Why is the Azure Load Balancer NOT working?

Context

For most workloads that I’ve deployed in Azure that have required load balancing, for the Azure Load Balancer (ALB) used in those architectures, the out of the box experience or the default configuration was used. The load balancer service is great like that, whereby for the majority of scenarios it just works out of the box. I’m sure this isn’t an Azure only experience either. The other public cloud providers have a great out of the box load balancing service that would work with just about any service without in depth configuration.… [Keep reading] “Why is the Azure Load Balancer NOT working?”

Deploy VM via ARM template: Purchase eligibility failed

I recently tried to deploy a VM using an ARM template executed via PowerShell and I encountered the purchase eligibility failed error as seen below.
PurchaseEligibilityFailedError
As I have encountered this before I ensured I accepted marketplace terms for the VM image in question using the PowerShell commands:

Get-AzureRmMarketplaceTerms -Publisher PublisherName -Product ProductName -Name Name | Set-AzureRmMarketplaceTerms -Accept

I then reattempted to deploy my VM using my ARM template and still got the same error, I even waited 24 hours and tried again with no luck.… [Keep reading] “Deploy VM via ARM template: Purchase eligibility failed”

Creating SharePoint Modern Team sites using Site Scripts, Flow and Azure Function

With Site Scripts and Site design, it is possible to invoke custom PnP Provisioning for Modern Team Sites from a Site Script. In the previous blog, we saw how we can provision Simple modern sites using Site Scripts JSON. However, there are some scenarios where we would need a custom provisioning template or process such as listed below:

  • Auto deploy custom web components such as SPFx extension apps
  • Complex Site Templates which couldn’t be configured
  • Complex Document libs, content types that are provided by JSON schema.
[Keep reading] “Creating SharePoint Modern Team sites using Site Scripts, Flow and Azure Function”

Intro to Site Scripts and Site Designs with a Simple SharePoint Modern Site provisioning

Microsoft announced Site Scripts and Site Designs in late 2017 which became available for Targeted release in Jan 2018, and released to general use recently. It is a quick way to allow users to create custom modern sites, without using any scripting hacks. Hence, in this blog we will go through the steps of Site Scripts and Site design for a Simple SharePoint Modern Site Creation.
Before we get into detailed steps, lets’ get a brief overview about Site Designs and Site Scripts.… [Keep reading] “Intro to Site Scripts and Site Designs with a Simple SharePoint Modern Site provisioning”

Getting Azure 99.95% SLA for Cisco FTD virtual appliances in Azure via availability sets and ARM templates

First published on Lucian’s blog at Lucian.Blog. Follow Lucian on Twitter: @LucianFrango or connect via LinkedIn: Lucian Franghiu.


In the real world there are numerous lessons learned, experiences, opinions and vendors recommendations that dictate and what constitutes “best practice” when it comes to internet edge security. It’s a can of worms that I don’t want to open as I am not claiming to be an expert in that regard. I can say that I do have enough experience to know that not having any security is a really bad idea and having bank level security for regular enterprise customers can be excessive.… [Keep reading] “Getting Azure 99.95% SLA for Cisco FTD virtual appliances in Azure via availability sets and ARM templates”

Why are you not using Azure Resource Explorer (Preview)?

For almost two years the Azure Resource Explorer has been in preview. For almost two years barely anyone has used it. This stops today!

I’ve been playing around with the Azure Portal (ARM) and clicking away stumbled upon the Azure Resource Explorer; available via https://resources.azure.com. Before you go any further, click on that or open the URI in a new tab in your favourite browser (I’m using Chrome 56.x for Mac if you were wondering) and finally BOOKMARK IT!… [Keep reading] “Why are you not using Azure Resource Explorer (Preview)?”

[Updated] Yammer group and user export via Yammer API to JSON, then converted to CSV

 
Update: awesome pro-tip
Big shout out to Scott Hoag (@ciphertxt on Twitter) with this pro-tip which will save you having to read this blog post. Yes, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Part of a Yammer network merge (which I am writing a blog post about.. WIP), you would lose data, posts, files etc as that can’t come across. You can however do an export of all that data to, depending on how much there is to export, usually a large .zip file. This is where Scott showed me the light. In that export, there are also two .csv files that contain all the user info in the first, and in the second all the group info. Knowing this, run that export process and you probably don’t need to read the rest of this blog post. #FacePalm.
HOWEVER, and that is a big however for a reason. The network export process does not export what members there are in groups in that groups.csv file. So if you want to to export Yammer groups and all their members, the below blog post is one way of doing that process, just a longer way… 


Yammer network merges are not pretty. I’m not taking a stab at you (Yammer developers and Microsoft Office 365 developers), but, I’m taking a stab.
There should be an option to allow at least group and group member data to be brought across when there is a network merge. Fair enough not bringing any data across as that can certainly be a headache with the vast amount of posts, photos, files and various content that consumes a Yammer network.
However, it would be considerably much less painful for customers if at least the groups and all their members could be merged. It would also make my life a little easier not having to do it.
Let me set the stage her and paint you a word picture. I’m no developer. Putting that out there from the start. I am good at problem solving though and I’m a black belt at finding information online (surfing the interwebs). So, after some deliberation, I found the following that might help with gathering group and user data, to be used for Yammer network merges.
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How to parse JSON data in Nintex Workflow for Office 365

A workflow is usually described as a series of tasks that produce an outcome. In the context of Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, a workflow is defined more precisely as the automated movement of documents or items through a specific sequence of actions or tasks that are related to a business process. SharePoint Workflows can be used to consistently manage common business processes within an organisation by allowing the attachment of business logic that is set of instructions to documents or items in a SharePoint list or library.… [Keep reading] “How to parse JSON data in Nintex Workflow for Office 365”

Automate your Cloud Operations Part 2: AWS CloudFormation

Stacking the AWS CloudFormation

Automate your Cloud Operations blog post Part 1 have given us the basic understanding on how to automate the AWS stack using CloudFormation.

This post will help the reader on how to layer the stack on top of the existing AWS CloudFormation stack using AWS CloudFormation instead of modifying the base template. AWS resources can be added into existing VPC using the outputs detailing the resources from the main VPC stack instead of having to modify the main template.… [Keep reading] “Automate your Cloud Operations Part 2: AWS CloudFormation”