Tag Archives: Azure Network

Allgemein, Azure, Azure Network, Azure Security, Cloud, Microsoft, Zero Trust

Azure Firewall Basic SKU is now GA

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Microsoft announces with the Azure Firewall Standard and Premium two native Firewall Services available as PaaS solution what are a great benefit to classic Firewall deployments, because of native Autoscaling Features, no need for VM Management and more. Unfortunately the price was to high for SMBs, with 900€ for the Standard and over 1200€ for the Premium Edition. A frequently requested Features, was a cheaper variant aimed at small and medium businesses.

This wish has been answered and last year October with the Azure Firewall Basic edition (public preview). The Azure Firewall Basic (AzFw Basic) has leaved the Public Preview and are now GA. The planned subscription must first be prepared before the deployment can begin with some Powershell commands.

Now Azure offers three different Azure Firewall solutions. The following table list the different SKUs and the price for using in West Europe (03/2023).

Microsoft has made some changes to deploy the Firewall Basic compared to the Firewall Standard and Premium SKU for better Service avalability. This article will give you a short overview of this changes.

Continue reading Azure Firewall Basic SKU is now GA →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Arc, Azure Automanage, Azure Network, Azure Security, Azure VM, Cloud, Microsoft

My favorite Microsoft Ignite 2022 Fall Highlights

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After the pandemic beguns Microsoft switched the both big conference Microsoft Build and Microsoft Ignite to virtual only events. The Ignite was two times a year in 2020 and 2021. For 2022 it was long time not clear will it go back to an in-person event or still stay as a virtual event.

The Microsoft Ignite 2022 has start 2 hours ago as an hybrid event delivered from Seattle with 6 Spotlight events around the globe and delivered as before virtually. I’m a little disappointed because a lot of the content is pre-recorded and even great speakers like Donovan Brown don’t hold their sessions live in Seattle but are only shown there virtually as well.

In this article I will share the important announcements from my perspective from the Microsoft Ignite 2022. Most of you know me as an Azure Governance, (Hybrid) Infrastructure and Security guy, so please forgive me for focusing on these things.

Continue reading My favorite Microsoft Ignite 2022 Fall Highlights →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Security, Cloud, Microsoft

Azure Firewall Basic is available as Public preview

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Microsoft announces with the Azure Firewall Standard and Premium two new Firewall Services available as PaaS solution what are a great benefit to classic Firewall deployments, because of native Autoscaling Features, no need for VM Management and more. Unfortunately the price was to high for SMBs, with 900€ for the Standard and over 1200€ for the Premium Edition. A frequently requested Features, was a cheaper variant aimed at small and medium businesses.

This wish has been answered and is now available in the form of the Azure Firewall Basic edition. The Azure Firewall Basic (AzFw Basic) is available as public preview and the planned subscription must first be prepared before the deployment can begin with some Powershell commands. This article will guide you through the setup process for a Hub and Spoke Network and the main difference between the three Azure Firewall editions.

Azure Firewall edition comparison

Microsoft already introduced the Azure Firewall as Standard Edition in 2018 and expanded it with numerous updates in 2019. The Firewall Manager followed at the end of 2019 to manage various Azure firewalls under one roof. Mid of 2021 Microsoft announced the Azure Firewall Premium edition and extend the capabilities compared to the standard edition by the following features: TLS Inspetion, IDPS, Web categories and URL Filerting.

The acceptance of the firewall has been high so far due to the numerous features and the fact that the firewall is provided as a PaaS solution. As an SMB solution, the prices called are too high and that is where the Basic Edition is now trying to attract attention.

The following table list the difference between the edition. Please note the Maximum throughput between the different edition. Azure Basic Firewall is limited at time of article of 2 VMs under the hood and a maximum troughput of 250 (maybe increase to GA).

Continue reading Azure Firewall Basic is available as Public preview →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Bastion, Azure Network, Azure VM, Cloud, Microsoft, Remotedesktop

Azure Bastion supports SCALABILITY for SSH/RDP Connections with the new Standard SKU

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Update 1 on 01/12/2021 :

Microsoft has changed the #AzureBastion minimum subnet size from /27 to /26. Installed #Azure Bastion are unaffected, but new deployments require the new subnet size. Please remember this. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/bastion/bastion-faq#subnet

Azure Bastion is a fully managed PaaS service to secure access Azure VMs via SSH/RDP without the need for Internet connectivity on the selected VMs. Azure Bastion was released as part of the Microsoft Ignite 2019. As part of the ongoing Microsoft Inspire 2021, Microsoft has launched a new SKU for Azure Bastion called Standard.

Difference between Basic and Standard SKU

When you create an Azure Bastion instance Microsoft creates in the backend an optimized Azure VM that runs all the processes they are needed for Azure Bastion. This Azure VM is called a Instance and had some limitations. In general when you deploy the Azure Bastion Basic SKU Microsoft deploys two instances which supports 20-24 concurrent sessions which means each instance support 10-12 sessions.

