Microsoft introduced Azure Budgets as a means to help companies plan for and drive organizational accountability. While many companies view budget enforcement from a traditional perspective such as alerts, currently Azure did not give you more direct options such as shutting down virtual machines (VMs). Using Budgets makes Azure cost management easy.
While these features are not out of the box, Azure Budgets does offer integration with Azure Action Groups. Action Groups provide a means to trigger an orchestrated set of actions resulting from a budget event. Such actions can be turning off machines when a threshold takes place (in this case when the budget is exceeded by a certain amount), for example. The action groups in term can then execute a PowerShell script (within an automation account) to perform the cost savings action.
It should be noted: this course of action does not need to be applied to all VMs. For example, the
shutdown sequence of VMs to keep within budget can be directed to machines:
How did we get here? A littl e more than a year ago, and as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people in the workforce were asked to start working from their home offices. Some went home with an assigned corporate laptop, but a lot went with whatever system could be found – lab machines, hastily repaired systems, and tech closet castoffs. Now, a lot of those users are continuing to work from home, even as companies start to reopen. This is part of a trend towards the hybrid workplace which was already under way pre-COVID but was accelerated by the pandemic. Windows Autopilot addresses this trend to make the process easier.
One of the pillars of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) is the technology behind profile container technology, referred to as FSLogix. Upon login, the FSLogix profile container is connected to the computing environment so the profile is readily available.
This then raises the question on the ideal locations to host the repository of profiles generated FSLogix usage. Aspects to consider:
For those trying to relay SMTP with an application in Azure to Office, base guidance and options can be found in the Microsoft article “How to set up a multifunction device or application to send email using Microsoft 365 or Office 365”. In the article, three distinct distinct options are provided for Office 365 relay, noted in the table below:
Historically, one of the challenges of Azure was trying to contain private traffic to resources such as platform-as-a-service (PaaS), Azure files, and Azure SQL. Customers envisioned having a cloud data center with services, and they strived for a vehicle to encapsulate the traffic as they would with a traditional data center.
Businesses are increasingly feeling the need to re-architect their enterprise networks in order to accommodate the rapidly growing demand for wireless connectivity. Many of them are now compelled to build their own enterprise wireless network to support the influx of mobile devices, Internet of Things, and cloud-based applications, as well as increased adoption of WiFi-hungry practices like BYOD.
In light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), companies are looking for a means to offer employees the ability to work at home to maintain "social distancing." With employees hunkering down to remain healthy, Microsoft is helping companies by offering Office 365 E1 licenses for six months. This version of "free Teams licensing" provides unlimited chat, built-in group and one-on-one audio or video calling, 10 GB of team file storage, and 2 GB of personal file storage per user. You also get real-time collaboration with the Office web apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
Ransomware has quickly become one of the most troublesome issues that businesses deal with nowadays. In the US alone, ransomware attacks cost organizations more than $7.5 billion in 2019, and there are no signs of them slowing down in 2020. Multiple city governments, hospitals, and businesses have all been victims of ransomware attacks.
The threat landscape has grown so large that attackers can now buy and sell ransomware as a service. Couple this with the fact that new strains and variants of this type of malware are added on a frequent basis, and it becomes evident that ransomware is a threat you have to take seriously. And you must do so immediately.
