Azure Arc Kubernetes and Azure Defender Cloud for Containers with #Azure Policies

Azure Arc for Hybrid Cloud Management.

In my last blogpost I wrote about Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes and Container Insights with Alerting and Actions

In the following steps I will install some containers (Pods) on my Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes so I have some data to work with in my MVP LAB. I did that with Microsoft Visual Studio Code and with Helm predefined templates. Install the VSCode and install the Kubernetes extension, more information here

In the following steps we install DAPR and Redis on the Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes.

When you open your Kubernetes Cluster
Click then on Helm Repos
There you see Dapr repo.
Click on version 1.6.0.

Right click on version 1.6.0
Click on Install.

Dapr is installed by default on the Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes.

Type in Powershell :
dapr status -k
You will see the running pods of Dapr.

Dapr Dashboard is running
Important: This is running in a test environment and is now http.
For production you have to make it save!
Azure Arc Services and Azure Defender for Containers will help you with that.

 

Installing Redis in the same way.

Kubectl get pods

You will see the running Dapr and Redis pods.

Now we have installed two products on the Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster by default, but security is not in place based on best practices. For Dapr you have security best practices to follow and  Security for Redis.

But next to these security best practices from the software vendor, we also have Microsoft Azure Arc Security (Preview) on this kubernetes Cluster active. In the following steps you will see Security rules, Fixes and Azure Policies for Azure Arc Kubernetes to make your environment more secure and compliant.

Click on your Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster
This is my Dockkube.
Click then on Security (preview)

Here you see that I don’t have Azure Policy active to be compliant
on my Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster.
A lot of security issues are managed by policies.
Click on View Additional recommendations in Defender for Cloud

See Related recommendation (17)

Here you see all the dependent policies for your Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster.

Select your Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Cluster (Dockkube)
Click on Fix

Confirm and click on Fix 1 resource.

Remediation in progress.

Remediation Successful.
It can take some minutes to see your resources in the Healthy state.
Just refresh 😉

In Azure Policy you will see how Compliant you are with your
Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes.
Click on the ASC compliance.

Here you see the 10 Policies that are not Compliant.

Select a policy which is not compliant like here
Kubernetes Cluster containers should only use allowed images
Click on Details

Here you see the Component ID’s on my Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster
which are not compliant on this policy 😉
See the Tab bar, you are now on Component Compliance

Click on Policies tab
Dubbel click on the policy.

From here you can Assign the policy to your Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster.

See the TAB bar for deploying this policy.

Set your Managed Identity for deploying your policy.
Here you can read more how Remediation security works

More information on Microsoft Docs :

Enable Microsoft Defender for Containers

Azure Policy built-in definitions for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes

Understand Azure Policy for Kubernetes clusters

Overview of Microsoft Defender for Containers

Microsoft Azure Defender for Cloud Containers

Defender Plans for Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Clusters (Preview)
I have set these.
(Security Recommendations can take some time)

Security (preview) on your Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster

Here you get the Remediation steps to do and the Information.

There is information link to Mitre ATT&CK site.

And more information via a link to the Kubernetes site:
Resource Management for Pods and Containers

A New example and you can see the Affected Components
on my Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster Dockkube.

 

Conclusion

When you work in a DevOps way with Kubernetes containers and microservices, you want them as secure as possible. With application security and best practices from the software vendors. Security monitoring and compliance are important to keep you in control and to keep your environment safe. With Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes you get Azure Defender for Containers and Azure policy for security compliance to your Kubernetes Cluster.

Important: This is still in preview and should not be used in production environment yet until Microsoft makes it General Available for the world. Now you can test it in your test environment like me in my MVPLAB.

Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Container Insights Alerts and Actions #Azure #Cloud #DevOps

Azure Arc-Enabled Data Services overview

Microsoft Azure Arc allows you to manage the following resource types hosted outside of Azure:

• Servers: Manage Windows and Linux physical servers and virtual machines hosted outside of Azure.
• Kubernetes clusters: Attach and configure Kubernetes clusters running anywhere, with multiple supported distributions.
• Azure data services: Run Azure data services on-premises, at the edge, and in public clouds using Kubernetes and the infrastructure of your choice. SQL Managed Instance and PostgreSQL Hyperscale (preview) services are currently available.
• SQL Server: Extend Azure services to SQL Server instances hosted outside of Azure.

I have a Kubernetes Cluster enabled with Azure Arc Services in my MVP LAB:

It’s Called Dockkube.

