SSL Tunneling with socat in Docker to safely access Azure Redis on port 6379

3rd of August, 2017 / / No Comments

Redis Cache is an advanced key-value store that we should have all come across in one way or another by now. Azure, AWS and many other cloud providers have fully managed offerings for it, which is “THE” way we want to consume it.  As a little bit of insight, Redis itself was designed for use within a trusted private network and does not support encrypted connections. Public offerings like Azure use TLS reverse proxies to overcome this limitation and provide security around the service.… [Keep reading] “SSL Tunneling with socat in Docker to safely access Azure Redis on port 6379”

Running Containers on Azure

1st of August, 2017 / / 1 Comment

Running Containers in public cloud environments brings advantages beyond the realm of “fat” virtual machines: easy deployments through a registry of Images, better use of resources, orchestration are but a few examples.
Azure is embracing containers in a big way (Brendan Burns, one of the primary instigators of Kubernetes while at Google, joined Microsoft last year which might have contributed to it!)
Running Containers nowadays is almost always synonymous with running an orchestrator which allows for automatic deployments of multi-Container workloads.… [Keep reading] “Running Containers on Azure”

Getting started with Azure Cloud Shell

16th of July, 2017 / / 2 Comments

A few weeks back I noticed that I now had the option for the Azure Cloud Shell in the Azure Portal.

What is Azure Cloud Shell?

Essentially rather than having the Azure CLI installed on your local workstation, you can now initiate it from the Portal and you have automatically assigned (initiated as part of the setup) 5Gbytes of storage associated with it. So you can now create, manage and delete Azure resources using a centrally hosted CLI session.… [Keep reading] “Getting started with Azure Cloud Shell”

Azure Build Pipeline using ARM Templates and Visual Studio Team Services

24th of June, 2017 / / No Comments

Overview

When having to deploy resources within Azure you can easily log in to the Azure Portal and start deploying resources, however with the number of components needed to build a working solution this can quickly become time consuming. You may also need to deploy the same solution in a Development, Test, and Production environment and then make some changes to the environment along the way.
There is a lot of talk about DevOps and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in the IT industry at the moment.… [Keep reading] “Azure Build Pipeline using ARM Templates and Visual Studio Team Services”

Combining Ansible and AWS Cloudformation for Windows Provisioning

15th of June, 2017 / / No Comments

Imagine an agentless “robot” user that you can program to configure servers, network equipment, public cloud resources, deploy applications, etc.

Ansible is an IT automation solution which was acquired by RedHat in 2015. Already popular before the RedHat takeover, Ansible is becoming and more more common in IT organisations.

Originally targeted at Linux hosts as a target for automated configuration management and orchestration, Ansible acquired in version 2.0 capabilities to automate network devices.

And in version 2.3, which has been just released, Ansible’s Windows friendly features have been seriously augmented with domain related modules and an experimental “runas” feature.… [Keep reading] “Combining Ansible and AWS Cloudformation for Windows Provisioning”

Re-execute the UserData script in an AWS Windows Instance

23rd of April, 2017 / / 11 Comments

First published at https://nivleshc.wordpress.com
Bootstrapping is an awesome way of customising your instances in AWS (similar capability exists in Azure).
To enable bootstrapping, while configuring the launch instance, in Step 3: Configure Instance Details scroll down to the bottom and then expand Advanced Details.
You will notice a User data text box. This is where you can provide your bootstrap script. The script will be run when your instance is first launched.
AWS_BootstrapScript
I went ahead and entered my script in the text box and proceeded to complete my instance configuration.… [Keep reading] “Re-execute the UserData script in an AWS Windows Instance”

Experiences with the new AWS Application Load Balancer

29th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

Originally posted on Andrew’s blog @ cloudconsultancy.info

Summary

Recently I had an opportunity to test drive AWS Application load balancer as my client had a requirement for making their websocket application fault tolerant. The implementation was complete windows stack and utilised ADFS 2.0 for SAML authentication however this should not affect other people’s implementation.
The AWS Application load balancer is a fairly new feature which provides layer 7 load balancing and support for HTTP/2 as well as websockets.… [Keep reading] “Experiences with the new AWS Application Load Balancer”

Automate the archiving of your CloudHub application logs

24th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

CloudHub is MuleSoft’s integration platform as a service (iPaaS) that enables the deployment and management of integration solutions in the cloud. Runtime Manager, CloudHub’s management tool,  provides an integrated set of logging tools that allow support and operations staff to monitor and troubleshoot application logs of deployed applications.
Currently, application log entries are kept for 30 days or until they reach a max size of 100 MB. Often we are required to keep these logs for greater periods of time for auditing or archiving purposes.… [Keep reading] “Automate the archiving of your CloudHub application logs”

Remotely managing your FIM/MIM Synchronisation Server using Powershell and the Lithnet MIIS Automation Powershell Module

16th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

Background

I’ve been using Ryan’s Lithnet MIIS Automation Powershell Module for a few months now as you’ve likely seen from some of my blog posts.
The module and its installer direct you to install the module on your FIM/MIM Synchronisation Server. This all makes perfect sense as the FIM/MIM Synchronsation Sever is more of your traditional server application. However we are no longer living in that kind of IT world. Consultants, Administrators, Architects, DevOps etc all want the flexibility to use their own workstations, administrative workstations, automation services etc.… [Keep reading] “Remotely managing your FIM/MIM Synchronisation Server using Powershell and the Lithnet MIIS Automation Powershell Module”