Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 5: Unit Testing

13th of February, 2018 / / 4 Comments

Over the last four parts of this series, we’ve discussed how we can write server-side code for Cosmos DB, and the types of situations where it makes sense to do so. If you’re building a small sample application, you now have enough knowledge to go and build out UDFs, stored procedures, and triggers. But if you’re writing production-grade applications, there are two other major topics that need discussion: how to unit test your server-side code, and how to build and deploy it to Cosmos DB in an automated and predictable manner.… [Keep reading] “Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 5: Unit Testing”

Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 4: Triggers

30th of January, 2018 / / 7 Comments

scTriggers are the third type of server-side code in Cosmos DB. Triggers allow for logic to be run while an operation is running on a document. When a document is to be created, modified, or deleted, our custom logic can be executed – either before or after the operation takes place – allowing us to validate documents, transform documents, and even create secondary documents or perform other operations on the collection. As with stored procedures, this all takes place within the scope of an implicit transaction.… [Keep reading] “Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 4: Triggers”

Updated Intune and NDES reference architecture, multiple NDES patterns

22nd of January, 2018 / / 7 Comments

Now that Microsoft Intune is accessed via the Microsoft Azure portal, there has been a steady stream of weekly updates to the platform, improving things (for the most part) along the way. As of the end of November 2017, there was announced an interesting new feature that should become part of most Intune environments.
The key feature of note is the new ability to have multiple Network Device Enrolment Servers (NDES) configured for use with Intune.… [Keep reading] “Updated Intune and NDES reference architecture, multiple NDES patterns”

Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 3: Stored Procedures

19th of January, 2018 / / 6 Comments

Stored procedures, the second type of server-side code that can run within Cosmos DB, provide the ability to execute blocks of functionality from inside the database engine. Typically we use stored procedures for discrete tasks that can be encapsulated within a single invocation. In this post, we will discuss some situations where stored procedures can be used and the actions and queries that they can perform. We’ll then start to work through the server-side API model, and look at how we can work with the incoming stored procedure invocation’s request and response as well as the Cosmos DB collection itself.… [Keep reading] “Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 3: Stored Procedures”

Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 2: User-Defined Functions

12th of January, 2018 / / No Comments

User-defined functions (UDFs) in Cosmos DB allow for simple calculations and computations to be performed on values, entities, and documents. In this post I will introduce UDFs, and then provide detailed steps to set up a basic UDF written in TypeScript. Many of these same steps will be applicable to stored procedures and triggers, which we’ll look at in future posts.

This is the second part of a series of blog posts on server-side development using Cosmos DB with TypeScript.… [Keep reading] “Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 2: User-Defined Functions”

Azure AD Domain Services

4th of December, 2017 / / No Comments

I recently had what I thought was a rather unique requirement from a customer.
The requirement was to build Azure IaaS virtual machines and have them joined to a managed domain, while also being able to authenticate to the virtual machines using Azure AD credentials.
The answer is Azure AD Domain Services!
Azure AD Domain Services provides managed domain services such as domain join, group policy and Kerberos/NTLM authentication without the need for you to deploy and  manage domain controllers in the cloud.… [Keep reading] “Azure AD Domain Services”

Seamless Multi-identity Browsing for Cloud Consultants

29th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

If you’re a technical consultant working with cloud services like Office 365 or Azure on behalf of various clients, you have to deal with many different logins and passwords for the same URLs. This is painful, as your default browser instance doesn’t handle multiple accounts and you generally have to resort to InPrivate (IE) or Incognito (Chrome) modes which mean a lot of copying and pasting of usernames and passwords to do your job. If this is how you operate today: stop.… [Keep reading] “Seamless Multi-identity Browsing for Cloud Consultants”

Azure Application Security Groups

21st of November, 2017 / / 3 Comments

Azure Application Security Groups (ASG) are a new feature, currently in Preview, that allows for configuring network security using an application-centric approach within Network Security Groups (NSG). This approach allows for the grouping of Virtual Machines logicaly, irrespective of their IP address or subnet assignment within a VNet.

They work by assigning the network interfaces of virtual machines, as members of the ASG. ASGs are then used within NSGs as either a source or destination of a rule, and this provides additional options and flexibility for controlling network flows of resources within a subnet.… [Keep reading] “Azure Application Security Groups”

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”