58 posts tagged with "azure"

Recently, I managed to acclaim the Azure Solutions Architect badge by completing AZ-300 and AZ-301 exams.

Earning the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification demonstrates skills and knowledge to advise stakeholders and translate business requirements into secure, scalable, and reliable solutions. Candidates have advanced experience and knowledge across various aspects of IT operations, including networking, virtualization, identity, security, business continuity, disaster recovery, data management, budgeting, and governance – managing how decisions in each area affects an overall solution.

If you are preparing for AZ-301 and AZ-300 EXAMS? Don’t know where to start? This post contains all the resources I used to study for the exam. Also, please share the post within your circles so it helps them to prepare for the exam.

AZ-301 Resources:​

AZ-301 Video Content Options:​

AZ-301 Practice Tests​

AZ-301 E-book​

AZ-301 Learning Path (aka.ms/learn)​

1.Determine Workload Requirements (10-15%)​

Gather Information and Requirements​

Gathering Information About Existing Enterprise Architecture in Microsoft Azure

Optimize Consumption Strategy​

Optimizing Consumption Strategy in Microsoft Azure

Design an Auditing and Monitoring Strategy​

Design Auditing for Microsoft Azure

Designing a Monitoring Strategy for a Solution in Microsoft Azure

2.Design for Identity and Security (20-25%)​

Design Identity Management​

Design Identity Management in Microsoft Azure

Design Authentication​

Design Authentication for Microsoft Azure

Design Authorization​

Design Authorization for Microsoft Azure

Design for Risk Prevention for Identity​

Design for Risk Prevention in Microsoft Azure

Design a Monitoring Strategy for Identity and Security​

Design a Monitoring Strategy for Identity and Security in Microsoft Azure

3.Design a Data Platform Solution (15-20%)​

Design a Data Management Strategy​

Design a Data Management Strategy for Microsoft Azure

Design a Data Protection Strategy​

Design a Data Protection Strategy with Microsoft Azure

Design and Document Data Flows​

Design and Document Data Flows with Microsoft Azure

Design a Monitoring Strategy for the Data Platform​

Designing a Monitoring Strategy for the Microsoft Azure Data Platform

4.Design a Business Continuity Strategy (15-20%)​

Design a Site Recovery Strategy​

Designing a Site Recovery Strategy on Microsoft Azure

Design for High Availability​

Designing for High Availability on Microsoft Azure

Design a Data Archiving Strategy​

Designing a Data Archiving Strategy on Microsoft Azure

5.Design for Deployment, Migration, and Integration (10-15%)​

Design Deployments​

Designing Deployments in Microsoft Azure

Design Migrations​

Designing Migrations for Microsoft Azure

Design an API Integration Strategy​

Designing an API Management Strategy for Microsoft Azure

6.Design an Infrastructure Strategy (15-20%)​

Design a Storage Strategy​

Design a Storage Strategy for Microsoft Azure

Design a Compute Strategy​

Design a Compute Strategy for Microsoft Azure

Design a Networking Strategy​

Design a Networking Strategy for Microsoft Azure

Design a Monitoring Strategy for Infrastructure​

Design a Monitoring Strategy for Infrastructure in Microsoft Azure

AZ-300 Resources:​

AZ-300 Video Content Options​

AZ-300 Practice Tests & Labs​

AZ-300 Exam Reference Books (PDF)​

Exam content is as followers,

Deploy and Configure Infrastructure (40-45%)​

Analyze Resource Utilization and Consumption​

Configure diagnostic settings on resources

Linkedin Learning: Configure Diagnostic Setting (check with a free trial)

Create a baseline for resources

LinkedIn Learning: Creating a Baseline for Resources (check with a free trial)

Create and test alerts

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/alerts-metric

Analyze alerts across subscription

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/alerts-managing-alert-instances

Analyze metrics across subscription

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/metrics-charts

Create action groups

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/action-groups

Monitor for unused resources

https://docs.bmc.com/docs/reclaiming-the-unused-and-overallocated-azure-virtual-machines-785283461.html

