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Microsoft Azure Space – Innovation on Earth and Beyond
Microsoft is advancing cloud datacenters where no cloud datacenter has gone before; into Space! They have brought together a team of renowned space industry veterans to work along-side Microsoft product engineers and scientists to build cloud capabilities that meet...
Beginner’s Guide to Pulumi CI/CD Pipelines
I have worked with Terraform for a few years, from entirely open demo environments to customers with strict security and compliance requirements. I haven't had the same opportunity to work with Pulumi in strictly regulated environments, but I know Pulumi has...
Latest Cloud News: Python in Azure Cloud Shell, Terraform Certification, and more! (October 22, 2020 – Build5Nines Weekly)
Build5Nines Weekly provides your go-to source to keep up-to-date on all the latest Microsoft Azure news and updates. Included within Build5Nines Weekly newsletter are blog articles, podcasts, videos, and more from Microsoft and the greater community over the past...
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate DevOps Certification
The popularity of HashiCorp Terraform has really taken off in the last couple of years. Terraform has become an extremely popular tool for writing declarative Infrastructure as Code (IaC) used to deploy and manage cloud infrastructure across one or even multiple...
Python Scripting in the Azure Cloud Shell
Did you know the Azure Cloud Shell includes support for Python? You can write Python scripts, save then, upload, and run them directly within the Azure Cloud Shell. This offers the ability to do more than just Bash or PowerShell scripting in the Cloud Shell, but also...
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Beginner’s Guide to Pulumi CI/CD Pipelines
I have worked with Terraform for a few years, from entirely open demo environments to customers with strict security and compliance requirements. I haven't had the same opportunity to work with Pulumi in strictly regulated environments, but I know Pulumi has...
Update Azure CLI from the command-line (az upgrade)
The Azure CLI can be updated from the command-line in Windows. The command az upgrade is used for this, and it has a few options which are useful. Like all Azure CLI (az) commands, there is help that can be revealed when running the command with the -h az upgrade -h...
Creating Azure Bicep Modules for Code Reuse
The upcoming Module feature for Azure Bicep really enhances the new ARM Template alternative language in a way that ARM JSON never did. Using Azure Bicep Modules you can easily create reusable bicep code that will eliminate copy/paste of bicep code across multiple...
Azure Outages with Azure Front Door and Internal Azure WAN (October 6 – 7, 2020)
It seems Microsoft is having quite a few outages lately. With last weeks Azure AD outage, Microsoft has continued to have some service disruptions this week too. Yesterday, October 6, there was a service outage related to Azure Front Door that had a rippling affect on...
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HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate DevOps Certification
The popularity of HashiCorp Terraform has really taken off in the last couple of years. Terraform has become an extremely popular tool for writing declarative Infrastructure as Code (IaC) used to deploy and manage cloud infrastructure across one or even multiple...
Microsoft Ignite Cloud Skills Challenge 2020: Free Certification Exam
All participants of Microsoft Ignite who complete at least one collection in the Microsoft Ignite Cloud Skills Challenge are eligible for a free certification exam, to help you continue skilling up and prove your technical expertise to employers and peers....
Top 15 Security Certifications for your Job Role in 2021
Are you looking at security certifications? Certification in the areas of Cybersecurity, IT Security, and Computer Security do not have as many straight forward options in comparison to Windows or Linux certifications, or even cloud certifications with Microsoft...
CompTIA Linux+ XK0-004 Certification Exam
In the modern world of IT, Linux has been growing in popularity and use. This is especially something we are seeing in the cloud, where even Microsoft has admitted that there are more Linux server running in Microsoft Azure than Window servers. You could even...
Microsoft Azure IoT Developer (AZ-220) Certification is now LIVE
The Microsoft Certified: Azure IoT Developer Specialty certification (and exam AZ-220) is now LIVE and out of Beta. This is the first cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) certification from the major cloud providers and a great addition to the Microsoft Azure...
Update Azure CLI from the command-line (az upgrade)
The Azure CLI can be updated from the command-line in Windows. The command az upgrade is used for this, and it has a few options which are useful. Like all Azure CLI (az) commands, there is help that can be revealed when running the command with the -h az upgrade -h...
Microsoft Azure is Multiple Clouds – Public, US Gov, China and Germany
Did you know that Microsoft Azure is not just one public cloud? Most of us only interact with the Public Azure Cloud, but this isn't the only Microsoft Azure cloud. There are actually four different Microsoft Azure clouds. Let's take a look at how Microsoft Azure...
