Your guide to Azure!
When moving your applications to the cloud, it makes sense to start using Azure Services to get the best service, highest availability (SLA) and worry free maintenance provided by Azure. The next step is to use Azure AD identities with Azure SQL Database.
Within a few steps you will have Azure AD user authentication setup.
Continue reading “Azure SQL configure Azure AD user authentication (Manual)”This simple manual has been created to create an user in Azure SQL and assign appropriate permissions. First connect to your SQL server. Either use and AAD admin account or the SQL Admin account.
Once connected, open a New Query window and run the following command on the Master database to create the user on the server in the Master database:
CREATE LOGIN '<Username>' WITH password='<strong-password>';
Now open again a New Query window, and select the database where you want to provision permissions to the just created user. Make sure to match the Username from the command above.
CREATE USER "<Username>";
The last step is to assign the desired role to the user. Change the value of the role, and match again the Username.
EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_datawriter', '<Username';
This should do the trick. Let me know if you have any problems or need help.
Azure Application Gateway is an advance type of load-balancer. Where an Azure Load-balancer routes traffic on the transport layer (OSI Layer 4 | TCP + UDP) the Application Gateway is a way more advanced load-balancer. It can route based on URL as well on path’s. On top of that it can do much more, like SSL offloading, autoscaling, redirection, multiple site hosting and the most import of all, it can include a web application firewall (WAF)
With all the features that the Azure application gateway provides, we should be able to setup multiple websites listening on different ports and url’s behind one Azure Application Gateway with just one external IP address.
With this guide you should be able to setup an application gateway with multiple site hostname match and http to https redirect. In this manual we will be using Atlassian Jira and Confluence as an example.
So what are we going to setup:
For this guide the VNET, subnets and the virtual machine hosting both websites have already been deployed. During this guide we will not deploy a Web Application Firewall, I will tell more about that in upcoming blog article.
Last week I came across another post about Azure Heatmap. Every time when I need to find out what’s new on a specific feature in Azure, I will use Azure Heatmap. Awesome tool, I would recommend it to everybody!
Also, check out the new region lookup function to find out what is changing in your Azure Region
https://azureheatmap.azurewebsites.net/highlights
With Azure Lighthouse it is possible to manage your customers portals from one portal. Microsoft has added cross-tenant management for Security Center making it easy to overview customer security status and settings.
This way Service providers can leverage security from their own tenant.
If you want to learn more about Security Center and Lighthouse go to Microsoft Docs
Tonight I was honored to give a masterclass in Azure Basics. By going over the Azure Basics using lab exercises everybody learned how to:
Special thanks to Proxsys for hosting the Masterclass!
Last week I received the question from a customer where to get the SQL license key… By default you will see the key during SQL installation, but with an Azure deployed SQL virtual machine you will never get to see the key, as its deployed from the Azure Portal.
So within a few clicks you will be able to retreive the key.
Continue reading “How to get the license key for SQL Server Reporting Services in Azure”If you still have doubts about moving to Azure because of compliance and regulatory requirements, they will now be gone with Azure Dedicated hosts. Still in preview but ready for testing. Azure dedicated hosts are physical machines that are single-tenant configured where you can run your Linux and Windows virtual machines. This includes your own infrastructure, as well as your own maintenance policies for that host.
Azure Dedicated Hosts provide visibility over the server infrastructure running your Azure Virtual Machines. You get more control over the following:
You can mix and match different Azure Virtual Machine sizes within the same virtual machine series on a given host.
If you have any second thoughts, it is now open in preview for testing.
Last 2 months I’ve been working on renewing my Office 365 and Azure certifications. 4 years ago I already passed the “old” exams: 533, 534, 345, 346 and 347. This saved me a few exams. I was able to upgrade to Azure Administrator and Messaging administrator by passing the upgrade exams. For the Azure Solutions Architect I had to take the AZ-300 and AZ-301 exam as an upgrade exam was only valid for those who have passed the follow up exam of 534: 535.
So here is the final result, I will be looking into the Azure Security exam in the future (AZ-500) as well as the Microsoft 365 Certified Enterprise Administrator Expert (MS100 & MS101)
When you accidentally locked your self out from a Virtual Machine in Azure, there is no console access to login and help your self back in to the system.
In the last year I’ve seen a few cases where somebody accidentally locked himself out of a VM by wrongly adjusting the Windows Firewall, making it impossible to manage their virtual machine in Azure. But with Custom script extension it is possible to disable the Windows Firewall to gain access again!