The Kubernetes Cluster is running on-premises and is enabled with Microsoft Azure Arc Services. With that said we get Azure Services available for management in the Cloud in a hybrid way. In the following step by step guide we activate Azure Monitor Insights for Containers on the Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster.

Container Insights Alerts / Actions on Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes

Dockkube Insights

When you open Dockkube Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes, you will see on the left Monitoring Insights.
Then you have the options :

• What’s New
• Cluster
• Nodes
• Controllers
• Containers.

Click on Containers, and you will see all the containers on the Azure Arc enabled kubernetes.
Then you have recommended Alerts (Preview) at the top, when you Click on it you will see all the predefined recommended alerts in preview. I have selected Node CPU % and Enabled the alert. With that you see on the above screenshot there is no action group assigned. That is the next step, click on No Action Group Assigned.

Click on Create a new action group.

Select the Azure Subscription, Resource group and give the
Action Group a name.
Click on Next: Notifications

Here you can select your type of Alert communication.
I have selected the option Email.

Setting the Name : Dock Kube Notify.

The next step you can select an action type :

• Automation Runbook
• Azure Function
• Event Hub
• ITSM
• Logic App
• Secure webhook
• Webhook

In my MVP LAB, I don’t need an action but just a notification by email.

You can set a TAG here

Before you create the Alert rule with the action group, you get the option
to test the action group.
Click on Test Action Group.

Select a sample type.
I did Resource health alert
Click on Test.

The test is running.

I’m getting the Alert email in my box from Microsoft Azure.

Test is successful and click on Done.

Click on Create

Select the Action group for me is that DockKube CPU.
Click on Apply to Rule.

Now this Alert is active on my Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes 😉

When you go to Alert Rules, you will see the new Alert rule.
Here you can modify it if necessary.

For example, I want the severity from 3 Information to 2 Warning.

I made a severity 2 Warning.
Don’t forget to click on Save at the left top.

More Container Insights information on Microsoft docs :

Recommended metric alerts (preview) from Container insights 

Common alert schema

Use Cluster Connect to connect to Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters

Conclusion

Microsoft Azure Arc enabled kubernetes is Awesome for management in a hybrid way. I just showed you the power of Alert rules with action groups from the Azure Cloud to get Container Insights. Of course there are more Azure features for your Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes like Security (Preview) Kubernetes Resources, Policies, Gitops and more. Making your own dashboard with Container Insight information. Go for hybrid IT Management with Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes!

 

Windows Admin Center and Windows Server 2022 #Docker Host – Azure Container Instances and #AKS #WAC #Azure #Winserv

Windows Admin Center

Windows Admin Center runs in a web browser and can manage :

• Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows 11, Windows 10
• Azure Stack HCI
• Clusters
• Containers; Docker, Kubernetes, AKS
• Azure Virtual Servers, Azure integration via extensions like Azure Monitoring, Azure Security, and much more….
• Lot of extensions to manage for example third party solutions.

This goes with the locally Windows Admin Center gateway installed on Windows Server or domain-joined Windows 10 /11.

Windows Admin Center Architecture.

Here you find more information about the Install options of Windows Admin Center

I’m working with Windows Admin Center every day to manage our datacenter and to mange my MVP LAB. When you have to install Windows Server Core
or Microsoft Azure Stack HCI Operating system, then Windows Admin Center is the right tool for you as an Administrator. You can use all the Server Manager tools via WAC
and you don’t have to work with Command-line tools only like CMD and PowerShell.

You can download Microsoft Windows Admin Center here

Installing Docker Host on Windows Server 2022

In my MVP LAB I have a Microsoft Windows Server 2022 Datacenter Edition Hyper-V Host, and I like to make a Docker Host Server for my Containers.
With Windows Admin Center it’s easy to roll out a Docker host Server for your Containers.
In the following steps I will Install a Docker Host Server on Windows Server 2022.

Open Windows Admin Center and connect to your Server.

I Have Container Extension installed version 1.150.0

Click on Containers and Click on Install
Windows Admin Center will Restart your Server for the Docker Installation!

Hang on while Docker Host will be Installed on Windows Server 2022.

Docker Host Installed Successfully.

Docker Host Container Overview Screen on Windows Server 2022.

From here you can Pull containers images to the Docker Host.
This is what I did but…..

Instead of pulling a Container Image you can also Create your Own Container Image.

Here I’m Pulling a ASP.NET Container Image from Microsoft.

Pulled Container Image Successfully.

The ASP.NET Container Image is now Available on the Docker Host.

Select the Container Image and Click on Run.

Give the Docker Container a name.
You can Manage the ports,
Hyper-V Isolation,
Memory,
CPU
And add addition Docker Run options,
Click on Run.

