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Cloud Security

Quick, which is more secure, premises or cloud based data?

This fellow makes an excellent point on Cloud Security and the common question, that is that maybe the Cloud is only as secure or insecure as the Business owners, Executives and I.T. Department desire. Maybe the hacker are the least of our problems?

“The truth: Although you may not control the data on your premises, you still own and control the data. You may not be able to visit the data center and have lunch in the server room, but you still can control both the data and the layers of security safeguarding it. I’ve yet to see a public cloud provider that does not allow this configuration. No, your data is only as vulnerable as your security protocols, cloud or not.”

It’s not the hackers you should fear

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Silverlight Frozen on Microsoft Site!

I had the strange experience of Silverlight, a piece of … Microsoft software, completely freeze while on a Microsoft site [Azure Portal]. The message informed me that ‘Protection’ mode was there to defend me so I was not allowed to enter, or something similar. Gee, thanks!

I love the idea of protection, but shouldn’t Microsoft know that it’s own services are safe? In addition, why is Microsoft locking my page up completely? I was not able to click the “Allow” button. What a tease! Even “Don’t Allow” was frozen.

I even tried the trick of cascading all pages to see if there was a secret hidden pop up box or page. No go. Or should it (not) know about its own safety? Ok, what do I know? Silverlight is an ‘add on’ to Internet Explorer, a Microsoft product and in fact is now firmly intertwined  with Windows 8.

So, to be more concise: I am working on Azure SQL. I try to get into the Azure or SQL Manager to practice some queries on my new database, but I encounter the following, which you may not be able to verify through the ethernet, but I assure it is frozen stiff.

silv

Regardless, the only way to ‘solve’ the Silverlight screen freeze, is –

1) End the IE process via hard close within Task Manager

2) Completely disable Internet Explorer Protected Mode [restart of IE needed]. Go into IE Options, then Security tab, then remove all 4 checkboxes to Internet, Local Intranet, Trusted, and  Restricted Sites or zones.

Not much help, but you can try downloading the latest Silverlight version: Silverlight page. I already had the latest so I resorted to the 2 steps above.

To me, it is ludicrous that Microsoft Internet Explorer PROTECTED MODE needs to be disabled in order to get a MICROSOFT PRODUCT to work.

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Azure SQL Database Naming

I just love this note on creating and accessing an Azure SQL Database! It may take a little getting used to for some, because gone are the days of bland Database names such as, “PRODUCTION_DB__1”.  Lol.

“Notice that you did not specify a server name. Because the SQL Database server must be accessible worldwide, SQL Database configures the appropriate DNS entries when the server is created. The generated name ensures that there are no name collisions with other DNS entries. You cannot change the name of your SQL Database server.”

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Azure SQL Database

As I have a few days off from the job (hey, vacation time can add up quickly!), what else am I to do, but to set up an Azure SQL Database, of course!

I host this site in Azure already, mainly for fun, although I do earn a few dollars from ads here and there. But really I am using Azure as a learning platform and my next adventure is within the SQL world. I do support the SQL environment at work, being the solo Systems Administrator: server infrastructure for our SQL needs, backups, resource monitoring, data mirroring (replication), troubleshooting and problem solving, working with our primary application vendor, light queries etc.

I admit, I am more fascinated than ever with Microsoft SQL, now called simply ‘Azure SQL Database’. As it is fully cloud based nowadays, it is super exciting that a SQL Database can be created within a matter of minutes! Obviously, I am not referring to the actual table, table views, stored procedures – these take time to develop. However, I am referring to the platform – organizations no longer need to get 3 quotes from hardware vendors (CDW, Dell, HP etc.), nor project into the future re: needs, nor purchase, then rack, and then obtain proper warranties on  … local server room or Datacenter HARDWARE.

With an Azure SQL Database, using modern IaaS (infrastructure as a Service), along with PaaS (Platform as a Service), or maybe even SaaS (Software as a Service) for good measure, some of the steps of the past can be handled more efficiently. An organization’s I.T. Department or Developer or external Consultant simply has to log into the Azure account, and click the ‘Add (+) New’ to add a Database.

Also the need to look into Disaster Recovery or failover takes on a whole new meaning once in the Cloud – but that is a topic for the future, not here!

Note, I already added a Database, simply named it ‘prod’ …

SqlAz

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Super Fast SSD VM in Azure Cloud

This will be really, really efficient and … fast:

6.59 Terabytes disk space, on a Solid State Drive?? WOW. [not o mention 448 GB of RAM!)

“We have just recently announced the new series of VM sizes for Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines called the G-series, providing the most memory, the highest processing power and the largest amount of local SSD of any Virtual Machine size currently available in the public cloud. It easily handles deployments of mission critical applications such as large relational database servers (SQL Server, MySQL, etc.) and large NoSQL databases as well as the most demanding, very large scale-up enterprise systems.

