MSSQL : What should I know about licensing HA/DR scenario’s in the cloud?

Introduction

This week I met a customer who described the following situation to me…

Where, to be honest, I was a it flabbergasted as I could not imagine this being true. So I read up on the matter, to see where this could possibly come from.

Over the course of the last years, I’ve been in contact with licensing way too much. Though in the end, this can really make a lot of difference in euros/dollars/… And that is what matters to the business!

Update (31 Oct 2019) : https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2019/10/30/new-high-availability-and-disaster-recovery-benefits-for-sql-server/

 

Bibliography

All things I’m going to say during this post use the following posts as foundation ;

• SQL 2016 Licensing guide
• Microsoft Product Usage Rights (PUR)
• Microsoft Licensing Review on “Failover  Rights”
• Licensing How To: SQL Server Fail-Over vs. Cold Disaster Recovery Rights.

Azure : Using PHP to go all oauth2 on the management API!

Introduction

As a hobby effort, I wanted to create a small poc where any user would be able to login with their AAD user, grant access to an application, after which that application could query their subscriptions.

In all honesty, I’ve been struggling more than I like to admit with getting this working… So this post will cover all the steps that you need to do to get this working!

 

Oauth & Azure AD

Before getting our hands dirty, read up on the following post ; Authorize access to web applications using OAuth 2.0 and Azure Active Directory

Ready it thoroughly! To be honest, I didn’t at first and it cost me a lot of time. 😉

Anyhow, the flow looks as follows…

So basically;

• We’ll redirect the user to sign-in (and if this hasn’t been done, grant our application access)
• If all went well, we’ll receive an authorization code
• We’ll use this code to get a bearer (and refresh) token
• Next up we’ll use the bearer code to connect to the Azure REST API for getting the list of subscriptions for that user.

Azure Application Gateway : Often overlooked…

Introduction

Ever heard of the azure application gateway? No… I understand. It is (strangely enough) a component that is often overlooked. In essence, what does it do? Look at it as a load balancer on security steroids. The basic form will help you in terms of SSL offloading, where the advanced form will turn it into a WAF.

 

Azure Application Gateway : Debugging the dreadful “502”-error

Introduction

When you set up your Application Gateway on Azure, and you’re getting the following message…

Then you know you are in a world of pain in order to debug this. So before we continue, please help to avoid this pain by voting on the user voice! 😉

 

Domain Join : ARM Extension versus Azure Automation DSC

Introduction

So you’ve already deployed Windows based systems in Azure. Very good! You’ve probably joined those systems into a domain, as you’ve always done this by going through the GUI. Did you know you can join a machine without logging into the machine? No? Then today’s post will be very interesting for you!

If you knew this was possible, then I’ll show you that there are various methods of doing so. And that each approach will have clear advantages and even disadvantages. So let’s get ready to domainjoin those systems!

 

Wow… I got awarded with the Microsoft MVP Award!

Today I received the very exciting news that I received my first “Microsoft MVP Award”! I’m now one of the (eight?) MVPs in Belgium for Azure! Off-course I’m very happy on receiving this award for my merits in terms of Azure in the last year. This is an additional incentive to keep giving back to the community!

For those who are unaware of the Microsoft MVP Awards, here is a small description ;

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. They are always on the “bleeding edge” and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies. They have very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services, while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products and solutions, to solve real world problems. MVPs are driven by their passion, community spirit and their quest for knowledge. Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others – that’s what sets them apart.