Automate Regional and Language Settings in Windows 10
Working on Azure Virtual Desktop, I found myself having to customize Windows 10 desktops with the local regional settings via automation with PowerShell cmdlets. A quick web search provided answers such a “Set-WinHomeLocation”, “Set-Culture”, etc. However, if you read up the documentation of these cmdlets, Microsoft clearly states that these are user settings and only […]
Migrating my WordPress blog site to Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS)
As Kubernetes becomes more popular, I decided to migrate my blog site from Azure App Services and Azure Database for MySQL to AKS and utilize Azure regions Australia East, West Europe and East US and providing security using Azure Front Door with WAF. As I used several sites as reference (sites listed below), I decided […]
Sysprep DscCore.dll error on Windows 10 Multi-session Build 2004
I was testing out the new Azure Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) ARM deployment model with Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session 2004 build. Part of the deployment involves running sysprep to prepare a new gold image for Windows 10. However, when running sysprep from Windows Run command line, it fails without displaying any errors. Looking through the […]
Replacing Windows AD with Azure AD Domain Services?
Recently, I have received several questions regarding Azure Active Directory Domain Services; the main question being “Can I replace my domain controller VMs with Azure ADDS in Azure?” The answer as with most other queries is “it depends.. what do you currently use your domain controllers for?” Azure ADDS is like a middle-ground between a […]
Duplicating Azure Application Gateway via ARM Template for DR
I’ve been working with a customer to design a DR solution in Azure for a small environment in Australia East consisting of database servers, web servers and an application gateway and requires a cost effective DR solution into Australia Southeast. NOTE: This solution may not be suitable for everybody as it depends on the RPO/RTO […]
Azure Virtual WAN P2S (User VPN) Review
Azure virtual WAN is one of the new enhancements to the networking portfolio for Azure this year. The value proposition is to provide path optimisation for customers connecting to Azure or Office 365 by enabling the closest hop into the Microsoft network backbone from whatever region your office may be located. This fills the gap […]
Testing Azure DDoS Protection Basic
Azure DDoS Protection Basic is provided for free for each IPv4 and IPv6 Public IP Address that is purchased. However, unlike the DDoS Standard product, there are no alerting or metrics provided. Same goes with any DDoS mitigation reports. Being a free product, having DDoS protection provide excellent value especially when these type of services […]
Azure AD Connect stopped syncing
Today, I received this email regarding my Azure AD Connect health status saying that it hasn’t replicated for 24 hours. Logging into the Azure Portal and checking the Azure AD Connect shows the same information. By default the AD Connect scheduler is set to sync once a day as a minimum so something was wrong. […]
Azure Tags – Automatically tag the Creator of a resource
Tags are one of the most useful features in Azure which allows for the grouping of resources using tags for various purposes including billing, charge-back, identifying resources of an application, grouping resources by department, identifying production/test/staging environments, etc. One useful feature would be to use tags to identify who created a resource. This could be […]
Azure Migrate Overview
Azure Migrate is free for 180-days and can be used to right-size on-premise VMware vCenter VMs for migration to Azure. This is not used to perform actual migrations but rather a right-sizing and planning tool only. Use Azure Site Recovery to migrate VMs to Azure. Azure Migrate has quite a few good features especially the […]