Simulate moving to the Cloud with NEWT

28th of March, 2014 / / No Comments

I’ve blogged a bit in the past about the unique challenges encountered when moving to the cloud and the unavoidable consequence of introducing new network hops when moving workloads out of the data centre. I’m currently working for a unique organisation in the mining industry who are quite aggressively pursuing cost saving initiatives and have seen cloud as one of the potential savings. The uniqueness of the IT operating environment comes from the dispersed and challenging “branch offices” which may lie at the end of a long dedicated wired, microwave or satellite link

Centralising IT services to a data centre in Singapore is all very well if you’re office is on a well serviced broadband Internet link but what of these other data centres with more challenged connectivity.… [Keep reading] “Simulate moving to the Cloud with NEWT”

The FIM User Experience

27th of March, 2014 / / No Comments

A recent post by my colleague Jamie Skella “What UX Isn’t” started me thinking about how UX applies to FIM. Throughout my career as an Identity Management Consultant, I’ve seen projects reach a point in maturity where stakeholders are walked through the tasks an admin or user will perform in the portal, and the average eyebrow height in the room rises exponentially.

Those of us working with Microsoft’s identity products for a while, are used to seeing the glitz and glamour of the Sync Engine console, previously the only interface available with the product, so when the FIM Portal was introduced with FIM 2010, it gave a “user friendly” interface to work with.… [Keep reading] “The FIM User Experience”

Office 365 / SharePoint Sign-in with Xamarin.iOS

20th of March, 2014 / / 1 Comment

While coding up an iOS app with Xamarin I came across some odd behaviour when trying to programmatically sign in to O365 using HttpClient.

Xamarin

If you are not aware, Xamarin is built with Mono (the open source .NET Framework) and for all intents and purposes has the same namespace and language features as .NET 4.5. Excluding of course, all the Microsoft specific .NET parts.

HttpClient

OK I’ll set the scene. One of the requirements of my shiny new Xamarin app was to host a SharePoint site in a browser control.… [Keep reading] “Office 365 / SharePoint Sign-in with Xamarin.iOS”

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”

Best Practices for Managing Azure Subscriptions in Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets

23rd of February, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Windows Azure PowerShell cmdlets makes it nice and easy to get started managing your Windows Azure services. Using the Get-AzurePublishSettingsFile cmdlet you can login into your WAZ subscription and fetch the details you need to manage your cloud services. PowerShell even saves these details locally so you can reuse them again in the future. This is great for personal accounts and small teams getting to know the Windows Azure PowerShell cmdlets. However in larger organisations this can quickly lead to management issues and security risks.… [Keep reading] “Best Practices for Managing Azure Subscriptions in Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets”

Do It Yourself Fiddler Service

23rd of February, 2014 / / 2 Comments

I recently upgraded to Windows 8.1 which required a full install (upgraded from the 8.1 Preview which annoyingly didn’t support upgrades). A full install of my laptop is getting easier and easier as more of the things I use are delivered as services. The install list is getting smaller due to the combined effect of software as a service and a simpler working life.

I still had to install these:

  • Microsoft Office 2013
  • Microsoft Visio 2013
  • Microsoft Project (yes yes I know but there really is no good alternative yet)
  • LastPass
  • Visual Studio 2013
  • And…Fiddler!
… [Keep reading] “Do It Yourself Fiddler Service”

How to Link Existing Visual Studio Online with Windows Azure

6th of January, 2014 / / 4 Comments

I was trying to link my Visual Studio Online (formerly Team Foundation Service or TFS Online) tenant to my Windows Azure subscription and stumbled through some items that are not well documented. The main problem I ran into was that Visual Studio Online only used Microsoft Accounts and in my case my Windows Azure subscriptions are setup using Office 365 accounts and not Microsoft Accounts. The next problem I ran into was that account owner set on my Visual Studio Online wasn’t the account I thought it was so I need to find a way to update the account owner before I could proceed.… [Keep reading] “How to Link Existing Visual Studio Online with Windows Azure”

Windows Azure Active Directory Self Service Password Reset

10th of December, 2013 / / 1 Comment

Microsoft has recently released an enhancement to its Windows Azure Active Directory (WAAD) offering. This enhancement enables end users to perform self-service password resets in the case of a forgotten password. Previously this function was available to administrative accounts only.

WAAD self-service password reset (SSPR) is a premium offering, requiring Premium Features to be enabled for the WAAD.

Once WAAD Premium Features are enabled, the User Password Reset Policy can be edited and SSPR enabled. For the initial release, enabling SSPR does so for all WAAD user accounts.… [Keep reading] “Windows Azure Active Directory Self Service Password Reset”

Do It Yourself Web API Proxy

24th of November, 2013 / / 13 Comments

I had promised a couple of blogs on dealing with the challenges of distance that are unavoidable as we adopt a variety of dispersed Cloud deployed services. The first was using a WCF Custom Channel to cache SharePoint content which is now a bit old school. This is the second.

The rate of change at the moment is astonishing. I’ve been sitting on blog number two for quite some time, but when I go to build an example and type it up, something new has come along that is a slightly better way of doing it.… [Keep reading] “Do It Yourself Web API Proxy”

Use Mobile Services Scripting to invoke a BizTalk Service Bridge to insert into LOB SQL Azure Database.

13th of November, 2013 / / No Comments

Introduction

This blog demonstrates the key fundamentals in creating, invoking and deploying a Windows Azure BizTalk Services (WABS) Message Flow Itinerary to Azure, inserting data into a Windows Azure SQL Database.

It also uses the new Scripting feature of Azure Mobile Services to integrate with BizTalk Services.

Scenario

In the Managed Services Business Unit for the company I work for, a person every month was using MS Excel to generate monthly reports based on various Service Desk metrics.… [Keep reading] “Use Mobile Services Scripting to invoke a BizTalk Service Bridge to insert into LOB SQL Azure Database.”