Stefanos Cloud

IntroductionWhen planning to migrate an organization with existing on-premises infrastructure to the Microsoft 365 Cloud, you need to create a thorough plan before the migration. This article discusses a Microsoft 365 pre-migration checklist which is provided as a template by Microsoft. Microsoft 365 pre-migration checklistCarry out the following tasks to prepare for migrating your on-premises infrastructure, applications and data to the Microsoft 365 cloud. - Determine your deployment goals- Complete the following tasks with your internal and external stakeholders:- Agree on scope and timeline- Agree on project tracking mechanism- Develop success criteria and a communication plan- Inventory your current environment and make key deployment decisions- Perform an overall technical assessment and inventory of all assets of your on-premises environment (and perhaps of other hybrid configurations you may have in place). You can make use of the "IT infrastructure technical assessment qu...

IntroductionOne of the most common facts in IT organizations worldwide is the lack of cloud skills of both IT administrators and end users. An increasing number of enterprises are starting to realize the importance of investing in Cloud Computing skills training for their employees. Besides the available third party training solutions and educational organizations, the public Cloud Computing vendors themselves offer free training courses which target at enterprises wishing to bridge the cloud knowledge gap of their personnel and accomplish a true digital transformation of their business. This article provides an overview of the cloud skills training programs for enterprises offered by the major cloud computing vendors.IBM Cloud Learn HubIBM offers free training on introductory Cloud Computing topics at https://www.ibm.com/skills/topics/cloud/ as well as a more comprehensive learning hub at https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/all. Microsoft LearnMicrosoft Learn was introduced alongside Micr...

IntroductionThe current post presents an overview of the Azure analytics services, as of late March 2022. Given the dynamic nature of public clouds, this list will most likely change soon in the near future but nevertheless acts as a general point of reference when discussing Azure analytics services. You find an overview of all Azure service categories at https://stefanos.cloud/blog/azure-service-categories/. Azure analytics servicesGather, store, process, analyze, and visualize data of any variety, volume, or velocity by using the Azure analytics services.Azure Analysis ServicesEnterprise-grade analytics engine as a serviceAzure Data ExplorerFast and highly scalable data exploration serviceAzure Data FactoryHybrid data integration at enterprise scale, made easyAzure Data Lake StorageScalable, secure data lake for high-performance analyticsAzure Data Lake Storage Gen1Hyperscale repository for big data analytics workloadsAzure Data ShareA simple and safe service for sharing big data wi...

CaseWhile running Excel you may come across the following error: "There isn't enough memory to complete this action". SolutionThe Excel error message "There isn't enough memory to complete this action" indicates an Excel crash due to excessive memory usage of Excel itself. In most cases, it is not related to the operating system memory resources in general. When making average memory usage in Excel which goes above 2 GB, there is increased possibility of memory leaks and application crashes. Microsoft have provided a troubleshooting article specifically for the above error message which suggests re-checking and optimizing the usage of Excel elements in order to make Excel files lighter in terms of memory usage: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/excel/clean-workbook-less-memory. You should first refer to the above step-by-step article and ensure that all recommendations mentioned by Microsoft have been applied.Sourcehttps://docs.microsoft.c...

Microsoft has announced that Azure App Service supports VNet integration (for App Service outbound connections) and private endpoints (for App Service inbound inbound connections) at the Basic SKU. The App Service VNet integration feature enables App Service apps to access resources in or through a virtual network. For inbound access, private endpoints can be utilized, which allow clients located in a private network to securely access App Service apps over Private Link, which eliminates exposure from the public internet. For more details, see the VNet integration limitations.Sourcehttps://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/apps-on-azure-blog/generally-available-enhanced-network-security-features-for-app/ba-p/3285943 https://stefanos.cloud/blog/vnet-integration-and-private-endpoints-supported-by-app-service-basic-sku/

CaseWhen placing a Hyper-V cluster node in drain mode and then bringing the node back online (re-join), you may come across the following warning message: Cluster Shared Volumes root directory 'C:ClusterStorage' already exists. The directory 'C:ClusterStorage' was renamed to 'C:ClusterStorage.000'. Please verify that applications accessing data in this location have been updated as necessary.At the same time you observe that a temporary new folder C:ClusterStorage.000 has been created as shown below. You observe that the ClusterStorage.000 volumeThe above may occur on more than one Hyper-V hosts and may create outdated copies of more than one subfolders underneath the Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) volumes (cluster disks). For example for VM named VM001, you may have two copies of the "Virtual Machines" folder, one in C:ClusterStorage and one in C:ClusterStorage.000. You observe that the file copies under C:ClusterStorage.000 are outdated and that the syn...

