Category: Microsoft Azure

Aug112020August 11, 2020August 10, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Connect Azure Cloud Shell to virtual network vNet

Connect Azure Cloud Shell to Virtual Network vNet

Posted in Cloud, Containers, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell

As you know, Azure Cloud Shell is a great management tool to manage your Azure resources. Azure Cloud Shell is an interactive, authenticated, browser-accessible shell for managing Azure resources. It provides the flexibility of choosing the shell experience that best suits the way you work, either Bash or PowerShell. You can learn more about Azure Cloud Shell here. If you wanted to manage Azure resources such as Azure virtual machines (VMs), you needed to connect to a public IP address of a virtual machine, which really didn’t work in all scenarios. With the latest update, you can now connect Azure Cloud Shell to an Azure virtual network (vNet). With the new method, you can now deploy the Azure Cloud Shell container within your virtual network (vNet), which now allows you to use PowerShell remoting, SSH, or other command-line tools such as kubctl using private IP addresses.

Requirements

Before you can use Cloud Shell in your own Azure Virtual Network, you will need to create some resources to support this functionality. 

  • Virtual Network – The virtual network in which the resources are located you want to manage or the network that peers with a virtual network where your Azure resources are.
  • Subnet – In that virtual network you will need a dedicated subnet to host Cloud Shell containers.
  • Network profile
  • Azure Relay – An Azure Relay allows two endpoints that are not directly reachable to communicate.
  • Storage Account – The storage account needs to be accessible from the virtual network that is used by Cloud Shell.

There are also some considerations you need to be aware of, such as currently supported Azure regions during the preview, Azure Replay adds additional cost and slower startup speed of Cloud Shell containers. You can learn more about the requirements here.

Connect Azure Cloud Shell to a virtual network

To make the deployment easy, there are Azure Resource Manager templates available to deploy the necessary network and storage resources. In my step by step guide, I already have a virtual network deployed within my subscription with the resources I manage. If you don’t have that yet, and you want to try this out, you will need to create a resource group and a virtual network.

Simply the deploy the following two templates:

Deploy Azure Cloud Shell Network ARM template

Deploy Azure Cloud Shell Network ARM template

You can get the Azure Container Instance OID by running the following command:

Get-AzADServicePrincipal -DisplayNameBeginsWith 'Azure Container Instance'

Also, make sure that the subnet ranges are part of the address range in your virtual network.

Reconnect Cloud Shell

If you have used Azure Cloud Shell before, you will need to reconnect that to the specific resources. You can simply run the command “cloudrive unmount” or “dismount-cloudrive”.

After that you can reconnect your Cloud Shell and select the isolated network option. Keep in mind this feature is currently in preview, and only available in West US and West Central US.

Connect Azure Cloud Shell to virtual network

Connect Azure Cloud Shell to virtual network

This will then take a moment to deploy.

Requesting a container

Requesting a container

After the Cloud Shell container is deployed within the virtual network, you can now start using private IP addresses within that virtual network or virtual networks that are peered.

SSH into Azure VM with Private IP address from Cloud Shell

SSH into Azure VM with Private IP address from Cloud Shell

I hope this blog gives you a short overview of how you can integrate Cloud Shell in your private Azure virtual network. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.


Aug102020August 10, 2020August 10, 20206Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Azure Architecture Best Practices Virtual Event

Azure Architecture Best Practices Virtual Event

Posted in Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Speaking, Thomas Maurer, Webinar

I am happy to let you know about another free online event where I am presenting together with Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect, Dominik Zemp, about Azure Architecture Best Practices. This free virtual event will be on August 18 from 9:30am-12:00pm (CEST). In this session, you will learn about proven guidance that’s designed to help you, architect, create and implement the business and technology strategies necessary for your organization to succeed in the cloud. It provides best practices, documentation, and tools that cloud architects, IT professionals, and business decision-makers need to successfully achieve their short- and long-term objectives. We will be focusing on topics like the Cloud Adoption Framework and the new Enterprise-Scale landing zone architecture.

Azure Architecture Best Practices Virtual Event Agenda:

  • Introduction
  • Why Azure Architecture?
  • Introduction to the Cloud Adoption Framework
  • What is Enterprise-Scale?
    • Build landing zones with Enterprise-Scale
    • Critical design areas
    • Deployment using AzOps
    • Demo
  • Build on top of Enterprise-Scale – Well-Architected Framework for workloads and apps
  • Q&A

You can register for the event here: Microsoft Virtual Live Event

About the Speakers:

Dominik Zemp (Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect)

Dominik Zemp is a Cloud Solution Architect working with Global Swiss financial customers and has been working at Microsoft since 2008. Before Dominik changed role in late 2015, he worked as a Security and Identity Consultant in the Microsoft Services organization. Dominik’s focus areas are applications and infrastructure, including cloud-native applications, networking, and security. Dominik holds a Bachelor degree in IT with Specialization in software systems.

