Category Archives: Azure Files

Allgemein, Azure, Azure Files, Azure Monitor, Azure Network, Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure VM, Cloud, Community, Events, Meetup, Microsoft, Windows Virtual Desktop

Azure AMA – Azure Virtual Desktop Best Practices #AVD with Marcel Meurer and Patrick Koehler

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German below

I know it’s been a little quiet on new blog articles the last few months, but that’s due to other community topics I’m working on. One of my new projects is the Azure Ask my Anything Live format that I will be hosting with my team at Azure Bonn Live on YouTube and Linkedin. I’m excited to announce that we’re kicking off this year with an Azure AMA on Azure Virtual Desktop Best Practices, and we have the pleasure of welcoming Marcel Meurer and Patrick Koehler to this session. Marcel and Patrick are two Azure MVPs and do a lot of work in the AVD community. Marcel is known as the brains behind the WVDAdmin and Project Hydra products, which are services to automate all things Azure Virtual Desktop. Patrick has also been active in the AVD community for many years with great sessions and insights about AVD and is the organizer of AVD TechFest together with Simon Binder.

Azure AMA – Azure Virtual Desktop Best Practices will take place live on Youtube on February 14, 2022. You can register for this event via our Azure Bonn page. Please note that this is a live AMA session and we would love for you to join us live and bring your questions to the session. If you don’t have time this time, please use our Microsoft forms to submit your questions before the session starts. The session will be held in German, but you can also ask your questions in English.

German

Continue reading Azure AMA – Azure Virtual Desktop Best Practices #AVD with Marcel Meurer and Patrick Koehler →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Backup, Azure File Sync, Azure Files, Cloud, Community, Events, Microsoft, Windows Admin Center, Windows Server, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022

Speaking at Cloud Eight Conference about 7 Best Practices for Azure File Sync

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Update 1 on 22/06/2021

The recording of the session is now available on Youtube. I have added the link at the end of the article.

I am glad to announce that I was invited as a speaker to the Cloudeight conference. This is the 3rd edition of this conference and the conference is grown to a really big conference with a lots of great speakers and sessions. The conference itself was founded by Drago Petrovic as a free community driven conference.

I am very exited to deliver a session on 7 tips you need to know to use Azure File Sync perfectly. Azure File Sync is a perfect service to sync file servers across enterprise boundaries through a central Azure Fileshare. In this session, I will share the best practices to use Azure File Sync perfectly based on my real-world experience. I will cover the following topics:

Continue reading Speaking at Cloud Eight Conference about 7 Best Practices for Azure File Sync →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Arc, Azure Automanage, Azure Files, Azure Migrate, Azure Network, Cloud, Events, Microsoft, Windows Admin Center, Windows Server 2022

My Microsoft Ignite 2021 Spring Highlights

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The corona situation brings new opportunities and one of them is that Microsoft Ignite going to a virtual conference twice a year. It used to be an in-person event only once a year. Last week the Microsoft Ignite 2021 spring conference started and in this article I will cover most of the highlights from my perspective. I would really appreciate your feedback on how valuable the article is.

Windows Server 2022 in preview

With Windows Server 2022 there coming the next Major release for as Windows Server OS. This release coming as the next LTSC release with lots of new features, such as new hybrid and security capabilities. Take a look at the MS Ignite Session about latest Azure innovation for SQL and Windows Servers

Passwordless Azure AD authentication is GA

To prevent phishing attacks Microsoft is part of the FIDO2 alliance. Azure AD supports long time ago the login with FIDO2 keys, but the service are in public preview. With this Ignite Microsoft move the service from Public Preview state into GA state and add some new capabilities, like the Temporary access pass. To unterstand how FIDO2 and TAP works, take a look at the short video. Passwordless authentication with FIDO2 keys, brings Identity Security to a new level. This prevents custom user passwords, enable higher security and preventing phishing attacks.

To enable passwordless login for the own Azure AD Tenant take a look at my blog article “Setup passwordless login for Azure & Microsoft 365 mit Yubico and FIDO2 (german)“.

http://aka.ms/passwordlesswizard

Continue reading My Microsoft Ignite 2021 Spring Highlights →
Active Directory, Allgemein, Azure, Azure Active Directory, Azure Files, Azure Network, Cloud, Community, Events, Microsoft, Remotedesktop, Windows Virtual Desktop

Speaking at WVD Tech Fest 2021 about Azure Files

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Due do the covid pandamy, many organizations in Germany are in a challenging phase as many employees need to be given the opportunity to work from home. Many companies have not yet made this option available to their employees, or only to a few. Microsoft has created a new option with Windows Virtual Desktop to give employees the ability to work from anywhere and the clients are always hosted in Azure and accessible via an app or browser.

I am very happy to have received an invitation to the WVD Tech Fest. The first conference only focusing on WVD with three parallel tracks around everything you need to know about Windows Virtual Desktop. The agenda is pretty complete and the organizers Simon Binder and Patrick Köhler are doing a great job. The conference will take place on 25/02/21 and is free. So take a look at the Website, plan your Agenda and grab your Ticket.