Monitor Cost

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/billing/billing-getting-started

Report on Cost

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/billing/billing-download-azure-invoice-daily-usage-date

Utilize Log Search query functions

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/log-query/search-queries

View alerts in Azure Monitor logs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/alerts-activity-log

Visualize diagnostics data using Azure Monitor Workbooks

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/app/usage-workbooks

https://github.com/microsoft/Application-Insights-Workbooks/blob/Visualizations.md

Create and Configure Storage Accounts

Configure network access to the storage account

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-network-security

Create and configure storage account

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-quickstart-create-account?tabs=azure-portal

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-account-manage

Generate shared access signature

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-dotnet-shared-access-signature-part-1

Implement Azure AD authentication for storage

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-auth-aad-app

Install and use Azure Storage Explorer

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vs-azure-tools-storage-manage-with-storage-explorer

Manage access keys

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-account-manage

Monitor activity log by using Azure Monitor logs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-audit

Implement Azure storage replication

MSDN Blog: Azure Storage Replication Implementation

Implement Azure storage account failover

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-initiate-account-failover?tabs=azure-portal

Create and Configure a VM for Windows and Linux​

Configure high availability

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/tutorial-availability-sets

Configure monitoring

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/tutorial-monitoring

Configure networking

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/tutorial-virtual-network

Configure storage

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/managed-disks-overview

Configure Virtual Machine Size

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/sizes

Implement dedicated hosts

Deploy and configure scale sets

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machine-scale-sets/quick-create-portal

Automate Deployment of VMs​

Modify Azure Resource Manager template

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/building-blocks/extending-templates/update-resource

Configure the location of new VMs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/site-recovery/azure-to-azure-tutorial-migrate

Configure VHD template

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/create-vm-specialized

Deploy from template

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/ps-template

Save a deployment as an Azure Resource Manager template

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/download-template

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/ps-template

Deploy Windows and Linux VMs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/create-ssh-secured-vm-from-template

Create Connectivity Between Virtual Networks​

Create and configure Vnet peering

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/tutorial-connect-virtual-networks-portal

Create and configure Vnet to Vnet connections

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/create-routebased-vpn-gateway-portal

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/vpn-gateway-vnet-vnet-rm-ps

Implement and Manage Virtual Networking

Configure private IP addressing

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/virtual-networks-static-private-ip-arm-pportal

Configure public IP addresses

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/virtual-network-public-ip-address

Create and configure network routes

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/tutorial-create-route-table-portal

Create and configure network interface

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/virtual-network-network-interface

Create and configure subnets

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/virtual-network-manage-subnet

Create and configure virtual network

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/manage-virtual-network

Create and configure Network Security Groups and Application Security Groups

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/tutorial-filter-network-traffic#create-a-network-security-group

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/tutorial-filter-network-traffic#create-application-security-groups

Manage Azure Active Directory

Add custom domains

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/fundamentals/add-custom-domain

Configure Azure AD Identity Protection

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/identity-protection/enable

Configure Azure AD Join

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/devices/hybrid-azuread-join-managed-domains

Configure self-service password reset

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/quickstart-sspr

Implement conditional access policies

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/conditional-access/app-based-mfa

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/conditional-access/require-tou

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/conditional-access/app-sign-in-risk

Manage multiple directories

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/licensing-directory-independence

Perform an access review

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/governance/access-reviews-overview

Implement and Manage Hybrid Identities

Install and configure Azure AD Connect

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/hybrid/how-to-connect-install-express

Configure federation and single sign-on

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/hybrid/how-to-connect-fed-single-adfs-multitenant-federation

Configure single sign-on

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/manage-apps/configure-single-sign-on-portal

Manage and troubleshoot Azure AD Connect

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/hybrid/how-to-connect-post-installation

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/hybrid/tshoot-connect-connectivity

Troubleshoot password sync and writeback

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/hybrid/tshoot-connect-password-hash-synchronization

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/active-directory-passwords-troubleshoot#troubleshoot-password-writeback

Implement solutions that use virtual machines (VM)

Provision VMs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/quick-create-portal

