Background
Your customer has a VM (Virtual Machine). The VM contains of Windows Server 2019, SQL Server 2019 Web Edition, and ERP Software. The VM runs on Azure with no redundancy option activated. After a year, the VM has a problem to facilitate the request from the client. Scale up is the first think that we already done. However, the scalability is not fulfilled since one VM means one single point of failure. Therefore, we will make this single VM can be available for scalability purposes. This article will discuss how to prepare scalability environment for VM with 'least effort'
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Solution
After reading Make all things redundant - Azure Application Architecture Guide | Microsoft Docs, we strongly believe that we need load balancer on our VM and create a snapshot of our VM. On our case, we are very unlucky since the database and the web application is on one VM. Therefore, we need to do some extra steps as follows
Separating between database server and application server. If you are insisting to still make one VM, you will have a risk to lose your data. Snapshot a VM anytime when your database changes is not a good idea. The options are
VM + VM SQL Azure – this is the cheapest one, but you should manage the security and patching by yourself
VM + SQL Azure – if your application cannot be moved to App Service, this is win-win solution
App Service + SQL Azure – this is the most preferred way. Just Be aware of the cost
Replicate the database in multi-region you can do by visiting here
Creating multiple VM with scalability set. On this step, you should create snapshot of your VM and put the VM behind the load balancer. You can do that by reading this tutorial. You can create with snapshot and ARM template to do that.
If you need more than one region. For example, your customer is Europe while your base is in Asia. You can create multi-region VM. You need put the VM behind the Traffic manager. You can read the architecture recommendation here . You should deploy the VM on multiple regions plus you need to maintain the VM by creating regularly snapshot.
Multi-Region in regional pairing. I recommend this one, if your customer still on the same geographical area. Doing regional pair, will make sure that the recovery will be prioritized.
Multi-Region. I recommend this approach if your customer is separated geographically.
Do you have a problem in manage your scalable solution in VM, let's talk!
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Becoming architect in today computing is no longer easy just like before. In the past, we just need to learn a computer, its architecture, and its software. Today, business uses IT like never before. Virtualization, Client Server, Distributed systems, and of course cloud computing. On this article, we will discuss what we need to learn as professional architect
Professional Architect in Certification
In professional world, certification is a measurement of how career development goes. Therefore, let see what the expectation of certification in professional architect
Azure Solutions Architect
The professional architect should understand
Implement and monitor an Azure infrastructure
Implement management and security solutions
Implement solutions for apps
Implement and manage data platforms
Design monitoring
Design identity and security
Design data storage
Design business continuity
Design infrastructure
AWS Professional Architect
The professional architect on AWS should understand
Design and deploy dynamically scalable, highly available, fault-tolerant, and reliable applications on AWS
Select appropriate AWS services to design and deploy an application based on given requirements
Migrate complex, multi-tier applications on AWS
Design and deploy enterprise-wide scalable operations on AWS
Implement cost-control strategies
Learning as Architect
You can learn to become architect by joining digital training such as:
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert - Learn | Microsoft Docs
Exam Readiness: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional | AWS Training & Certification
The Real Architect
You should learn by doing, so lab is better
You should learn by reading a lot of material
You should practices problem – solution
Background
Your organization already has a VM that host web server to the end-user. You want to make the VM can work scalable based on the demand of the end user. You want to distribute incoming network traffic across a group of back-end resources or services such as virtual machines (VMs). You must scale your applications while maintaining throughput and keeping response times low.
Solution
For scalability Azure provides you:
Azure Load Balancer. It works in Layer 4. You can manage VM, NAT, and the virtual network
Application Gateway. It works in Layer 7. You can manage HTTP, HTTPS traffic
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On this case, we prefer to use Azure Load Balancer (since it's a VM)
Think the scenario, where you want to put the Azure Load Balancer
Public facing. For example, when you have a web server in a public subnet
Private facing. For example, when you want to manage load in private subnet such as database server
Select proper SKU
Basic – communicate with HTTP and TCP protocol, up to 300 instances
Standard – Basic SKU plus HTTPs and with SLA 99.99%
Choose the backend pool. Backend pool is containing the IP address or VM sets that already exist. For Basic you can only access VM in single network, while standard can access in availability set
Availability set
Single VM
VM Scale set
Configure rule of load balancer
Configure session persistence. It will help the user can use same VM when doing transaction
Create health probe. It rules how probe will make use the load balancer activate when certain health conditions
Learn More
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/improve-app-scalability-resiliency-with-load-balancer/
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Problem Background
You build a new application in the cloud, and you want to select proper database for your application. There are many choices for database deployment. Today we will discuss tips to choose the right database for your cloud environment. Let's get started!
