securing your Web front-end with Azure Application Gateway Part 2”

Securing your Web front-end with Azure Application Gateway Part 1

3rd of July, 2018 / / 2 Comments

I have just completed a project with a customer who were using Azure Application Gateway to secure their web front-end and thought it would be good to post some findings.
This is part one in a two part post looking at how to secure a web front-end using Azure Application Gateway with the WAF component enabled. In this post I will explain the process for configuring the Application Gateway once deployed. You can deploy the Application Gateway from an ARM Template, Azure PowerShell or the portal.… [Keep reading] “Securing your Web front-end with Azure Application Gateway Part 1”

Getting Started with Adaptive Cards and the Bot Framework

28th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

This article will provide an introduction to working with AdaptiveCards and the Bot Framework. AdaptiveCards provide bot developers with an option to create their own card templates to suit variety of different scenarios. I’ll also show you a couple of tricks with node.js that will help you design smart.
Before I run through the example, I want to point you to some great resources from adaptivecards.io which will help you build and test your own AdaptiveCards:

  • The schema explorer provides a breakdown of the constructs you can use to build your AdaptiveCards.
… [Keep reading] “Getting Started with Adaptive Cards and the Bot Framework”