Tag: Cloud

AzureCloudEvents

Microsoft Ignite 2022 —

Judson Althoff EVP, Chief Commercial Officer officially started the Microsoft Ignite and the below is the capture of that moment. Microsoft Ignite kicked off today few hours ago and it is up and running live now and there were some great announcements came through so far from the sessions. I will be going to cover […]

Microsoft Ignite 2022 —
AzureDeveloper

Azure Developer CLI (azd) announced: Quickly build apps for the cloud

This week Microsoft announced the public preview of the Azure Developer CLI (azd) — yes this is yet another CLI, a new open-source tool that accelerates the time it takes to get started on Azure. This post will do a quick intro of this new CLI and show how to get started and list out the resources to follow up on to learn more.

Introducing the Azure Developer CLI

You might be asking what is the Azure Developer CLI? Does this replace the Azure CLI? So let’s dive in and take a look. Think of the Azure Developer CLI as an abstraction over the Azure CLI and provides developer-friendly commands that map to key stages of your workflow: code, build, deploy, monitor, and repeat. To create, provision, and deploy a new application in one step, it’s as easy as:

azd up --template todo-nodejs-mongo

The Azure Developer CLI comes with extensible templates that include everything you need to get an application up and running in Azure. These templates include best practices, application code and reusable infrastructure as code assets written in Bicep.

The new Azure Developer CLI builds upon the experience and foundations of the Azure CLI. You can use both tools together, as needed, to support your Azure workflow.

To learn more about the Azure Developer CLI, be sure to check out the Developer Hub!

Why the need for another CLI?

As a developer, you need to make many decisions when it comes to building, deploying, and securing your application. Some of those questions you might ask are:

  • Which cloud services should I use with my code?
  • Which libraries do I need to use?
  • How should I set up my local development environment?
  • How do I provision the necessary infrastructure for my application?
  • How do I know that what I’m doing incorporates security best practices?

The Azure Developer CLI helps you answer these questions and many more. It provides you with a clear path for building your application in the cloud.

With the Azure Developer CLI, a typical developer workflow looks like this:

  1. azd init: Create an application and initialize an environment using a sample template in your preferred language.
  2. azd provision: Provision the necessary resources for your application on Azure.
  3. azd deploy: Deploy your application to Azure.
  4. azd monitor: Monitor your application’s behavior and performance and validate deployments.
  5. azd pipeline config: Create and manage CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery).

Better yet, you can also use azd up to create, provision, and deploy a new application in one step! For a list of supported commands, see the Developer CLI reference docs. Alternatively, run azd –h from your preferred terminal after installation. If you no longer want or need the resources you’ve created, you can run azd down.

Whether you’re working in the terminal, your editor or IDE (like Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio), or your GitHub Actions pipeline, Azure Developer CLI commands remain consistent regardless of the context.

Getting Started

Pre-requisites

Before you get started using azd, ensure you have the following installed:

You will also need an Azure account with an active subscription. If you dont have one then you can create one for free.

Installation

With the pre-requisites installed, you can now install the standalone Azure Developer CLI via the following command in your preferred terminal.

Windows

powershell -ex AllSigned -c "Invoke-RestMethod 'https://aka.ms/install-azd.ps1' | Invoke-Expression"

macOS/Linux

curl -fsSL https://aka.ms/install-azd.sh | bash

Application templates for C#, Python, and JavaScript/TypeScript

The Azure Developer CLI uses idiomatic application templates that extend beyond “Hello World!” to include the scaffolding for monitoring and CI/CD for your application.

Each template includes application code, an /infra directory containing all the infra-as-code files needed to provision the Azure resources, and an azure.yaml file that describes your application. These templates are extensible and customizable to your specific use case.

For the first preview, they’ve authored an initial set of template applications written in Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, and C# and for hosts such as Azure App Service, Azure Container Apps, and Azure Static Web Apps + Function Apps. For more templates, check out the growing list of templates. If you’re interested in authoring your own template or creating a template from an existing application, see the Developer Hub.

In a follow up post I’ll dig deeper into one of the provided templates where we will build an application and deploy it to Azure.

Enjoy!

AzureCloud

Azure Lighthouse: A unified control plane for managing Azure at scale | Azure Friday

In this episode of Azure Friday, Archana Balakrishnan joins Scott Hanselman to show how Azure Lighthouse can manage thousands of customers and millions of resources from a unified control plane. Azure Lighthouse helps deliver managed services with comprehensive and robust management tooling available in Azure.

[0:02:53] – Demo

Source: Channel 9

Resources

ArchitectureAzurePresentations

Microsoft Azure Icon/Symbol Resources

Architecture diagrams are a great way to communicate your design, deployment, topology or simply to be used for training decks, documentation, books and videos.

When it comes to Azure icons there are a few resources available to you, but keep in mind that Microsoft reserves the right to not allow certain uses of these symbols, stop their use, or ask for their removal from use regardless of the source.

Microsoft Azure Cloud and AI Symbol / Icon Set – SVG

This package contains a set of symbols/icons to visually represent resources for Microsoft Azure and related cloud and on-premises technologies. Once downloaded, you can drag and drop the SVG files into PowerPoint or Visio and other tools that accept SVG format, and you don’t need to import anything into Visio.

The latest version at the time of this post is v2019.9.11 and was updated September 19, 2019 and only contains SVG image files now.

You can download the resources from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41937

Azure Icon Pack for draw.io / diagrams.net

If you’re familiar with draw.io (soon to be renamed to diagrams.net), then your in luck as there is an icon pack for Microsoft Azure cloud resources. These are the same images that were originally created by Microsoft.

