PowerShell gotcha when connecting ASM Classic VNETs to ARM ExpressRoute

5th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

Recently I was working on an Azure ExpressRoute configuration change that required an uplift from a 1GB circuit to a 10Gb circuit. Now thats nothing interesting, but, of note was using some PowerShell to execute a cmdlet.
A bit of a back story to set the scene here; and I promise it will be brief.
You can no longer provision Azure ExpressRoute circuits in the Classic or ASM deployment model. All ExpressRoute circuits that are provisioned now are indeed Azure Resource Manager (ASM) deployments.… [Keep reading] “PowerShell gotcha when connecting ASM Classic VNETs to ARM ExpressRoute”

Using your Voice to Search Microsoft Identity Manager – Part 2

5th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

Last month I wrote this post that detailed using your voice to search/query Microsoft Identity Manager. That post demonstrated a working solution (GitHub repository coming next month) but was still incomplete if it was to be used in production within an Enterprise. I hinted then that there were additional enhancements I was looking to make. One is an Auditing/Reporting aspect and that is what I cover in this post.

Overview

The one element of the solution that has visibility of each search scenario is the IoT Device.… [Keep reading] “Using your Voice to Search Microsoft Identity Manager – Part 2”

Using your Voice to Search Microsoft Identity Manager – Part 1

25th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

Yes, you’ve read the title correctly. Speaking to Microsoft Identity Manager. The concept behind this was born off the back of some other work I was doing with Microsoft Cognitive Services. I figured it shouldn’t be that difficult if I just break down the concept into individual elements of functionality and put together a proof of concept to validate the idea. That’s what I did and this is the first post of the solution as an overview.… [Keep reading] “Using your Voice to Search Microsoft Identity Manager – Part 1”

Sending Events from IoT Devices to Azure IoT Hub using HTTPS and REST

22nd of June, 2018 / / No Comments

Overview

Different IoT Devices have different capabilities. Whether it is a Micro-controller or Single Board Computer your options will vary. In this post I detailed using MQTT to send messages from an IoT Device to an Azure IoT Hub as well as using the AzureIoT PowerShell Module.
For a current project I needed to send the events from an IoT Device that runs Linux and had Python support. The Azure IoT Hub includes an HTTPS REST endpoint.… [Keep reading] “Sending Events from IoT Devices to Azure IoT Hub using HTTPS and REST”

Auto-redirect ADFS 4.0 home realm discovery based on client IP

14th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

As I mentioned in my previous post here that I will explain how to auto-redirect the home realm discovery page to an ADFS namespace (claims provider trust) based on client’s IP so here I am.
Let’s say you have many ADFS servers (claims providers trusts) linked to a central ADFS 4.0 server and you want to auto-redirect the user to a linked ADFS server login page based on user’s IP instead of letting the user to choose a respective ADFS server from the list on the home realm discovery page as explained in the below request flow diagram.… [Keep reading] “Auto-redirect ADFS 4.0 home realm discovery based on client IP”

Utilising Azure Speech to Text Cognitive Services with PowerShell

8th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

Yesterday I posted about using Azure Cognitive Services to convert text to speech. I also eluded that I’ve been leveraging Cognitive Services to do the conversion from Speech to Text. I detail that in this post.
Just as with the Text to Speech we will need an API key to use Cognitive Services. You can get one from Azure Cognitive Services here.

Source Audio File

I created an audio file in Audacity  for testing purposes.… [Keep reading] “Utilising Azure Speech to Text Cognitive Services with PowerShell”

Automate network share migrations to Sharepoint Online using ShareGate PowerShell

7th of June, 2018 / / 2 Comments

Sharegate supports PowerShell scripting which can be used to automate and schedule migrations. In this post, I am going to demonstrate an example of end to end automation to migrate network Shares to SharePoint Online. The process effectively reduces the task of executing migrations to “just flicking a switch”.

Pre-Migration

The following pre-migration activities were conducted before the actual migration:

  1. Analysis of Network Shares
  2. Discussions with stakeholders from different business units to identify content needs
  3. Pilot migrations to identify average throughput capability of migration environment
  4. Identification of acceptable data filtration criteria, and prepare Sharegate migration template files based on business requirements
  5. Derive a migration plan from above steps

Migration Automation flow

The diagram represents a high-level flow of the process:
 

The migration automation was implemented to execute the following steps:

  1. Migration team indicates that migration(s) are ready to be initiated by updating the list item(s) in the SharePoint list
  2. Updated item(s) are detected by a PowerShell script polling the SharePoint list
  3. The list item data is downloaded as a CSV file.
… [Keep reading] “Automate network share migrations to Sharepoint Online using ShareGate PowerShell”

Utilising Azure Text to Speech Cognitive Services with PowerShell

7th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

Recently I’ve been building an IoT Project that leverages Azure Cognitive Services. A couple of the services I needed to use were for converting Text to Speech and Speech to Text. The guides were pretty good from Microsoft, but not obvious for use with native PowerShell. I’ve got it all working, so am documenting it for myself for the future but also to help anyone else trying to work it out.

Accessing the Cognitive Services Text to Speech API

Azure Cognitive Services Text to Speech is a great service that provides the ability as the name suggests, convert text to speech.… [Keep reading] “Utilising Azure Text to Speech Cognitive Services with PowerShell”

Some advanced ADFS 4.0 branding customization

23rd of May, 2018 / / No Comments

As you are aware that you can use some of the PowerShell commands to update the logo, banner/illustration images as well as home, privacy and other links of the ADFS 4.0 home realm discovery or sign in page. Below is an example of doing so
Set-AdfsWebTheme -TargetName custom -Logo @{path=”P:\Theme\Logo\logo.png”}

The above command would update the current logo image on the custom theme.
Set-AdfsGlobalWebContent -HomeLink https://{www.YourWebsite.Com}/ -HomeLinkText Home

Above command would update the “Home” link on all pages of your ADFS theme.… [Keep reading] “Some advanced ADFS 4.0 branding customization”

Exporting IoT Device Information from Azure IoT Hub(s) using PowerShell

22nd of May, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

I have a number of Azure IoT Hubs each with a number of devices configured on them. I wanted to export the details for each IoT Device. This can’t be done via the Azure Portal (May 2018) so I looked to leverage the Azure.IoTHub New-AzureRmIotHubExportDevices cmdlet.
Now the documentation for New-AzureRmIotHubExportDevices is a little light on. When I was running the New-AzureRmIotHubExportDevices I kept getting the error ‘Operation returned an invalid status code ‘InternalServerError’.… [Keep reading] “Exporting IoT Device Information from Azure IoT Hub(s) using PowerShell”