The ASP.NET Docker Container is running on Windows Server 2022.

When you Click on the running Container you will get options like :
Stats, Details, Logs, Console and Events.
When you Click on Console you will go remote by PowerShell to the Docker Host.

Here you got all the Docker commands 😉

And of course when you want to develop Containers as a developer you can use Microsoft Visual Studio Code as well.

The ASP.NET Container in VSCode.
Download Microsoft Visual Studio Code here

(I’m using Visual Studio Code Insiders version in my MVP LAB)

Microsoft Azure Container Instances

Containers are becoming the preferred way to package, deploy, and manage cloud applications. Azure Container Instances offers the fastest and simplest way to run a container in Azure, without having to manage any virtual machines and without having to adopt a higher-level service.

Azure Container Instances is a great solution for any scenario that can operate in isolated containers, including simple applications, task automation, and build jobs. For scenarios where you need full container orchestration, including service discovery across multiple containers, automatic scaling, and coordinated application upgrades, we recommend Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

For my MVP LAB Azure Container Instances (ACI) is a great way to run Containers fast in the Cloud and have a overview with Windows Admin Center for :

Here you have a overview of your Azure Container Instances in Windows Admin Center.

In the following steps I will create an Azure Container Instance via the Microsoft Azure Portal and show it in Windows Admin Center. For this you need to integrate Windows Admin Center with your Microsoft Azure Subscription. This you can do in settings of WAC:

Register your Azure Subscription with Windows Admin Center for Hybrid Benefit.
Here you find more information about Azure integration with Windows Admin Center

When you have your Azure Account active in Windows Admin Center, go to the Microsoft Azure Portal and search for Container instances.

Click on Create Container Instances

Here you set the basics of your Azure Container Instance

Here you set the following items for your Azure Container Instance (ACI) :

1. Select your Azure Subscription which is integrated with your Microsoft Windows Admin Center.
2. Select or Create the Resource Group for your Azure Container Instance.
3. Give your Container a name.
4. Select the Region in Microsoft Azure where you want your Azure Container Instance to run.
5. Availability zones to select.
6. Select your Image Source, I selected Quickstart images of Microsoft, but you can also select your own Container image.
7. Then select the size for vcpu, memory, gpus for your Azure Container Instance application.

Click on Next for Networking.

I Selected Public for testing but here you can select private too
with your own DNS name Label with the
right ports and protocols.

At Advanced settings you can configure additional container properties and variables

here you can TAG the Owner of the Azure Container Instance.
Click on Review + Create.

Now you can Click Create or Download the template for Automation.

Have a look at the Options here what you can do with the Template from here.

Microsoft Azure Container Instance is Deployed and running.

Nginx Container Instance is running on Azure.

Now we have the Microsoft Azure Container Instance with Nginx running in the Cloud, we can see that in Windows Admin Center.

Azure Container Instance in Windows Admin Center in running state.
When you don’t need it anymore you can end it here or in the Azure Portal.

Azure Container Instance is stopped by Windows Admin Center.

Run your Own Azure Container Instances from the ACR via
Windows Admin Center.

Manage Kubernetes Clusters and Containers with Windows Admin Center

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) on Azure Stack HCI is an on-premises implementation of Azure Kubernetes Service, which automates running containerized applications at scale. Azure Kubernetes Service is available on Azure Stack HCI, Windows Server 2019 Datacenter, and Windows Server 2022 Datacenter, making it quicker to get started hosting Linux and Windows containers in your datacenter. This is the High Available Container Solution on-premises from Microsoft, where you can run Containers and microservices in a isolated way in your datacenter with your DevOps Team. But you can also make your Azure Stack HCI Cluster hybrid with Azure integration and Azure Arc Services to benefit of Azure Hybrid Services.

 

Setup AKS on Azure Stack HCI with Windows Admin Center

Create your Own locally Azure Stack HCI Cluster with Azure Kubernetes Services

Conclusion

Microsoft product team of Windows Admin Center | Windows Server | Azure Stack HCI are working hard to make the Windows Admin Center Tool better and better to install and manage Container / microservices solutions. With Microsoft Azure extensions in Windows Admin Center and Azure Arc Services, Microsoft features from the Azure Cloud becomes available for your Containers like Azure Defender for Cloud with Container Insights, Azure Monitor, Azure App Services and much more.
Windows Admin Center is a Great Server Manager tool for your Windows Servers in your Datacenter. Especially when you use Windows Server Core or Azure Stack HCI.