The Standard SKU allows you to specify the number of instances called as host scalling.

Please note that when using an Azure Bastion Standard SKU, the AzureBastionSubnet size should be increased to a subnet size of approximately /26 or larger.

Azure BastionBasicStandard
Instances2 Defaultup to 50
Max. supported concurrent sessions20-24up to 500
Supported configurationAzure Portal, Powershell, CLIOnly Azure Portal

Deploy an Azure Bastion Standard SKU

Only the Azure Portal allows to deploy an Azure Bastion Standard SKU with the host scalling feature, because the feature is in public preview.

Continue reading Azure Bastion supports SCALABILITY for SSH/RDP Connections with the new Standard SKU →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Automanage, Azure Backup, Azure Bastion, Azure Governance, Azure Monitor, Azure Network, Azure Security, Azure VM, Cloud, Community, Microsoft, Windows Server

Azure VM Best Practices

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Last year Gregor Suttie and Richard Hooper launched the Azure Advent Calendar and I got to support with a session on Azure Bastion. This year they improved on the idea with the Festive Tech Calendar. I’m happy to be back with an article on Azure VM best practices. I hope you find the article helpful and I would appreciate feedback.

Over the past few months, I have conducted many customer workshops, designed and implemented Landing Zones, and migrated or placed VMs into Azure. One of the most common customer questions has been about best practices for Azure VMs to maximize performance and efficiency, minimize costs, increase security, and reduce management overhead. This article is based on my real-world experience and recommendations based on several Azure projects.

Continue reading Azure VM Best Practices →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Active Directory, Azure Governance, Azure Security, Cloud, Community, Meetup, Microsoft

Speaking with Thomas Naunheim at GermanyClouds Meetup about Azure Governance Best Practices

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In the past Thomas Naunheim and I do a lot of architecture and designing prinicple for integrating Azure in company environments. We have the idea to create a Azure Governance Best Practices session in the last couple of months to give the community our insights and best practices for Starting/Integrating Azure environments. The goal is to give you insights, where you can find the best documentations to start with a Cloud journey and which technical Azure features help to bring and hold your environment in an compliant and secure state.

The session contains the following topics:

  • Cloud Adoption Framework
  • Well-architecture Framework
  • Insights about Azure Policies and Azure Security Center
  • Azure Enterprise Scale architecture
  • Azure Ops
  • Identity and Access Management

We are exited to hold the session at the GermanyClouds Meetup on november 26. Did you interested in this topics or you are in the beginning or implementig phase, join us. We will happy to see you there and get your questions.

The session will not been recorded.

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

Azure Bastion now supports VNET Peering

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Update 2 on 01/12/2021

Microsoft has changed the #AzureBastion minimum subnet size from /27 to /26. Installed #Azure Bastion are unaffected, but new deployments require the new subnet size. Please remember this. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/bastion/bastion-faq#subnet

Update – 12/2020

Azure Bastion is now available in West Germany Central.

Azure Bastion is a service to avoid deployment own Jumphosts and reach Azure VMs over the Management Ports (SSH and RDP) in a secure way without the need to assign Public IPs directly to Azure VMs.

Azure Bastion got a really big improvement and now supports Azure VNET Peering. This includes all VNET peering models, inside a single subscription and VNET peering across different subscriptions.

Continue reading Azure Bastion now supports VNET Peering →
Allgemein, Azure, Azure Active Directory, Azure Network, Cloud, Microsoft

Azure VPN AAD P2S Error Server did not respond properly to vpn control packets resolved

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In the last few days I have created some Azure Landingzones. To secure access to Azure resources within the landing zone with different users, customers use a P2S connection through the Azure VPN Gateway using Azure AD for authentication.

Sometimes I see some mistakes in the Azure VPN Point-to-site configuration blade that results in the Error: “Server did not respond properly to vpn control packets” when trying to connect to the VPN Gateway over the Azure VPN Client.

These error messages are often due to incorrect settings in the basic settings. To resolve this issue it is really important to configure the three points: Tenant & Audience & Issuer correctly.

Please pay close attention to the following settings:

  • The Tenant field must be specified in the following notation “https://login.microsoftonline.com/your-Azuread-Tenant-ID-here/” at the end do not miss the backforwardslash /
  • Audience field must be only contains the Enterprise Application ID of the Azure VPN client (this is the same for all Tenants) “41b23e61-6c1e-4545-b367-cd054e0ed4b4” without any other characters or spaces
  • The Issuer field must be specified in the following notation “https://sts.windows.net/your-Azuread-Tenant-ID-here/” at the end do not miss the backslash /

Please be aware of the difference between the Tenant- (begins with https://login….) and Issuer field (begins with https://sts.win…).

Please contact me if you have any questions or if you find further errors and solutions 🙂

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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

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.

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