Category: Azure

Recently a customer asked me how to save cost on their Azure SQL database without moving away from DTU based subscription model. In this case this customer knows exactly at what time their database is heavily utilized, and when it’s idling. So with a script its easy to automate....

How cool would it be to automate your daily SQL tasks using Azure Automation? Well, really cool off course! Lets start using Azure Automation! Go ahead, if you don’t have an automation account yet, create one by going to Automation Accounts. Give your automation account a name, choose a...

When you migrate to Azure SQL, you might think that Azure does all SQL maintenance, including the maintenance of your database… But the truth is, you will need to setup some maintenance yourself for your databases. Microsoft doesn’t know what is best for your application or database. With this...

Microsoft had announced the limited preview of Azure Shared disks. With these announcement it will be possible to migrate clustered environments running Windows Server to Azure. This capability is designed to support SQL Server, Scale-Out File servers, RDS User Profile Disk and SAP ASCS/SCS servers running on Windows. Also...

Today I noticed a new checkbox in the Azure Portal. Microsoft has released IPv6 in the Public preview for Azure VNets. Virtual machines will be equipped with a dual-stack IP connectivity. Meaning both will be available. With the ending of IPv4 addresses it makes IPv6 mandatory for everybody. From...

If you have a large on premise environment, you might want to automate the assignment of Office 365 licenses by using (dynamic) security groups in Azure AD. With this simple manual you should be able to setup automatic license assignment based on a security group....

By default everyone may create a new team in Microsoft Teams. As an organisation admin you might want to control this, or release it a some point. With this manual you should be able to lock down team creation to users that are member of a Azure AD Security...

Microsoft has announced SSD bursting capabilities. This means that Premium SSD disks can achieve higher peak loads than the maximum IOPS with a new maximum of 3500 IOPS and a bandwidth up to 170 MiB/s. Together with this announcement Microsoft also announced new disk sizes (4, 8 & 16...

Today I noticed that the Azure Portal had a new appearance. By default the menu from the left is now hidden, giving you a cleaner view of all the blades, and as well on your dashboards. But what I really like, is the Auto Refresh button on the dashboard....

Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) is an added security feature from Azure which I believe that should be enabled by default for everybody in Office 365 and Azure. There for this manual how to enforce (Azure) MFA for all users using Azure Multi Factor Authentication MFA can prevent unauthorized access...

I recently run into a case where I needed to update statistics of an Azure SQL Database because of poor performance and deadlocks. Preventing disruptions is key, so it is important to do something about it. With a simple script we can update the statistics easaly. Why should I...

Windows Virtual Desktop is the new Azure desktop and app virtualization service running in the cloud. With simplefied management, multisession Windows 10, optimizations for Office 365 using FSLogix in the background. With this cloud managed VDI environment, you can build, deploy and scale your virtual desktops and apps in...

Today I was browsing the Azure Management portal and discovered that Microsoft Azure released a new virtual machine series based on the AMD EPYC 7452V processors that can achieve a boosted 3.35Ghz. With these new AMD processers there are 4 new series available in Azure: Dasv3-series, Dav3-series, Easv3 and...

With an increased security and privacy in mind Microsoft has been working on private links to Azure resources. Azure Private Link is a secure way to consume Azure Services like Azure SQL and Azure Storage using a private connection in your own VNet. This will replace the need for...

With Azure Conditional access you get more control over your data, get better security and visibility! To use this feature you will need to buy and assign Azure AD Premium or EM+S E3/E5 licenses to your users. This manual can be used to enforce the use of the Outlook...

If you deployed Intune to your mobile devices, you want to enforce the use of the Outlook app on the mobile device. We want to make the end user experience as smooth as possible and preconfigure Outlook for the. How can we prepare the Outlook app with your company...

Microsoft has announced the availability of the new Azure data-centers in Switzerland. With 2 data-centers in Switzerland, Zurich and Geneva, Azure has created a full region (West and North) Microsoft worked together with several Swiss companies as early adopters to improve cloud adoption in Switzerland. As this region is...

For very high demanding workloads, storage wise, Azure has released Ultra Disk performance tier for production use. I’ve already written about it in a previous post ( Slow IOPS in Azure VM’s? not anymore!) But now is the time to take a deeper look. Which disk types do we...

This simple manual has been created to create an user in Azure SQL and assign appropriate permissions. First connect to your SQL server. Either use and AAD admin account or the SQL Admin account. Once connected, open a New Query window and run the following command on the Master...

Azure Application Gateway is an advance type of load-balancer. Where an Azure Load-balancer routes traffic on the transport layer (OSI Layer 4 | TCP + UDP) the Application Gateway is a way more advanced load-balancer. It can route based on URL as well on path’s. On top of that...