MVPBUZZ | mountainss Cloud and Datacenter Management Blog

October 14, 2018
by James van den Berg Leave a comment

Make your first Pipeline with Azure DevOps Project in the #Cloud #Azure #AzureDevOps

Start here your Azure DevOps Project in Azure.

Microsoft Azure DevOps Services (Tools) to make your own CI/CD Pipeline in the Cloud

Azure Pipelines is a cloud service that you can use to automatically build and test your code project and make it available to other users. It works with just about any language or project type.
Pipelines combines both Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) to constantly and consistently test and build your code and ship it to any target.

Microsoft made it really easy to make your first Azure DevOps Pipeline in the Cloud.
Here you find a step-by-step guide to make your first Azure pipeline :

When you already made your Cloud application, you can choose option Bring your Own Code 😉

But in this step-by-step guide, I choose for a HTML5 Azure Web App template which is available in Azure.

Static Azure Website => Next.

When you create your Azure DevOps project you can see the Flow steps for Creation.

For the Service of the Web App, there are two options in this deployment template :

Web App for Containers
Web App as a Service.

Azure Web Apps enables you to build and host web applications in the programming language of your choice without managing infrastructure. It offers auto-scaling and high availability, supports both Windows and Linux, and enables automated deployments from GitHub, Azure DevOps, or any Git repo

Web App for Containers provides built-in Docker images on Linux with support for specific versions, such as PHP 7.0 and Node.js 4.5. Web App for Containers uses the Docker container technology to host both built-in images and custom images as a platform as a service. In this tutorial, you learn how to build a custom Docker image and deploy it to Web App for Containers. This pattern is useful when the built-in images don’t include your language of choice, or when your application requires a specific configuration that isn’t provided within the built-in images.

The last step needs information about :

Organization: for the site name.
Projectname
Subscription ID
Web App Name
Azure Location.

And then click on Done

Deployment overview.

Your Azure DevOps Pipeline is Running as easy like that 🙂

But most important your Azure Web App is running.

Running in your Container in Azure Cloud Services.

Azure DevOps Container Web App Pipeline is running.

From here you can build your Project and Share it with your Developer Team.
More information you can find on Azure DevOps Docs

Here you see some snapshots on the latest Releases of Azure DevOps release features when I made this blogpost :

When you want to keep up-to-date on Microsoft Azure DevOps, here are some links :

Follow Microsoft Azure DevOps on Twitter

Start here free with Azure DevOps

Microsoft Azure DevOps Blog

JOIN the Azure DevOps Community Group on LinkedIn

Connecting Windows Admin Center to #Microsoft Azure Subscription #WAC #Azure

To allow the Windows Admin Center gateway to communicate with Azure to leverage Azure Active Directory authentication for gateway access, or to create Azure resources on your behalf (for example, to protect VMs managed in Windows Admin Center using Azure Site Recovery), you will need to first register your Windows Admin Center gateway with Azure. You only need to do this once for your Windows Admin Center gateway – the setting is preserved when you update your gateway to a newer version.

In the following Step-by-Step Guide you will connect Windows Admin Center to your Microsoft Azure Subscription.

From here you have to copy the device Code and hit the Link device login ( https://aka.ms/devicelogin )
This will make the connection between Windows Admin Center and your Azure Subscription.

Paste the Code into here and Click on Continue.

From here you are connected to your Azure Subscription.

Select the right Azure Tenant and Click on Register.

Go to the Azure AD App Registration link.

Click on Settings

Click on Required Permissions and then on Grant permissions

Click on Yes.

Windows Admin Center has now Permission.

Microsoft Windows Admin Center (WAC) Gateway is now registered to your Azure Subscription and you can use Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication and Azure Site Recovery to protect your Virtual Machines with WAC.

IMPORTANT : Before you can add Microsoft Azure VM’s to Windows Admin Center, you have to set the Azure Network Firewall portal settings and also the Microsoft Windows OS Firewall of the VM.

Networking Settings of the Azure VM.

Open for http WAC port 5985 and for https 5986.

To make the port more Secure you have these Options in the Firewall rule.

Now you have done this for Azure Networking in the portal, you have to do the same in the Firewall settings of the Virtual Machine Inside.

Allow Port 5985 and 5986.

