Azure

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Azure Lighthouse – managing customer Azure tenants as a Service Provider

Yesterday, Microsoft announced Azure Lighthouse. This post will walk you through what the service is, what benefits it brings, and why you should start using it. What is Azure Lighthouse? Azure Lighthouse is a new service from Microsoft, released on July 11th, 2019. It brings better management capabilities and flexibility for managing multiple Azure tenants through delegated access. It’s intended primarily for Managed Service Partners… Read More »Azure Lighthouse – managing customer Azure tenants as a Service Provider
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Building a Raspberry Pi 4-based weather monitoring solution using Ruuvitag sensors, Azure IoT Hub and Azure Functions

The Raspberry Pi organization announced Raspberry Pi 4 just a few weeks ago. I had to get one, and after placing an order, I received my RPi4 in only a few days. It’s a powerful little computer, with 4 GB of RAM and dual-HDMI outputs. It powers through USB-C, which is an excellent addition. I installed Raspbian on it and connected it to one of… Read More »Building a Raspberry Pi 4-based weather monitoring solution using Ruuvitag sensors, Azure IoT Hub and Azure Functions
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Running a static site in Microsoft Azure using WordPress for content management

I’m currently running my blog (the one you’re reading, thanks!) in Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform. For the longest of times — which is maybe five years — I ran multiple WordPress sites in Azure using the PaaS offering. This includes the Azure Marketplace-based template, that provisions a Web App and MySQL database with a few simple clicks. I also had our company website, e-commerce services… Read More »Running a static site in Microsoft Azure using WordPress for content management
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional

I’m renewed as a Microsoft MVP!

I’m renewed as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional today, for the sixth time in a row! I started my journey in 2014, and I’m again honored to be chosen as part of this elite community of enthusiasts and professionals around the globe. Every year has been great, and I’m anticipating for the next 12 months to be even greater! Microsoft MVP is a non-paid advocate… Read More »I’m renewed as a Microsoft MVP!
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Building a simple and secure DNS updater for Azure DNS using Raspberry Pi and Azure Functions

Almost exactly a year ago I blogged about building a simple and secure DNS updater for Azure DNS using PowerShell. If you didn’t read that post, it’s a solution for keeping my dynamic IP updated with a static DNS name using a little bit of automation from PowerShell. This tool is useful for when I VPN back home, the dynamic IP has often changed and… Read More »Building a simple and secure DNS updater for Azure DNS using Raspberry Pi and Azure Functions
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Mastering Azure CLI

  • Azure
I grew up with Perl, tcsh, bash, sh, awk, sed, grep, pico, vi, command.com and cmd.exe. Building scripts, batch files and little automations here and there was the norm for me and many others of that era. I’m especially proud for a set of .BAT files and VBScripts that connected to one of the very first Logitech USB webcams to retrieve a near real-time image… Read More »Mastering Azure CLI
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Anonymizing and masking sensitive data in SQL databases before migrating to Azure SQL

Many companies I interact with have expressed an interest in migrating their legacy SQL Server databases to Azure. Typically this is due to End of Life for SQL Server 2008 (and 2008 R2) and other times it’s a desire to perform reporting and analytics on existing data in the cloud. (I wrote about migrating to Azure SQL previously here) Mostly this is all documented nicely… Read More »Anonymizing and masking sensitive data in SQL databases before migrating to Azure SQL
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Tracking, resolving, storing and presenting AKA.MS short links from social media using Serverless capabilities in Azure

I think I’ve written once or twice I’m a great fan of building Proof of Concepts and prototypes. This allows me to rapidly learn without fear or risk of failing in front of an important customer. And all customers who pay for your time are important, of course. I’ve long admired the fantastic AKA.MS short links service Microsoft has internally created for their employees. Or… Read More »Tracking, resolving, storing and presenting AKA.MS short links from social media using Serverless capabilities in Azure
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Fun with Azure Functions: Building a lookup tool for Azure AD tenant IDs

  • Azure
I sometimes find myself struggling with a technical issue that I just can’t seem to resolve in a timely manner. Over the years I’ve learned that once you’ve spent maybe 15 to 30 minutes troubleshooting without any noticeable progress, there’s only two things that will help you: a huge cup of fresh coffee or working on something else for a while. Some people claim asking… Read More »Fun with Azure Functions: Building a lookup tool for Azure AD tenant IDs
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Migrating SQL Server 2008 databases to Azure SQL

“This is a quick one”, I thought. A customer asked me to have a look at their old CRM environment, that was running in a local physical server in their datacenter. The plan was to decommission the server, but rescue the CRM database. I knew I could lift-and-shift the database or databases to Azure SQL quite easily. This post walks through my experience and some… Read More »Migrating SQL Server 2008 databases to Azure SQL