Identity within the Azure Cloud #2 Roles vs. Groups

The differences in what roles and groups are and how they are used.

by Steve Lazzara May 14, 2019

Identity within the Azure Cloud #1 What is a user’s identity?

With more companies extending their environments to include Cloud Services and Cloud functions it is important to recognize how the users and privileges are defined and managed within these extensions. 

by Steve Lazzara May 10, 2019

Reverse Engineering the Azure DevOps REST API

How to reverse engineer the JSON formatting required for REST API interactions with Azure DevOps

by Matt Sidwell Apr 3, 2019

Fixing Invoke-WebRequest

How to speed up build times up to 25% with one line of code.

by Nathan Stachowiak Apr 1, 2019

Terraform 101

A brief introduction to the basics of Terraform

by Matt Sidwell Feb 6, 2019

Top 10 Mistakes Companies Make Getting Started with Azure: #6— Over-Intermediating the Cloud UX to Control Deployment

Our last posts covered structuring and securing your Azure environment. Now, we’ll focus on a topic important for its actual use: how strictly to control deployment.
 
What people often do is create a portal between developers and Azure itself. This isn’t surprising, as it’s probably what they have on-premises: a portal that exists between developers and the servers that run the applications.
 

by Nathan Lasnoski Jan 30, 2019

Top 10 Mistakes Companies Make Getting Started with Azure: #7— Ignoring Identity, RBAC and Conditional Access

Now that your Azure Environment is effectively and properly structured, as noted in our previous post, we come across a slippery slope that must be avoided. Now that it has been created, it needs to be secured. It has become second nature to use a seatbelt, lock doors and assure the area is clear when entering or exiting a vehicle, and we must direct that line of thinking when it comes to employing technology.
 

by Nathan Lasnoski Jan 17, 2019

Top 10 Mistakes Companies Make Getting Started with Azure: #8— Not Structuring the Azure Environment Properly

In our previous post, we discussed the challenges that surface when you do not retrain or restructure existing employees before starting your Azure implementation journey. Now that you have your team on board and organized correctly, the next step is to create an effective structure in the Azure environment.

by Nathan Lasnoski Jan 3, 2019

Top 10 Mistakes Companies Make Getting Started with Azure: #9— Not retraining or restructuring existing employees

Last time, we covered the need for a company adoption strategy in your Azure implementation journey. Here’s another roadblock you have to get past: your employees’ familiarity with your prior ways of doing things. Implementing changes without taking into consideration the need to retrain and restructure your current work dynamics can easily lead to trouble—or, at the very least, inefficiencies.

by Nathan Lasnoski Dec 20, 2018

Top 10 Mistakes Companies Make Getting Started with Azure: #10—Failing to Define a Company Adoption Strategy

In this new blog series, I will take you through a test drive of the Microsoft Azure environment and discuss routes that have put companies in the ditch during navigation and implementation—and, more importantly, how to avoid them.
 

by Nathan Lasnoski Dec 6, 2018

Firewall Settings for Connecting to Azure SQL Databases from an Azure VM

This post describes an issue a client experienced connecting to an Azure SQL Database from an Azure VM through a third-party firewall.

by Frank Gill Jun 26, 2020

Why Migrate SQL Server to Azure

When making the decision to move SQL Server workloads to Azure, there are a series of questions that need to be answered.

• Why are you migrating to Azure?
• What are you going to migrate to Azure?
• Where will you migrate in Azure?
• How will migrate to Azure?
• When will you migrate to Azure?

The answer to the first of these questions is extremely important to answering the others.  In my experience, it is often neglected.

by Frank Gill Jan 3, 2020