More information about Azure Integration in Windows Admin Center here

Here you see my Azure VM in Windows Admin Center On-Premises.

Here you see my Azure Data Science VM in the Cloud via Windows Admin Center 😉

July 7, 2018
by James van den Berg Leave a comment

Creating VM Cluster on Azure #Cloud with Terraform #IaC #Azure #Terraform #Linux #Winserv

Type az and you should see this Azure CLI

Type Terraform and you should see the terraform commands

Install and configure Terraform to provision VMs and other infrastructure into Azure

Before you begin with Terraform and deploying your solution to Microsoft Azure you have to install Azure CLI and Terraform for your OS.

In the following step-by-step guide we will deploy a VM Cluster with Terraform into Microsoft Azure Cloud Services.

First we open Powershell in Administrator mode :

You should have your Terraform script ready.

It’s great to edit your Terraform script in Visual Studio Code

Create a Terraform configuration file
In this section, you create a file that contains resource definitions for your infrastructure.
Create a new file named main.tf.
Copy following sample resource definitions into the newly created main.tf file:

resource “azurerm_resource_group” “test” {
name = “acctestrg”
location = “West US 2”
}

resource “azurerm_virtual_network” “test” {
name = “acctvn”
address_space = [“10.0.0.0/16”]
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
}

resource “azurerm_subnet” “test” {
name = “acctsub”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
virtual_network_name = “${azurerm_virtual_network.test.name}”
address_prefix = “10.0.2.0/24”
}

resource “azurerm_public_ip” “test” {
name = “publicIPForLB”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
public_ip_address_allocation = “static”
}

resource “azurerm_lb” “test” {
name = “loadBalancer”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”

frontend_ip_configuration {
name = “publicIPAddress”
public_ip_address_id = “${azurerm_public_ip.test.id}”
}
}

resource “azurerm_lb_backend_address_pool” “test” {
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
loadbalancer_id = “${azurerm_lb.test.id}”
name = “BackEndAddressPool”
}

resource “azurerm_network_interface” “test” {
count = 2
name = “acctni${count.index}”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”

ip_configuration {
name = “testConfiguration”
subnet_id = “${azurerm_subnet.test.id}”
private_ip_address_allocation = “dynamic”
load_balancer_backend_address_pools_ids = [“${azurerm_lb_backend_address_pool.test.id}”]
}
}

resource “azurerm_managed_disk” “test” {
count = 2
name = “datadisk_existing_${count.index}”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
storage_account_type = “Standard_LRS”
create_option = “Empty”
disk_size_gb = “1023”
}

resource “azurerm_availability_set” “avset” {
name = “avset”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
platform_fault_domain_count = 2
platform_update_domain_count = 2
managed = true
}

resource “azurerm_virtual_machine” “test” {
count = 2
name = “acctvm${count.index}”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
availability_set_id = “${azurerm_availability_set.avset.id}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
network_interface_ids = [“${element(azurerm_network_interface.test.*.id, count.index)}”]
vm_size = “Standard_DS1_v2”

# Uncomment this line to delete the OS disk automatically when deleting the VM
# delete_os_disk_on_termination = true

# Uncomment this line to delete the data disks automatically when deleting the VM
# delete_data_disks_on_termination = true

storage_image_reference {
publisher = “Canonical”
offer = “UbuntuServer”
sku = “16.04-LTS”
version = “latest”
}

storage_os_disk {
name = “myosdisk${count.index}”
caching = “ReadWrite”
create_option = “FromImage”
managed_disk_type = “Standard_LRS”
}

# Optional data disks
storage_data_disk {
name = “datadisk_new_${count.index}”
managed_disk_type = “Standard_LRS”
create_option = “Empty”
lun = 0
disk_size_gb = “1023”
}

storage_data_disk {
name = “${element(azurerm_managed_disk.test.*.name, count.index)}”
managed_disk_id = “${element(azurerm_managed_disk.test.*.id, count.index)}”
create_option = “Attach”
lun = 1
disk_size_gb = “${element(azurerm_managed_disk.test.*.disk_size_gb, count.index)}”
}

os_profile {
computer_name = “hostname”
admin_username = “testadmin”
admin_password = “Password1234!”
}

os_profile_linux_config {
disable_password_authentication = false
}

tags {
environment = “staging”
}
}

Type : terraform init

You should see this screen.

