Thoughts from the clouds
I have been updating my ARM templates to create VMs and VM Scale Sets (VMSS) to support the new Availability Zones. I have learnt some important concepts that were not obvious for me along the way, and I would like to share them. Before going forward, you can see a template where you can deploy … Continue reading Migrating your ARM templates to Azure Availability Zones
You have probably heard about Azure Backup (if you haven’t, check the documentation here). And you probably know that it is one of the most popular entry doors into the public cloud, since it offers cheap, simple, scalable, and unlimited storage for on-premises workloads (as well as for Azure VMs, of course). The use case … Continue reading Verifying Azure Backup for on-premises machines with Powershell
If you are reading this post, you might already know what CSP stands for: Cloud Solution Provider, it is the preferred selling model for Microsoft partners today when dealing with Azure. The authentication model in CSP has essentially two levels: you have CSP-level users, typically employees working for the Cloud Solution Provider itself, and you … Continue reading Automation with Azure CSP – CSP and ARM APIs authentication
From my previous posts you have probably realized that I am a huge fan of infrastructure automation, since in my opinion it is the only way of operating efficiently a data center. In order to implement automation, you have two possibilities Use an automation software, either installed locally in your premises (such as Microsoft’s System … Continue reading Azure Functions for Infrastructure Automation (or how to run PowerShell from the cloud)
Lately I have been involved in quite some conversations, where organisations have shown a lot of interest in the integration between Cisco ACI and F5 BigIP and BigIQ (or should I say iWorkflow?). As you might know, Cisco ACI offers the option to integrate L4-L7 services in the network. What does this mean? Optionally, you … Continue reading What do Cisco ACI, microsegmentation, service insertion, REST and Docker containers have in common?
Do you have a network lab to try out new technologies? Then you might have experienced this problem: you finished testing technology A, and you start testing technology B. For that you need to reconfigure your devices, obviously. Now you need to try out something new in technology A, for example a new functionality brought … Continue reading Using NX-API to deploy full networks
First of all, Happy New Year! Thanks for looking at my first post in 2016. As you might already know, Cisco ACI is a new concept of network management. In short, it is a network that brings along embedded network management functionality, that sits in a centralised controller cluster. If you want to manage a … Continue reading A command-line REST client for ACI
I recently got from F5 colleagues the idea, why not working on an automation use case showing the integration between ACI and F5. One use case they see often in their customer basis is autoscaling of Web farms: some system is looking at the load on the servers, and if that load grows over a … Continue reading The network is *not* in my way
Cloudtrooper 