Archive
Cloud and Identity Access
Identity and Access
Controlling who can access which resources is key for Cloud projects. Recently I was talking with a customer that has external users (partners) and internal users and the ability to centralize and manage the access for those users is essential.
Azure provides ways for customers to federate user identities to Azure Active Directory as well as enabling Multi-Factor Authentication and the new Role Based Access Control (RBAC) features can be used to restrict access and permissions for specific cloud resources.
Monitoring
To help detect suspicious access, Azure Active Directory offers reports that alert you to anomalous activity, such as a user logging in from an unknown device. In addition, operational logging and alerting capabilities can notify customers if someone stops a website or if a virtual machine is deleted. It is possible also to use an on premise System Center Operations Manager to monitor the availability and performance of resources that are running on Windows Azure.
The reports provides up to 30 days of data representing key changes in the directory, providing the action, timestamp, the user/application that performed the action, and the user/application on which the action was performed.
Network
With new VNET-to-VNET connectivity, multiple virtual networks can be directly and securely linked to one another. In addition, ExpressRoute is now generally available, enabling customers to establish a private connection to Azure datacenters, keeping their traffic off the Internet. Building on those enhancements, Microsoft also introduced Network Security Groups for easier subnet isolation in multi-tier topologies.
Security
Azure uses industry-leading capabilities, including recent enhancements to TLS/SSL cipher suites and Perfect Forward Secrecy, to encrypt content flowing over the internet between the customer and the Azure service
Microsoft is committed to advancing cloud security with a goal to not only meet, but exceed the level of protection most enterprises have in place on-premises or in their own datacenters. For the latest information on security features and best practices, visit the Microsoft Azure Trust Center.
Azure RemoteApp will be generally available on December 11, 2014
Azure RemoteApp delivers Windows Server session-based applications from Azure.
Azure RemoteApp, enable users to access corporate applications from anywhere and on a variety of devices, scale up or down to meet the dynamic business needs without large capital expense or management complexity, and centralize and protect corporate applications with the security features and reliability of Azure.
Azure RemoteApp will be generally available on December 11, 2014. Azure RemoteApp instances created during the current public preview period will continue to function as they do today. These instances will automatically transition to a 30-day free trial on December 11, 2014. The limit of two app collections and 10 users per instance will continue to be enforced during the free trial period. To remove these limitations, you can exit the free trial at any point and be charged the rates detailed on the Azure RemoteApp Pricing Details webpage.
For more information, please visit the Azure RemoteApp webpage. For a comprehensive look at pricing, please visit the Azure RemoteApp Pricing Details webpage.
TechEd Australia 2014 Melbourne and Sydney editions
This year TechEd Australia will be held in Melbourne (Oct, 7th – Oct 8th) and in Sydney (Oct, 27th – Oct 28th)
I will be speaking about Azure Remote App on both editions and if you come along and tweet about my session you will enter into a draw to win a copy of my book along with Savision Polo.
It is an interactive demo. I will be using Hyper-V to show how to build a custom RemoteApp image as well as demo the RemoteApp client on different devices.
Bring scale, agility and global access to your business applications. Azure RemoteApp helps employees stay productive anywhere, and on a variety of devices – Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, or Android. Integrate Azure RemoteApp with your company’s existing on-premise infrastructure and bring your own Remote Desktop Session Host, or deploy Azure RemoteApp using our pre-built app collections for a stand-alone cloud service. Quickly ramp up and provide seasonal workers, vendors, or large groups of new employees access to company applications without paying for new servers and expensive on-premise infrastructure.
Melbourne Edition
Date: Tuesday, October 7
- Time:9:40 AM – 10:40 AM
- Room: Datacentre and Infrastructure Management
- Session Type: Breakout
- Session Code:DCI301
- Session Levels:300
Sydney Edition
Date:Monday, October 27
- Time:10:10 AM – 11:10 AM
- Room:Datacentre & Infrastructure Management
- Session Type:Breakout
- Session Code:DCI301
- Session Levels:300
TechEd New Zealand : my sessions
This year I have just about 2 sessions at TechEd New Zealand.
