How to create an Azure Function App to Simultaneously Start|Stop all Virtual Machines in a Resource Group

6th of January, 2017 / / 6 Comments

Just on a year ago I wrote this blog post that detailed a method to “Simultaneously Start|Stop all Azure Resource Manager Virtual Machines in a Resource Group”. It’s a simple script that I use quite a lot and I’ve received a lot of positive feedback on it.
One year on though and there are a few enhancements I’ve been wanting to make to it. Namely;

  • host the script in an environment that is a known state.
… [Keep reading] “How to create an Azure Function App to Simultaneously Start|Stop all Virtual Machines in a Resource Group”

How to use a Powershell Azure Function to Tweet IoT environment data

29th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76015/BlogImages/FunctionIOTWeather/Azure%20Function%20Twitter.png

Overview

This blog post details how to use a Powershell Azure Function App to get information from a RestAPI and send a social media update.
The data can come from anywhere, and in the case of this example I’m getting the data from WioLink IoT Sensors. This builds upon my previous post here that details using Powershell to get environmental information and put it in Power BI.  Essentially the difference in this post is outputting the manipulated data to social media (Twitter) whilst still using a TimerTrigger Powershell Azure Function App to perform the work and leverage the “serverless” Azure Functions model.… [Keep reading] “How to use a Powershell Azure Function to Tweet IoT environment data”

How to use a Powershell Azure Function App to get RestAPI IoT data into Power BI for Visualization

29th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

Overview

This blog post details using a Powershell Azure Function App to get IoT data from a RestAPI and update a table in Power BI with that data for visualization.
The data can come from anywhere, however in the case of this post I’m getting the data from WioLink IoT Sensors. This builds upon my previous post here that details using Powershell to get environmental information and put it in Power BI.  Essentially the major change is to use a TimerTrigger Azure Function to perform the work and leverage the “serverless” Azure Functions model.… [Keep reading] “How to use a Powershell Azure Function App to get RestAPI IoT data into Power BI for Visualization”

Using an Azure Function to search the FIM/MIM Metaverse, create a Set and update the Set membership in the the FIM/MIM Service

18th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

Introduction

This is the third and last post in this series of integrating Microsoft Identity Manager with Azure Functions.
The first detailed how to use an Azure Function to retrieve data from the MIM Service Server. The second detailed how to use an Azure Function to retrieve data from the MIM Sync (Metaverse) Server.
This third post combines the two and then performs an action in the MIM Service. The practical purpose of this could be functions like “find all users in location y” and “enable them for entitlement x” or “add an attribute value on each of their objects”.… [Keep reading] “Using an Azure Function to search the FIM/MIM Metaverse, create a Set and update the Set membership in the the FIM/MIM Service”

Get Users/Groups/Objects from Microsoft/Forefront Identity Manager with Azure Functions and the Lithnet Resource Management Powershell Module

14th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

Introduction

As an Identity Management consultant if I had a $1 for every time I’ve been asked “what is user x’s current status in IDAM”, “is user x active?”, “does user x have an account in y?”, “what is user x’s primary email address?”, particularly after Go Live of an IDAM solution my holidays would be a lot more exotic.
From a Service Desk perspective IDAM implementations are often a black box in the middle of the network that for the most part do what they were designed and implemented to do.… [Keep reading] “Get Users/Groups/Objects from Microsoft/Forefront Identity Manager with Azure Functions and the Lithnet Resource Management Powershell Module”

Azure Functions or WebJobs? Where to run my background processes on Azure?

14th of September, 2016 / / 14 Comments

functionsvswebjobs-icon

Introduction

Azure WebJobs have been a quite popular way of running background processes on Azure. They have been around since early 2014. When they were released, they were a true PaaS alternative to Cloud Services Worker Roles bringing many benefits like the WebJobs SDK, easy configuration of scalability and availability, a dashboard, and more recently all the advantages of Azure Resource Manager and a very flexible continuous delivery model. My colleague Namit previously compared WebJobs to Worker Roles.… [Keep reading] “Azure Functions or WebJobs? Where to run my background processes on Azure?”