Important:

Some features in Windows Admin Center are preview and not production ready yet, like ACR and ACI Integration I just showed in preview.
Please feel free to provide Microsoft feedback on Windows Admin Center here.

JOIN Windows Admin Center Community Group on LinkedIn

JOIN Microsoft Ignite 2021 Event November 2-4 #MSIgnite #Azure #Winserv #Windows11 #Hybrid

Microsoft Ignite 2021

Join Microsoft and the Community November 2–4, 2021 to explore the latest tools, training sessions, technical expertise, networking opportunities, and more. You can register here

Here you find some great MSIgnite guidance on Microsoft Tech Community :

Check out what’s new in Security at Microsoft Ignite

Surface at Microsoft Ignite: November 2021

Your Guide to Microsoft Teams at Microsoft Ignite Fall 2021

Windows at Microsoft Ignite: November 2021

A developer’s guide to Ignite 2021

Bring Azure Kubernetes Services to a Hybrid Environment (The Blueprint Files)

Follow @MS_Ignite on Twitter

Of course you can make your own schedule from the session catalog here

Don’t forget your Registration and have a Great innovative Microsoft Ignite 2021 Event 😉

 

Azure Monitor Insights for Arc enabled Kubernetes Clusters anywhere #Azure #Kubernetes

Azure Monitor Insights for Monitoring your Containers.

In the last blogpost I wrote about Microsoft Azure Arc Services and how to connect a Docker for Desktop Kubernetes Cluster for testing your DevOps solution like Container Apps, Functions, App Services in a test environment. Here you find the Link to the Installation.

One of the Microsoft Azure Arc features is Azure Monitor Insights for monitoring your Kubernetes Cluster and the Containers.

Azure Arc Insights for Kubernetes Cluster anywhere

In the following step-by-step guide we will configure Azure Monitor Insights for your Kubernetes Cluster.

I Connected my Analytics Workspace CloudMVPLab.
Click on Configure.

Onboarding your Kubernetes Cluster will take some minutes.

After a while your Kubernetes Cluster Analytics data will show in Insights.

Here you see a navigation bar with the following topics

• What’s New
• Cluster
• Reports
• Nodes
• Controllers
• Containers.

Insights reports of the Kubernetes Cluster

Here you can Click on default reports of your Kubernetes Cluster.

Storage Capacity and Health Status report of your Kubernetes Cluster.

Storage Capacity more in Details.

Deployments Report of your Kubernetes Cluster.

Workload details Report of your Kubernetes Cluster.

Kubelet report of your Kubernetes Cluster

Data Usage of your Kubernetes Cluster

Data Usage

Insights the Nodes of the Kubernetes Cluster

Insights of the Nodes and on the right you can view Analytics.

Here you can work with Log Analytics on your Cluster.

Insights in Controllers of your Kubernetes Cluster

Insights of your Controllers

Insights Containers of your Kubernetes Cluster

Container Insights of your Kubernetes Cluster

Container Insights with Azure Log Analytics.

So with Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Clusters you can monitoring your Cluster and running Containers to keep you in Control on what is happening on the Cluster but also with your Container Apps and microservices. After this you can set Alerts and notifications when something is going wrong or offline. With this running you can start running your own App services, Containers or Azure functions on your Kubernetes Cluster.

Microsoft Senior Cloud Advocate Thomas Maurer explains in this awesome video how to add Azure App Services to your Kubernetes Cluster

Conclusion

This configuration with Docker for Desktop Kubernetes Cluster is for testing purpose only and can be used for your own DevOps solutions before you deploy on Production Ready Clusters. With Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Clusters you get the powerful Microsoft Azure Features and solutions in a secure way on your Kubernetes Cluster. I wish you lot of success with Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Clusters to make Awesome Apps and IT solutions for the Business 😉

#AzureArc Services with Docker for Windows #Kubernetes Cluster for Testing #DevOps #MSBuild

Microsoft Build 2021 Global virtual event

I Hope everyone had a Great Microsoft Build 2021 Online Conference this week. Microsoft announced a lot of new features and Hybrid Cloud Solutions at Build 2021 🙂 If you missed this Awesome Build 2021 event, you can watch the highlights on demand here.

Microsoft also launched MSBuild Book of News 2021

Build 2021 Resources: Build consistent hybrid and multicloud applications with Azure Arc

DevOps and developers are increasingly using microservices-based architectures with containerized applications for agility and flexibility. Azure Arc extends the single control plane from Azure to enable you to build apps consistently across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With this information I was thinking, can I connect Microsoft Azure Arc Services to my Surface Book 3 with Windows 10 Preview Insiders Build 21390 and Docker for Windows with Kubernetes Cluster 1.19.7 active?