DCIM315 – Implementing Enterprise-Scale Disaster Recovery with Azure Site Recovery, Network Virtualization, and Microsoft System Center 2012 R2
In this session we cover different aspects of Hyper-V Recovery Manager, an enterprise-scale Disaster Recovery solution to provide a single click failover in case of disaster (e.g., automation of overall DR workflow using with sequencing, manual actions, etc. to provide both application and site level DR). Learn how to enable Azure as a Disaster Recovery point in a secure manner and seamless management of failover, failback type activities using Azure IaaS VM. Network connection—back to datacenter and to the clients—is one of the top challenges in setup of your DR infrastructure and we cover how to simplify networking for disaster recovery setup. The session also covers enhancements to the solution for the private datacenter to the private datacenter scenario.
PCIT313 – Azure RemoteApp
Bring scale, agility and global access to your business applications. Azure RemoteApp helps employees stay productive anywhere, and on a variety of devices – Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, or Android. Integrate Azure RemoteApp with your company’s existing on-premise infrastructure and bring your own Remote Desktop Session Host, or deploy Azure RemoteApp using our pre-built app collections for a stand-alone cloud service. Quickly ramp up and provide seasonal workers, vendors, or large groups of new employees access to company applications without paying for new servers and expensive on-premise infrastructure.
NEW book: System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager #SysCtr #MVPBuzz #HyperV
That’s on. After months of writing and reviews, my new book System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager is now released.
Covering : Windows 2012R2 aand Hyper-V new features, System Center 2012 R2 VMM, Operations Manager, App Controller and Azure integration as well Veeam Management Pack.
- Plan and design a VMM architecture for real-world deployment
- Configure network virtualization, gateway integration, storage integration, resource throttling, and availability options
- Integrate Operations Manager (SCOM) with VMM to monitor your infrastructure
- Integrate SC APP Controller (SCAC) with VMM to manage private and public clouds (Azure)
- Deploy clusters with VMM Bare Metal
- Create and deploy virtual machines from templates
- Deploy a highly available VMM Management server
- Manage Hyper-V, VMware, and Citrix from VMM
- Upgrade from previous VMM versions
Order now at http://bit.ly/1pZ5VoQ
Create, deploy, and manage datacenters and private and hybrid clouds with hybrid hypervisors using VMM 2012 R2. Integrate and manage fabric (compute, storages, gateways, and networking), services and resources, and deploy clusters from bare metal servers. Explore VMM 2012 R2 features such as Windows 2012 R2 and SQL 2012 support, converged networks, network virtualization, live migration, Linux VMs, and resource throttling and availability
#Azure Roadshow: Cloud Challenges, Opportunities and Migration Strategies
Summary
Cloud opportunities and offerings that will benefit organisations, as well as the challenges and Migration Strategies to help overcome these.
Topics covered:
- Microsoft Azure PaaS and IaaS offerings:
◦Application Lift & Shift Scenarios
◦Cloud-born Applications that Leverage Office 365 & Yammer
◦Cloud Identity - Cloud-enabled Mobile Device Management with Windows InTune
- Hybrid Cloud deployment model involving Hyper-V and System Center
◦Network Integration - Migration strategies to Public Cloud
◦Driving SaaS Adoption
Target Audience:
Decision Makers, CTO’s, CIO’s, IT Managers, Dev Managers
Time, Date, Venue and Registrations:
Registrations open at 8.30am. A light breakfast will be provided. Presentations will commence at 9am sharp and finish at 11am.