What are the Issues?
When choosing the database in the cloud, you will have a lot of option such as self-managed database in the cloud or full managed database in the cloud. Although you already have a good benefit when implement a cloud such as scalability, operational simplicity (sharding, backup, recovery, updates), and cost efficiency when implement in the cloud. However, design consideration will become the main issues in the cloud.
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The Tips
Tips 1 – Leveraging the On-Premises database to the Virtual Machine
When I use this:
You have on-premises database that hosted on a VM. Doing this will make you easy to lift-and-shift
You have legacy database that not compatible with the full managed database services provided by your cloud provider.
You want to manage your database engine by yourself
Tips 2 – Using the full managed database
When I use this:
You don't have time and resources to manage your database. Ease of administration.
You have a compatible database with the cloud provider. Available, durable, and up to date.
You build a new application that use modern infrastructure that leverage the power of the cloud. High performance and good scalability
Tips 3 – Taking Care the cost
Self-managed database will give you lower cost than full-managed database. For the same size, you will get 50% higher cost by using full-managed database vs self-managed database.
Tips 4 – Using the Cloud Optimized Database
Today the cloud provider provides you a modern and serverless cloud optimized database such as Azure Database SQL Serverless or AWS Aurora serverless. These cloud optimized database is managed database just like SQL Azure or RDS. But it has more performance, more modern, more cost (23% higher than full managed database). If you have data intensive transaction you can choose cloud optimized database.
Tips 5 – Using the Non-Relational Database (NoSQL)
Beside the relational database, you will have non-relational database that work more simple, more high performance, and key-value access pattern. If your data can be developed in non-relational way you can use the NoSQL engine such as Cosmo DB or DynamoDB. Please make sure
The cost to store the data in non-relational is higher than relational database. i.e., 1 TB will cost 250 USD / month in DynamoDB while in Aurora will cost you about 100 USD
The availability of NoSQL (99.999) is higher than full managed database (99.99).
Is schema less database, so you don't need database schema only table.
Personal Conclusion
So, what the conclusion so far
For small and cost-effective, you should choose to self-manage is the cheapest option and full control
For more demanding performances you should choose full managed database.
When in doubt or high transaction database you can choose NoSQL
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When we discuss about the quality of software, we discuss about how we can deliver less bugs software and correct. This can be done by having a dedicated members that focusing in quality of a software. It can be software tester, quality assurance engineer, or software development engineering test. This article will discuss what we need to do when we have a DevOps project and need to make sure the quality of the outcome.
Failure Reason
Let's we ask ourselves, why the result of our DevOps project / Software Engineering project goes wrong?
Incorrect requirements
Team issues (productivity, miscommunication, mis-coordination)
Untested software (have no time to test)
Radical changes in software (unstable requirements)
Wrong architectural design (wrong technology, wrong design, wrong approaches)
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What we need to do
So how we can make sure the result of the DevOps project is sufficient. And the failure risk can be reduced by the QA role.
Failure riskQA ActionTask on DevOpsIncorrect requirements Validate the user stories with the customerCheck the actor or roles.
Check the feature
Check the user story Team Issues Doing weekly QA based on the outcome/ deliverable
Learning the demonstration from the developer teamsCheck the deliverable and commitment of the teams in Kanban board
Check the status of the story closed when it is tested Untested SoftwareRetested by doing daily QA with development team
Retested by doing weekly QA with the customerPut bugs and additional tasks to developer team
Creating test plan, test case, and test suite
Creating manual based on test resultRadical Changes in software Creating meeting notes for bugs
Creating notes for changes Put bugs and monitor the progress
Validates the changes, if changes is approved Wrong architectural designDiscussing the information architecture issues with the development teams
Discussing the solution architecture with the development teamsCreating tasks that related with architecture changes.