Type : az login

We now logging into Microsoft Azure subscription.

https://microsoft.com/devicelogin

Insert the code from your Powershell screen.

Now we have the Terraform INIT running and we are connected to our Azure Subscription 😉

Type : terraform plan

It will refreshing the state and getting ready for deployment.

Type : terraform apply

and then type : yes <enter>

Terraform is now creating the azure resources

Azure resource group acctestrg is made

Terraform deployment VM Cluster on Azure is Ready 😉

Azure VM Cluster is running.

When you want to remove the complete Azure VM Cluster with terraform, it’s really easy :

Type : terraform destroy

and then type : yes <enter>

Azure resources are being deleted via terraform script

Terraform destroyed the Azure VM Cluster

All Azure Resources of the VM Cluster are removed.

Hope this step-by-step guide deploying infrastructure as Code with terraform will help you with your own Cloud solutions in Microsoft azure.

Ps. don’t forget to install Visual Studio Code Azure Terraform extension and play !

#MVPbuzz

June 2, 2018
by James van den Berg Leave a comment

#Microsoft Azure DevOps Projects and Infrastructure as Code #Azure #IaC #DevOps

Microsoft Azure DevOps Project for CI/CD

The Azure DevOps Project presents a simplified experience where you bring your existing code and Git repository, or choose from one of the sample applications to create a continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) pipeline to Azure. The DevOps project automatically creates Azure resources such as a new Azure virtual machine, creates and configures a release pipeline in VSTS that includes a build definition for CI, sets up a release definition for CD, and then creates an Azure Application Insights resource for monitoring.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) gives you benefits like :

Consistency in naming conventions of Azure components
Working together in the same way with your company policies
Reusability of Templates
Automatic documentation and CMDB of deployments in your repository
Rapid deployments
Flexibility and Scalability in code for Azure Deployments

As an Large Enterprise Company you don’t want to Click and Type in the Azure Portal with lot of employees to get the job done in a consistent way. The changes and deployments will be different in time because people can make mistakes. For Developers it’s important to make your building process before you publish your application, so why not for DevOps and ITpro to do the same thing for Infrastructure.

In the following step-by-step guide you will learn how to make a Microsoft Azure DevOps Project and make a CI/CD Pipeline deploying a virtual machine with your ASP.net Application.

Prerequisites :
An Azure subscription. You can get one free through Visual Studio Dev Essentials.
Access to a GitHub or external Git repository that contains .NET, Java, PHP, Node, Python, or static web code.

Here you find the GitHub for Developer Guide

When you have your prerequisites in place you can start with the following steps :

Search for DevOps at All Services in the Azure Portal

Select .NET and Click on Next

You can see where you are in the flow of creating your CI/CD Pipeline, when you need a Azure SQL Database for your ASP.net application you can select Add a Database (Option). This will provide you Azure SQL as a Service (PaaS).

Database-as-a-Service
(I didn’t Choose for SQL)

In this step select Virtual Machine and click Next

From here you can create a VSTS account or your Existing account of Visual Studio Team Services. After selecting VSTS you can manage your Azure settings and by clicking on Change you can select the Azure options.

Select the Virtual Machine you need for your Application.

Here you see the Deployment Running

Important for Infrastructure as Code (IaC), the Deployment template can be saved into the library and / or you can download it for reusability or make your own policies into the template.

When you save it into the Azure Library you get the release notes and who’s the publisher

In the Microsoft Azure DevOps Project main Dashboard you will see the status of your CI/CD Pipeline and that release is in progress or not. On the right-side of the Dashboard you see the Azure resources like the Application endpoint, the Virtual Machine and Application Insights for monitoring. When the CI/CD Pipeline deployment is succeeded you can browse to your ASP.net Application.

Your Application.

Your Virtual Machine Running and in the Monitoring.

The Microsoft Azure DevOps Project CI/CD Pipeline is Completed.

Application Insights is an extensible Application Performance Management (APM) service for web developers on multiple platforms. Use it to monitor your live web application. It will automatically detect performance anomalies. It includes powerful analytics tools to help you diagnose issues and to understand what users actually do with your app. It’s designed to help you continuously improve performance and usability. It works for apps on a wide variety of platforms including .NET, Node.js and J2EE, hosted on-premises or in the cloud. It integrates with your DevOps process, and has connection points to a variety of development tools. It can monitor and analyze telemetry from mobile apps by integrating with Visual Studio App Center and HockeyApp.