Create Azure Resource Manager templates

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/template-tutorial-create-first-template?tabs=azure-powershell

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/ps-template

Configure Azure Disk Encryption for VMs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/disk-encryption-portal-quickstart

Implement Azure Backup for VMs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-vms-first-look-arm

Implement Workloads and Security (20-25%)

Migrate Servers to Azure

Migrate servers using Azure Migrate

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-in/azure/migrate/tutorial-migrate-hyper-v

Backup and restore data

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/quick-backup-vm-portal

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/tutorial-restore-disk

Configure Serverless Computing

Create and manage objects

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-create-your-first-function-visual-studio

Manage a Logic App resource

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-overview

Manage Azure Function app settings

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-how-to-use-azure-function-app-settings

Manage Event Grid

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/event-grid/overview

Manage Service Bus

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/service-bus-messaging/service-bus-messaging-overview

Implement Application Load Balancing

Configure application gateway

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-gateway/quick-create-powershell

Configure Azure Front Door service

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/frontdoor/quickstart-create-front-door

Configure Azure Traffic Manager

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/traffic-manager/quickstart-create-traffic-manager-profile

Integrate On premises Network with Azure Virtual Network

Create and configure Azure VPN Gateway

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/vpn-gateway-tutorial-create-gateway-powershell

Create and configure site to site VPN

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/vpn-gateway-howto-site-to-site-resource-manager-portal

Configure Express-Route

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/expressroute/expressroute-howto-circuit-portal-resource-manager

Configure Virtual WAN

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-wan/connect-virtual-network-gateway-vwan

Verify on premises connectivity

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/vpn-gateway-verify-connection-resource-manager

Troubleshoot on premises connectivity with Azure

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/vpn-gateway-troubleshoot-site-to-site-cannot-connect

Implement Multi factor Authentication (MFA)

Configure user accounts for MFA

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/howto-mfa-userstates/enable-azure-mfa-by-changing-user-state

Configure fraud alerts

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/howto-mfa-mfasettings/fraud-alert

Configure bypass options

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/howto-mfa-mfasettings/one-time-bypass

Configure trusted IPs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/howto-mfa-mfasettings/trusted-ips

Configure verification methods

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/howto-mfa-mfasettings/verification-methods

Manage Role based Access Control (RBAC)

Create a custom role

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/role-based-access-control/tutorial-custom-role-powershell

Configure access to Azure resources by assigning roles

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/role-based-access-control/role-assignments-portal

Configure management access to Azure

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/role-based-access-control/role-assignments-portal

Troubleshoot RBAC

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/role-based-access-control/troubleshooting

Implement Azure policies

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/governance/policy/tutorials/create-and-manage

Assign RBAC roles

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/role-based-access-control/quickstart-assign-role-user-portal

Create and Deploy Apps (5-10%)

Create Web Apps by Using PaaS

Create an Azure App Service Web App

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/app-service-web-get-started-dotnet

Create documentation for the API

https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/azure-app-service-api-configure-swashbuckle/

Create an App Service Web App for containers

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/app-service-web-get-started-windows-container

Create an App Service background task by using WebJobs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/webjobs-create

Enable diagnostics logging

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/troubleshoot-diagnostic-logs

Design and Develop Apps That Run in Containers

Configure diagnostic settings on resources

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-instances/container-instances-get-logs

Create a container image by using a Docker file

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-registry/container-registry-quickstart-task-cli

Create an Azure Kubernetes Service

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/kubernetes-walkthrough-portal

Publish an image to the Azure Container Registry

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-registry/container-registry-get-started-docker-cli

Implement an application that runs on an Azure Container Instance

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-instances/container-instances-quickstart-portal

Manage container settings by using code

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/resources/samples/container-service-python-manage/

Implement Authentication and Secure Data (5-10%)​

Implement Authentication

Implement authentication by using certificates, forms-based authentication, tokens, or Windows-integrated authentication

https://github.com/Azure-Samples/active-directory-dotnetcore-daemon-v2

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/security/forms-authentication

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/overview-authentication-authorization

