The new Azure AD Connect built in user filter: adminDescription.

tl;dr

Really? I need to shorten an already short post? Well, you’re welcome Generation-Y.

  • New Azure AD Connect user filter
  • Inbound rule
  • Leverages ADDS attribute: adminDescription
  • Add in a value with a prefix of User_ or Group_ to filter out that object

***

Azure AD Connect, like previous version of the directory synchronisation application, is able filter users, groups or contacts that are synchronised to Azure AD / Office 365 through a number of methods. The Microsoft Azure documentation page – –

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/active-directory-aadconnectsync-configure-filtering/

[Keep reading] “The new Azure AD Connect built in user filter: adminDescription.”

Code Management in Serverless Computing – AWS Lambda and Azure Functions

In the Serverless world, we don’t need to setup server. We just take care of codes (called functions). However, one of the major drawbacks of the current FaaS (Function as a Service) providers in the Serverless world is they support lack of code management features. In this post, we’ll compare both AWS Lambda (Lambda) and Azure Functions (Functions) in regards to the source code management.

AWS Lambda

Lambda doesn’t natively support code management.… [Keep reading] “Code Management in Serverless Computing – AWS Lambda and Azure Functions”

Azure reference architecture

tl;dr

  • What is a reference architecture
    • My definition of a reference architecture
  • I stop using the word architecture after the first 3 paragraphs – word overkill
  • What are some important topics to cover in said document
  • Is it easy to write? NO
  • Final words – don’t jump into Azure without a reference architecture

I’m not going to lie to you. This is not a quick topic to write about. When it comes to Azure, you absolutely, 100% cannot dive straight in and consume services if you’re planning on doing that for pretty much any size organisation. The only way this could be averted is in a development environment, or a home lab. Period.

Without order nothing exists.

-someone awesome

This is where an Azure reference architecture comes in. Let’s define a reference architecture, or most commonly a reference architecture document (or series of documents);

Within IT: A reference architecture is a set of standards, best practices and guidelines for a given architecture that architects, consultants, administrators or managers refer to when making decisions on future implementations in that environment.

Since I think I’ve reached the word quota limit for “architect” or “architecture”, I will attempt to limit the use of those from this point forward. If necessary, I’ll refer to either of those as just the “a-word“.

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Mocking ADAL for Unit Tests

Active Directory Authentication Library (ADAL) provides developers with great experiences to easily integrate Azure Active Directory (AAD) with their application for authentication and authorisation. With minimum efforts, we can implement OAuth authentication against AAD, using ADAL. However, in the unit testing world, it’s not that easy to test application when the application uses ADAL because ADAL is not unit-testable. We don’t test ADAL itself, but we do need mock it to test applications using ADAL. In this post, we are going to implement how to implement wrapper classes for ADAL’s AuthenticationContext, AuthenticationResult and DeviceCodeResult.… [Keep reading] “Mocking ADAL for Unit Tests”

Azure VM troubleshooting – part 1

It’s very easy to spin up new servers in Azure but what if one of those machines starts playing up? Gone are the days of F8’s, booting into safe mode or console access. Over the last couple of weeks I lost the ability to RDP into several virtual machines. Some of these machines were still pingable but no RDP, others didn’t respond at all. From within the portal the VM would still show a status of “Running”.… [Keep reading] “Azure VM troubleshooting – part 1”

Building .NET Core Application on Amazon Linux

In order to run .NET applications on Linux operating systems, Mono used to be the only option. Now, Microsoft has released .NET Core that can build and run .NET applications on any OS including Windows, OSX and Linux. In this post, we are going to install both .NET Core Framework RC1 and RC2, build and run a simple Hello World application, and compare RC1 to RC2.

Installing .NET Core RC1

By following the official document, Installing ASP.NET[Keep reading] “Building .NET Core Application on Amazon Linux”

Break down your templates with Linked Templates (Part 2)

Continued from part 1

The 2nd part of the series will describe how we construct Azure Resource Manager linked templates.

Quick Recap

In the first part, we set up the first template which deploys the storage, virtual network, and subnets. This will be our “master” template where we will link all our related templates.

 

Linked templates.png

  • 1st template: master template – we will modify this template slightly to capture parameters and the linked templates
  • 2nd template: two web servers (IIS) – this is a new template
  • 3rd template: DB server (MySQL) – a new template

We will use the Azure quickstart templates on GitHub as the basis for the second and third templates.… [Keep reading] “Break down your templates with Linked Templates (Part 2)”

Implementing Microsoft (Office365) Peering for ExpressRoute

Notes from the Field

I have recently been involved with an implementation of Microsoft Peering for Expressroute with a large Australian customer and thought I would share the experience with you.

Firstly, and secondly, make sure that you read the specific guidance from Microsoft regarding prerequisites for Microsoft Peering. (See below)

Configure Microsoft peering for the circuit

Make sure that you have the following information before you proceed.

  • A /30 subnet for the primary link. This must be a valid public IPv4 prefix owned by you and registered in an RIR / IRR.
[Keep reading] “Implementing Microsoft (Office365) Peering for ExpressRoute”

Break down your templates with Linked Templates (Part 1)

Templated deployment is one of the key value propositions of moving from the Azure classic to Resource Manager (ARM) deployment model.  This is probably one key feature that made a big stride towards Infrastructure as a Code (IAC).  Personally, I have been looking forward to this feature since it’s a prominent feature on the other competing platform.

Now that this feature is live for a while, one aspect which I found interesting is the ability to link templates in Azure Resource Manager. … [Keep reading] “Break down your templates with Linked Templates (Part 1)”