Category Archives: Cloud

Allgemein, Azure, Certifications, Cloud, Microsoft

Passed Azure Administrator Associate Exam Az-104

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I reveived a cool mail some days ago with an information, that I had passed successful the new Azure Administrator Exam Az-104 and get the renewal of the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate.

Two years ago Microsoft released the first new Rolebased exams with the Az-100/Az-101. I´ve passed both exams, but the exams are only valid for two years after passing. With the new Az-104 I got a renewal of the title for the next two years.

The Az-104 certification is a further development of the Az-103, as it will be discontinued at the end of July. To see the necessary skills and the differences to the Az-103, please have a look at the document “Az-104 Skills measured“.

Preparation and study guides

In preparation, all I can say is practice, practice, practice. Create different Azure Services, manage and administer them and interact with them. This helps a lot to understand the individual service and the different functions.

There are a lot of good study guides out there:

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Good luck and happy study.

Links

Active Directory, Allgemein, Azure, Azure Active Directory, Azure Files, Cloud, Microsoft, Windows Virtual Desktop

CONFIGURE AZURE FILES ON-PREMISES ACTIVE DIRECTORY (AD DS) AUTHENTICATION FOR FILESERVER OR WVD

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Update 2

Please note: This article is replaced by All you need to know about Azure Files SMB authentication via Active Directory Domain Services.

Update 1

Azure Files on-premises Active Directory Domain Services authentication is since 11/06/20 GA. The article is upgraded and integrated the latest features and improvements.

Update 2

12/06/20 Azure Files Hybrid PowerShell Module upgrate to v. 0.2.0

In the past I had a lot of talks about Azure File Sync, a lightwight solutions to sync servers from different locations and branches via Azure Files. One often questions was, it is possible to use Azure Files directly with integrated on-premises Active Directory (AD DS) authentication – the great answer since a few days is Yes, this is possible.

Now you can use Azure Files with on-premises Active Directory authentication as a fully replacement for Fileservers. No need for Azure Active Directory Domain Services (Azure AD DS) or different settings on Azure Files. This gives great new ways to use Azure Files as an replacement for Windows based fileservers or for using as an profile store for Windows Virtual Desktop and come closer to a cloud native solution.

In this article I will explain how Azure files AD DS authentication works, how to configure it, some basic steps and more. Please feel free to use the comment section or Twitter to get in touch with me and give me feedback or ask questions.

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Allgemein, Azure, Azure Network, Azure Security, Cloud, Microsoft

Connect and Secure Azure PaaS services to Virtual Networks with Private Link

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Azure allows to use IaaS and PaaS solution together over the same network. But all Azure PaaS services using a public interface for connection. When configure the PaaS firewall to allow traffic only from internal VNETs the public interface still exists. With Azure Private Link there is a new service to disable the public interface and add a private endpoint to secure connect to PaaS from your own VNET.

When configuring the internal service Firewall to block all traffic from outside the VNET, the Firewall make a mapping from internal VNET traffic to the Public IP and block all other IP- Adress ranges – and here comes the new Azure Service Private Link into play. This blog post will cover how Private Link works and how to configure this service for your environment including own DNS solution to get a complete private based Azure VNET.

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Allgemein, Azure, Cloud, Community, Microsoft

Speaking at the ESPC AzureWeek about Azure Policy with Azure Security Center

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This is a challenging time for everyone and I hope you are well. Many community conferences cancelled or moved to an online event. The online events give the oppurtunity to learn and discuss in an different way. The European Sharepoint Conference (ESPC) Team has announced the Azure Week between 25.05. – 29.05.20 as a webinar week.

The Azure Week has an great lineup with very useful sessions. Thomas Maurer open the week with a session about Modern Azure Cloud operations for IT Ops and I have the pleasure to close the week with a session about Azure Policy with Azure Security Center.

In this session we will dive into the many aspects of Azure Policy and Azure Security Center and see how they work together.

