Microsoft Azure Stack is the New Hybrid Cloud

4th of February, 2016 / / No Comments

Last week Microsoft released the public technical preview of new Azure Stack. Azure Stack, along with its predecessor Windows Azure Pack, gives anyone the ability to extend Azure management capabilities to their on-premises datacentre.

Firstly, a bit of background.

With Windows Server 2012 R2, Microsoft made available Windows Azure Pack. Azure Pack offered an on-premise integration point between Windows Server, System Centre, and SQL Server to offer a self-service portal and private cloud services including virtual machine provisioning and management (IaaS), database as a services (DBaaS), and scalable web application hosting (PaaS).… [Keep reading] “Microsoft Azure Stack is the New Hybrid Cloud”

Getting Started with the Azure Security Center

9th of December, 2015 / / 5 Comments

Microsoft recently announced the availability of the Azure Security Center which is designed to provide a single place to view your security stance for resources deployed to Azure.

In this post I’m going to walk you through what’s initially available and see how it can start helping you today.

Who ever said “no” to something that’s free?

The core features (today) are free. Yes – free. This isn’t just preview pricing either. During preview even the Standard Tier is free until early 2016.… [Keep reading] “Getting Started with the Azure Security Center”

Resource Manager Cmdlets in Azure PowerShell 1.0

24th of November, 2015 / / 5 Comments

Azure recently launched the 1.0 version of PowerShell cmdlets. The changes are huge, including new Azure Resource Manager (ARM), which resulted in deprecating Azure-SwitchMode between ASM and ARM. In this post, we only have a brief look at how new PowerShell cmdlets for ARM have been introduced, especially for managing resource groups and templates.

Installation

In order to get the newest Azure PowerShell, using MS Web Platform Installer is the quickest and easiest way.

Note: At the moment of writing, the released date of Azure PowerShell is Nov.

… [Keep reading] “Resource Manager Cmdlets in Azure PowerShell 1.0”

Google Cloud Messaging using Azure Notification Hub

8th of November, 2015 / / 3 Comments

The Xamarin team have provided a very helpful tutorial to get started with setting up Android notifications – I suggest using this to get the basic implementation working, and ensure you’re using the GcmRegistrationIntentService version, and avoid using the depreciated GCM Client.

To get a complete end to end solution up and running there is a fair bit of additional information required.  Here’s a guide for using Microsoft Azure Notification Hub.

Set up Google Cloud Messaging service

Log into the Google Developer Console (https://console.developers.google.com/… [Keep reading] “Google Cloud Messaging using Azure Notification Hub”

[UPDATED] Azure AD Connect: SyncRuleEditor.exe and why is targetAddress missing

17th of September, 2015 / / No Comments

Originally  blogged @ lucian.blog. Follow Lucian on Twitter @LucianFrango. Send Lucian an email.

Today is back to AAD Connect. I want to talk about Office 365 migrations and how they can be tricky with various options and scenarios around hybrid or non hybrid. On a recent project we were migrating a client from IBM Lotus Notes to Exchange Online in Office 365. The plan and proposed solution was designed to not use Exchange Server Hybrid on-premises and use Dell Software Migrator for a direct migration from on-premises to the cloud.

The client has never had Exchange Server on-premises before and was running a well-managed ADDS deployment spanning three sites across three continents. To allow for the schema requirements for Exchange Online, Exchange Server 2013 was downloaded and the ADDS schema was extended with that from Exchange Server 2013. All simple, standard stuff right?..

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Secure Azure Virtual Network Defense In Depth using Network Security Groups, User Defined Routes and Barracuda NG Firewall

25th of August, 2015 / / 3 Comments

Security Challenge on Azure

There are few common security related questions when we start planning migration to Azure:

  • How can we restrict the ingress and egress traffic on Azure ?
  • How can we route the traffic on Azure ?
  • Can we have Firewall kit, Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), Network Access Control, Application Control and Anti – Malware on Azure DMZ ?