IntroductionThe current post presents an overview of the Azure analytics services, as of late March 2022. Given the dynamic nature of public clouds, this list will most likely change soon in the near future but nevertheless acts as a general point of reference when discussing Azure analytics services. You find an overview of all Azure service categories at https://stefanos.cloud/blog/azure-service-categories/. Azure compute servicesAzure offers the following compute services.App ServiceQuickly create powerful cloud apps for web and mobileAzure CycleCloudCreate, manage, operate, and optimize HPC and big compute clusters of any scaleAzure QuantumJump in and explore a diverse selection of today's quantum hardware, software, and solutionsAzure Spot Virtual MachinesProvision unused compute capacity at deep discounts to run interruptible workloadsAzure Spring CloudBuild and deploy Spring Boot apps with a fully managed service from Microsoft and VMwareAzure VMware SolutionRun your VMware ...

Case You have a KVM-based virtualization solution and you need to create a backup and restore plan for your KVM virtual machines. This article provides high level guidance on how to backup KVM virtual machines. Solution Option 1: Use bash scripts and out-of-the-box KVM features KVM provides out-of-the-box shell commands to backup KVM virtual machines, which utilize the concept of VM snapshots and VM configuration files. Examples of a KVM backup and restore procedure can be found in the following articles: - https://www.bacula.org/kvm-backup-vm/ - https://schh.medium.com/backup-and-restore-kvm-vms-21c049e707c1 - https://www.virtkick.com/docs/how-to-perform-a-live-backup-on-your-kvm-virtual-machines.html You can generally also create Linux bash scripts to backup KVM virtual machines. This should automate the previously mentioned method where the KVM VM backup procedure is run one shell command at a time. One such example is the following script: https://nixlab.org/blog/backup-kvm-virtual...

Introduction When implementing IT solutions which are complex and require proper in-depth planning, it is crucial to perform technical assessments and creating an inventory of the "as-is" situation as well as assess the organization's operational and business requirements alongside the technical requirements. Implementing an IT solution, especially when this involves some sort of migration, requires the execution of a "dry run" or "proof of concept" before you pilot your solution to a greater audience and then gradually move on to full production. When preparing these tasks in the framework of a project, you should utilize vendor best practices, blueprints and also make use of reference architectures and case studies of previous major implementations, which can be used as reference for your on implementation. One such great repository of publicly available reference architectures and case studies is the Microsoft Inside Track . Along with the Azure Arc...

Case You need to update server drivers and firmware on your hardware server. Additional software utilities may be available for installation and update. This post provides high-level guidance on how to update server drivers and firmware. Solution A default operating system installation on a hardware server does not include any specialized software utilities, device drivers and firmware from the hardware server vendor themselves. Instead the default universal device drivers are installed by the operating system (usually Windows, Linux or BSD-like Unix). This comes at the cost of lower performance and you end up with a non-optimized environment. In certain production user cases you may encounter performance issues, such as for example in Windows Failover Cluster (WFC) environments with high server and application workloads. It is imperative to always update all components of your hardware servers to the latest version (software, device drivers, firmware). This is because the device drive...

Case You try to RDP to a remote server and receive the message "The requested session access is denied". Afterwards the RDP session is closed. Solution Carry out the steps below to resolve the issue: - Check the target server's event logs for any clear signs of the error root cause. - Ensure that the user you are connecting with is a member of the "Remote Desktop Users" security group on the target server. Or alternatively, verify that the "Allow users to connect remotely using Terminal Services policy" is set in the following location: Computer ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesWindows ComponentsTerminal ServicesTerminal ServerConnections. - Ensure that the Remote Desktop protocol is enabled on the target server. - Check if the user is a non-administrator user on the target server. If yes, then check if the RDP connection to the target server works with the credentials of a user who is administrator on the target server. - Check if the user who is...