You can drill down into the error to see what is happening.

Azure Application Insights topology

Application Insights is aimed at the development team, to help you understand how your app is performing and how it’s being used. It monitors:
Request rates, response times, and failure rates – Find out which pages are most popular, at what times of day, and where your users are. See which pages perform best. If your response times and failure rates go high when there are more requests, then perhaps you have a resourcing problem.
Dependency rates, response times, and failure rates – Find out whether external services are slowing you down.
Exceptions – Analyse the aggregated statistics, or pick specific instances and drill into the stack trace and related requests. Both server and browser exceptions are reported.
Page views and load performance – reported by your users’ browsers.
AJAX calls from web pages – rates, response times, and failure rates.
User and session counts.
Performance counters from your Windows or Linux server machines, such as CPU, memory, and network usage.
Host diagnostics from Docker or Azure.
Diagnostic trace logs from your app – so that you can correlate trace events with requests.
Custom events and metrics that you write yourself in the client or server code, to track business events such as items sold or games won.

You can also drill down into Microsoft Azure Log Analytics and run your analytics queries to get the right information you want for troubleshooting. More information on Azure Log Analytics and queries is on MSFT docs.

From App Insight we see it was an Exception error

Because the Azure DevOps Project is connected with VSTS you can follow the Build and Release here to and you got your documentation of the CI/CD Pipeline.

From here you can work with your Developers and DevOps and manage the User and Groups security in de CI/CD Pipeline for the next Build. Working together to build innovative apps via VSTS from one Dashboard :

VSTS Dashboard

Next day you see it was one time error and the Pipeline is running Fine 😉

For more information about all the possibilities with Microsoft Azure DevOps Project go to MSFT Docs

DevOps and Microsoft :

DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users.

To Learn DevOps please visit this Microsoft DevOps Site

Conclusion :

Invest in your CI/CD Pipeline and make your own environment is important before you deploy into Azure production for your business. Make your ARM Templates and Code in repositories like Git or VSTS. When you have this all in place your are more in control of your consistent Deployments and Changes in the Azure Cloud. I hope this blogpost is useful for you and your Company. Start today with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and get the benefits 😉

May 30, 2018
by James van den Berg Leave a comment

I Love #Microsoft Azure CloudShell in Visual Studio Code #VSC #Azure #Cloud

Azure Cloud Shell in VSC

Azure Cloud Shell is an interactive, browser-accessible shell for managing Azure resources. It provides the flexibility of choosing the shell experience that best suits the way you work. Linux users can opt for a Bash experience, while Windows users can opt for PowerShell

Here you find the Installation of Azure Cloud Shell in Visual Studio Code

As Easy as this 😉

More Technical information about Azure Cloud Shell on Microsoft Docs

May 18, 2018
by James van den Berg Leave a comment

NEW Buy Now THE System Center Configuration Manager Current Branch Book #SCCM #ConfigMgr #Sysctr #MVPbuzz

System Center Configuration Manager Current Branch provides a total systems management solution for a people-centric world. It can deploy applications to individuals using virtually any device or platform, centralizing and automating management across on-premise, service provider, and Microsoft Azure environments. In System Center Configuration Manager Current Branch Unleashed, a team of world-renowned System Center experts shows you how to make the most of this powerful toolset.

A Great Book and a Must have for every System Center Administrator, the book has more then 1100 pages with the following Chapters :

Configuration management basics
Configuration manager overview
Looking inside configuration manager
Architecture design planning
Network design
Installing and updating system center configuration manager
Upgrading and migrating to configmgr current branch
Using the configuration manager console
Client management
Managing compliance
Creating and managing applications
Creating and using deployment types
Creating and managing applications and packages
Distributing and deploying applications and packages
Managing software updates
Integrating intune hybrid into your configuration manager environment
Managing mobile devices
Conditional access in configuration manager
Endpoint protection
Configuration manager queries
Configuration manager reporting
Operating system deployment
Security and delegation in configuration manager
Backup, recovery, and maintenance
Configuration manager log files
Extending hardware inventory
Co-managing windows intune and configmgr
Reference urls