Category: Quick Post

Exploring Azure Stack HCI and the IAC options

Recently I have been focusing on learning more about Azure Stack HCI – it’s an area that continues to be a focus point in my daily role. Key to the uptake of Azure Stack HCI is a drive to centralise on the Azure Ecosystem that I see with many of the customers I work with. For this post I wanted […]

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Azure DevOps – using Packer to create images

Recently I’ve been using Packer to create images for use with Citrix Cloud and Windows Virtual Desktop, and building this into a DevOps Pipeline, to automate creation of images based on a JSON template. Within Azure DevOps this is a really simple process – and great for creating VM images within your Pipelines, or for Lab/Testing environments too. I use […]

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Azure DevOps – Automating Domain Controller promotion

For a while I have been deploying infrastructure using Azure DevOps, and in particular deploying demo environments which need to be spun up and torn down again, but also to demonstrate the power of Infrastructure as Code. One issue I’ve faced with a pure ARM/Bicep or Terraform deployment is the promotion of a Domain Controller… it is straightforward to deploy […]

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Azure Automanage Preview

Hello! In this post I’ll be covering an overview of the Azure Automanage Preview – and giving an overview of how it can be used to simplify management, achieve best practice, and provide automation of Virtual Machines in a few quick steps. What is Azure Automanage? Azure Automanage is a service that removes the need to “discover, know how to […]

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Creating a secure Home/Guest/IOT Wifi environment with Ubiquiti

As many of my friends and colleagues will know, I am a big fan of Smart Home/IOT technology – plugs, lights, sensors, cameras… I like automating things around the house – partly for security reasons, partly for reasons of making my life easier, but mostly because I enjoy working with technology! 🙂 However, I am well aware of the security […]

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Microsoft Flow, Microsoft Forms and Azure AD – what can we do?

Recently, I have been playing around more and more with Microsoft Flow – which is a tool designed to Automate processes and tasks. In a previous post I used a tool called Stringify to automate a number of Smart Home actions. Microsoft Flow provides a similar environment and allows integration between processes and tasks. I was impressed from the first […]

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Testing out the Azure Firewall Preview

Azure Firewall was released for preview this week, so I thought I would give it a quick try and look at some of the features available. The firewall provides the following features at the current time: Built-in high availability – built into the Azure Platform, so no requirement to create load balanced configurations Unrestricted cloud scalability – the firewall can […]

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Quick Post! – Using NetScaler responder policies/actions and backup vServers to notify users of Service Downtime

NetScaler, as I am sure you are aware, is a superbly powerful Application Delivery Controller. One of the most useful features is the use of Responder Policies/Actions, and Backup vServers to indicate that a service is down or to provide access to an alternative service for end users. Let’s say – you have a load balancer configured that balances two […]

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