Azure

The free eBook Developer’s Guide to Microsoft Azure Second Edition is available! The book was written by Michael Crump and Barry Luijbregts, The introduction starts with “why cloud” and covers app development, Azure services and ends with the Azure Marketplace. And it’s free! Get more information at the Azure blog at Free eBook – The Developer’s Guide to Microsoft Azure now available or download it directly from aka.ms/azuredevebook. There’s a lot of current and useful information in that book and many hyperlinks to specific topics in the web. Thanks to the authors and to Microsoft for providing this free eBook. ...

BCP, the bulk copy program utility is still around - and it’s helpful! It’s a long time, since I used this tool, but nowadays it got promoted for one of my daily jobs. See a short description how to use the Microsoft Command Line Utilities with Azure SQL Database for connecting and importing and exporting data quickly. Recently, I had the request to import local data to a SQL Azure database and BCP did the job. Since the tool is handy and very fast, it’s also good for running in a script (but you need to find a solution for storing the credentials…). So, here’s an overview how to use BCP and SQLCMD as quickly as possible. ...

When moving SQL databases to Azure, let Azure do some work for you. As the name suggests, the Azure SQL Database Automatic Tuning feature provides automatic performance optimization for databases. Activate it, it’s simple. Once the data is available in Azure SQL Database, there is no more server maintenance necessary. Azure SQL Database is a relational database-as-a service that runs in the Microsoft Cloud. With the service there comes a bunch of benefits. One of them is the Automatic Tuning Mode. This enables stable workloads through continuous performance tuning utilizing Artificial Intelligence and applying corrective actions for databases in use. See more at Automatic tuning in Azure SQL Database ...

Right after Delegate365 version 7, we are releasing version 7.1 with some relevant updates. This version brings some fixes, an improved SyncOp, Sync Locking, First Start-support, a new Multi Factor Authentication automation feature, a streamlines sync rules experience, more videos and some updates. See the benefits and the details here. Dashboard-First Steps: To inform Admins if the basic Delegate365 configuration is missing, the dashboard now shows a First Steps box if necessary. This essentially helps new Delegate365 admins to show the required steps to configure Delegate365. Tasks that are already accomplished are marked with a green OK icon, open tasks are shown with an orange warning icon. So, this feature basically checks if they SyncOp has been executed to update the Delegate365 cache at least once, if at least one OU is existing, if at least one administrator has been assigned to one OU and one domain and if there are users assigned to any OU (so that there are users visible in Delegate365). The admin can click on the task to open the corresponding page to configure the desired properties. The following screenshot shows an example with three accomplished tasks and one open task. Once all requirements are satisfied, the First Steps box will no longer be visible (or show up again, if any requirement is missing). There is no manual method for switching the First Steps box on or off, it appears automatically to support the admin. Independently, Delegate365 checks if the connections to Azure Active Directory and Office 365 are valid as well. We think, this new feature makes sense in existing Delegate365 tenants and particularly in new ones. ...

The new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) comes in force in 6 months. From then on, every business processing personal data has to fulfil the statutory European data privacy laws. A violation can result in high fines and penalties. Within the cost free seminar series “The Art of Data Management”, taking place in Germany and Austria, atwork prepares you for the statutory changes. Our experts pass on a first general insight into the security concept of Office 365 and Azure and tell you how to fulfil the conditions of the new regulation with the help of Microsoft Cloud Services. ...

For testing purposes, having sample data is very helpful. Recently, I stumbled about a useful tool to get sample images for a custom topic quickly. See how to get test images here. So, imagine you need sample images for testing the Microsoft Custom Vision API. How to get sample pictures? Well, there’s a great source for that by Dmitri Soshnikov. at Custom Vision API demo on GitHub. Download the imdownload.exe tools and run this command line executable with a syntax as here: ...

Fall time usually is a very busy time in the IT business. So, we were happy to have a break and be part of SharePoint Saturday 2017 in Barcelona! #SPSBCN took place on the 28th October in beautiful Barcelona (see the details on the SPSEvents.org website here). This event already was the 3rd SharePoint Saturday Barcelona. The venue location at IQS was the same as in the years before. Edin and his team of sug.cat (Grup d’Usuaris de SharePoint de Catalunya) organized the event perfectly and we all had a great time there. ...

Delegate365 is registered as an app in the customer’s Azure Active Directory. When a Delegate365 setup is executed, it may be necessary that a new app is registered and is used from then on. So, what happens with old apps? See how to cleanup unused Delegate365 apps here. Technically, the app needs permissions to sign-in the user and to read data from the tenant. If new app permissions are necessary through an update (as this was the case with version 6.5 and the new service health feature), the Delegate365 setup must be re-run. When a new app is created, the Administrator then has to confirm the app consent for his users as described here. ...

Working with Visual Studio Code? Then check out the Azure Functions extension for Visual Studio Code at the Visual Studio Marketplace! Find the extension and description at Azure Functions for Visual Studio Code. The Azure Functions for Visual Studio Code extension allows to create new projects and functions from a template, to debug function apps locally, to view and to deploy Azure functions, to start, stop and restart functions and has Intellisense support for the json-project files. ...

If one of your coworkers created a LogicApp some months ago and you want to “de-personalize” the connections used in a flow, you can modify the settings easily – if you know how to. So, in my case, in a LogicApp that’s sending emails and adding users to the newsletter system, the creator used a personal Office 365 account. I wanted to change that to an email “service” account. So I created a new mailbox account as first step. ...