Case You are running a backup or restore operation in Acronis Cyber Backup or Acronis Cyber Protect and you encounter an error message, which causes the backup or restore operation to fail. You may also run into Acronis errors or warnings while installing, uninstalling or upgrading an Acronis Cyber Protect management server. This article provides general guidance on how to troubleshoot Acronis Cyber Protect issues. Solution A few general steps you can take before collecting system information and contacting the Acronis Technical Support team are the following . - Run the Acronis connection verification command line tool to ensure that your on-premises installation has full connectivity to the Acronis Cloud. You can find details about installing and using the tool at https://kb.acronis.com/content/47678 . The tool does not work for accounts with 2-factor authentication enabled; please temporary disable 2FA. Check the report of the tool and see whether all hosts were successfully accesse...

Case You need to check the operational health of a Hyper-V server or Hyper-V cluster. You need to perform a technical audit of the Hyper-V operations to determine the root cause of slow performance issues or cluster errors. This article provides high-level guidance on how to troubleshoot Hyper-V cluster issues. Solution Carry out the steps below to troubleshoot Hyper-V cluster issues: - Check all Hyper-V cluster logs. You can either use Powershell or the Windows Failover Cluster mmc console. - Investigate all operating system event logs on the machines running the Hyper-V server role. - Check all Hyper-V host hardware vendor's logs and overall health status in the out-of-band management console (IPMI). - In the case of a Hyper-V cluster, run the Microsoft Hyper-V best practices analyzer . The Best Practices Analyzer scans your computer using rules based on Microsoft Hyper-V WFC best practices and reports the results. Each best practice rule includes details about how to comply with...

New Azure region in China On March 1st, 2022, a new Azure region in North China was established by Microsoft. This new data center adds the fifth Azure region to the China market and doubles the capacity of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud portfolio in China. Announced in 2012, and officially launched in March 2014 with two initial regions, Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet was the first international public cloud service that became generally available in the China market. Following Azure, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Platform operated by 21Vianet successively launched in China in 2014, 2019, and 2020 respectively. According to an IDC report, China has become the world’s fastest-growing public cloud market with a year-on-year growth rate of 49.7 percent, and the China market’s global share will increase to more than 10.5 percent by 2024. The fast development of China’s digital economy demands advanced technologies and services like Microsoft Azure...

Microsoft had announced that on 30 June 2022, they would retire Azure AD Graph. The Azure AD Graph retirement date has now changed. On April 7th 2022, Microsoft published the following update about Azure AD Graph retirement date: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/update-your-apps-to-use-microsoft-graph-before-30-june-2022/ . Before that date, you’ll need to update your apps that use it to instead use Microsoft Graph, which provides all of the functionality of Azure AD Graph plus new features, including: - A single endpoint for APIs from Azure AD and other services, such as Microsoft Teams, Exchange, and Intune. - Built-in support for retry handling, secure redirects, transparent authentication, and payload compression. The required action to avoid service disruptions, is to identify your apps which use Azure AD Graph and update them . You can find an overview of the new Microsoft Graph API at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/overview and utilize the Microsoft Graph Expl...

New Azure region in India On March 7th 2022, Microsoft announced its intent to establish a new Azure region in India and more specifically in Hyderabad, Telangana. This adds to the ever growing number of Azure data centers around the globe . This strategic investment is aligned with Microsoft’s commitment to help customers thrive in a cloud and AI-enabled digital economy and will become part of the world’s largest cloud infrastructure. Customer demand for cloud as a platform for digital transformation, driving economic growth and societal progress across India, is increasing. According to IDC, Microsoft datacenter regions in India contributed $9.5B revenue to the economy between 2016 and 2020. Beyond GDP impact, the IDC report estimated 1.5 million jobs were added to the economy, including 169,000 new skilled IT jobs. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Electronics & Information Technology of India shared, “Today’s commitment to ...

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a global standard that provides a baseline of technical and operational requirements designed to protect account data. It is a multi-layered set of specifications which target at acceptable security and privacy levels for all organizations which process any type of payment cards in their transactions and need to achieve compliance. PCI DSS recently announced its next major release, which is PCI DSS 4.0. You can read the full press release at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/about_us/press_releases/pr_03312022 . The new release comes along with the PCI DSS Resource Hub. The PCI DSS Resource Hub provides all the standard PCI DSS 4.0 official documents as well as educational resources to assist organizations with their PCI DSS v4.0 journey. The following documents are included in the PCI SSC Document Library . - PCI DSS v4.0 official set of specifications - Summary of Changes from PCI DSS v3.2.1 to v4.0 - PCI DSS v4.0 Repo...