Azure CLI: Suppress Output for Silent Commands / Quiet Mode
The Azure CLI is really great for writing imperative scripts for automating Microsoft Azure resource management. Generally, the command output is helpful in telling you that updates were made or returning values that can be used for setting variables and then passing...
Azure Cloud Shell Tips and Tricks
The Azure Cloud Shell offers the ability to manage cloud resources, virtual machines, run scripts and other tasks directly from within the browser or Azure Mobile app. There are a few command-line tools for automating tasks and scripting things with Microsoft Azure....
NVIDIA Releases Jetson Nano 2GB Developer Kit
NVIDIA released a lower cost 2GB version of the NVIDIA Jetson Nano Development Kit that also includes Wifi. This new Jetson Nano Developer Kit is priced at $59 USD putting it in direct competition with the Raspberry Pi 4, and it can be pre-ordered for deliveries to...
Top Azure IoT Announcements and Sessions from Microsoft Ignite 2020
There have been a few great Azure IoT announcements and session made available by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Ignite 2020 virtual conference. With the flood of information coming out of Microsoft Ignite 2020, it can be difficult to parse out the specific...
Azure Bicep: Create IoT Hub and Device Provisioning Service (DPS)
All Azure IoT solutions are built starting with Azure IoT Hub as the cloud-base message broker for the Internet of Things (IoT) solution. This service connects all IoT devices in the solution securely to Azure using per-device security and two-way communication with...
Introduction to Azure Sphere – Secure IoT Development Platform
Azure Sphere is Microsoft's Internet of Things (IoT) platform for building more highly secured IoT solutions. Azure Sphere incorporates components of hardware, operating system, and cloud technologies to achieve greater security. It's design provides the ability to...
Beginner’s Guide to Pulumi CI/CD Pipelines
I have worked with Terraform for a few years, from entirely open demo environments to customers with strict security and compliance requirements. I haven't had the same opportunity to work with Pulumi in strictly regulated environments, but I know Pulumi has...
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate DevOps Certification
The popularity of HashiCorp Terraform has really taken off in the last couple of years. Terraform has become an extremely popular tool for writing declarative Infrastructure as Code (IaC) used to deploy and manage cloud infrastructure across one or even multiple...
Python Scripting in the Azure Cloud Shell
Did you know the Azure Cloud Shell includes support for Python? You can write Python scripts, save then, upload, and run them directly within the Azure Cloud Shell. This offers the ability to do more than just Bash or PowerShell scripting in the Cloud Shell, but also...
Update Azure CLI from the command-line (az upgrade)
The Azure CLI can be updated from the command-line in Windows. The command az upgrade is used for this, and it has a few options which are useful. Like all Azure CLI (az) commands, there is help that can be revealed when running the command with the -h az upgrade -h...
Microsoft Azure Space – Innovation on Earth and Beyond
Microsoft is advancing cloud datacenters where no cloud datacenter has gone before; into Space! They have brought together a team of renowned space industry veterans to work along-side Microsoft product engineers and scientists to build cloud capabilities that meet...
Migrate to Azure DevTest Labs
Earlier this year I wrote a few new articles for the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF). One of the docs I was excited about is about Azure DevTest Labs. In this article, we assume the role of the amazing fake company Contoso and look at migrating to using Azure as...
Terraform Feature Flags & Environment Toggle Design Patterns
Terraform offers lots of flexibility in coding Infrastructure as Code (IaC) deployments. Using Feature Flags and Environment Toggles can help in increasing the flexibility of the Terraform code to better handle multi-Environment deployments. They can also be used to...
Policy-Based Routing on Unifi USG PRO 4
As an Azure MVP, I spent a lot of time teaching and giving webinars on the topic of moving to the cloud. A few months ago, I started to experience issues with my internet service provider (ISP), where I would lose connection, and this was very painful during large...
Python Scripting in the Azure Cloud Shell
Did you know the Azure Cloud Shell includes support for Python? You can write Python scripts, save then, upload, and run them directly within the Azure Cloud Shell. This offers the ability to do more than just Bash or PowerShell scripting in the Cloud Shell, but also...
VS Code Gets Linux ARMv7 and ARM64 Support
With the release of the v1.50 (September 2020) update of Visual Studio Code comes official support for Linux ARMv7 and ARM64. This means that Microsoft is now officially supporting the use of Visual Studio Code on Raspberry Pi, Chromebook, and other ARM-based devices...
Azure DevOps Outages: October 7, 2020
Azure DevOps was down yesterday due to an Azure Front Door (AFD) related issue. Today, Microsoft has been experiencing a series of "Service Disruptions" with Azure DevOps in the United States and Europe geographic regions affecting the Boards, Repos, Pipelines and...