Continue reading “Disable Windows Firewall on a virtual machine from the Azure Portal”When you do large migrations, it might be convenient to change the default mailbox language settings for all your end users. By default each user needs to set the default language and time zone at first login to OWA in Office 365.
With the following PowerShell Script you should be able to change it within a few seconds. In this script we used the Dutch language code and Western European Standard time. Change it accordingly.
get-mailbox | Set-MailboxRegionalConfiguration -LocalizeDefaultFolderName: $true -DateFormat dd-MM-yy -Language 1043 -TimeZone "W. Europe Standard Time"Continue reading “Office 365 Set mailbox default language”
Microsoft has released an updated autopilot version called white glove! With the traditional autopilot version there was one big disadvantage on delivering a laptop directly from the OEM to the end user, and that was the waiting time for the end user to complete the installation of all applications, settings and policies.
With the next release the provisioning will be split. The time consuming part can now be performed by the IT department, IT Partner or even the OEM provider. Giving the end user a short and simple process before they can start using their device.
But with new features there are always new requirements. With the new white glove autopilot it is still possible to use both the Azure AD join and the Hybrid Azure AD join scenarios. However these are the new requirements:
Because the OEM or vendor performs the white glove process, this doesn’t require access to an end-user’s on-premise domain infrastructure. This is unlike a typical hybrid Azure AD-joined scenario because rebooting the device is postponed. The device is resealed prior to the time when connectivity to a domain controller is expected, and the domain network is contacted when the device is unboxed on-premise by the end-user.
We all know that phishing is going on all the time. But how to defend your organization against these criminals that want to get your login information! The answer is simple, Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection, or short: ATP.
So lets get started and start implementing anti-phishing policies. First go to https://protection.office.com/antiphishing and create a new policy.
Continue reading “Set up Office 365 ATP anti-phishing policies”If you want to improve your security in Office 365 it is recommended to add the EM+S E3 or E5 security suits. This gives you more information about what is happening with your users, but you can configure alerting and actions as well.
So if you have the EM+S licenses, you can go to https://portal.cloudappsecurity.com and start configuring your alerts and policies.
By default there are a lot of default policies, but you can create your own as well! Let me summarize the most important ones that you definitely need to look at:
Continue reading “Office 365 Cloud app security”Microsoft released Lighthouse last weekend, and since this is a great feature, I wanted to implement it as soon as possible, but the Microsoft docs might be a bit confusing, so I wanted to simplify the manual, so here it is! We will be using PowerShell, as this makes life so much easier, and faster.
Last week Microsoft announced Azure Lighthouse. It is now possible to manage and administrate your customer tenants from your own management portal.
How it works? watch the video below for more information. I have created a manual how to implement Azure Lighthouse in this post: https://www.2azure.nl/2019/07/18/how-to-setup-azure-lighthouse-manual/
Microsoft has announced a new service: Azure Data Share. It is a new data service for sharing data across organizations. This can be used to easily share big files and data with external organisations instead of using FTP or other data sharing services.
Read the Microsoft official announcement for more information:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-preview-of-azure-data-share/
Watch the video to learn more about Azure data share:
https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Azure-Friday/Share-data-simply-and-securely-using-Azure-Data-Share/player?format=ny
If you have a ADFS server for your user authentication in Office 365 / Azure AD, and you want to use Pass Through Authentication and/or password Hash Synchronization we will need to change a few things and run a few Powershell commands.
So before we can change the domain to managed, verify if your domain has password sync enabled using the AD connect wizard:
If you have an AD Connect server, you sometimes require a faster sync than the default 30 minutes. This can be done very easily by entering one Powershell command. Open a Powershell window, and load the AD Connect Sync Powershell module:
Import-Module ADSync
Once imported, you have 2 options. For a full sync, type the following command:
Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Initial
For just syncing the changes, type the following:
Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta
Today I have given a hands on lab with Erik Loef on security and ethical hacking. We had created 5 different labs for the 21 participants to learn them more about security. This way we allowed them to think as a hacker, find out weaknesses in the system, and how to take measures against hackers. We did create the following 5 labs:
All sessions where created to learn about security. With Azure and Office 365 we do our outmost best to secure your environment. I hope to give you more information in the near future how to improve security in Azure and Office 365.