IMPORTANT: The following step-by-step guide is for testing purpose only.

Installing Docker for Windows with Kubernetes Cluster on Windows 10

First you need to have Docker for Windows 10.

System requirements

Your Windows machine must meet the following requirements to successfully install Docker Desktop.

• WSL 2 backend
• Hyper-V backend and Windows containers

WSL 2 backend

• Windows 10 64-bit: Home, Pro, Enterprise, or Education, version 1903 (Build 18362 or higher).
• Enable the WSL 2 feature on Windows. For detailed instructions, refer to the Microsoft documentation.
• The following hardware prerequisites are required to successfully run WSL 2 on Windows 10:
  • 64-bit processor with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
  • 4GB system RAM
  • BIOS-level hardware virtualization support must be enabled in the BIOS settings. For more information, see Virtualization.

Here you can download Docker Desktop for Windows

With docker desktop for Windows you can switch between Windows Containers and Linux Containers. When you want to have a Kubernetes Cluster on your Windows 10 device active you have to switch to Linux Containers in the taskbar like this :

It’s now active for Linux Containers. (Default)

Right Click on the Docker tray icon and go to Settings.
Then go to Kubernetes to enable your Cluster locally on your Windows 10 Device.
When you apply it take some minutes for the installation.

When you see the Kubernetes icon on green, then your Cluster is running.

When you do a lot of DevOps work you use Microsoft Visual Studio Code for Free, because here you can see your Kubernetes Cluster and try your own code or Apps.

Kubernetes Cluster is running locally on your Windows 10 device.

Installing Microsoft Azure Arc Agent

The next step is to install the Microsoft Azure Arc agent on your Windows 10 device.

Login in your Azure Subscription, if you don’t have one you can start here

Search for Azure Arc in your subscription.

Click on Servers and Click on Add.

Click on add a Single Server.
Click on Generate Script.

Prerequisites for the Azure Arc Agent.

Select your Azure Subscription and Resource Group
Choose your Region.
Operating System is Windows. ( your Windows10 device)
Click on Next.

You can add your TAG here.
More information about Azure Tags

Here you can download the Installation script or do a Copy of the Azure Arc Agent.

Open PowerShell ISE in Administrator mode.
Paste the Azure Arc Agent PowerShell Script.
Click on run.

When you see this message open your browser and go to
https://microsoft.com/devicelogin

Copy the Code in the last rule of PowerShell here and click on Next.

Enter your Azure Subscription account here and click on Next.

Connection is made with Azure you can close this screen.

Azure Arc Agent is connect with your Windows 10 Device.

Here you see my Azure Arc Enabled Machine.

Now your Windows 10 device, my Surface Book 3 is connected with Microsoft Azure Arc Services.

Register a Kubernetes Cluster with Azure Arc

The last step is to register your kubernetes Cluster with Microsoft Azure Arc Services.

Click on kubernetes Clusters on the left.
Click on Register a Kubernetes Cluster with Azure Arc.

The prerequisites to add your Kubernetes Cluster to Azure Arc

Select your Azure Subscription
Select your Resource Group
Give your Cluster a Name in Azure
Select Region.
Are you behind a Proxy Server? Yes or No

Here you can add your TAG to the Kubernetes Cluster.

The Next step is to run the Script, you can do that with PowerShell or Bash. I Did this via Azure CLI and with Helm 3.

Microsoft Azure CLI active with Helm 3

Copy the Bash commando into your Azure CLI like here.

This operation might take a couple of minutes.

Done, the Kubernetes Cluster is added to Azure Arc.

Dockkube was successfully connected to Azure.

Kubernetes Cluster with Azure Arc

Now you Have connected your Kubernetes Cluster to Azure Arc Services, you can start exploring the extensions :

Kubernetes Cluster – Azure Arc extensions

You can work with GitOps on your Kubernetes Cluster via Azure Arc Services

GitOps on your Kubernetes Cluster via Azure Arc.

More Features like Security, Monitoring, Automation :

Features for Kubernetes in Azure Arc Services.

Here you see in Visual Studio Code your Azure-Arc Helm Release.

Conclusion

“Learn how to write once and run anywhere using your preferred cloud-native application services. Ensure governance, compliance and security for your deployments, all through a single pane of glass management experience in Azure.”