Azure DevOps is Down; Outage is MS not Your CI/CD Builds (October 6, 2020)
On October 6, 2020 at approximately 19:00 UTC the Microsoft Azure DevOps services began to experience "Availability Degradation." and comes only one week after a big Azure AD Outage that essentially took down all of Microsoft Azure authentication. This Azure DevOps...
Microsoft Azure Space – Innovation on Earth and Beyond
Microsoft is advancing cloud datacenters where no cloud datacenter has gone before; into Space! They have brought together a team of renowned space industry veterans to work along-side Microsoft product engineers and scientists to build cloud capabilities that meet...
IBM Should Spinoff Cloud as Separate Business Named Red Hat Cloud
What if IBM is spinning off the wrong business?... Amongst the growing pressures to compete in the Cloud business, IBM has announced plans to spinoff its "legacy IT" business into a separate company. The new "#1 IT services business" will have a new name, and the...
Azure TLS certificate changes
Microsoft is making changes to their certificates and it is important to understand how these changes will impact your deployments. Azure will be changed to use TLS certificates from a different set of Root Certificate Authorities (CAs). This change is being...
Azure Outages with Azure Front Door and Internal Azure WAN (October 6 – 7, 2020)
It seems Microsoft is having quite a few outages lately. With last weeks Azure AD outage, Microsoft has continued to have some service disruptions this week too. Yesterday, October 6, there was a service outage related to Azure Front Door that had a rippling affect on...
Azure DevOps is Down; Outage is MS not Your CI/CD Builds (October 6, 2020)
On October 6, 2020 at approximately 19:00 UTC the Microsoft Azure DevOps services began to experience "Availability Degradation." and comes only one week after a big Azure AD Outage that essentially took down all of Microsoft Azure authentication. This Azure DevOps...
NVIDIA Releases Jetson Nano 2GB Developer Kit
NVIDIA released a lower cost 2GB version of the NVIDIA Jetson Nano Development Kit that also includes Wifi. This new Jetson Nano Developer Kit is priced at $59 USD putting it in direct competition with the Raspberry Pi 4, and it can be pre-ordered for deliveries to...
Surface Duo with Dan Patrick on Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast
I was lucky enough to join Ben Stegink and Scott Hoag for a detailed discussion about the new Surface Duo. We spend an hour talking Duo and exploring some of the differences between an iPhone, iPad, and other phones. Along the ride, we explore who would use the phone...
Surface Duo First Impressions
The first-ever Microsoft Android phone arrived yesterday, and I have to say I'm impressed with the device. It's been about 72 hours since I received it so I thought I would give you my first impressions. Surface Duo Pros Great unboxing experience Microsoft did a...
Nvidia acquiring ARM for $40 Billion – Create AI Powerhouse
Nvidia has recently reported they will be acquiring ARM Holdings; the company behind ARM microprocessors. Nvidia is the top graphics processor company in the industry, and over the last 10+ years ARM processors (CPUs) have become the standard in all kinds of mobile...
Surface Duo Hardware First Look
The first Android phone ever to be released by Microsoft is almost upon us and it is a bold design. Let's take a look at what it gives you in terms of the unique hardware Microsoft has brought to market with the Microsoft Surface Duo. Source: Microsoft Surface Duo...
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Latest Cloud News: Python in Azure Cloud Shell, Terraform Certification, and more! (October 22, 2020 – Build5Nines Weekly)
Build5Nines Weekly provides your go-to source to keep up-to-date on all the latest Microsoft Azure...
Latest Cloud News: Azure Outages, Azure Bicep Modules and more! (October 13, 2020 – Build5Nines Weekly)
Build5Nines Weekly provides your go-to source to keep up-to-date on all the latest Microsoft Azure...
Latest Cloud News: Azure DevOps Outage, Surface Laptop Go, and more! (October 6, 2020 – Build5Nines Weekly)
Build5Nines Weekly provides your go-to source to keep up-to-date on all the latest Microsoft Azure...
Latest Cloud News: Azure Outage, MSIgnite and more! (September 30, 2020 – Build5Nines Weekly)
Build5Nines Weekly provides your go-to source to keep up-to-date on all the latest Microsoft Azure...
Latest Cloud News: Nvidia acquires ARM, Azure Bicep IoT, Surface Duo and more! (September 15, 2020 – Build5Nines Weekly)
Build5Nines Weekly provides your go-to source to keep up-to-date on all the latest Microsoft Azure...