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What is Corporate University?
Corporate is a formed into an association and endowed by law with the rights and liabilities of an individual. Corporate hires the talent to achieves their mission and vision. Therefore, the successful of corporation depends on the talents that joined the company. To make the talents work better, the corporate creates programs that helps the talent to achieve more. Corporate university is professional development process that organized by the corporate itself. It means the organization works just like university to prepare for the talents to have specific outcomes based on the organization specific needs.
Who is the actor of corporate university?
You can put a lot of actors for the corporate university, on this article let's just focus on the essentials:
Admin, a person who manages the entire system of corporate university
Manager, a person who assigned a talent something to learn based on the division / organization needs
Learner, a talent / employee that participates in learning
Author, a person who help to create courses
Mentor, a person who help to deliver a course / topic.
What are the elements of the corporate university?
We can define elements as a fundamental structure of corporate university. On corporate university, we have
Program, a learning plan that consist of several related courses to obtain specific skillset. For example, onboarding program will have several courses related for a new employee.
Course, a structured content to obtain specific knowledge or skill. For example, communication course will make sure the employee understands the basic of the business communication
Certification, an assessment to validate the professional development of the employee. Certification is a culminating activity to validate the skillset that learnt in a program/program.
Artifacts, a specific evidence that can be obtained by finishing the program, course, and certification
Course will obtain you an XP (eXperience Points)
Program will obtain you a badge
Certification will obtain you a certificate
Portfolio, a report that can be generated that shows the artifacts of the learner.
How to implement Corporate University in Your Organization
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Is the corporate university can be applied in my organization?
Make sure your organization have a resource to implement corporate university. If you don't have resources such as author or admin. You can use exiting platform such as LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, Coursera, and many other.
Make sure your organization have a policy for learning. The policy should cover
Learning schedule. For example, employee should finish 10 courses in a quarter
Benefits in career advancement. For example, employee should finish onboarding program before they join a project
Make sure the certificate and the other artifacts can be standardized and can be used to fulfill regulatory requirements. For example, the Microsoft Certified Professional can be used to apply information system project in a government.
How to use Azure and Microsoft 365 for Corporate University
There is a lot of system that help corporate to implement corporate university. For example, Moodle Workspace, Open EdX, and others.
Make sure the organization use Microsoft 365 as the organization ID
Make sure you activate Microsoft Teams for discussion platform
Make sure you implement the corporate university platform in Azure.
You can see the big picture on this picture
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Problem
Microsoft Azure Subscription resides on a directory namely Azure Active Directory. You want to move or to consolidate the Azure Subscription into others directory. However, you find that the change directory button is disabled. You need to change the Azure Subscription to the new directory
Causes
This problem happens because of the three requirements are not fulfilled.
You must be the Service Administrator for the subscription
You must be signed in using a Microsoft Account / Office 365 Account
You must have access to the directory you want to associate with
Solution
Based on the causes we can do several steps:
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#1 Check your service administrator account.
Visit https://account.windowsazure.com/Subscriptions
Login with administrator account of the azure subscription
Click on the subscription you want to change.
Click on "Edit subscriptions details" and enter the Microsoft Account that is going to be Service Administrator.
Only service administrator can migrate your subscription.
Click Save
#2 Add the service administrator in the Azure Active Directory Destination
Visit https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_AAD_IAM/ActiveDirectoryMenuBlade/Overview
Login with the owner of the Azure AD
Click on users.
Click add users.
Add the service administrator account by using invite the user.
Check the email by login as service administrator.
Click the email link to join in the directory.
#3 Change the directory of your Azure Subscription.
Login with your services administrator.
Visit the subscription (Key Symbol)
Click change directory.
Choose the destination directory.
Please wait for one hour or more.
Switch to the destination directory
Make sure you see your Azure Subscription in the directory
Mission accomplished!
