How to make a copy of a virtual machine running Windows in Azure

How to make a copy of a virtual machine running Windows in Azure

6th of October, 2016 / / No Comments

I was called upon recently to help a customer create copies of some of their Windows virtual machines. The idea was to quickly deploy copies of these hosts at any time as opposed to using a system image or point in time copy.
The following PowerShell will therefore allow you to make a copy or clone of a Windows virtual machine using a copy of it’s disks in Azure Resource Manager mode.

Create a new virtual machine from a copy of the disks of another

Having finalized the configuration of the source virtual machine the steps required are as follows.… [Keep reading] “How to make a copy of a virtual machine running Windows in Azure”

SharePoint content migration using Sharegate and Powershell

4th of October, 2016 / / 3 Comments

Content Migration

When it comes to content migration we have the option to write code (script) or use a migration toolset or a combination of both, thus it is important to identify the appropriate toolset based on “ease of use” and what we need to achieve.
I have evaluated several migration toolsets however, in this blog I am going with Sharegate as I have extensively used this product recently.

Sharegate is a toolset used to  “Manage, Migrate and Secure SharePoint & Office 365”. 

… [Keep reading] “SharePoint content migration using Sharegate and Powershell”

Enterprise Cloud Take Up Accelerating Rapidly According to New Study By McKinsey

19th of September, 2016 / / No Comments

A pair of studies published a few days ago by global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company entitled IT as a service: From build to consume show enterprise adoption of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) services accelerating increasingly rapidly over the next two years into 2018.
Of the two, one examined the on-going migrations of 50 global businesses. The other saw a large number of CIOs, from small businesses up to Fortune 100 companies, interviewed on the progress of their transitions and the results speak for themselves.… [Keep reading] “Enterprise Cloud Take Up Accelerating Rapidly According to New Study By McKinsey”

What is the difference between POC & MVP? and Which comes first?

15th of September, 2016 / / 1 Comment

In past couple of projects, several clients have asked me this question: What is the difference between POC & MVP? and Which comes first? Most businesses are familiar with these terms but don’t know the exact meaning that’s why they often experience mistakes while building a product. They jump into starting up a development team to build a product. Knowing what each term means is not good enough, you should know when to use them, is vitally important to the success of your next product launch.… [Keep reading] “What is the difference between POC & MVP? and Which comes first?”

Mobile Application Management (MAM)

13th of September, 2016 / / 6 Comments

The biggest challenge for BYOD devices is data security and leakage, a common method to enforce data protection is through Exchange ActiveSync and/or Mobile Device Management (MDM) tools such as AirWatch, Intune and others.

Both ActiveSync and MDM comes with the option of device wipe and enforcing device PIN. If the device is lost or the employee is terminated, the company could remote wipe the device to protect its data. While device wipe is great from the company’s perspective, it is almost always met with resistance from the employees because everyone fears the company has the power to wipe their personal data such as photos and contacts from their own personal devices.… [Keep reading] “Mobile Application Management (MAM)”

Troubleshooting Azure Network Security Groups

13th of September, 2016 / / No Comments

Some things I learned recently whilst troubleshooting a customer’s network security group (NSG) configuration.

Default rules

The default configuration of all NSGs includes 3 inbound and outbound rules which is something to be aware of. You can vizualise these rules in the Azure portal or with the following PowerShell. The default rules cannot be disabled but can be overridden by creating rules with a lower priority (read higher number!).

Choose a resource group

[code language=”powershell”]
$nsgName = ‘<NSGNAME>’
$rgName = (Get-AzureRmResourceGroup | Out-GridView -Title ‘Select Azure Resource Group:’ -PassThru).ResourceGroupName… [Keep reading] “Troubleshooting Azure Network Security Groups”

Kloud named among top winners for the 2016 Microsoft Australia Partner Awards

6th of September, 2016 / / No Comments

Managed Service_Kloud_Blog

MELBOURNE, Victoria, Australia — 6 September, 2016

Kloud today announced it has been selected as a winner for the Microsoft Australia Partner Awards for Excellence in Managed Service. The Excellence in Managed Service award recognises a partner who demonstrates a customer-centric approach to their managed service offerings.

Kloud managing director Nicki Bowers said the award recognised the strong collaborative approach that is at the heart of every customer engagement.

“I’ve been coming to the Australian Partner Conference for many years now and winning an award is always a special moment for the team.”… [Keep reading] “Kloud named among top winners for the 2016 Microsoft Australia Partner Awards”

Developing and configuring Multi-tenant applications using AngularJs, WebAPI and Azure Active Directory

1st of September, 2016 / / 2 Comments

In this post, I am going to share my experience about publishing multi-tenant applications in Azure Active Directory where Azure Active Directory’s role is OAuth server.

You can read more about OAuth2.0 at https://oauth.net/2/ . I am going to use implicit flow where client is an un-trusted application. For instance AngularJs application or phone application etc. Why these clients are called un-trusted because they cannot hide the secrets given/shared by OAuth server.

Let’s have a look at OAuth 2.0 actors in implicit flow.… [Keep reading] “Developing and configuring Multi-tenant applications using AngularJs, WebAPI and Azure Active Directory”

Image a Windows Virtual Machine In Azure, then Deploy And Join It To A Domain

17th of August, 2016 / / 4 Comments

The following Azure Resource Manager mode PowerShell will allow you to create an image of an existing Windows virtual machine in Azure, deploy it at will and join it to a domain if necessary.

Login to PowerShell

[code language=”powershell”]
Get-AzureSubscription
$SubID = "your-subscription-ID"
Login-AzureRMAccount
Select-AzureRmSubscription -SubscriptionId $SubID
[/code]

Create the virtual machine image

Run sysprep on the desired virtual machine in Azure.

[code language=”dos”]%windir%\system32\sysprep[/code]

When prompted for System Cleanup Action choose ‘Enter System Out of The Box Experience (OOBE)‘, Generalize and Shutdown from Shutdown Options.… [Keep reading] “Image a Windows Virtual Machine In Azure, then Deploy And Join It To A Domain”