Thomas Maurer (Microsoft Senior Cloud Advocate)

Thomas works as a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. He engages with the community and customers around the world to share his knowledge and collect feedback to improve the Azure cloud platform. Prior to joining the Azure engineering team (Cloud + AI), Thomas was a Lead Architect and Microsoft MVP, to help architect, implement and promote Microsoft cloud technology. If you want to know more about Thomas, check out his blog: www.thomasmaurer.ch and Twitter: www.twitter.com/thomasmaurer

I am really looking forward to the Azure Architecture Best Practices virtual event, and I hope to see you there!

Also, check out my exam study guides to achieve the Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Certification:


Jul302020July 30, 2020July 30, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Stack Hub Partner Solutions Video Series

The Azure Stack Hub Partner Solutions Video Series

Posted in Azure Stack HCI, Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Thomas Maurer

This week Tiberiu Radu (Microsoft Program Manager) and I had the chance to launch the Azure Stack Hub Partner Solutions video series. Azure Stack Hub is part of the Azure Stack portfolio, and has led the way for Microsoft’s Hybrid cloud offerings and partners have joined us to enhance the hybrid cloud journey of our customers. These partners and customers have built solutions that leverage Azure Stack Hub as part of their hybrid cloud strategy. In this video series, we explore the ways our customers and partners use, deploy, manage, and build solutions on the Azure Stack Hub platform.

Join Thomas Maurer (@ThomasMaurer) and Tiberiu Radu (@rctibi) in  this series, as we will meet customers that are deploying Azure Stack Hub for their own internal departments, partners that run managed services on behalf of their customers, and a wide range of in-between as we look at how our various partners are using Azure Stack Hub to bring the power of the cloud on-premises.

You can find more information check out Tiberiu’s blog post on Tech Community, and you can check out the first three videos:

Through August, we have quite a few partner videos following, and we will update this thread, as well as announce them on our Twitter feeds (#AzStackPartners) – follow us in this journey as we explore the partner solutions built on Azure Stack Hub!

If you want to learn more about Azure Stack and Azure Stack Hub, check out the following links:

I hope you enjoyed the blog and the videos, if you have any questions, let me know in the comments.


Jul262020July 26, 2020July 22, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
RunAsRadio Podcast Thomas Maurer

RunAsRadio Managing Your Hybrid Cloud using Azure Arc with Thomas Maurer

Posted in Azure Arc, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Speaking, Thomas Maurer

This week I was on Richard Campbell RunAsRadio podcast to talk about Hybrid Cloud management using Azure Arc. RunAs Radio is a weekly podcast for IT Professionals working with Microsoft products. Each 30-minute episode covers a specific topic in the field of IT from a Microsoft-centric viewpoint.

We all have a hybrid cloud solution – how do you manage it? Richard chats with Thomas Maurer about Azure Arc, a tool in the Azure suite for managing virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, and data services in Azure, your on-premises servers, even other cloud providers! Thomas talks about how IT folks end up with an array of tools for managing servers depending on the location and how Azure Arc ends that. Arc provides location-independent access to all your resources, and it’s in preview now, so free to use (although you may have to pay for additional Log Analytics data)… check it out!

If you want to listen to the podcast episode, check out RunAsRadio.com.


Jul232020July 23, 2020July 22, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
MJFChat Whats New in the Azure Hybrid Space

MJFChat What’s New in the Azure Hybrid Space?

Posted in Azure Arc, Azure Stack HCI, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Hybrid Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Thomas Maurer

This week I had the honor to be on Mary Jo Foley podcast called MJFChat on Petri.com and talk about what’s new in the Azure Hybrid space. This was the perfect time since we had some great Hybrid Cloud announcements this week during Microsoft Inspire, especially when it comes to Azure Stack HCI.

MJFChat: What’s New in the Azure Hybrid Space?

This episode of MJFChat is all about what’s happening in the Azure hybrid space. Microsoft was the first of the major cloud vendors to offer not just a public cloud, but also a hybrid platform. Azure Stack was the core of Microsoft’s hybrid 1.0 strategy. More recently, Microsoft outlined its hybrid 2.0 plan, which centers around Azure Arc.

