Azure / SCVMM – Use Azure for the update management on SCVMM 2019

Benoit HAMET

As System Center 2019 has just been released, let see how to use Azure for the update management in System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2019. Off course as prerequisites you must have an Azure tenant and have an running SCVMM 2019; in addition of these obvious requirements, you will also need to have an automation account and a Log Analytics workspace with the Update Management solution.   Enable SCVMM…

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Azure – Instant restore is now available for virtual machine

Benoit HAMET

Instant restore of virtual machine is now available in Azure. With this new capability, there is no more wait time for the snapshot to be copied into the Recovery Vault before being able to perform a restore operation. In addition, you can also overwrite the original disk instead of creating a copy when performing in-place restore. The rollout is starting today – currently available in West Central US, India South…

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Azure – Automated SQL Databases backup (Preview)

Benoit HAMET

Following the announcement of Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure VM (see https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/blog/azure-backup-for-sql-server-on-azure-vm-public-preview/) a new backup capability has been added. As you know, when a new SQL database is being added onto your Azure SQL VM instance you have to rediscover the database and then configure the protection for this new database. Now, with the new capability – called auto-protection – you can automatically get Azure to do the…

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Azure VM – You can now replace virtual disk during the restore process

Benoit HAMET

Previously when you had to restore an Azure Virtual Machine you had to fully restore the VM by creating a new VM. Now you can restore the VM by replacing it by overwriting the existing/being restored one. Off course to be able to do this you need to have a recovery vault in place and have the VM being backed up at least once If you need to restore a…

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Azure – Azure Site Recovery automatic update is now available

Benoit HAMET

Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is an Azure service allowing you to setup a disaster recovery infrastructure by replicating your virtual machines either from on-premises (VMWare/Hyper-V) or from Azure. When you implement ASR you have to deploy a component, known as mobility service, on each virtual machines being replicated. As each time ASR is updated (which is a monthly cadence) you also have to update your mobility agent, which then may…

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Azure – Azure Policy now audits installed applications on VM’s

Benoit HAMET

You may already know Azure Policy, introduced during Ignite 2018. If no, Azure Policy has the capability to apply audit settings on virtual machines (VM’s) running on Azure. The first policies can audit password security settings on both Windows and Linux VM’s or the encryption protocol used by IIS (aka TLS – in this case the VM is compliant if TLS 1.1 or 1.2 is enabled and other protocols disabled).…

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Azure – You can now enable Customer Lockbox for Azure VM (preview)

Benoit HAMET

For those who already work with Office 365, you may be aware of the Customer Lockbox capability. In a nutshell, this feature (available with E5 or as add-on) allows Office 365 administrators to control how Microsoft engineers access your data – particularly during support. Now, you can take advantage of it also with Azure. To enable Customer Lockbox for Azure VM, you need to use Azure PowerShell (at least version…

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Azure – You can now convert/migrate virtual machine with unmanaged disks to managed disks

Benoit HAMET

If you are using Azure Virtual Machine and have configure it to use unmanaged disks, you can now migrate to managed disks without having to delete and recreate the virtual machine. The below list gives you some good reason to move to managed disks: Scale your application without worrying about storage account limits Achieve high-availability across your compute and storage resources with aligned fault domains Create VM Scale Sets with…

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Azure – You can choose Basic or Advanced options for NSG when creating a virtual machine

Benoit HAMET

When you create a virtual machine on Azure using the Azure portal, you can now choose between Basic or Advanced when setting up the Network Security Group (NSG). The Basic option let you select which default ports (HTTP, HTTPS, RDP, SQL…) to allow (keeping in mind that this/these port(s) will be exposed to the internet) while the Advanced option lets you select or create your very own Network Security Group…

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Azure – You can run (predefined) commands from the portal

Benoit HAMET

I just found it but apparently it has been there for few weeks already; you can run predefined command from the Azure portal to the Azure virtual machine. The predefined commands you can execute are: RunPowerShellScript to executes a PowerShell script; the script must be saved in the virtual machine EnableRemotePS to enable remote PowerShell EnableAdminAccount to checks if the local Administrator account is disabled, and if so enables it…

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Azure – Use auto-filled fields when creating new Azure Labs

Benoit HAMET

An new functionality has been introduced when creating Azure Virtual Machine within your Azure Lab: auto-filled fields. It is going to make things a little bit easier, while helping to keep some standardized naming (and password generation ). To use this new capability, you first need to manually provisioned a new virtual machine and check the Save as default password checkbox. The virtual machine name and local admin username fields…

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Azure – Windows Server 2019 Preview is available as VM image

Benoit HAMET

Windows Server 2019 Preview (the next major release of Windows Server) is now available for Azure Virtual Machine. Just search for Windows Server 2019 when you create a new virtual machine Search the marketplace (https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/) for Windows Server 2019 Or access the marketplace directly from this URL https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/microsoft-hyperv.rs5_preview Enjoy

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