Sending Events from IoT Devices to Azure IoT Hub using HTTPS and REST

22nd of June, 2018 / / No Comments

Overview

Different IoT Devices have different capabilities. Whether it is a Micro-controller or Single Board Computer your options will vary. In this post I detailed using MQTT to send messages from an IoT Device to an Azure IoT Hub as well as using the AzureIoT PowerShell Module.
For a current project I needed to send the events from an IoT Device that runs Linux and had Python support. The Azure IoT Hub includes an HTTPS REST endpoint.… [Keep reading] “Sending Events from IoT Devices to Azure IoT Hub using HTTPS and REST”

Auto-redirect ADFS 4.0 home realm discovery based on client IP

14th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

As I mentioned in my previous post here that I will explain how to auto-redirect the home realm discovery page to an ADFS namespace (claims provider trust) based on client’s IP so here I am.
Let’s say you have many ADFS servers (claims providers trusts) linked to a central ADFS 4.0 server and you want to auto-redirect the user to a linked ADFS server login page based on user’s IP instead of letting the user to choose a respective ADFS server from the list on the home realm discovery page as explained in the below request flow diagram.… [Keep reading] “Auto-redirect ADFS 4.0 home realm discovery based on client IP”

Utilising Azure Speech to Text Cognitive Services with PowerShell

8th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

Yesterday I posted about using Azure Cognitive Services to convert text to speech. I also eluded that I’ve been leveraging Cognitive Services to do the conversion from Speech to Text. I detail that in this post.
Just as with the Text to Speech we will need an API key to use Cognitive Services. You can get one from Azure Cognitive Services here.

Source Audio File

I created an audio file in Audacity  for testing purposes.… [Keep reading] “Utilising Azure Speech to Text Cognitive Services with PowerShell”

Utilising Azure Text to Speech Cognitive Services with PowerShell

7th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

Recently I’ve been building an IoT Project that leverages Azure Cognitive Services. A couple of the services I needed to use were for converting Text to Speech and Speech to Text. The guides were pretty good from Microsoft, but not obvious for use with native PowerShell. I’ve got it all working, so am documenting it for myself for the future but also to help anyone else trying to work it out.

Accessing the Cognitive Services Text to Speech API

Azure Cognitive Services Text to Speech is a great service that provides the ability as the name suggests, convert text to speech.… [Keep reading] “Utilising Azure Text to Speech Cognitive Services with PowerShell”

Enabling Source Control for locally stored code using Git, Visual Studio Code and Sourcetree

4th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

First published at https://nivleshc.wordpress.com

Introduction

Coming from a system administration background, I am used to writing scripts to get mundane tasks done. Whenever I saw repeatable tasks, I saw an opportunity to script them, and pass them onto a junior to do 😉
However, writing scripts brings about its own challenges.
Ok, time to fess up 😉 Hands up those that have modified a script, only to realise that the modifications broke it! To make matters worse, you forgot to take a copy of the original!… [Keep reading] “Enabling Source Control for locally stored code using Git, Visual Studio Code and Sourcetree”

5 Tips: Designing Better Bots

3rd of June, 2018 / / No Comments

Around about now many of you will be in discussions internally or with your partners on chatbots and their applications.
The design process for any bot distils a business process and associated outcome into a dialog. This is a series of interactions between the user and the bot where information is exchanged. The bot must deliver that outcome expediently, seeking clarifications where necessary.
I’ve been involved in many workshops with customers to elicit and evaluate business processes that could be improved through the use of bots.… [Keep reading] “5 Tips: Designing Better Bots”

Implementing Azure API Management with the Lithnet Microsoft Identity Manager Rest API

30th of May, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

Earlier this week I wrote this post that detailed implementing the Lithnet REST API for FIM/MIM Service. I also detailed using PowerShell to interact with the API Endpoint.
Now lets imagine you are looking to have a number of Azure Serverless features leverage your Rest API enabled Microsoft Identity Manager environment. Or even offer it “as-a-Service”. You’ll want to have some visibility as to how it is performing, and you’ll probably want to implement features such as caching and rate limiting let alone putting more security controls around it.… [Keep reading] “Implementing Azure API Management with the Lithnet Microsoft Identity Manager Rest API”

Utilizing Sharegate migration Templates for Network share migrations

29th of May, 2018 / / No Comments

Sharegate supports PowerShell based scripting which can be used to automate and schedule migrations. The purpose of this post is to demonstrate the use of pre-created migration templates to initiate migration tasks in Sharegate using PowerShell scripts. In one of my previous project, we were migrating network shares to SharePoint Online using Sharegate as the migration tool of choice.

Based on our discussions with business divisions and IT department, the following requirements were identified for most of the divisions:

  1. Office documents, PDFs, Image files will be migrated
  2. Include only documents modified after a date for e.g.
… [Keep reading] “Utilizing Sharegate migration Templates for Network share migrations”

Deploying an Active Directory Forest using AWS CloudFormation

27th of May, 2018 / / 1 Comment

First published at https://nivleshc.wordpress.com

Introduction

Wow, it is amazing how time flies. Almost two years ago, I wrote a set of blogs that showed how one can use Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates and Desired State Configuration (DSC) scripts to deploy an Active Directory Forest automatically.
For those that would like to take a trip down memory lane, here is the link to the blog.
Recently, I have been playing with AWS CloudFormation and I am simply in awe by its power.… [Keep reading] “Deploying an Active Directory Forest using AWS CloudFormation”

Preventing double-app-loading behaviour with ADAL.js

26th of May, 2018 / / No Comments

Microsoft’s JavaScript implementation of its Azure Active Directory Authentication Library (ADAL.js) allows for some great client-side-only Single Page App (SPA) scenarios.
Unfortunately (as with most things auth-related), there are some gotcha’s to be aware of. One relates to how ADAL obtains refresh tokens in this crazy world of implicit auth.

Implicit Auth Flow

Implicit auth allows for the application developer to not have to host their own token authentication service. The ADAL.js and the Azure AD auth endpoint do all the heavy lifting:

It’s the bottom third of the diagram (after the token expires) that causes the issue I am addressing in this post.… [Keep reading] “Preventing double-app-loading behaviour with ADAL.js”