Azure Files is one of my favorite topics and due to many WVD projects in the past, I will address the question is Azure Files the optimal WVD profile store solution. And I can say: it depends – but you will learn more in my session on Thursday between 10:50 – 11:20 AM 🙂

Take this oppurtunity to learn more about Windows Virtual Desktop and hopefully this can be a solution for your organization to enable more people to work from anywhere and get everyone safely through these challenging time. I hope to see many of you there 🙂

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

Azure Files enabled AD DS SMB authentication Best Practices and all you need to know

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02/03/2022 Update 1

There are some improvements and changes in the AzFilesHybrid module, I updated the article with this changes.

The Azure Files Teams announced the availability of joining Azure Fileshares to AD DS since February 2020. This brings a lot of new possibilites, like to move Fileservers directly to a hosted SMB solution or deploy WVD Profiles directly on Azure Fileshares.

Microsoft did a lot of work to bring this solutions to live, but there are some challenges and pitfalls to activate and maintain the service. In this article I will go in a short way over all related considerations for Azure Fileshares AD DS authentication. Please note this article only focus to enable Azure Files for Active Directory Domain Services – not Azure AD or Azure AD DS.

Continue reading Azure Files enabled AD DS SMB authentication Best Practices and all you need to know →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure File Sync, Azure Files, Cloud, Community, Events, Microsoft, Sharepoint, Windows Server 2016

Zu Gast beim Geeksprech Podcast zu Azure Files

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Am vergangenen Freitag hatte ich das Vergnügen zu Gast beim Geeksprech Podcast von meinen Community Freunden Eric Berg und Alexander Benoit zu sein.

In der Folge gehen wir auf die vielfältigen Themen zu Azure Files ein. Dazu gehören natürlich u.a. die neuen Tiering Modelle, wie ich Azure Fileshares bereitstelle, welche Vorteile Azure File Sync mir bietet und wie ich vorhandene Fileserver nach Azure migriere und dort weiterhin die vorhandenen Windows ACLs nutzen kann. Sharepoint kam übrigens auch mehrfach zur Sprache – ich kann mich einfach nicht davon trennen 🙂

Es war mein erster Podcast und ich muss sagen, es war eine tolle Erfahrung und ich hatte viel Spaß mit Eric zu den verschiedenen Themen rund um Azure Files.

Wer reinhören mag findet unten die Folge. Weitere Spannende Folgen und viele Infos findet ihr direkt auf der Geeksprech Podcast Website.

Allgemein, Azure, Azure File Sync, Azure Files, Cloud, Microsoft

Azure Files Improvements – new Tiers and Soft Delete

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In the last couple of Months Microsoft brings a lot of new capabilites to Azure Files. From AD DS SMB autentication over new Tiers to Soft delete, there are many improvments for Azure Files. This article will introduce the latest announcement you need to know and which workloads are addressed with the new features.

Until now, Azure Files were divided into two Tiers – Standard and Premium. At the Ignite 2019, Microsoft announced additional Tiers in order to cover requirements more optimally. However, the integration of the new Tiers was delayed due to the challenges this year. These have been available for a few weeks now. Azure Files offers 4 different Tiers with different performance capabilities and pricing now. This Tiers are called:

  • Premium
  • Transaction optimized (formerly known as Standard)
  • Hot
  • Cool
Continue reading Azure Files Improvements – new Tiers and Soft Delete →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Arc, Azure Automanage, Azure Backup, Azure Files, Cloud, Community, Events, Microsoft, Windows Admin Center, Windows Virtual Desktop

My favorite Azure Announcements from the Microsoft Ignite 2020

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The Microsoft Ignite 2020 has moved to a free, virtual conference with a lots of online sessions about the Microsoft Product world like Azure, Microsoft 365 and more. As every year Microsoft announced new services and new features for existing services. In this blog post I will report about my highlights of the last 48 hours of Microsoft Ignite.

First of all, I’m a little sad because this was to be my first Microsoft Ignite I was able to attend in person. However, I’m glad that Microsoft offers this conference as a virtual version and gives us the opportunity to participate for free and get in contact with the product owners.

Satya Nadella opened the MS Ignite with his Keynote about Challenging Times, Producivity and Modern Work and how Microsoft services can help in every section with different services.

My focus area is Azure, you know it 🙂 And there were a lot of new announcements before and during the Ignite.

This article will be updated after the MS Ignite ends.

Continue reading My favorite Azure Announcements from the Microsoft Ignite 2020 →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Files, Azure Migrate, Cloud, Community, Events, Microsoft

I am pleased to support the MS Ignite as an ATE (Ask The Experts)

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Short note, I am pleased to announce that I support some Microsoft Ignite sessions as an ATE (Ask the Experts). Which this means? I support the Product Team in the Live sessions with answer additional questions. There are many possibilities to get in touch with the Microsoft Product owner of each service, so view the Session scheduler and join relevant sessions to ask the Product owner about services, features, possibilities and more.

I will support the following sessions:

Ask the Expert: disk storage, core compute and networking on Tuesday

Septemper 22 | 9:15 PM – 9:45 PM CEST

Ask the Expert: Be prepared for what´s next: kick start your cloud journey with Azure Migrate Program

September 23 | 10:45 PM – 11:15 PM CEST

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.

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