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Allgemein, Azure, Cloud, Community, Events, Microsoft

Global Azure Virtual 2020 is close including two sessions from me

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Time has changed, and the actual situation around the globe has shifted many personally events to virtual events. Global Azure (formerly known as Global Azure Bootcamp) has also transformed the personally meetings around the globe into purely virtual events. This has prompted many community organizers to make their events virtual. The Global Azure Team decided to make an own global virtual event around the globe with a dedicated call for speakers. This has led to the beautiful result that now several global azure events are taking place simultaneously. Some are organized by local organizers and one event is organized by the Global Azure Team. This results in three Azure days of Azure sessions (Thursday to Saturday) around the globe with an awesome agenda, where you can pick the sessions that suit you perfectly 🙂

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Allgemein, Azure, Azure Active Directory, Azure Security, Certifications, Cloud, Microsoft, Windows Server

How I pass the Azure Security Exam Az-500

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In the past I have taken several Azure exams, and yesterday I took the Azure Security exam Az-500. I am really glad that I passed the exam. In this article I will give you a brief overview of the topics I saw in the exam and what materials I used to prepare for the exam. I can say directly that the best way to succeed in the exam is practice.

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Allgemein, Azure, Certifications, Cloud, Microsoft

New Azure Database and DataAnalyst Exams Available DA-100 & DP-300

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Short notice: In the last days Microsoft announced two new exams in the Microsoft learning blog for the data area.

General

The two new exams are:

Both exams are released as beta exam. This means that the first 300 people who book the exam and take it by 31.05.2020 at latest will receive a discount of 80% of the exam price. This reduces the price from 165€ to 39,27€. Book the exam over the Microsoft MCP Portal or directly over the exam site and use the discount code at the payment process. When the limit capacity of 300 codes are reached, you get a notice.

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Allgemein, Azure, Certifications, Cloud, Microsoft

New Azure Beta Exam AZ-104 available with limited discount

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Short notice: The Microsoft learning blog has announced a new Azure exam, the Azure Administrator Az-104. This is the successor of the Az-103 exam. The exam is available right now as a limited beta. This means that the first 300 people who book the exam and take it by 31.05.2020 at the latest will receive a discount of 80% of the actual exam price. This reduces the price from 165€ to 39,27€. The needed skills are listed on the official exam site.

The beta exam is a pre-release of the exam and you can help to improve the exam. So take an eye on illogical or incomplete questions or graphics and note this within the exam to the team. This helps the team to improve the exam and the following participants to get a better exam experience.

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Allgemein, Azure, Azure VM, Cloud, Microsoft

Azure HA – VM SLA Level Compare to Availability Sets and Availability Zones – Latency is the key

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In the past I do a lot of Azure Governance workshops. One part of this workshops are the high availabilty options in Azure. This article descripe the different SLAs for VM workloads in Azure. Often I get an ask about the SLA level and the requirements. In this discussion many people are confused about the difference of Availability Set and Availability Zone and how this compares to the SLA. The new feature about the Proximitiy Placement Groups comes into play to make the confusing complete. This article descripes the differences between these features.

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Allgemein, Azure, Cloud, Community, Events, Meetup

Upcoming Community conferences in the 1st Half of 2020

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One of the great things about IT is that you learn something new every day, discuss new solutions or possibilities with other people and have a wide range of options. And there are many conferences throughout the year that you can use to expand your network and learn from other people how to implement and use the various services. I enjoy attending conferences, discussing solutions with the participants, learning from the participants and sharing my knowledge about the services.

In the first half of 2020 there are so many conferences right now announced. I think this is a good point to share a list of all upcoming conferences. This is a list of conferences from all about Europe that I know about. Some are free, some of this need a small fee to cover all the related thinks, like catering, drinks and so one. Take a look of the upcoming conferences and identify some in an area near you, register and grow your network.

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