With Microsoft Azure Arc Services you bring Azure Cloud Technology anywhere for your Apps, Containers, microservices.
I Hope this is a first start for exploring and testing your Hybrid Cloud solution. Wish you a lot of fun and happy coding 😉

 

Dapr for .NET Developers E-book #microservices #dotnet #Dapr #Kubernetes #Azure #DevOps #developers

Dapr is an open source, portable, event-driven runtime that makes it easy for developers to build resilient, microservice, stateless and stateful applications that run on the cloud and edge. Dapr enables developers to focus on writing business logic and not solving distributed system challenges, thereby significantly improving their productivity, and reducing development time. Dapr lowers the bar for entry to build modern cloud native applications based on a microservices architecture and with this v1.0 release, Dapr applications can be deployed to self-hosted infrastructure or Kubernetes clusters in production scenarios.

Here you find an E-book about Dapr for .NET Developers 

Foreword by Mark Russinovich Azure CTO and Technical Fellow Microsoft

With the wave of cloud adoption well underway, there is a major shift happening towards “cloud native” development, often built with microservice-architectures. These microservices are both stateless and stateful, and run on the cloud and edge, embracing the diversity of languages and frameworks available today. This enterprise shift is driven by both the market forces of faster time to market, as well as the scale and efficiencies of building services for the cloud. Even before COVID-19, cloud adoption was accelerating for enterprises and developers were being asked to do even more to deliver on building these distributed system applications, and that has only accelerated since. Developers in enterprises seek to focus on business logic, while leaning on platforms to imbue their applications with scale, resiliency, maintainability, elasticity, and the other attributes of cloud-native architectures, which is why there is also shift towards serverless platforms that hide the underlying infrastructure. Developers should not be expected to become distributed systems experts. This is where Dapr steps in to help you, whether you are building on infrastructure such as Kubernetes, or on a serverless platform.

Dapr is designed as an enterprise, developer-focused, microservices programming model platform with the mantra “any language, any framework, run anywhere”. It makes building distributed applications easy and portable across any infrastructure, from public-cloud, through hierarchical edge, and even down to single node IoT devices.  It emerged from both our experiences building services in Azure as well as time spent working with customers building applications on Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Service Fabric. Over and over, we saw common problems that they had to address. It became clear that there was a need to provide a “library” of common microservice best practices that developers could use, not only in new greenfield applications, but also to aid in the modernization of existing applications. In the containerized, distributed, and networked cloud native world, the sidecar model has emerged as the preferred approach, in the same way DLLs are preferred in the client/server generation. Using Dapr’s sidecar and APIs give you, as a developer, all the power of distributed systems functionality, with the ease of a single HTTP or gRPC local call.

To address the wide range of scenarios that developers face, Dapr provides features such as state management, service to service invocation, pub/sub and integration to external systems with I/O bindings, which are based on the triggers and bindings of Azure Functions. These in turn take advantage of Dapr’s component model which allows you to “swap out”, say different underlying state stores, without having to change any code, making code more portable, more flexible and allowing for experimentation of what best suits your needs. Developers don’t need to learn and incorporate service SDKs into their code, worry about authentication, secret management, retries or conditional code that targets specific deployment environments.

This book shows how Dapr reduces your development time and overall code maintenance by incrementally “Daperizing” the canonical .NET reference application, eShop. For example, in the original eShop implementation, significant amounts of code were written to abstract between Azure Service Bus and RabbitMQ for publishing events between services. All this code can be discarded and simply replaced with Dapr’s pub/sub API and component model which had an even wider range of pub/sub brokers, rather than just two. Dapr’s actor model, when used in the reworked eShop application, shows the ease of building long running, stateful, event driven, workflow applications with all the difficulties of concurrency and multi-threading removed. By the end of this book, you will see the drastic simplification that Dapr brings to your application development, and I firmly believe all developers embarking on a cloud native app building journey should leverage Dapr.

We publicly announced Dapr with the v0.1 release in Oct 2019 and now, a year and half later, I am thrilled to say that Dapr is ready for production usage with the v1.0 release. Getting Dapr to v1.0 has truly been a community effort. It has been amazing to see the open-source community coalesce around Dapr and grow since it was first announced – from 114 contributors in October 2019 to over 700 in early 2021 – a six-fold increase in 16 months! Contributions to the project have gone to every Dapr repo and have ranged from opening issues, commenting on feature proposals, providing samples, and of course contributing code. The parts of the project community members have contributed to the most include the Dapr runtime, docs, CLI, SDKs and the creation of a rich ecosystem of components. Maintaining this openness is critical to Dapr’s future.