Case You need to create an Azure architecture diagram for your project. Following a full technical and business assessment of your customer, in the scope of an Azure migration project, you should start with high-level and then detailed logical and physical design of the new Azure infrastructure. Creating one or more visual diagrams to depict the Azure design is of paramount importance, in order to convey fundamental information to the technical and business teams. This article provides high-level guidance on how to design Azure architecture diagrams. Solution Diagramming software You can make use of Microsoft Visio Azure stencils as well as alternative diagramming software for your Azure diagrams. Azure architecture diagram templates Make use of the publicly available Azure design diagrams. You can find various freely available Azure design diagrams in Microsoft Visio format at the Azure Architecture Center website: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/ . Click on ...

Case After Chrome or Chromium browser update to Version 100.0.4896.60, users attempting to authenticate to Citrix Gateway and launch a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops resource (virtual app or virtual desktop) may get stuck at spinning circle as shown below. Citrix reports that the above issue manifests under the following conditions: - Citrix Gateway integration with Storefront - Custom Themes based on RFWEBUI, but may appear at others. - Chrome Version updated to 100.0.4896.60 (Official Build) (64-bit) or later triggers the issue. -Users are stuck at a spinning circle - Chrome version 99 works - Firefox current version 98.0.2 Works. - Observed at NS13.0: Build 83.29.nc but may be present at others. This article provides guidance on how to mitigate issue with Citrix stuck at spinning circle in Google Chrome version 100.0.4896.60. Solution Citrix has created a knowledge base article which, for the time being as of early April 2022, provides a workaround until the issue is permanently ...

FSLogix 2201 release is generally available Following the public preview release, the FSLogix 2201 release is now generally available for all Microsoft customers. As part of the GA release, Microsoft provides a new build that you can download here: https://aka.ms/fslogix/download . Bug fixes The following items have been fixed in this release. - Fixed issue where the FSLogix Profile Service would crash if it was unable to communicate with the FSLogix Cloud Cache Service. - The OfficeFileCache folder located at %LOCALAPPDATA%MicrosoftOffice16.0OfficeFileCache is now machine specific and encrypted so we exclude it from FSLogix containers. Office files located outside this folder are not impacted by this update. - Windows Server 2019 version 1809, and newer versions of Windows Server, natively support per-user search indexes and we recommend you leverage that native search index capability. FSLogix Search Indexing is no longer available on those versions of Windows Server. - Windows 10 En...

World Backup Day - 31st March World Backup Day is a day for people to learn about the increasing role of data in our lives and the importance of regular backups . This independent initiative to raise awareness about backups and data preservation started out on reddit by a couple of concerned users. The World Backup Day is on March 31st! It’s not only a day for backing up your personal data, but it’s also a day to talk about the enormous task of preserving our increasingly digital heritage and cultural works for future generations. The World Backup Day initiative is aiming to reach those who have never backed up in their life, and might not even know what backup is! A good backup plan will be continuous and include multiple layers to not only recover your data but also include steps for data preservation. What can the average administrator (and end-user) take backup of on a daily basis? The list of backup target devices includes but is not limited to the following: - Physical machines (...

OCSP SHA-1 support ending 30 May 2022 Microsoft has announced the sunset for SHA-1 Online Certificate Standard Protocol signing. Microsoft is updating the Online Certificate Standard Protocol (OCSP) service to comply with a recent change to the Certificate Authority / Browser Forum (CA/B Forum) Baseline Requirements. This change requires that all publicly-trusted Public Key Infrastructures (PKIs) end usage of the SHA-1 hash algorithms for OCSP responses by May 31, 2022. Most end customers will not have any issues. It is possible that some legacy client configurations which do not support SHA-256 experience a certificate validation error. After May 31, 2022, clients which don't support SHA-256 hashes will be unable to validate the revocation status of a certificate, which could result in a failure in the client, depending on the configuration. If you're unable to update your legacy client to one that supports SHA-256, you can disable revocation checking to bypass OCSP until you...