Musings on Microsoft (the company) and their products/platforms
Azure Bastion is a fantastic service for securely accessing virtual machines deployed in Azure, relying on the capabilites of Azure AD and the Azure portal like Multi-Factor Authentication. In terms of cost, it isn't prohibitive for an organization that needs such a capability. However, when you're working in a significantly constrained subscription for the purposes … Continue reading Azure Bastion On-demand
When implementing broader security controls in Azure Active Directory, it is a best practice to create an “emergency access” or “break the glass” account that is not subjected to those controls. The purpose of this account is to use for remediating issues with those controls. If Azure MFA is broken, for instance, a privileged account … Continue reading Emergency Access Account Use Alerting in Azure Active Directory
Have you experienced an inconsistency with some mailboxes going into a quarantined state after being migrated to Exchange Server 2019 that seemed unexplainable? I had this very situation. A customer with a small-to-medium environment had a single mailbox that would routinely go into a quarantined state after it was migrated. At the time, about 100 … Continue reading Mailbox Quarantined After Migrating to Exchange Server 2019
Sentry Mode is a great feature available with Tesla vehicles that are equipped with cameras that can automatically record data based on detection of events. This has been beneficial for many owners that have had their cars vandalized. We are going to enable this on my Tesla Model 3 and use a little bit of … Continue reading Enabling Sentry Mode Recording for Tesla with PowerShell
You may have noticed that the Azure certifications have been revamped over the past year, or so. They are now role-based and come in four main tracks (although others exist): Azure Administrator Associate: AZ-103 Azure Developer Associate: AZ-203 Azure Solutions Architect Expert: AZ-300 and AZ-301 Azure DevOps Engineer Expert: AZ-400 There are tons of resources … Continue reading Azure Certifications – All Roads Start HERE
I have been using Pester and integrated it with my dxExchange.WebServices module following HDD/TDD practices. I have wanted to start incorporating Pester testing into cloud configuration validation and management for some time, but never really got around to it. A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a Network DevOps course facilitated by Nick Russo … Continue reading Pester for Infrastructure Validation
Ternary statements can be very useful but difficult to read. Many blue moons ago, I used to write a lot of Java, which has a ternary statement just like C: x = (condition) ? 1 : 0; It is a short and concise way to have a condition if it is a matter of setting … Continue reading PowerShell Ternary Statement
At Ignite 2018, Microsoft outlined several details related to Exchange Server 2019 that I previously wrote about. Included was the new Metacache Database (MCDB). The purpose is fairly clear: Exchange has been optimized to offer really large mailboxes on the cheapest storage possible which was afforded by being really intelligent about read/write operation and caching … Continue reading Should the Exchange 2019 Metacache Database Actually Be Implemented?
This post is not about taking a mailbox that has been inactive. Rather, this post is about taking an active mailbox that is already attached to an AD user and attach it to a different one. Situation: Cross-forest migrations have a lot of moving parts. It requires two AD forests with accounts or trusts established, … Continue reading Quick Tip: Attaching a Mailbox to a Different Active Directory User
There has been a proliferation of workflow automation tools out there for various platforms, and I am generally a fan. I have used the Shortcuts (formerly Workflow) app on iOS for a few years and have had limited success with IFTTT. Microsoft Flow is different because it is really meant to be an integration glue … Continue reading Troubleshooting Microsoft Flow
Dustin Dortch 