Azure Log Analytics and Power BI Desktop for Advanced SharePoint Reporting

20th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

In a previous blog post we explored some of the basics around integration of OMS and Power BI to report on user activity. In this blog post we’ll look at this subject in more detail and show what can be achieved with Power BI Desktop, especially with the updates now available in Azure Log Analytics as part of the Operations Management Suite (OMS).
Power BI presents a wealth of data visualisation capability, primarily as two use types, the online version which is geared toward sharing and collaboration (accessed on this URL: https://app.powerbi.com/… [Keep reading] “Azure Log Analytics and Power BI Desktop for Advanced SharePoint Reporting”

Azure AD Identity and Access Management & Features

18th of November, 2017 / / 1 Comment

I’ve been using Azure AD Identity for quite a while now. I thought it would be good to share the summary of Azure AD Identity features and gather some feedbacks.
Azure AD Identity

Azure Active Directory: A comprehensive identity and access management cloud solution for your employees, partners, and customers. It combines directory services, advanced identity governance, application access management, and a rich standards-based platform for developers.
Identity and access management License option: Azure Active Directory Premium P2 (E5), P1 (E3)
“Identity as the Foundation of Enterprise Mobility”
Identity and access management


Protect at the front door: innovative and advanced risk-based conditional accesses, protect your data against user mistakes, detect attacks before they cause damage


Identity and access management in the cloud:

  • 1000s of apps, 1 identity: Provide one persona to the workforce for SSO to 1000s of cloud and on-premises apps.
… [Keep reading] “Azure AD Identity and Access Management & Features”

Exchange Online & Splunk – Automating the solution

13th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

NOTES FROM THE FIELD:

I have recently been consulting on, what I think is a pretty cool engagement to integrate some Office365 mailbox data into the Splunk reporting platform.
I initially thought about using a .csv export methodology however through trial & error (more error than trial if I’m being honest), and realising that this method still required some manual interaction, I decided to embark on finding a fully automated solution.
The final solution comprises the below components:

  • Splunk HTTP event collector
    • Splunk hostname
    • Token from HTTP event collector config page
  • Azure automation account
    • Azure Run As Account
    • Azure Runbook
    • Exchange Online credentials (registered to Azure automation account

I’m not going to run through the creation of the automation account, or required credentials as these had already been created, however there is a great guide to configuring the solution I have used for this customer at  https://www.splunk.com/blog/2017/10/05/splunking-microsoft-cloud-data-part-3.html… [Keep reading] “Exchange Online & Splunk – Automating the solution”

Resolving unable to access App published with Barracuda WAF over Azure Express Route

9th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

Recently, one of the customers reported they can’t access to all UAT apps from their Melbourne office, but it worked fine for other offices. When they tried to access the UAT app domains, they were getting below errors: “The request service is temporarily unavailable. It is either overloaded or under maintenance. Please try later.”
WAF error
Due to the UAT environment IP restrictions on the WAF, it is normal behaviour for me to get the error messages due to the fact our Kloud office’s public IPs are not in the WAFs’ whitelist.… [Keep reading] “Resolving unable to access App published with Barracuda WAF over Azure Express Route”

Resolving “User not found” issue while assigning permissions using SharePoint CSOM

7th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

I was recently working on a SharePoint Online project where we were trying to automate library creation and provide required permissions on those libraries. We had an issue while modifying permissions with CSOM code on SharePoint libraries when the Created By user had left the company.
In this post I will outline the cause and the resolution as there was no online reference for resolving this error.
Issue: The CSOM code was throwing an error “User not found” even when creating a User object from web.EnsureUser()… [Keep reading] “Resolving “User not found” issue while assigning permissions using SharePoint CSOM”

How I prepared for the 70-533 Azure Exam

6th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

I have been IT professional for over 7 years now. During this time, I have seen and experienced many critical changes in the IT Infrastructure field. Personally, I started as a network engineer at a software company and then moved to a MSP as infrastructure engineer and looked after servers, firewalls, network, application deploy, etc. for medium and large finance institutions before I join Kloud Solutions and started to evolve by learning the Microsoft Azure. Obviously, Cloud technology is the most significant shift that the IT industry is experiencing today.… [Keep reading] “How I prepared for the 70-533 Azure Exam”

Azure Functions Cold Start Workaround

4th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

Intro

I love Azure Functions. So much power for so little effort or cost. The only downside is that the consumption model that keeps the cost so dirt-cheap means that unless you are using your Function constantly (in which case, you might be better off with the non-consumption options anyway), you will often be hit with a long delay as your Function wakes up from hibernation.

So very cold…

This isn’t a big deal if you are dealing with a fire and forget queue trigger scenario, but if you have web app that is calling the HTTP trigger and you need to wait for the Function to do it’s job before responding with a 200 OK… that’s a long wait (well over 15 seconds in my experience with a PowerShell function that loads a bunch of modules).… [Keep reading] “Azure Functions Cold Start Workaround”

HoloLens – Using the Windows Device Portal

26th of October, 2017 / / No Comments

Windows Device Portal is a web-based tool which was first introduced by Microsoft in the year 2016. The main purpose of the tool is to facilitate application management, performance management and advanced remote troubleshooting for Windows devices.  Device portal is a lightweight web server built into the Windows Device which can be enabled in the developer mode. On a HoloLens, developer mode can be enabled from the settings application (Settings->Update->For Developers->Developer Mode).

Connecting the Device

Once the developer mode on the device is enabled, the following steps must be performed to connect to the device portal.… [Keep reading] “HoloLens – Using the Windows Device Portal”

HoloLens – Setting up the Development environment

17th of October, 2017 / / No Comments

HoloLens is undoubtedly a powerful invention in the field of Mixed reality. Like any other revolutionary inventions, the success of a technology largely depends upon its usability and its ease of adoptability. This is what makes software development kits (SDK) and application programming interfaces (API) associated with a technology super critical. Microsoft has been very smart on this front when it comes to HoloLens. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, they have integrated HoloLens development model with the existing popular gaming platform ‘Unity’ for modelling a Mixed reality application frontend.… [Keep reading] “HoloLens – Setting up the Development environment”

Polycom VVX 310 – Unable to do blind transfer internally

12th of October, 2017 / / No Comments

I’ve been working with one SFB customer recently. I met some unique issues and I would like to share the experience of what I did to solve the problem.

Issue Description:

Customers were experiencing Polycom handsets unable to transfer external calls to a particular internal 4 – digit number range xxxx. All the agent phones are VVX 310 and agents sign in via extension & pin. When the call transfer failed, what the callers heard is the placid recorded female voice: “we’re sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialled.… [Keep reading] “Polycom VVX 310 – Unable to do blind transfer internally”