Azure Readiness starts here...

The best way to know the future, is to learn it

Azure DevOps Pipelines - YAML or Classic Designer

During several of my AZ-400 Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions training deliveries, one recurring point of conversation is Should we use YAML or the Classic Designer for our Release pipelines? So I thought sharing my view in another blog post could be helpful. Before answering the question more accurately, let’s go over each scenario a bit more in detail: Classic Designer Classic Designer has been the long-standing approach on how Azure DevOps Pipelines have been created.

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Sunday, June 21, 2020

Azure is 100% High Available!! or is it...?

Last Friday, I delivered an online session at the “Azure Day Rome 2020”, titled “Azure is 100% high available, or is it?” Since the conference sessions were only 45min, I didn’t have much time to drill down on all the details, but apparently I managed to provide a clear and easy overview of several misconceptions around public cloud high-availability, and even more important, how Azure provides several services and architectures, to optimize the overall high availability of your workloads.

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Sunday, June 14, 2020

How to delete a POD from Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS)

Hi again, In about every Azure training delivered the last few months, I am talking about Docker and Azure Kubernetes Services - AKS Along these months, the amount of “sample PODS” I am running within the Kubernetes cluster was continuously growing, resulting in a less efficient demo scenario to show. So cleaning up these running PODS was my 5 seconds action this Saturday morning. While not super hard, it actually took me a bit longer than 5 seconds (more like 10min :)), since I forgot a few “basics” on how Kubernetes is running PODS.

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Saturday, June 6, 2020

Migrating Docker Desktop to WSL2

Hey there, With the May update of Windows 10 (named Windows 2004 :) ) being available since this week, together with DockerCon virtual conference, I think it was the right time to (finally) migrate my current Docker Desktop in Hyper-V mode to the new WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux). In short, the process was smooth, straight forward, and not having any real impact on my “demo environment” I’m using continuously during my Azure training workshops and public speaking gigs.

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Saturday, May 30, 2020

Running your Hugo site on Azure Static WebApps (Preview)

Only about a month ago, I decided to move my former website (running on Wix) to the Open Source Hugo platform, running it as a static website with MarkDown, using Azure Storage Static Website. For more details on how to do this, have a look at my blog post here I have to say, it runs fine, is cheap, fast, reliable,… But then I discovered the new Azure Static Web App capability, as announced during //Build conference earlier this week, so I wanted to give it a try.

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Thursday, May 21, 2020

is HTML parameter gone from Logic Apps Send Email Connector

Hi, For almost 2 years, I have been using the “Office 365 Outlook Connector” as part of my Logic Apps flows, to send emails internally and externally. Mainly for external receivers, I used the “is HTML” parameter for the body of the email. This weekend, I was building a new Logic Apps flow, and to my surprise, finding out that the “V2” of this same connector / action, doesn’t have that parameter anymore.

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Sunday, May 10, 2020

Use Bing Desktop Wallpapers as background images in Teams calls

A few days ago, I blogged about Bing Desktop Wallpapers, a nice little tool you can install on your Windows Machine to enjoy some of the amazing views of the world. Knowing these got stored on your local machine as JPEGs (C:\Users<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\BingWallpaperApp\WPImages), got me the idea to reuse these as “Teams Backgrounds” during video calls. As the Bing Wallpaper gets updated every day, it would be nice to have a different image in Teams… every day.

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Sunday, May 10, 2020

Collecting Hugo static site statistics using Azure Application Insights

Welcome back! About a month ago, I decided to move my former 007FFFLearning website from Wix.com to something “easier” to use for blog writing. While Wix is an excellent platform, offering an easy way to build a graphical website, besides a ton of plug-ins, it also comes with a cost. And since I didn’t have a need for a lot of the built-in features I was using out of my own business before I joined Microsoft, I wanted to try something new.

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Sunday, April 26, 2020

Running an Azure Storage Static Site, protected by Azure Front Door

Earlier this week, I had the honor to present a session for the Belgian MC2MC Microsoft community, as part of a broader online event week with other Belgian community User Groups (https://www.mc2mc.be/events/be-community-week-mc2mc-evening). My session topic was based on a little real-life project I worked on myself only a few weeks ago, deploying a “Hugo” based static website on Azure Storage Account Static Site (Yes, this site you are reading right now…).

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Saturday, April 25, 2020

Bing Desktop Wallpapers take you on a trip around the world

Due to COVID19, my traveling rhythm went down from an avg 90% the last six years, to 0%. I have never been that much at home without travel than in these last 5 weeks (and a few more to come). While the primary reason for my travel is business related, every now and then, I have the opportunity to enjoy the area, if even only for a short moment, or in-between delivering sessions.

Posted by Azure Readiness starts here... Sunday, April 19, 2020