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/security/integrated-windows-authentication

Implement multi-factor authentication by using Azure AD

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/tutorial-mfa-applications

Implement OAuth2 authentication

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/tutorial-v2-asp-webapp

Implement Managed identities for Azure resources Service Principal authentication

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/managed-identities-azure-resources/tutorial-windows-vm-access-arm

Implement Secure Data Solutions

Encrypt and decrypt data at rest and in transit

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Encrypt data with Always Encrypted

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-always-encrypted-azure-key-vault

Implement Azure Confidential Compute

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/blog/azure-confidential-computing/

Implement SSL/TLS communications

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-security-tls

Create, read, update, and delete keys, secrets and certificates by using the KeyVault API

Keys

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/createkey/createkey

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/getkey/getkey

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/updatekey

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/deletekey

Secrets

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/setsecret/setsecret

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/getsecret/getsecret

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/updatesecret

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/deletesecret

Certificates

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/createcertificate/create

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/getcertificate/get

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/updatecertificate/update

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/keyvault/deletecertificate/delete

Develop for the Cloud and for Azure Storage (15-20%)​

Configure a Message-based Integration Architecture

Configure an app or service to send emails

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sendgrid-dotnet-how-to-send-email

Configure Event Grid

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/storage-blob-event-quickstart-powershell

Configure Azure Relay Service

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/service-bus-relay/relay-hybrid-connections-dotnet-get-started

Create and configure a Notification Hub

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/notification-hubs/create-notification-hub-portal

Create and configure an Event Hub

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/event-hubs/event-hubs-create

Create and configure a Service Bus

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/service-bus-messaging/service-bus-quickstart-portal

Configure queries across multiple products

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/log-query/cross-workspace-query

Develop for Autoscaling

Implement autoscaling rules and patterns (schedule, operational/system metrics)

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/autoscale-get-started

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/autoscale-common-scale-patterns

Implement code that addresses singleton application instances

Check the entire module (Writing Code to Handle Singleton Application Instances) with a free trial

Implement code that addresses transient state

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/best-practices/retry-service-specific

Develop Solutions That Use Cosmos DB Storage

Create, read, update, and delete data by using appropriate APIs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/cosmos-db/documents

Implement partitioning schemes

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/how-to-model-partition-example

Set the appropriate consistency level for operations

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/consistency-levels-choosing

Develop Solutions That Use a Relational Database

Provision and configure relational databases

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-single-database-get-started

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-server-level-firewall-rule

Configure elastic pools for Azure SQL Database

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-elastic-pool

Implement Azure SQL Database managed instances

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-managed-instance-get-started

Create, read, update, and delete data tables by using code

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-connect-query-dotnet-core

Hope the resources and the links helps you to get through the exams and make you Azure Solutions Architect. Good luck!

I have been using twitter for the past 10 years and it took nearly 5 years to get those 100 followers. I was not an active user till before 2 years. One great tip i learnt in recent times is that first thing you need to do is to get a really complete and professional profile. Most users look at profiles before following. Another best way is to increase followers on Twitter is being consistent with posting quality content. Automating your posts will help a lot with this. In this blog, i will explain how you could build a simple function and deploy it on Azure to increase your followers count and to be consistent with quality content.

PreRequisites:

• An Azure subscription.
• The Azure Functions Core Tools.
• Visual Studio Code with the Azure Functions extension.

Step 1 : Navigate to https://portal.azure.com/ and search for Function App in the search bar.

Step 2 : Create a Function app with the following settings, make sure you are setting the Consumption Plan and enable Application Insights.

Step 3 : Open Visual Studio Code(Make sure you have already installed the VSCode with the function core tools and extension). Select Ctrl + Shif + P to create a new Function Project and select the language as Python

Step 4 : Select the template as Timer trigger as we need to run every 15 minutes and you need to configure the cron expression (0 */15 * * * *) as well.

