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:
Policies are an essential part of an overall security strategy and are many times under-valued or overlooked completely. Organizations of all sizes often struggle with developing a comprehensive information security strategy due to the challenges of prioritizing where to begin. Strong and effective policies provide an excellent set of resources to help set expectations, provide long and short term goals, and identify gaps that may need to be closed. No matter the maturity level of your organization’s information security strategy, well written policies put you on the right path for continued development.
IT budgets continue to increase each year as business needs evolve, requiring more digital needs and larger infrastructure—according to Spiceworks, 88 percent of organizations expect their IT budgets to stay the same or grow in 2020. Businesses are looking to replace older operating systems by providing hardware such as laptops and to improve security setups to protect sensitive business and personal data.
According to Statista, small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are expected to increase their spending on technology to $684 billion by 2021. This is a significant uptick from the $602 billion spent in 2018. However, as SMBs continue to spend on new technologies, they often run into the issue of not having someone on staff who is able to effectively manage that new technology. Having to rely on outside resources is a growing trend, and IT services in Boston are in high demand as a result. Finding the right partner to help with managed IT services takes a bit of work, though. Knowing some of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to managed IT services can help you find the right team to come in and assist.
According to Spiceworks’ 2019 State of IT Report, 58 percent of companies that were surveyed expect to increase their IT budget from last year. An additional 27 percent expect no change in their budget, and only 7 percent expect the amount they have to spend this year to decrease.