- Sydney :29 August 2014 – Sydney, NSW – REGISTER HERE
- Melbourne : 31 Jul 2014 – Microsoft | Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank, Melbourne – REGISTER HERE
- Brisbane : 05 August 2014 – Cliftons | Brisbane – REGISTER HERE
- Perth : 19 August 2014 – Microsoft | Level 3, 100 St Georges Terrace, Perth – REGISTER HERE
For more Information about the events, see http://readify.net/events/
About READIFY : http://readify.net/about-us/
About the Presenters
Alessandro Cardoso | Readify National Manager – Platform Solutions
Alessandro Cardoso is a passionate technology evangelist and a subject matter expert in cloud, virtualization and management. He recently published his book; ‘Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Cookbook’ http://wp.me/p15Fu3-mK, and has reviewed 5 other books. Alessandro is a speaker at key technical events in Australia and New Zealand and has been a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional since 2009 leading major Cloud, Virtualization, UC&C, AD and Exchange projects for large customers in APJ.
Mitch Denny | Readify Platform Technology Specialist
Mitch Denny has been working with the .NET platform since the year 2000 when the first alpha releases shipped. Since then he has been awarded MVP status nine times in ASP.NET and more recently Microsoft ALM. Currently Mitch is working as Readify’s Platform Technology Specialist – focusing on bringing exciting new products and services to market and working with technical specialists to continually refine our technical vision.
Azure: Security
Microsoft published an infographic about security in Azure. The Infographic is an overview of security, privacy, and compliance in Azure and it is a great place to start if you are unsure about security in the Cloud space.
You can download the infographic here : http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/infographics/cloud-security/
You can find more about Security in Azure here:
- Security, Privacy, and Compliance Whitepaper. New whitepaper details how Azure helps customers achieve the economic benefits of the cloud while furthering security and compliance.
- Privacy Overview Whitepaper.New whitepaper describes how Azure helps safeguard the privacy of customer data in the cloud.
- And much more on the newAzure Trust Center Resourcespage.
No Surprise: Microsoft a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant: Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
No surprise, Microsoft landed in the Leader Quadrant in the Gartner IasS Magic Quadrant report.
The Gartner Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Magic Quadrant published with Microsoft landing in the Leader Quadrant. This report evaluates Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Services, and overall, Gartner validates Microsoft’s technology and vision, as well as its platform execution and customer momentum. In the report, Gartner states, “Microsoft has a vision of infrastructure and platform services that are not only leading stand-alone offerings, but also seamlessly extend and interoperate with on-premises Microsoft infrastructure (rooted in Hyper-V, Windows Server, Active Directory and System Center) and applications, as well as Microsoft’s SaaS offerings. Its vision is global, and it is aggressively expanding into multiple international markets. “
Virtual Machines. Security Extensions : Built-in Anti-Virus Support
Microsoft announced during TechEd NA 2014 the release of 3 new security extensions that enable Built-in Anti-Virus Support via the VM Agent for Azure Virtual Machines:
- Microsoft Antimalware
- Symantec Endpoint Protection
- TrendMicro’s Deep Security Agent
The VM Agent is a lightweight and unobtrusive process that you can optionally enable to run inside your Windows and Linux VMs. The VM Agent can then be used to install and manage extensions, which are software modules that extend the functionality of a VM and help make common management scenarios easier.
These extensions enable you to add richer security protection to the Virtual Machines hosted in Azure using industry security products.
To enable it, in the Azure Management Portal, in the Virtual Machine Configuration, check Install VM Agent and then select the desired Anti Virus protection:
You can also use the command line (PowerShell) to enable it.
Windows Azure now in Japan. Australia next?
Toda Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Azure Japan Geo, including Japan East and Japan West region:
“Today we are announcing the general availability of two new Windows Azure regions: Japan in the Tokyo metropolitan area (Saitama Prefecture) and Japan West (Osaka Prefecture). These regions were brought online to meet growing demand for Windows Azure services and help our customers satisfy performance needs. ”
It is expected that Microsoft will release the Australia region this year as well. I’ve heard rumours for the release on Q3, but there is no official communication yet.
Do you expect the cloud adoption to increase once it comes to your region?
Recommended Books
System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Cookbook
Cloudtidings.com 