Windows 2016 fileserver cluster on Microsoft StorSimple – Part1

29th of November, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction to Series

After recently setting up a storage and DR solution for one of my customers to host their fileserver workload, I thought I’d write a series to document its use and to share any useful tips I found along the way. This first post will explain the technologies that were involved in the solution and how the different components hang together.

What will be covered in the series?

Part 1: Introduction to solution, Microsoft StorSimple device and Windows 2016 file server cluster.… [Keep reading] “Windows 2016 fileserver cluster on Microsoft StorSimple – Part1”

Re:Invent 2018 – Day 3: Keynote Time

29th of November, 2018 / / No Comments

Andy Jassy has finished presenting  the 7th Annual AWS Re:Invent keynote and he didn’t disappoint. Like in years past, their are a bunch of new product announcements such as:

  • Amazon FSx for Windows File Server
  • Amazon FSx for Lustre
  • Amazon DynamoDB On-Demand
  • Amazon Elastic Inference
  • SageMaker Ground Truth
  • SageMaker RL
  • AWS DeepRace
  • Amazon Personalize
  • Amazon Forecast

 

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server fits all of these needs, and more.… [Keep reading] “Re:Invent 2018 – Day 3: Keynote Time”

Automating Azure Instrumentation and Monitoring – Part 2: Application Insights

29th of November, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Application Insights is a component of Azure Monitor for application-level instrumentation. It collects telemetry from your application infrastructure like web servers, App Services, and Azure Functions apps, and from your application code. In this post we’ll discuss how Application Insights can be automated in several key ways: first, by setting up an Application Insights instance in an ARM template; second, by connecting it to various types of Azure application components through automation scripts including Azure Functions, App Services, and API Management; and third, by configuring its smart detection features to emit automatic alerts in a configurable way.… [Keep reading] “Automating Azure Instrumentation and Monitoring – Part 2: Application Insights”

Re:Invent 2018 – Day 2 Part 1: Monday Night Live brings us More

28th of November, 2018 / / No Comments

So, last night PST brought us “Monday Night Live” hosted by “Peter DeSantis – Vice President AWS Global Infrastructure and Customer Support” and the session didn’t disappoint. In addition to the presentation, we we’re again bombarded with new Product announcements we can add to out list including:

  • Firecracker – Lightweight Virtualization for Serverless Computing
  • C5n Instances with 100 Gbps Networking
  • EC2 Instances (A1) Powered by Arm-Based AWS Graviton Processors
  • AWS Transit Gateway
  • AWS Global Accelerator

 

Firecracker – Lightweight Virtualization for Serverless Computing

Firecracker implements a virtual machine monitor (VMM) that uses the Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) to create and manage microVMs.… [Keep reading] “Re:Invent 2018 – Day 2 Part 1: Monday Night Live brings us More”

VicRoads digital transformation in the cloud and beyond

27th of November, 2018 / / No Comments

How VicRoads managed its cloud migration, improving data compliance and streamlining its digital operations.

Last year, VicRoads embarked on an ambitious project to revolutionise its existing informational website to a transactional one, offering online versions of many regular interactions, such as vehicle registration and permits.

While a big step up for the experience of Victorian motorists, from a technical perspective, this move required VicRoads to completely revisit its cloud architecture and delivery model. This would ensure new personal and financial data being gathered were stored in accordance to best practices and in compliance with government standards.… [Keep reading] “VicRoads digital transformation in the cloud and beyond”

AWS Organizations, How do I get Started?

27th of November, 2018 / / No Comments

Overview

In the previous blog post (see here) we took a look at AWS Organizations, what it is, what it’s comprised of and the benefits of a multi-account strategy. In this post we will take a look at how to get started with AWS Organizations by looking at a couple of ways we might want to design our Organization Unit’s hierarchy and go through the process of setting up our First OU’s and AWS Accounts. In a future blog post we will look at how we can implement an AWS Account Vending Machine to automate this process and ensure consistency across future accounts.… [Keep reading] “AWS Organizations, How do I get Started?”

Automating Azure Instrumentation and Monitoring – Part 1: Introduction

14th of November, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Instrumentation and monitoring is a critical part of managing any application or system. By proactively monitoring the health of the system as a whole, as well as each of its components, we can mitigate potential issues before they affect customers. And if issues do occur, good instrumentation alerts us to that fact so that we can respond quickly.

Azure provides a set of powerful monitoring and instrumentation tools to instrument almost all Azure services as well as our own applications.… [Keep reading] “Automating Azure Instrumentation and Monitoring – Part 1: Introduction”

Creating Azure Storage SAS Tokens with ARM Templates

7th of November, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Shared access signatures, sometimes also called SAS tokens, allow for delegating access to a designated part of an Azure resource with a defined set of permissions. They can be used to allow various types of access to your Azure services while keeping your access keys secret.

In a recent update to Azure Resource Manager, Microsoft has added the ability to create SAS tokens from ARM templates. While this is a general-purpose feature that will hopefully work across a multitude of Azure services, for now it only seems to work with Azure Storage (at least of the services I’ve checked).… [Keep reading] “Creating Azure Storage SAS Tokens with ARM Templates”

Step-by-step: Using Azure DevOps Services to deploy ARM templates with CI/ CD – Part 2

25th of October, 2018 / / 3 Comments

In this blog (Part 2), I take you through on Enabling Continuous Integration (CI) / Continuous Deployment (CD), for the project created on Part 1.

To re-cap, I have made this entire post into two parts for easier understanding and we will focus on Part 2 here:

Part 1- Creating your first project in Azure DevOps (https://blog.kloud.com.au/2018/10/17/step-by-step-using-azure-devops-services-to-deploy-arm-templates-with-ci-cd-part-1/).
Part 2 – Enabling the first project in Azure DevOps for Continuous Integration (CI) / Continuous Deployment (CD).

Enabling the first project in Azure DevOps for Continuous Integration

    • Now, the next step is to enable continuous integration.
… [Keep reading] “Step-by-step: Using Azure DevOps Services to deploy ARM templates with CI/ CD – Part 2”

Step-by-step: Using Azure DevOps Services to deploy ARM templates with CI/ CD – Part 1

17th of October, 2018 / / 4 Comments

In this blog, we will see how to get started with Azure DevOps for an Infrastructure background person.

We will familiarize ourselves with deploying your Azure resources with ARM templates by using Azure DevOps with Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD).

I have made this entire post into two parts for easier understanding:

Part 1: Creating your first project in Azure DevOps

Part 2: Enabling the first project in Azure DevOps for Continuous Integration (CI) / Continuous Deployment (CD).… [Keep reading] “Step-by-step: Using Azure DevOps Services to deploy ARM templates with CI/ CD – Part 1”