Exchange Server 2016 install error: “Active Directory could not be contacted”

23rd of February, 2017 / / No Comments

I recently worked on a project where I had to install Exchange Server 2016 on an Azure VM and received error “Active Directory could not be contacted”.
To resolve the issue, I had to complete the following steps;

  1. Remove the Azure VM public IP address
  2. Disable IPv6 on the NICipv6-disabled
  3. Set the IPv4 DNS suffix to point to your domain. If a public address is being used it will be set to reddog.microsoft.com by default.dns-suffix

Once done the installation could proceed and Active Directory was contactable.

A [brief] intro to Azure Resource Visualiser (ARMVIZ.io)

21st of February, 2017 / / No Comments

Another week, another Azure tool that I’ve come by and thought I’d share with the masses. Though this one isn’t a major revelation or a something that I’ve added to my Chrome work profile bookmarks bar like I did with the Azure Resource Explorer (as yet, though, I may well add this in the very near future), I certainly have it bookmarked in my Azure folder in Chrome bookmarks.

When working with Azure Resource Manager templates, you’re dealing with long JSON files.… [Keep reading] “A [brief] intro to Azure Resource Visualiser (ARMVIZ.io)”

How to create a PowerShell FIM/MIM Management Agent for AzureAD Groups using Differential Sync and Paged Imports

17th of February, 2017 / / No Comments

Introduction

I’ve been working on a project where I must have visibility of a large number of Azure AD Groups into Microsoft Identity Manager.
In order to make this efficient I need to use the Differential Query function of the AzureAD Graph API. I’ve detailed that before in this post How to create an AzureAD Microsoft Identity Manager Management Agent using the MS GraphAPI and Differential Queries. Due to the number of groups and the number of members in the Azure AD Groups I needed to implement Paged Imports on my favourite PowerShell Management Agent (Granfeldt PowerShell MA).… [Keep reading] “How to create a PowerShell FIM/MIM Management Agent for AzureAD Groups using Differential Sync and Paged Imports”

Why are you not using Azure Resource Explorer (Preview)?

17th of February, 2017 / / 1 Comment

For almost two years the Azure Resource Explorer has been in preview. For almost two years barely anyone has used it. This stops today!

I’ve been playing around with the Azure Portal (ARM) and clicking away stumbled upon the Azure Resource Explorer; available via https://resources.azure.com. Before you go any further, click on that or open the URI in a new tab in your favourite browser (I’m using Chrome 56.x for Mac if you were wondering) and finally BOOKMARK IT!… [Keep reading] “Why are you not using Azure Resource Explorer (Preview)?”

Running Vue.js on ASP.NET Core Applications

14th of February, 2017 / / 48 Comments

Vue.js has recently got many attentions as it is relatively easier to learn and lighter in size, comparing to other popular frameworks like Angular 1, Angular 2 or React. By providing a middleware, ASP.NET Core supports those front-end frameworks such as Angular2, Aurelia, React, Knockout, etc, while Vue has been excluded out-of-the-box. Even though we can find many good articles and code samples to integrate Vue and ASP.NET Core, as they don’t use the basic template that Vue is providing, it’s a little difficult for developers to apply at their first glance, who want to use both Vue and ASP.NET… [Keep reading] “Running Vue.js on ASP.NET Core Applications”

An Azure Timer Function App to retrieve files via FTP and Remote PowerShell

13th of February, 2017 / / 4 Comments

Introduction

In an age of Web Services and API’s it’s an almost a forgotten world where FTP Servers exist. However most recently I’ve had to travel back in time and interact with a FTP server to get a set of files that are produced by other systems on a daily basis. These files are needed for some flat-file imports into Microsoft Identity Manager.
Getting files off a FTP server is pretty simple. But needing to do it across a number of different environments (Development, Staging and Production) meant I was looking for an easy approach that I could also replicate quickly across multiple environments.… [Keep reading] “An Azure Timer Function App to retrieve files via FTP and Remote PowerShell”

Monitor SharePoint Changelog in Azure Function

10th of February, 2017 / / No Comments

Azure Functions have officially reached ‘hammer’ status

I’ve been enjoying the ease with which we can now respond to events in SharePoint and perform automation tasks, thanks to the magic of Azure Functions. So many nails, so little time!
The seminal blog post that started so many of us on that road, was of course John Liu’s Build your PnP Site Provisioning with PowerShell in Azure Functions and run it from Flow and that pattern is fantastic for many event-driven scenarios.… [Keep reading] “Monitor SharePoint Changelog in Azure Function”

Back to Basics – Design Patterns – Part 2

9th of February, 2017 / / No Comments

In the previous post, we discussed design patterns, their structure and usage. Then we discussed the three fundamental types and started off with the first one – Creational Patterns.
Continuing with creational patterns we will now discuss Abstract Factory pattern, which is considered to be a super set of Factory Method.

Abstract Factory

In the Factory method, we discussed how it targets a single family of subclasses using a corresponding set of factory method classes, or a single factory method class via parametrised/ static factory method.… [Keep reading] “Back to Basics – Design Patterns – Part 2”

Automate the nightly backup of your Development FIM/MIM Sync and Portal Servers Configuration

31st of January, 2017 / / 6 Comments

Last week in a customer development environment I had one of those oh shit moments where I thought I’d lost a couple of weeks of work. A couple of weeks of development around multiple Management Agents, MV Schema changes etc. Luckily for me I was just connecting to an older VM Image, but it got me thinking. It would be nice to have an automated process that each night would;

  • Export each Management Agent on a FIM/MIM Sync Server
  • Export the FIM/MIM Synchronisation Server Configuration
  • Take a copy of the Extensions Folder (where I keep my PowerShell Management Agents scripts)
  • Export the FIM/MIM Service Server Configuration

And that is what this post covers.… [Keep reading] “Automate the nightly backup of your Development FIM/MIM Sync and Portal Servers Configuration”

How to configure Paged Imports on the Granfeldt FIM/MIM PowerShell Management Agent

28th of January, 2017 / / No Comments

Introduction

In the last 12 months I’ve lost count of the number of PowerShell Management Agents I’ve written to integrate Microsoft Identity Manager with a plethora of environments. The majority though have not been of huge scale (<50k objects) and the import of the managed entities into the Connector Space/Metaverse runs through pretty timely.
However this week I’ve been working on a AzureAD Groups PS MA for an environment with 40k+ groups. That in itself isn’t that large, but when you start processing Group Memberships as well, the Import process can take an hour for a Full Sync.… [Keep reading] “How to configure Paged Imports on the Granfeldt FIM/MIM PowerShell Management Agent”