Outputting data from an Azure Function to Power BI with PowerShell

24th of April, 2019 / / No Comments

Last week I wrote this post that detailed how to use the Azure Table Storage output binding in an Azure PowerShell Function. As part of the same solution I’m working on, I also need to get data/events into Power BI for reporting dashboards. An Azure Function (PowerShell) has the ability to obtain the data but the path to Power BI requires a number of steps that start with using the Azure Function Event Hub output binding.… [Keep reading] “Outputting data from an Azure Function to Power BI with PowerShell”

Office365-AzureHybrid: Building an automated solution to pull Office 365 Audit logs

6th of February, 2019 / / No Comments

Custom reporting for Office 365 Audit logs is possible using data fetched from the Security and Compliance center. In the previous blogs here, we have seen how to use PowerShell and Office 365 Management API to fetch the data. In this blog, we will look at planning, prerequisites and rationale to help decide between the approaches.

The Office 365 Audit logs are available from the Security and Compliance center when enabled. At present, audit logging is not enabled by default and needs to be enabled from the Security and Compliance center.… [Keep reading] “Office365-AzureHybrid: Building an automated solution to pull Office 365 Audit logs”

Protecting Application Credentials when implementing Modular Azure Functions with Microsoft Flow

23rd of April, 2018 / / 1 Comment

This weekend I was attempting to rework some older Azure Automation tasks I wrote some time ago that were a combination of PowerShell scripts and Azure (PowerShell Functions). I was looking to leverage Microsoft Flow so that I could have them handy as ‘Buttons’ in the Microsoft Flow mobile app.
Quite quickly I realized that Microsoft Flow didn’t have the capability to perform some of the automation I required, so I handed that off to an Azure Function.… [Keep reading] “Protecting Application Credentials when implementing Modular Azure Functions with Microsoft Flow”

How to quickly copy Azure Functions between Azure Tenants and implement 'Run From Zip'

17th of April, 2018 / / 3 Comments

As mentioned in this post yesterday I needed to copy a bunch of Azure WebApps and Functions from one Tenant to another. With anything cloud based, things move fast. Some of the methods I found were too onerous and more complex than they needed to be. There is of course the Backup option as well for Azure Functions. This does require a storage account associated with the Function App Plan. My Functions didn’t have the need for storage and the plan tier they were on meant that wasn’t a prerequisite. … [Keep reading] “How to quickly copy Azure Functions between Azure Tenants and implement 'Run From Zip'”

Building a Teenager Notification Service using Azure IoT an Azure Function, Microsoft Flow, Mongoose OS and a Micro Controller

28th of March, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

This is the third and final post on my recent experiments integrating small micro controllers (ESP8266) running Mongoose OS integrated with Azure IoT Services.
In the first post in this series I detailed creating the Azure IoT Hub and registering a NodeMCU (ESP8266 based) micro controller with it. The post detailing that can be found here. Automating the creation of Azure IoT Hubs and the registration of IoT Devices with PowerShell and VS Code
In the second post I detailed communicating with the micro controller (IoT device) using MQTT and PowerShell.… [Keep reading] “Building a Teenager Notification Service using Azure IoT an Azure Function, Microsoft Flow, Mongoose OS and a Micro Controller”

Enabling and using Managed Service Identity to access an Azure Key Vault with Azure PowerShell Functions

19th of September, 2017 / / 4 Comments

Introduction

At the end of last week (14 Sept 2017) Microsoft announced a new Azure Active Directory feature – Managed Service Identity. Managed Service Identity helps solve the chicken and egg bootstrap problem of needing credentials to connect to the Azure Key Vault to retrieve credentials. When used in conjunction with Virtual Machines, Web Apps and Azure Functions that meant having to implement methods to obfuscate credentials that were stored within them. I touched on one method that I’ve used a lot in this post here whereby I encrypt the credential and store it in the Application Settings, but it still required a keyfile to allow reversing of the encryption as part of the automation process.… [Keep reading] “Enabling and using Managed Service Identity to access an Azure Key Vault with Azure PowerShell Functions”

Display Microsoft Identity Manager Sync Engine Statistics in the MIM Portal

15th of September, 2017 / / No Comments

Introduction

In the Microsoft / Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service Manager under Tools we have a Statistics Report. This gives a break down of each of the Management Agents and the Connectors on each MA.
I had a recent requirement to expose this information for a customer but I didn’t want them to have to connect to the Synchronization Server (and be given the permissions to allow them to). So I looked into another way of providing a subset of this information in the MIM Portal itself.  … [Keep reading] “Display Microsoft Identity Manager Sync Engine Statistics in the MIM Portal”

Monitoring Azure Storage Queues with Application Insights and Azure Monitor

7th of September, 2017 / / 9 Comments

Azure Queues provides an easy queuing system for cloud-based applications. Queues allow for loose coupling between application components, and applications that use queues can take advantage of features like peek-locking and multiple retry attempts to enable application resiliency and high availability. Additionally, when Azure Queues are used with Azure Functions or Azure WebJobs, the built-in poison queue support allows for messages that repeatedly fail processing attempts to be moved to a dedicated queue for later inspection.… [Keep reading] “Monitoring Azure Storage Queues with Application Insights and Azure Monitor”

Integration of Microsoft Identity Manager with Azure Platform-as-a-Service Services

14th of June, 2017 / / 1 Comment

Overview

This isn’t an out of the box solution. This is a bespoke solution that takes a number of elements and puts them together in a unique way. I’m not expecting anyone to implement this specific solution (but you’re more than welcome to) but to take inspiration from it to implement solutions relevant to your environment(s). This post supports a presentation I did to The MIM Team User Group on 14 June 2017.
This post describes a solution that;

  • Leverages an Azure WebApp (NodeJS) to present a simple website.
… [Keep reading] “Integration of Microsoft Identity Manager with Azure Platform-as-a-Service Services”

An Azure Timer Function App to retrieve files via FTP and Remote PowerShell

13th of February, 2017 / / 4 Comments

Introduction

In an age of Web Services and API’s it’s an almost a forgotten world where FTP Servers exist. However most recently I’ve had to travel back in time and interact with a FTP server to get a set of files that are produced by other systems on a daily basis. These files are needed for some flat-file imports into Microsoft Identity Manager.
Getting files off a FTP server is pretty simple. But needing to do it across a number of different environments (Development, Staging and Production) meant I was looking for an easy approach that I could also replicate quickly across multiple environments.… [Keep reading] “An Azure Timer Function App to retrieve files via FTP and Remote PowerShell”