Replacing the service desk with bots using Amazon Lex and Amazon Connect (Part 1)

18th of December, 2017 / / No Comments

“What! Is this guy for real? Does he really think he can replace the front line of IT with pre-canned conversations?” I must admit, it’s a bold statement. The IT Service Desk has been around for years and has been the foot in the door for most of us in the IT industry. It’s the face of IT operations and plays an important role in ensuring an organisation’s staff can perform to the best of their abilities.… [Keep reading] “Replacing the service desk with bots using Amazon Lex and Amazon Connect (Part 1)”

Ok Google Email me the status of all vms – Part 2

10th of September, 2017 / / No Comments

First published at https://nivleshc.wordpress.com
In my last blog, we configured the backend systems necessary for accomplishing the task of asking Google Home “OK Google Email me the status of all vms” and it sending us an email to that effect. If you haven’t finished doing that, please refer back to my last blog and get that done before continuing.
In this blog, we will configure Google Home.
Google Home uses Google Assistant to do all the smarts.… [Keep reading] “Ok Google Email me the status of all vms – Part 2”

Ok Google Email me the status of all vms – Part 1

10th of September, 2017 / / No Comments

First published at https://nivleshc.wordpress.com
Technology is evolving at a breathtaking pace. For instance, the phone in your pocket has more grunt than the desktop computers of 10 years ago!
One of the upcoming areas in Computing Science is Artificial Intelligence. What seemed science fiction in the days of Isaac Asimov, when he penned I, Robot seems closer to reality now.
Lately the market is popping up with virtual assistants from the likes of Apple, Amazon and Google.… [Keep reading] “Ok Google Email me the status of all vms – Part 1”

Scripting the generation & creation of Microsoft Identity Manager Sets/Workflows/Sync & Management Policy Rules with the Lithnet Resource Management PowerShell Module

26th of April, 2017 / / 2 Comments

Introduction

Yes, that title is quite a mouthful. And this post is going to be quite long. But worth the read if you are having to create a number of rules in Microsoft/Forefront Identity Manager, or even more so the same rule in multiple environments (eg. Dev, Staging, Production).
My colleague David Minnelli introduced using the Lithnet RMA PowerShell Module and the Import-RMConfig cmdlet recently for bulk creation of MIM Sets and MPR’s. David has a lot of the background on Import-RMConfig and getting started with it.… [Keep reading] “Scripting the generation & creation of Microsoft Identity Manager Sets/Workflows/Sync & Management Policy Rules with the Lithnet Resource Management PowerShell Module”

Creating Accounts on Azure SQL Database through PowerShell Automation

12th of April, 2016 / / 6 Comments

In the previous post, Azure SQL Pro Tip – Creating Login Account and User, we have briefly walked through how to create login accounts on Azure SQL Database through SSMS. Using SSMS is of course the very convenient way. However, as a DevOps engineer, I want to automate this process through PowerShell. In this post, we’re going to walk through how to achieve this goal.

Step #1: Create Azure SQL Database

First of all, we need an Azure SQL Database.… [Keep reading] “Creating Accounts on Azure SQL Database through PowerShell Automation”

Programmatically interacting with Yammer via PowerShell – Part 2

14th of August, 2015 / / 15 Comments

In my last post I foolishly said that part 2 would be ‘coming in the next few days’. This of course didn’t happen, but I guess it’s better late than never!

In part 1 which is available here, I wrote how it was possible to post to a Yammer group via a *.ps1 using a ‘Yammer Verified Admin’ account. While this worked a treat, it soon became apparent that this approach had limited productivity rewards.… [Keep reading] “Programmatically interacting with Yammer via PowerShell – Part 2”

Programmatically interacting with Yammer via PowerShell – Part 1

26th of June, 2015 / / 5 Comments

For my latest project I was asked to automate some Yammer activity. I’m first to concede that I don’t have much of a Dev background, but I instantly fired up PowerShell ISE in tandem with Google only to find…well not a lot! After a couple of weeks fighting with a steep learning curve, I thought it best to blog my findings, it’s good to share ‘n all that!

    It’s worth mentioning at the outset, if you want to test this out you’ll need an E3 Office 365 Trial and a custom domain.
… [Keep reading] “Programmatically interacting with Yammer via PowerShell – Part 1”

Automate your Cloud Operations Part 1: AWS CloudFormation

29th of April, 2015 / / 3 Comments

Operations

What is Operations?

In the IT world, Operations refers to a team or department within IT which is responsible for the running of a business’ IT systems and infrastructure.

So what kind of activities this team perform on day to day basis?

Building, modifying, provisioning, updating systems, software and infrastructure to keep them available, performing and secure which ensures that users can be as productive as possible.

When moving to public cloud platforms the areas of focus for Operations are:

  • Cost reduction: if we design it properly and apply good practices when managing it (scale down / switch off)
  • Smarter operation: Use of Automation and APIs
  • Agility: faster in provisioning infrastructure or environments by Automating the everything
  • Better Uptime: Plan for failover, and design effective DR solutions more cost effectively.
… [Keep reading] “Automate your Cloud Operations Part 1: AWS CloudFormation”

Migrating Azure Virtual Machines to another Region

16th of November, 2014 / / 11 Comments

I have a number of DEV/TEST Virtual Machines (VMs) deployed to Azure Regions in Southeast Asia (Singapore) and West US as these were the closet to those of us living in Australia. Now that the new Azure Regions in Australia have been launched, it’s time to start migrating those VMs closer to home. Manually moving VMs between Regions is pretty straight forward and a number of articles already exist outlining the manual steps.

To migrate an Azure VM to another Region

  1. Shutdown the VM in the source Region
  2. Copy the underlying VHDs to storage accounts in the new Region
  3. Create OS and Data disks in the new Region
  4. Re-create the VM in the new Region.
… [Keep reading] “Migrating Azure Virtual Machines to another Region”