G-series offers up to 32 vCPUs using the latest Intel® Xeon® processor E5 v3 family, 448GB of memory, and 6.59 TB of local Solid State Drive (SSD) space.”

Read about these FAST SSD VMs Here

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France Faces Intense Cyberattacks

“France faces 19,000 cyberattacks since terror rampage”

Hackers have targeted about 19,000 French websites since a rampage by Islamic extremists left 20 dead last week, France’s cyberdefense official said Thursday, as the president tried to calm the nation’s inflamed religious tensions.

France is on edge since last week’s attacks, which began Jan. 7 at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The paper, repeatedly threatened for its caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, was burying several of its slain staff members Thursday.

Calling it an unprecedented surge, Adm. Arnaud Coustilliere, head of cyberdefense for the French military, said about 19,000 French websites had faced cyberattacks in recent days, some carried out by well-known Islamic hacker groups.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/france-faces-19000-cyberattacks-since-terror-rampage/ar-AA8bXRK?ocid=iehp

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Paid Lizard Squad DDoS Service is Down

It appears the ‘Lizard Squad’ DDoS ‘service’ is already out of business. The sleazy service was relatively new and caused outrage on the Internet due to its, uh, illegal activity: basically it would bombard websites until they could no longer reply to other requests (http), i.e. people would get a ‘page cannot be displayed’ type of message during said bombardment.

DDoS is not new at all, but the Lizard Losers actually set up a business via Paypal or Bitcoin, where one could pay them online for periodic outages of chosen websites. So, they monetized illegal internet activity. They also set up an impressive website. And, to add insult to injury, there is a YouTube video demo of sorts. Check it at the ‘Engadget’ link below. It’s very interesting.

Their service  did not last too long, but look for more of this in the coming months or years …

Engadget Article here 

 

 

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Free Azure Hosting and Custom Domain

There are limits to the free Azure hosting. It is free, after all, so it makes sense. But resources will be on the low end. Also, you cannot edit your DNS and web settings to make it a ‘custom domain’. If you are merely using Azure to test or experiment then this is fine. But to ‘go live’ or change your site from ‘MyTestSiteDummyName.Azurewebsites.Net’ to RealSiteName.Com’, you need to scale or really, upgrade Azure hosting. It is necessary to go to at least Shared mode.

az_hosting

So I want to once and for all get ‘Riguy.Azurewebsites.Net’ to open as simply, ‘Riguy.Com’. As of this moment, I have set a redirect HTML page at my old hosting  (Go Daddy) to point to the Azure site. This is cool, for sure. It is by design. But moving forward, I want to actually have my domain open … as my domain. Note that once I edit my DNS and site settings, the Azure instance will still be active.

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Google Blog being Moved

Woah, I just moved dozens and dozens and dozens of BlogSpot posts over to my new Riguy WordPress site.  I moved these from my soon-to-retired Blogspot blog, which is/was called exploringwindowsos.blogspot.com. I will soon set up a redirect from there to here.

I used the Import tool [obviously need to be logged in as the WP Admin]. Once the Google credentials are provided, I admit it was much easier than I expected. It did take a little time, however. But it worked so I am absolutely not complaining!

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Exchange Server 2010 Database Quotas by Management Shell

To follow up on the previous Exchange Server topic –

I need to be able to set employee mailbox quotas at the database level, which will guarantee all mailboxes in that database have the same same quotas. I was unable to find the exact command  to use online to accomplish following: set a quota on a DATABASE (not a mailbox, which is easy and not as dangerous) AND also override any current settings. Exchange and / or Systems Administrators are wise to test command line items beginning with “SET”. So in my case, I was able to set up a test database in Exchange. I set that database quota default to something silly, like @ 50 Megabytes = no email receiving ability.

I then moved 2 test mailboxes to the test database. I verified each mailbox had distinct individual quotas and were not inheriting the database defaults. I then went to the Exchange Management Shell. I knew I’d be setting (SET-), like a database. But I also recalled the syntax actually was Set-MailboxDatabase. This shell can be friendly, for instance if you have an idea of where you’re going, you type a few letters you can try the arrow keys. It may go through a menu of available arguments. Regardless I decided to skip the Google or Bing searches, which continuously yielded MAILBOX quota search results. [Again, I’m trying to set quota defaults at the Database level and override individual quotas]. Instead I used the very helpful -? option

 

As seen above, if you dig in enough you can see 3 key areas – issue warning, prohibit send, and prohibit send/receive.
[NOTE: IF YOU USE ‘PROHIBIT SEND AND RECEIVE”, EMAILS TO YOUR OVER QUOTA EMPLOYEES WILL NOT ARRIVE – NOT A GOOD PRACTICE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE]. Ok, then.