Give the function name as twitter_followers,

Step 5 : You will see the project template getting created. Next step is to edit the __init__.py, thats where you are going to add the logic. We will be using Tweepy library to get the data from twitter and to follow the person who is tweeting the tweet. The methods we will use in the function as retweet and create_friendship. Here is the whole logic of the function. As you can see any tweet that has the hashtag #azure will get retweeted and you will automatically follow the user who has tweeted the tweet.

import tweepy, time, datetime, logging, os
from datetime import date
import azure.functions as func
def main(mytimer: func.TimerRequest) -> None:
    utc_timestamp = datetime.datetime.utcnow().replace(
        tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc).isoformat()
    if mytimer.past_due:
        logging.info('The timer is past due!')
    logging.info('Python timer trigger function ran at %s', utc_timestamp)
    auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(os.environ["TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY"], os.environ["TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET"])
    auth.set_access_token(os.environ["TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN"], os.environ["TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET"])
    api = tweepy.API(auth)
    today = str(date.today())
    while True:
        for tweet in tweepy.Cursor(api.search,q="#azure", lang="en", since=today).items(1):
            try:
                api.retweet(tweet.id)
            except:
                pass
            try:
                api.create_friendship(tweet.user.id)
            except:
                pass

Step 6: As you can see there are few environment variables which we are using in the code, we need to add those variables with the values in the local.settings.json file.

{  "IsEncrypted": false, 
   "Values": { 
   "TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY": "",
   "TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET": "",
   "TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN": "",
   "TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET": "",
   "FUNCTIONS_WORKER_RUNTIME": "python",
   "AzureWebJobsStorage": "UseDevelopmentStorage=true"
 }
}

You need to get those keys from the twitter application you already created. if you dont have one, create from here.

Also you need to add the dependencies which are used in the above code inside the requirements.text file. dependencies.txt would have the following,

azure-functions
tweepy

Step 7 : Now we are done with everything, to publish the app to Azure, just press Ctrl+Shift+P and select Deploy to Funciton App

Step 8 : You can navigate to the function app on the Azure portal and make sure Application Insights is configured and as well as AppSettings are correct.

Now you can start your function and navigate to Monitor section of the function app. You will see the real live telemetries from the app as follows,

All good, you can see the function running and you will see the tweets are automatically retweeted with the particular hasthage in your timeline and also you will see the number of followers increased. Happy Tweeting Folks!

You can get the sourcecode from here.

Technology is moving very fast and it’s hard to keep up, but you always gotta find a way to keep updated! Especially in the cloud's world it is mandatory to keep your knowledge updated everyday. Every social media is a great place to know about what’s happening around,new innovations and stuff. As there are many services/features been announced every day on Azure, This blog helps you to unleash the power of AzureCharts which is a great resource that help to track Azure updates. AzureCharts is a set of auto-rebuilt charts to keep you updated on Azure changes, news, stats. Public updates, RSS channels and web pages are used as data sources.

Before few weeks I saw a tweet from mark russinovich who is the CTO of Azure definitely somebody that you should follow if you want to learn about Azure.

As you see, he mentioned in the tweet if you want to see exactly what updates were making to Azure services check out this cool site that lets you see all of them as your charts. This site was developed by one of cloud solution architects Alexey Polkovnikov. Azure charts is not a Microsoft service or product, this is just a personal project of him and quite honestly I think this is awesome. He has delivered a great way to consolidate everything going on in all of the different update points of Azure which cover things like RSS feeds the azure updates page news statistic other public updates so this is just an awesome place to come and see exactly what's going on.

HeatMap View:

It pulls the update from portal and other locations in order to give us many things including a heat map view. Now you have one place to come where you can see everything across all major pillars and services in Azure.This is just absolutely amazing so this heat map view specifically digs into the hottest areas of azure update items.You'll find those across the top and they are the most highlighted in color and we have many different ways that we can look at and slice this data up. You can also look at this in terms of regions and data centers which features are being deprecated in this retirement section,things security compliance open source and other azure services and individual feature updates.

Addition to that you can look at this based on a specific measure role. For example, if I am an Azure developer then I would care about what's going on with the SDKs and specific features that are here.

