Migrate to AWS EC2 with SQL licensing included
While performing a lift and shift migration of Windows SQL Server using the AWS Application Migration Service I was challenged with wanting the newly migrated instance to have a Windows OS license ‘included’ but additionally the SQL Server Standard license billed to the account. The customer was moving away from their current hosting platform where […]
SQL Database Backup on IaaS using Azure Automation
I had a need to take a full SQL Database backup from a virtual machine with SQL Server hosted on Azure. This is done via an Azure Automation account, executing a runbook on a hybrid worker. This is a great way to take a offline copy of your production SQL and store it someplace safe. […]
Assign Teams phone numbers using Microsoft Forms, Logic Apps and Azure Automation
Sometimes provisioning users into Office 365 services requires custom settings to be executed with PowerShell. This can present a problem when the teams responsible for managing the ongoing process have varying levels of understanding. How do you provide a front end user interface for my custom code without the need for the operators to need […]
Automating Azure Site Recovery with PowerShell
In a recent consulting engagement, I’ve needed to perform a large-scale migration of a company’s virtual machine (VM) fleet from an On-premise datacenter to Microsoft Azure. Thinking about what that actually means – We’re picking up many compute workloads that are (in most cases) essential for day to day business operation and re-homing them to […]
Azure PowerShell ‘Az’ Module
Azure PowerShell ‘Az’ Module version 1.0 Microsoft released a new PowerShell module specifically for Azure late last year called “Az”. On the plus side Az ensures that Windows PowerShell and PowerShell Core users can get the latest Azure tooling from PowerShell on every platform be it Windows PowerShell or PowerShell Core for my preferred operating […]
Tagging EC2 EBS Volumes in Auto Scaling Groups
Tagging becomes a huge part of your life when in the public cloud. Metadata is thrown around like hotcakes, and why not. At cloudstep.io we preach the ways of the DevOps gods and especially infrastructure as code for repeatable and standardised deployments. This way everything is uniform and everything gets a TAG! I ran into […]
Add VC Accounts to Microsoft Teams Channels with Azure Automation
At cloudstep.io® HQ Microsoft Teams is a big part of how we organise digital asset structure in the business. We are a consulting firm by trade, as new prospects become paying customers we add them as a team. The default General channel is used for administration and accounts, additional channels are created per project name […]
Using the AWS CLI for Process Automation
Amazon Web Services is a well established cloud provider. In this blog, I am going to explore how we can interface with the orange cloud titan programmatically. First of all, lets explore why we may want to do this. You might be thinking “But hey, the folks at AWS have built a slick web interface which […]
Cross Region, Peering Pitfalls. .
Ah if only all pitfalls were fun. Remember Pitfall on the Atari 2600. It was the second best selling game after Pac-Man. Pitfall Harry had to negotiate a jungle full of hazardous quicksand, rolling logs, fire and rattle snakes to recover precious treasures. Recently we did some work with a customer where they made use of […]