Microservices – An Agile Architecture Introduction

31st of January, 2017 / / No Comments

In the ever evolving and dynamic world of software architecture, you will hear new buzz words every other month. Microservices is the latest of them, though not as new as it appears, it has been around for some time now in different forms.
Microservices – The micro of SOA?
        “… the microservice architectural style is an approach to developing a single application as a suite of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms, often an HTTP resource API.… [Keep reading] “Microservices – An Agile Architecture Introduction”

Six Competencies For Strong CX Management

23rd of January, 2017 / / No Comments

Customer Experience Management is bloody challenging. Delivering a consistent (and pleasurable) experience across dozens of channels requires well-defined CX practices that are deeply ingrained within the organisational culture.

Forrester first published CXM maturity framework in 2011 which defines the CX practices that every firm needs to master. Naturally, a lot of companies jumped on board with this framework. For some, it had been hugely successful, and for others — not so much.

Now after 5 years, Forrester has published an updated CX Index which is based on interviews with many (19) companies, new research, and lessons that they’ve learned from helping clients over time.

… [Keep reading] “Six Competencies For Strong CX Management”

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”

Auto-Acceleration for SharePoint Online

22nd of November, 2016 / / No Comments

Working with one of my colleagues recently, we were tasked with implementing Smart Links to speed up the login processes for a client’s SharePoint Online implementation.
The client was working towards replacing their on-premises implementation of SharePoint and OpenSpaces with SharePoint Online. The issue they faced was that when when a user tries to access a SharePoint Online site collection and is not already authenticated with Office 365, the user will be directed to the default Microsoft Online login page.… [Keep reading] “Auto-Acceleration for SharePoint Online”

AAD Connect – Updating OU Sync Configuration Error: stopped-deletion-threshold-exceeded

11th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

I was recently working with a customer on cleaning up their Azure AD Connect synchronisation configuration.
Initially, the customer had enabled sync for all OU’s in the Forest (As a lot of companies do),  and had now come to a point in maturity where they could look at optimising the solution.
We identified an OU with approximately 7000 objects which did not need to be synced.
So…
I logged onto the AAD Connect server and launched the configuration utility.… [Keep reading] “AAD Connect – Updating OU Sync Configuration Error: stopped-deletion-threshold-exceeded”

cloudready

Run Chromium OS without having to buy a Chromebook thanks to CloudReady

19th of October, 2016 / / No Comments

Thanks to the good folks at Neverware, you can now run Google’s cloud centric OS on a wider range of hardware than just Chromebooks alone. To enable this, what Neverware have done is repackage Google’s Chromium operating system.  This OS is at the core of it’s range of branded laptops, and is now made available to all.

The differences
Where Google build and maintain open source versions of Android and Chromium, their real value proposition is to add proprietary features onto both before selling them on branded devices.… [Keep reading] “Run Chromium OS without having to buy a Chromebook thanks to CloudReady”

An Approach to DevOps Adoption

17th of October, 2016 / / No Comments
Originally posted at Chandra’s blog – https://fastandsteady.io

DevOps has been a buzzword for a while now in the tech industry, with many organizations joining the bandwagon and working towards embracing DevOps practices.
Wikipedia describes DevOps as “a practice that emphasizes the collaboration and communication of the IT professionals across the value chain while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes. The aim is to deliver the software quickly and reliably.”
However, in an Enterprise scenario with the complexity involved, the journey to implement DevOps comprehensively is evolutionary.  … [Keep reading] “An Approach to DevOps Adoption”

Fixing the Windows 10 Insider 14946 Bitdefender Update Issue

15th of October, 2016 / / No Comments

I have been part of the Windows 10 Insider program for some time now, and as usual the time had come around again to install the latest fast ring update 14946.
However, when I went to download the update via the usual windows update channel, I found I could not download the update at all. (Or the bar showed zero progress).
I started to go looking for an explanation and came across the following post on the Microsoft Forum site.… [Keep reading] “Fixing the Windows 10 Insider 14946 Bitdefender Update Issue”

How to assign and remove user Office365 licenses using the AzureADPreview Powershell Module

12th of October, 2016 / / No Comments

A couple of months ago the AzureADPreview module was released. The first cmdlet that I experimented with was Set-AzureADUserLicense. And it didn’t work, there was no working examples and I gave up and used GraphAPI instead.
Since then the AzureADPreview has gone through a number of revisions and I’ve been messing around a little with each update. The Set-AzureADUserLicense cmdlet has been my litmus test. Now that I have both removing and assigning Office 365 licenses working I’ll save others the pain of working it out and give a couple of working examples.… [Keep reading] “How to assign and remove user Office365 licenses using the AzureADPreview Powershell Module”