Exchange Server 2016 install error: “Active Directory could not be contacted”

23rd of February, 2017 / / No Comments

I recently worked on a project where I had to install Exchange Server 2016 on an Azure VM and received error “Active Directory could not be contacted”.
To resolve the issue, I had to complete the following steps;

  1. Remove the Azure VM public IP address
  2. Disable IPv6 on the NICipv6-disabled
  3. Set the IPv4 DNS suffix to point to your domain. If a public address is being used it will be set to reddog.microsoft.com by default.dns-suffix

Once done the installation could proceed and Active Directory was contactable.

Break down your templates with Linked Templates (Part 1)

16th of April, 2016 / / 3 Comments

Templated deployment is one of the key value propositions of moving from the Azure classic to Resource Manager (ARM) deployment model.  This is probably one key feature that made a big stride towards Infrastructure as a Code (IAC).  Personally, I have been looking forward to this feature since it’s a prominent feature on the other competing platform.

Now that this feature is live for a while, one aspect which I found interesting is the ability to link templates in Azure Resource Manager. … [Keep reading] “Break down your templates with Linked Templates (Part 1)”

How to create custom images for use in Microsoft Azure

10th of September, 2014 / / No Comments

In this post I will discuss how we can create custom virtual machine images and deploy them to the Microsoft Azure platform. To complete this process you will need an Azure Subscription, the Azure PowerShell module installed and a pre-prepared VHD which you would like to use (VHDX is not supported at present.)

You can sign up for a free trial of Microsoft Azure here if you don’t currently hold a subscription.

Completing this process will allow you take advantage of platforms which aren’t offered “out of the box” on Microsoft Azure eg, Server 2003 and Server 2008 for testing and development.… [Keep reading] “How to create custom images for use in Microsoft Azure”