Today a new container image is available in the Azure Cloud Shell. This new container image includes the Exchange Online PowerShell module, which allows you to manage now Office 365 Exchange Online directly from Cloud Shell. This is great if you are a Office 365 Exchange Online admin and you want to do your work using the PowerShell, you can now do this without installing the PowerShell module on your local machine.
One of the biggest challenges a lot of customers are facing, is the capability to provide access to files everywhere and have DR plans in place. This becomes especially true when you are dealing with classic file server infrastructures. Where it is difficult to manage capacity, availability, replication and much more. The Azure Storage team is addressing that need with Azure File Sync. Azure File Sync allows you to sync your file servers with an Azure Files. Azure File is a simple, secure, and fully managed cloud file share solution, using SMB 3.0 and HTTPS.
In addtion the service allows customer to use functionality like:
In this post I will cover how, Windows Admin Center will help you to deploy Azure File Sync, if you want to know more, check out the Azure File Sync documentation page.
On April 27, 2019, it is again time where all the Azure communites come together for the sixth Global Azure Bootcamp event. And I am happy to be part of it again this year. Last year I was speaking at Azure Global Bootcamp 2018 in Zürich, Switzerland, and I will be back to speak at the Global Azure Bootcamp 2019 in Zürich this year. Besides this in person session, I will also be presenting online at the Global Online Azure Bootcamp (Ireland). This is an Azure Global Bootcamp event for those who don’t have something local or cannot travel, organised by Microsoft MVP and Azure expert Aidan Finn from Ireland. Hosted on GoToWebinar, presenters will share their expert knowledge on Microsoft Azure with an audience that can join in from anywhere around the world.
Around the world, user groups and communities want to learn about Azure and Cloud Computing. On April 27, all communities will come together once again for a great Global Azure Bootcamp event. Each user group will organize their own one day deep dive class on Azure the way they see fit and how it works for their members. The result is that thousands of people get to learn about Azure and join together online under the social hashtag #GlobalAzure.
I will be speaking about two extremly interesting topics inluding Azure Cloud Shell and Azure Stack.
If you have time and you want to spend a whole day learning about Azure, join one of the events around you, or check out the online streaming events. I am also happy to meet you in Zürich!
With the Hybrid Cloud effort Microsoft invested heavy to make Windows Server and Hyper-V better connect to Microsoft Azure. One way of doing that is with Windows Admin Center and Azure Site Recovery. The Azure Site Recovery integration in Windows Admin Center, allows you to easily replicate Hyper-V virtual machines to Microsoft Azure. The technology is not new, ASR does exist for a long time and allows you to not only replicate Hyper-V VMs, but also VMware VMs and physical servers. However, with the integration in Windows Admin Center, setting up Azure Site Recovery became super easy.
In the Virtual Machines extension, you can already see a recommendation to setup ASR: “” Which will guide you through the onboarding steps. If you don’t see that banner, just click on the VM you want to protect and replicate to Azure. Click on More and select “Set up VM Protection“, this will guide you through the same wizard.
If you haven’t connected your Windows Admin Center to Microsoft Azure yet, the wizard will help you to go through and set up this connection.
After your WAC is connected to Azure, you will now setup Azure Site Recovery for the Hyper-V host in Azure. This can directly be done from Windows Admin Center. For example, this will let you select the Azure Subscription you want ASR to connect to. It will let you create a new Resource Group and Recovery Services Vault or use an existing one. After you have done the configuration part, WAC will create the specific Azure resources and configure the Hyper-V host for Azure Site Recovery. This can take up to 10 minutes depending if you are using existing resources or creating new once.
If you have a look at the Hyper-V Replica settings in Hyper-V Manager, you will see that ASR is completely setup and configured.
As mentioned in blogs posts before, Windows Admin Center allows admins to extend there on-prem environments with hybrid Azure services. The latest addition is the integration of Azure Monitor in Windows Admin Center. This allows you to collect events and performance counters from Windows Server to run analytics and reporting in Azure and take action when a particular condition is detected. This can then be a notification (SMS, email, push notification) and/or a direct action using Azure Logic Apps, Azure Functions, Azure Automation Runbooks, webhooks or integration into ITSM tools.
Setting up the Azure Monitor connection in Windows Admin Center is simple. Select the server you want to connect to Azure Monitor. Go to Settings and then Monitoring Alerts.
Here you will be able to configure the server with the right Azure subscription, resource group and log analytics workspace.
I am happy to say that I will be speaking at the Skåne Azure Usergroup in Malmö. On Tuesday April 9, I have the opportunity to speak at the event of the Skåne Azure Usergroup with a couple of Microsoft MVPs like Stefan Johner, Eric Berg, Henk Boelman and Tom Janetscheck.
“These speakers are in the region because of the Intelligent Cloud Conference (https://intelligentcloud.dk/) taking place in Copenhagen on April 9-10 (preconference workshops on April 8). Regardless If you attend this meetup, we would encourage you to check-out the conference and use this Discount code: azugskaane to get 10% discount on attendance”
I will be speaking about Azure Stack and the latest Azure Stack family member, Azure Stack HCI solutions. There will also be a lot of great other topics like:
I always enjoy the great community work and great conversations about cloud technology when I am in the nodrics. I hope to see you there and also the the Intelligent Cloud Conference in Copenhagen. Let me know if you are there as well. If you can’t join on that date, there is also a meetup by the Skane Azure Usergroup with Orin Thomas about Azure Networking on Apirl 16.
With PowerShell version 6, Microsoft introduced PowerShell Remoting over SSH, which allows true multiplatform PowerShell remoting between Linux, macOS and Windows. PowerShell SSH Remoting creates a PowerShell host process on the target machine as an SSH subsystem. Normally, PowerShell remoting uses WinRM for connection negotiation and data transport, however WinRM is only available on Windows based machines.
There are also some downsides to it. SSH-based remoting doesn’t currently support remote endpoint configuration and JEA (Just Enough Administration). It is also important to understand, that this is not just another PowerShell SSH client.
To use PowerShell remoting with SSH you can use the same cmdlets, you know from PowerShell remoting with WinRM.
There are 3 new parameters for these cmdlets, if you are using PowerShell SSH remoting.
1 | New-PSSession -HostName tomsssh.server.com -UserName thomas |
My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team and engage with the community and customers around the world. I am located in Switzerland. I am focusing on Microsoft technologies, especially cloud and datacenter solutions based on Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack and Windows Server.
Opinions are my own.