Dapr is really just getting started, though, and you should expect to see more Dapr capabilities and more support for Dapr in Azure services. I hope that you will take advantage of Dapr to enable you to focus on your core business logic and accelerate your microservices development. I am are excited to have you join us in the Dapr community on this journey at https://github.com/dapr/ and on Discord https://aka.ms/dapr-discord.

Modern distributed systems are complex. You start with small, loosely coupled, independently deployable services. These services cross process and server boundaries. They then consume different kinds of infrastructure backing services (databases, message brokers, key vaults). Finally, these disparate pieces compose together to form an application.

Mark Russinovich Azure CTO and Technical Fellow Microsoft

Thank you Author; Rob Vettor, Sander Molenkamp and Edwin van Wijk for this Awesome E-book 😉

#WindowsAdminCenter and Windows Server 20H2 Core with WSL2 #Ubuntu Distro #Winserv #WSL2

Windows Server 2019 Core and WSL 2 Ubuntu 18.04

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) gives you the most command-line tools, utilities, and applications directly on Windows. I’m using Microsoft Windows Admin Center and Windows Server Core 20H2 with Build version 19042.746 to deploy WSL 2 with Ubuntu 18.04 Linux Distro. Here you find the installation of the Windows Server Core 20H2 with Windows Admin Center

In the following steps we will install the Following :

• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
• Move from WSL 1.0 to WSL 2.0
• Install Ubuntu 18.04 Linux distro

Installing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

This will install the WSL Feature.
When it ask do you want to Restart select No, because we will install the Next Feature :

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform

Select now Yes for Restarting the Server.

Moving from WSL 1.0 to WSL version 2.0

Before we Move from WSL version 1 to WSL version 2, we need a WSL Kernel Update.
Download here https://aka.ms/wsl2kernel

I Created a Share on the Windows Server via WIndows Admin Center.
And Uploaded the WSL_Update_X64.msi

Run WSL_Update_X64 and Click on Next.

Click on Finish

WSL –Set-Default-Version 2
Now we have Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2 Active.

Install Ubuntu 18.04 Linux Distro for WSL2

With the following Powershell Invoke-WebRequest we get Ubuntu 18.04

---

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://aka.ms/wsl-ubuntu-1804 -OutFile ~/Ubuntu1804.zip -UseBasicParsing
md C:\Distros\Ubuntu1804
Expand-Archive ~/Ubuntu1804.zip C:\Distros\Ubuntu1804

---

Run Ubuntu 18.04

Ubuntu 18.04 is Running in WSL2 on Windows Server Core 20H2 😉

Conclusion

First of All Microsoft Windows Admin Center is supporting me in the Installation of Windows Subsystem for Linux. We have WSL 2 Running with Ubuntu 18.04 with a lot of possibilities!
What I really like is integration, like in Windows 10 and Docker for desktop with the WSL 2 Engine. Here my Blogpost
Together with VSCode Remote WSL is Cool.

Would be awesome to run Docker Windows and Linux Containers in combination with WSL 2 integration on Windows Server Core edition. Maybe in the Future, who knows?

Get Started with the #Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer #AzOps #Azure #Cloud #Storage

Upload, download, and manage Azure blobs, files, queues, and tables, as well as Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Data Lake Storage entities. Easily access virtual machine disks, and work with either Azure Resource Manager or classic storage accounts. Manage and configure cross-origin resource sharing rules.

Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer

The Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer App is standalone and available for Windows, Linux and MacOS operating systems.
Here you find the Prerequisites and the Download files for Azure Storage Explorer.

Here you see how easy it is to create a snapshot before you begin with a Installation on the Azure Virtual Machine.

Create a Snapshot

Give the Snapshot a Name and select the Resource Group.

Snapshot Created Successfully 😉

When you open the Azure Portal and search for snapshots :

Phantom OS Disk with a Full Snapshot.

Azure Storage Explorer Emulator for Developers

Azurite open source Azure Storage API compatible server (emulator)

Azurite is an open source Azure Storage API compatible server (emulator). Based on Node.js, Azurite provides cross platform experiences for customers wanting to try Azure Storage easily in a local environment. Azurite simulates most of the commands supported by Azure Storage with minimal dependencies.

Azurite V2 is manually created with pure JavaScript, popular and active as an open source project. However, Azure Storage APIs are growing and keeping updating, manually keeping Azurite up to date is not efficient and prone to bugs. JavaScript also lacks strong type validation which prevents easy collaboration.

Compared to V2, Azurite V3 implements a new architecture leveraging code generated by a TypeScript Server Code Generator we created. The generator uses the same swagger (modified) used by the new Azure Storage SDKs. This reduces manual effort and facilitates better code alignment with storage APIs.