If you want to listen to the podcast, you can go to Petri.com or your favorite podcast platform, MJF Chat on Spotify; here for Apple Podcasts on iTunes; and here for Google Play.


Jul222020July 22, 2020July 22, 20209Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Microsoft Azure Stack HCI version 20H2

Azure Stack HCI version 20H2 – everything you need to know!

Posted in Azure Arc, Azure Stack HCI, Cloud, Hardware, Hybrid Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, PowerShell, Virtualization, Windows Admin Center, Windows Server

Microsoft just announced the new Azure Stack HCI, delivered as an Azure hybrid service, at Microsoft Inspire 2020. Azure Stack HCI, as a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) solution, is expanding the Azure Stack portfolio to offer a comprehensive and flexible lineup of edge infrastructure and hybrid cloud environments. In this blog post, I want you to provide you with an overview of the new Azure Stack HCI, version 20H2.

You can also find the full announcement blog on Azure.com.

What’s Azure Stack HCI

Azure Stack HCI is a hyper-converged cluster solution that runs virtualized Windows and Linux workloads in a hybrid on-premises environment. Some of the most popular use cases are datacenter modernization, Remote/Branch office scenarios, SQL Server based virtual applications, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, and running Kubernetes clusters.

  • Hyperconverged infrastructure stack – The Azure Stack HCI operating system is based on core components from Windows Server, and it is designed and optimized on being the best virtualization host and hyper-converged platform. It is enhanced with software from Azure that includes our latest hypervisor with built-in software-defined storage and networking, that you install on servers you control, on your premises. This provides additional functionally, features and performance.
  • Delivered as an Azure hybrid service – Azure Stack HCI is now delivered as an Azure service with a subscription-based licensing model and hybrid capabilities built-in. You can enhance the cluster with Azure hybrid capabilities such as cloud-based monitoring, site recovery, and backup, as well as a central view of all of your Azure Stack HCI deployments in the Azure portal.
  • Familiar for IT to manage and operate – Runs on your choice of hardware, from your preferred vendor, and continue using the tools and processes your team already knows to manage virtual machines, including Windows Admin Center, System Center, and PowerShell.

This new Azure Stack HCI product takes its name from a program that Microsoft has run for several years with recent versions of Windows Server. That program was very popular, and it’s what inspired this new product.

Azure Stack HCI - Inspired by its popular predecessor

Azure Stack HCI – Inspired by its popular predecessor

Part of the Azure Stack Portfolio

Azure Stack HCI joins the growing family of Azure Stack solutions, which offers a comprehensive and flexible lineup of edge infrastructure. The Azure Stack portfolio ranges from Azure Stack Hub, which is an extension of Azure, bringing the agility and innovation of cloud computing to your on-premises environment, to Azure Stack Edge, which brings Azure compute for AI and machine learning at the edge.

Azure Stack HCI version 20H2 - Part of the Azure Stack portfolio

Azure Stack HCI version 20H2 – Part of the Azure Stack portfolio

You can learn more about the Azure Stack portfolio on Azure.com.

Read More

Jul212020July 21, 2020July 21, 20201Commentby Thomas Maurer
Download Azure Architecture Icons

Download New Azure Architecture Icons now!

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure

With the latest Azure Portal refresh, Microsoft Azure got some new icons as well. If you want to draw some Azure architecture diagrams you can now download the latest Azure Architecture Icons from the Azure Architecture Center.

Customers and partners are permitted by Microsoft to use the Azure icons to create architecture diagrams. They are designed as a family. The icons can also be used in training manuals or documentation about a Microsoft product. The full name of the icon must always be used in proximity to the icon, but never locked to appear like a logo.

Also, make sure you aware of the do’s and don’ts on how to use the Azure Architecture Icons.

Do’s

  • Use the icon to illustrate how products can work together
  • In diagrams, make sure to include the product name somewhere close to the icon
  • In text, at first mention use the full product name: Microsoft Azure (insert name)

Don’ts

  • Never put the product name so close to the icon that it appears to be a logo
  • Don’t crop, flip or rotate icons
  • Don’t distort or change icon shape in any way
  • Don’t use Microsoft product icons to represent your product or service

To download the Azure Architecture Icons go to the Microsoft Architecture Center. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. If you are interested in becoming a Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect, check out my exam study guides for AZ-303 Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies and AZ-304 Microsoft Azure Architect Design.



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    Thomas Maurer

    My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team (Cloud + AI) 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.

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