This blog post intention is to answer above questions using following Azure features combined with Security Virtual Appliance available on Azure Marketplace:

  • Azure Virtual Network (VNET)
  • Azure Network Security Groups (NSGs)
  • Azure Network Security Rule
  • Azure Forced Tunelling
  • Azure Route Table
  • Azure IP Forwarding
  • Barracuda NG Firewall available on Azure Marketplace

One of the most common methods of attack is The Script Kiddie / Skiddie / Script Bunny / Script Kitty.… [Keep reading] “Secure Azure Virtual Network Defense In Depth using Network Security Groups, User Defined Routes and Barracuda NG Firewall”

Kloud Solutions named as Microsoft Australia Partner Awards finalist in four categories!

10th of August, 2015 / / No Comments

MELBOURNE, VICTORIA – 10 August, 2015 – Today, Kloud Solutions proudly announced it has been named a finalistin four categories in the 2015 Microsoft Australian Partner Awards (MAPA):

  • Cloud Productivity
  • Cloud Platform
  • Managed Service
  • Social Enterprise

Earlier this year, Kloud won Cloud Productivity Partner of the Year and was recognised as a finalist for Enterprise Mobility Suite Partner of the Year at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Orlando, Florida.

Kloud’s managing director Nicki Bowers is proud of the recognition, saying it is representative of the way customers entrust Kloud with their journey to the cloud.… [Keep reading] “Kloud Solutions named as Microsoft Australia Partner Awards finalist in four categories!”

Azure Applications Insights for Xamarin iOS

7th of August, 2015 / / 4 Comments

Azure Application Insights (AI) is a great instrumentation tool that can help you learn about how your application is doing during run-time. It is currently in Preview mode, so bear that in mind when developing production ready apps. It gives you the ability to log lots of different kinds of information like tracing, page views, custom events, metrics and more.

Azure AI supports multiple platforms, but unfortunately they have not released a Xamarin package yet. There is one library which is for Xamarin.Forms… [Keep reading] “Azure Applications Insights for Xamarin iOS”

Azure Active Directory Connect Export profile error: stopped-server-down.

5th of August, 2015 / / 14 Comments

Follow Lucian on Twitter @LucianFrango.

A couple of weeks ago I deployed Azure AD Connect in production. It was a relatively smooth process. The wizard did most of the work which was great. There was a few hiccups (blog post) along the way, which, in most cases is expected if the problems are not so serious.

Fast forward to my second install of the latest and greatest sync service for Azure AD and Office 365 cloud identities and we have problem no. 2. This time, though, I can say that the process ran through allot smoother. There was no real errors. Things were looking straight great and I was looking at my next task with some enthusiasm.

However, come 8.30ish this morning and going over the AADConnect server once more for peace of mind, I had noticed that the “Export” profile task that runs as the last task in the scheduled hourly run for AADConnect synchronisation (I’ve set it to 60min), unfortunately had a nice little error for me:

2015-08-05--AADC-Error--01

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Azure Preview Features website

31st of July, 2015 / / No Comments

I had stumbled upon this site before, however, on my long journey through the interwebs I must have forgotten or lost it. The site I’m referring to is the Azure Preview Features site which isn’t directly accessible through the main Azure site top or bottom menu’s. So as this is a lucky find, I thought I’d share.

(Note: If you Google Azure preview; the site is the first result that comes up. Face palm?)

The Azure Feature Preview site is a list of current publicly accessible preview features and functionality. Moreover, Microsoft explain that the preview features in Azure are as follows:

Azure currently offers the following preview features, which are made available to you for evaluation purposes and subject to reduced or different service terms, as set forth in your service agreement and the preview supplemental terms. Azure may include preview, beta, or other pre-release features, services, software, or regions to obtain customer feedback (“Previews”). Previews are made available to you on the condition that you agree to these terms of use, which supplement your agreement governing use of Microsoft Azure.

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