3.0.0-preview is the first release version using Azurite’s new architecture.

Features & Key Changes in Azurite V3

• Blob storage features align with Azure Storage API version 2020-04-08 (Refer to support matrix section below)
  • SharedKey/Account SAS/Service SAS/Public Access Authentications
  • Get/Set Blob Service Properties
  • Create/List/Delete Containers
  • Create/Read/List/Update/Delete Block Blobs
  • Create/Read/List/Update/Delete Page Blobs
• Queue storage features align with Azure Storage API version 2020-04-08 (Refer to support matrix section below)
  • SharedKey/Account SAS/Service SAS
  • Get/Set Queue Service Properties
  • Preflight Request
  • Create/List/Delete Queues
  • Put/Get/Peek/Updata/Deleta/Clear Messages
• Features NEW on V3
  • Built with TypeScript and ECMA native promise and async features
  • New architecture based on TypeScript server generator. Leverage auto generated protocol layer, models, serializer, deserializer and handler interfaces from REST API swagger
  • Flexible structure and architecture, supports customizing handler layer implementation, persistency layer implementation, HTTP pipeline middleware injection
  • Detailed debugging log support, easy bug locating and reporting
  • Works with storage .Net SDK basic and advanced sample
  • SharedKey, AccountSAS, ServiceSAS, OAuth, Public Access authentication support
  • Keep updating with latest Azure Storage API version features (Refer to support matrix)

Introducing the ADF Azure Storage Explorer Extension

Azure Data Factory extension for Storage Explorer

Conclusion

Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer tool can make your life easier to do your Azure Storage Management. Copy – Paste data is a Great and handy feature for Administrators.
Hope this is useful and go try it yourself.

Running #Dapr in WSL2 Ubuntu 20-04 distro in #WindowsInsider Build 21277 RS and #VSCode

Working with Dapr in WSL2 Remote VSCode and Ubuntu 20.04 distro

Dapr is a portable, event-driven runtime that makes it easy for any developer to build resilient, stateless and stateful applications that run on the cloud and edge and embraces the diversity of languages and developer frameworks.

 

Developer language SDKs and frameworks 

To make using Dapr more natural for different languages, it also includes language specific SDKs for Go, Java, JavaScript, .NET and Python. These SDKs expose the functionality in the Dapr building blocks, such as saving state, publishing an event or creating an actor, through a typed, language API rather than calling the http/gRPC API. This enables you to write a combination of stateless and stateful functions and actors all in the language of their choice. And because these SDKs share the Dapr runtime, you get cross-language actor and functions support.

SDKs

• C++ SDK
• Go SDK
• Java SDK
• Javascript SDK
• Python SDK
• RUST SDK
• .NET SDK

Dapr in Standalone version.

I’m using Windows Insider Build version 21277-RS with Docker for Windows Edge and Visual Studio Code.

Docker for Windows Edge Version Running.

Because Docker for Windows Edge support WSL2 Engine and Visual Studio Code too, brought me to an idea to build dapr into Ubuntu 20.04 WSL Distro on my Windows Insiders 21277 RS version on my Surface Book 3. There for you must activate the WSL2 integration with my default WSL distro Ubuntu-20.04.

Docker for Windows WSL 2 Integration.

In your Ubuntu-20.04 WSL2 version, you can install Dapr into your linux distro, more information you find here on dapr.io

Microsoft Windows Subsystem for Linux Installation Guide for Windows 10 with all kind of Linux distro’s 

Dapr init ( in the Ubuntu-20.04 WSL2 Linux distro )

Here you find the Dapr dev environment installation types for Dapr init, I did the standalone version. Dapr makes then the following containers :

Dapr Containers.

Then we have the following running :

• Dapr Dashboard
• Zipkin

Zipkin is a distributed tracing system. It helps gather timing data needed to troubleshoot latency problems in service architectures. Features include both the collection and lookup of this data.

Zipkin Traces

Dapr Dashboard

Now we have Dapr running in the WSL2 Ubuntu-20.04 distro, you can use Visual Studio Code on Windows Insiders using Remote WSL and work with your favourite dapr SDK like the list above 😉

Dapr Extension in VSCode

From here you can work with your dapr application.

In this guide dapr is running with Docker containers, but you can also install it on Kubernetes or K8s, AKS, Azure any where, see this overview :

Dapr with Kubenetes Containers.

Dapr Overview.

Important Note : Dapr is now production ready with version 1.0 ! Developers, DevOps, AzOps, you can start with it and Build and Test your own microservices and Container apps !  Hope you are having fun with it too 😉