In a previous article, we explored using the CSI Secrets Store Driver and Azure Provider to mount an HTTPS certificate stored in Azure Key Vault on pods deployed to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This was done using Linux containers and an ASP.NET Core application. But what about .NET Framework applications on Windows containers? Let’s see if we can take the same approach. About Windows Containers Containers initially grew out of the Linux world based on its natural support for container […]
Microsoft’s RPA (Robotic Process Automation) solution will transform organizations, helping teams realize cost savings and increased productivity. And the beauty of Microsoft’s RPA capabilities is that they build atop an organization’s existing Azure infrastructure, tapping into native Microsoft cloud services – like Azure Active Directory, On-Demand Compute, Native Network Security Tools, and RBAC Access Control – rather than building these capabilities from scratch on another solution. While automation has been around for decades, the Microsoft one cloud platform provides seamless, […]
This blog will explain how a short-staffed team overcame security issues in a critical legacy application by combining modern authentication with legacy MVC frameworks. This allowed the team to upgrade the application to meet enterprise security standards without disrupting the users. Background I managed an in-house application, ERMS, developed a decade ago with MVC and forms authentication. The forms authentication used custom user management with SQL Server database. The skilled developer created a productive application that served the needs of […]
What is Azure Databricks? Azure Databricks is a data analytics platform that provides powerful computing capability, and the power comes from the Apache Spark cluster. In addition, Azure Databricks provides a collaborative platform for data engineers to share the clusters and workspaces, which yields higher productivity. Azure Databricks plays a major role in Azure Synapse, Data Lake, Azure Data Factory, etc., in the modern data warehouse architecture and integrates well with these resources. Data engineers and data architects work together […]
Challenges with Public Cloud One of the oldest problems facing cloud infrastructure services has been access control. Ensuring that resources can be accessed by users and services that need to access them and not by anything else has been problematic when those services are delivered through the public internet. Even as late as last year, cybersecurity data firm BinaryEdge.io listed over 35,000 publicly accessible and unsecured databases, most of which were cloud-hosted. That’s over 35,000 data breaches that have likely […]
About the Podcast I had the pleasure to once again be a guest on the .NET Rocks! podcast last month. This year marked my 11th time on the show! Carl, Richard, and I talked about how the cloud has changed data analytics. We discussed the latest data work at AIS and bringing a developer’s view to the approach. The cloud has changed bringing disparate data sources together for analytics. With the cloud’s compute-on-demand, you don’t need to do many transformations […]
As your organization continues the digital transformation journey, Microsoft offers a highly beneficial service for protecting and containerizing corporate data and assets for the remote workforce, such as employees, consultants, or contractors: Desktop-as-a-Service. In brief, Desktop-as-a-Service provides a virtual desktop infrastructure, eliminating the need to manage the actual infrastructure! Specifically, the customer is responsible for app deployments, custom images, virtual machine sizing and deployment, directory services integration, and data center network connectivity (e.g., site-to-site VPN, SD-WAN, ExpressRoute, etc.). Today, Microsoft […]
Point-to-Site Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections are helpful when you want to connect to your VNet from a remote location. This helps us securely connect individual clients running Windows, Linux, or macOS to an Azure VNet. This blog will outline steps to create and test a Point to Site VPN while using an Azure Certificate Authentication method. Create a VNet Sign in to the Azure portal. In Search, type Virtual Network. Select Virtual Network from the Marketplace results. Once you […]
For those new to Kubernetes, it’s a portable, extensible, open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and services facilitating configuration and automation. This blog will cover a high-level overview of Kubernetes architecture and components. The image below outlines the various components that we will walk through in this guide. The master node controls and manages a set of worker nodes and contains the Kubernetes cluster. We can talk to the master node via CLI, GUI, or API, and more than one […]
What is Ansible? It is the most trusted DevOps tool for many users, which can be used in platforms like Unix, Linux, and Windows Azure. It’s an open-source tool used to automate cloud provisioning, configuration management, and App deployments. In addition, it helps provision virtual machines, networks, containers, and complete cloud infrastructures. How is Ansible Used? It’s been used in the form of a playbook file written in YAML format like AKS to define a configuration or process model. A […]