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Problem
By default, Azure DevOps provides you an easy way to deploy your codes repository to the same account with your Azure Subscription. For example, when you have
[email protected], it will have access to Azure subscription that related with
[email protected]. The problem is raising when you need to deploy your Azure DevOps repository to the different account or subscription that not related with your tenant. For example, you want to deploy your solution to contoso.com active directory but you only have access to adatum.com. This article will give you an insight into the possibility of the solution.
Solution
#1 Adding your account in their active directory.
You request the administrator of contoso.com to add you as a guest in their azure directory. You request them to give you an access as owner of a resource group or as contributor in a cloud service. In a startup or small business this is possible, but in medium and large enterprise this solution might be not acceptable. You can see the tutorial here Tutorial: Grant a user access to Azure resources using the Azure portal - Azure RBAC | Microsoft Docs
#3 Creating service principle to connect between the Azure DevOps to their Azure.
Azure DevOps has a feature namely services connection. It can connect the subscription into the Azure DevOps. You can see the video here.
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What is DevOps Engineer
DevOps engineer is a sensual role in a company that focus in delivering software engineering toolchain and culture in the organization. DevOps engineer is a software engineer that care not only to build a software but also to operation the software. The purpose of the DevOps is to improve the productivity of the developer and the performance of the operation team. It happens by creating a set of culture and computing environments that support their workflow. DevOps is closely related to the cloud computing. Cloud computing empowers the DevOps process to achieve more by reducing the complexity in the infrastructure. On this article, we will discuss how to become DevOps engineer. We will use DevOps toolchain from Microsoft or Amazon AWS interchangeably.
The Component of the DevOps
We already hear this about its thousands of times. The six practices of the DevOps are:
Continuous integration. A practice that integrates your codes into one single repository (such as GitHub). After that, the codes are tested and automated.
Continuous delivery. A practice that automatically deploy your tested codes into staging environments or production
Microservices. A practice that composes your codes into small pieces that has loosely coupled dependency.
Infrastructure as a code. A practice that automatically construct the infrastructure that needed for development and production.
Monitoring and logging. A practice that monitors your production infrastructure as well as your application through log and metrics. It also provides alert or automatic action based on the metrics.
Collaboration and communication. A practice that delivers the organization an environment to do communication and collaboration that blended with the DevOps initiatives.
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The Domain of the DevOps Knowledge
If you want to learn a DevOps and proof your DevOps knowledge you should understand these domains.
Domain 1. SDLC Automation. Understanding what DevOps and what toolchain that you can use.
Domain 2. Configuration management and Infrastructure as a code (IAAC). Be able to prepare the infrastructure with IAAC method.
Domain 3. Managing monitoring and logging. Be able to setup and to configure toolchain that related with monitoring and logging.
Domain 4. Applying policies and standard automation. Be able to enforce the security, governance, and policy to DevOps environment.
Domain 5. Recovering from incident. Be able to do restore operations in DevOps environment.
Domain 6. Managing High Available, Fault Tollerance, and disaster recovery. Be able to design, to implement, and to manage best practices architecture and approaches in DevOps environments.
That is the basic of DevOps knowledge domain that you should understand, let's discuss more. In another post.
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Creating IoT environment and solution is not an easy task. There are several challenges that we face such as the heterogenic of the device, security, and the complexity management solution of IOT. Fortunately, we have a cloud who can reduce the risk of integration, management, and the lack of security. Yesterday, I discussed how Cloud Computing can solve the IoT issue. The event that held by 165 participants in UTY (Universitas Technology Yogyakarta). It executed on 10 April 2021. The key discussion in this event is:
High Level IoT architecture
On this part, we should understand several IoT Architecture. For example, in Azure we have two main architectures.
Centralized model. On this model, we have Azure IoT Central as software as a service that help to manage our plug and play device
Gateway model. On this model, gateway become a hub to connect the IoT device and forward the data to the processing solution such as streaming analytics or power bi
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Microsoft Product Portfolio
Microsoft has ready to use solution to fulfill the main scenario.
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Video tutorial
VSID has a video tutorial that can be viewed here