You can download and access these icons from the GitHub repository which will load them up in draw.io https://github.com/ourchitecture/azure-drawio-icons

Azure.Microsoft.com UX Patterns

This is a comprehensive list of icons that at the time of the post is made up of up 1388 icons.

You can access the resources from here https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/patterns/styles/glyphs-icons/

Amazing Icon Downloader

With the Amazing Icon Downloader extension for Chrome or the new Microsoft Edge (chromium based), you can easily find and download SVG icons from the Azure portal.

When you’re in the Azure portal the extension will activate and automatically show you all the icons present for the view your in. As you will see some of the icons are named and so are easy to search for, however other icons have the following naming convention FxSymbol0-097 for example.

You can download the Amazing Icon Downloader extension from the Chrome web store https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amazing-icon-downloader/kllljifcjfleikiipbkdcgllbllahaob/

Conclusion

The icons are designed to be simple so that you can easily incorporate them in your diagrams and put them in your whitepapers, presentations, datasheets, posters, or any technical material.

Until recently I mostly used the Microsoft Azure Cloud and AI Symbol / Icon Set. Although it seems to be updated on a yearly basis, I find it still lags in keeping up with the changes happening in Azure. Since I like using the current Azure icons, I prefer using the Amazing Icon Downloader as I’m usually in the Azure Portal working with a particular resource and its quick to just grab that icon.

If you know of any other resources please let me know and I’ll update this list.

Enjoy!

Resources

Related post: https://theflyingmaverick.com/2018/01/29/microsoft-azure-symbol-icon-set-download-visio-stencil-png-and-svg/

AzureCommunityEvents

Speaking at Global Azure Virtual 2020

The Global Azure event has expanded to cover 3 days, April 23-25 and will be an online virtual event due to the Covid-19.

This year I will be speaking at 2 Global Azure Virtual events. The first is with the Global Azure Virtual 2020 UK & Ireland, where I will be contributing a recorded session on Exposing services with Azure API Management. This virtual event will have 50+ sessions with 20 live sessions over the course of the 3 days. The second is with Azure Virtual Community Day – Canada Edition where I will be doing a live stream on Bringing serverless into the Enterprise. This event will have 2 live tracks on Apps + Infrastructure and Data + AI and will have 12 sessions and 2 keynotes.

My first session on Exposing services with Azure API Management is happening on Friday April 24 09:00-10:00 UTC and the link to watch it is https://bit.ly/3aClNGx/.

My second session on Bringing serverless into the Enterprise is happening on Saturday April 25 15:00-16:00 EDT (UTC -4) and the link to watch the live stream is https://aka.ms/AzureCan2020-Track1-Afternoon.

I’m very excited to be speaking at these awesome community events and I really appreciate the opportunity to be part of this global community and share my passion for Azure. So

I hope you will join us on these days these to learn all about Azure from your world community.

Enjoy!

Resources

Global Azure Virtual 2020 UK & Ireland

Azure Virtual Community Day – Canada Edition

Global Azure Virtual 2020

AzureMobile

Microsoft partners with the industry to unlock new 5G scenarios with Azure Edge Zones

Cloud, edge computing, and IoT are making strides to transform whole industries and create opportunities that weren’t possible…

Microsoft partners with the industry to unlock new 5G scenarios with Azure Edge Zones
AzureCommunity

Azure Spring Clean 2020

Spring Bit Graphic

As the month of February 2020 is just around the corner, there will be an online community event promoting well managed Azure tenants.

Here is the scheduled list of articles which starts on February 3 2020:

03/02/20Azure RBAC – Best PracticesAlan KinaneAzure Foundations
04/02/20Azure Policy for AKSSam CoganAzure Policy
05/02/20Monitoring Containers on Azure with Windows Admin CenterDave RendónAzure Monitor
06/02/20How to use Tags to organize your Azure resourcesWim MatthyssenAzure Foundations
07/02/20Azure Governance – Best PractisesAmine CharotAzure Foundations
10/02/20Getting Started with Azure Monitor REST APIMartin EhrnstAzure Monitor
11/02/20Azure Cost Management – Best PractisesSarah LeanAzure Cost Management
12/02/20Protect your network resources with Azure FirewallLuis BeltranAzure Security Principles
13/02/20Monitoring Azure Site RecoveryKarel De WinterAzure Monitor
14/02/20Using Azure Advisor to baseline your platformSam HodgkinsonAzure Foundations
17/02/20Using Azure Resource Graph To Assess Your Azure Environment Quickly & EfficientlyJack TraceyAzure Foundations
18/02/20Azure Monitor – Best Practices for SanityKam SalisburyAzure Monitor
19/02/20Azure Storage and Backup Lifecycle Best PracticesDwayne NatwickAzure Foundations
20/02/20How to Use and Monitor Azure Update ManagementVukasin TerzicAzure Fundamentals
21/02/20Azure Security: my top 10 best practises to make your tenant secure as possibleShabaz DarrAzure Security Principles
24/02/20Simplify Large Scale Deployments with Azure BlueprintsIsham MohamedAzure Foundations
25/02/20Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) securing Clusters and ApplicationsAdil TouatiAzure Security Principles
26/02/20Azure Monitor – Autoscaling Resources Based on PerformanceAnthony MashfordAzure Monitor
27/02/20How to Avoid a Billing Shock With Azure Serverless SolutionsStanislav LebedenkoAzure Cost Management
28/02/20Securing Your Azure Platform Web ApplicationsTidjani BelmansourAzure Security Principles

Check out https://www.azurespringclean.com for all the details and keep an eye on the Twitter hashtag #AzureSpringClean.

Enjoy!

Resources

https://azurespringclean.com/