As a follow on from my last post, I wanted to explore using Packer to create images for Azure Lab Services in more detail. Specifically, how images created using Packer could be imported into Azure Lab Services. If you’re new to Azure Lab Services, I’d recommend reading my previous post on it. Why use Packer with Azure Lab Services? This […]
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Overview Recently I have been using Azure Lab Services to prepare Lab Environments for testing and training scenarios, and also using various tools to help create and customise these environments as I need. Azure Lab Services provides on-demand or scheduled access to virtual machines to support various scenarios. A summary of the key points is below: Provide access to Virtual […]
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✅ I recently gained access to the new Bing AI Service – and decided to put it to the test for learning new skills, and testing out how it might impact some of the things I do regularly. What is Bing AI? Bing AI is the artificial intelligence technology that powers Bing search engine and its related products and services. […]
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Please note – Elastic SAN is a Preview Service – so expect changes and updates! As you may be aware, Azure Elastic SAN is now in Public Preview. Elastic SAN aims to solve the challenge of workload optimization and integration between large scale databases and performance-intensive mission-critical applications. The Elastic SAN Preview simplifies deployment, scaling, management, and configuration of a […]
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⚠ Please note – Chaos Studio is a Preview Service – so expect changes and updates! Introduction Chaos Engineering is the process of testing a solution and its ability to withstand problems and faults whilst maintaining the required level of service or uptime. Chaos Testing is carried out to provide a level of comfort that the solution undergoing testing will […]
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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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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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As you may know, Smart Scale has been discontinued as of 31/05/2019. But – fear not, a community project now provides the same functionality. This project is the brainchild of Leee Jeffries (twitter/blog – well worth a follow/read for anyone working in the EUC space by the way!), and provides a simple to use solution, that provides a great replacement […]
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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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Azure Storage Sync provides the means to synchronise files from various locations into an Azure Storage account and to endpoints running the Azure Storage Sync agent. In this post I will give a quick overview of how it can be setup to service branch office requirements whereby VPN connectivity does not exist. For further information see here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-sync-files-planning. Here’s my environment which I […]
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It’s probably no secret that half of the IT blogs out there are running on WordPress or a similar Platform. WordPress is easy to use, simple, and requires little maintenance to run – what’s not to love?! As with any Website – it doesn’t matter how good the back-end code or server hosting the site is, if your user is […]
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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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