SLA

It is very difficult to keep track the SLA of each and every service on Azure. This feature becomes very handly, if we click on this tile it takes us over to the SLA page and you can see the SLA details a and then you can read up about that and the different service levels.

Regions

Region look up is a pretty cool feature this is where we can take aparticular geography and again compare it to another region but a little more. specifically, if you want to look at features that are GA in the United States geography regions or what is GA in preview GA preview and future you will just select GA and hit search regions and of all of these services.

Fun

Last but not the least, Quize helps you to validate the knowledge on different services with bit of gamification as there are different multiple choice questions.

Thanks Alexey for putting this together and this should be a shout out for everybody to go explore this tool and give your feedback. Definitely this would help in some way.

This week I participated my first ever OpenHack on DevOps organized by Microsoft in Singapore. It was a three day event from 26th-29th November 2019. The hackathon was focused on Azure DevOps and Azure Kubernetes services. There were participants from all over the world gathered at one place.

There were over 90+ Participants comprised of internal employees as well as customers. Participants were divided into 6 members per team with one coach. The content was set as 8 challenges. Coach from each team was some Cloud Solution Architect from Microsoft who was helping and guiding the team during the challenges with some hints to solve it. One of the cool thing of the hack was that each team could apply their own solutions in unique ways. We as a team were supposed to find our way out to solve the challenges. There was no one way, we were free to take our decisions and paths as deemed fit. If you are wondering about the agenda and what happened in the hack, here you go.

What I really liked about the openhack was that each team member was really able to understand what's the challenge and was able to get the team's support whenever they're stuck. Before we start each challenge, one member from the team was assigned as a Scrum Master and he has to drive the entire team to complete the challgne. In each challenge, one has to elloborate the feature of whatever the tools/technologies that we would use in the challenge. There was whiteboarding session included in each challenge before we get in to try to solve the challenge. It was a hands-on rather than attending any tech talk about a specific topic. The tasks were set, challenges were well organized, the environment was prepared, code was almost prepared (with some changes) so that we can focus on learning how we can use Azure DevOps as a tool to ensure zero down-time for production ready application. Kubernetes was chosen as an orchestration framework. Azure monitor was used as the Monitoring service.

Microsoft OpenHack is a developer focused event where a wide variety of participants (Open) learn through hands-on experimentation (Hack) using challenges based on real world customer engagements designed to mimic the developer journey.

For every challenge the links to documentation and resources were provided to understand relevant topics and areas at hand. Besides the actual work, it was a great opportunity to network and discuss broader topics with fellow team members and other participants. It was not just about solving challenges, but each one was appreciating others work whenever we accompolished something. we were given with some cool swags including stickers,notebook wireless charger and Azure Devops badge.

There was not a real winner(team) out of this openhack, all the teams who participated thoroughly enjoyed and it was about sharing and solving real issues.Overall, I think it was a great learning experience for all the participants with great focus on getting things done. I will definitely keep an eye on such events in the future and try to join as a Devops coach for the upcoming events. More than the hackathon it was not just about technology but about teamwork. If you want to have the same experience try to join any of the OpenHacks from here.

One of the cool feature that Microsoft teams provide is that you can load any website as a tab on particular channel. One handy thing i noticed is that if you want to access azure cloud shell in teams you can just add it as a separate tab and manage the resources without navigating to the browser. With simple step you can access your azure portal as a tab in your teams.

Step 1 : Goto your channel on teams and click on + (Add tab)

it will open up a window.

Step 2 : Just type website in the search tab and you should be able to add a new website as a tab.

Step 3: Just add http://shell.azure.com as a website tab and thats it. Now you should be able to execute all the commands without opening up a shell.

You can do the same with most of the frequently accessed websites if you want to demonstrate something while you are on teams. I have done with Stackoverflow and it's really helfpul while github can be added as a separate tab from the available list.

Try it out today, eventhough it is not helpful as the page refreshes when you move to another tab and come back, but really a good feature to have as a developer. Here is a small gif demonstrating how effectively you can navigate between those tabs.

Microsoft teams is getting better with much features day by day!