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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.
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Exchange Server Mailbox Quotas

I am not sure about other Exchange Server Email infrastructure administrators, but I find it challenging to come up with reasonable mailbox quotas AND implementing them in a time efficient and coherent manor. The goal is to set maximum mailbox size quotas that work for all involved: I.T. Departments and various employees and respective departments. All of this needs Managerial or Exec approval, of course! If quotas are not set (and enforced), then typical modern employees will have huge mailboxes. We live in a world of HTML-based emails and sometimes large attachments. Over time, it all adds up. Also, implementation of quotas should be done efficiently. Although employee mailbox quotas CAN be set individually, this can be very time-consuming and cumbersome as time goes on.

The long-term goal is to get thee to a Cloud mail service, in my opinion. Being a Microsoft systems Engineer, I would favor Office 365, which incidentally has a baseline of 25 Gigabytes maximum PER USER mailbox size as of late 2014. Nice! But for most companies and organizations, cloud services are either a project in the making or not in the picture yet for whatever reason. Some may be worried about security or simply not be willing to change just yet, or some may be waiting for pricing to come down.

Whatever the reason, for those hosting Exchange Server on premises or at a Datacenter, reasonable quotas are the way to keep storage (disk space) costs reasonable. Solid RAID’d SATA drives, for example are not like a home PC hard drive (anyone still using?), which can be bought for a small price. I am referring to small to medium sized companies here, so if assuming hundreds or thousands of employees, you can see how costs can grow immensely for server-level or SAN drives.

Exchange Server can house numerous mail ‘databases’. Each database can house hundreds or thousands of user mailboxes. Now, Mailbox quotas can and should be set at the database level and therefore filter downward. Individual Mailboxes can override this as needed. So databases can be set up according to department needs, or employee classification. An Executive or owner obviously gets more space than an entry level administrative assistant. Simple example, but useful. The challenge can come over time, as employees transition in-house, get promoted, get approval for a quota override of the Database quota. Mailbox Database design changes over time, as a reflection of organization growth or shrinkage.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to use the Exchange Management Shell to implement a top level scheme:

‘Set-MailboxDatabase -Identity YOURDBNAME -IssueWarningQuota 1900 -ProhibitSendQuota 2000’

This sets the warning for the quota to ~ 1900 MegaBytes as the employee approaches the actual quota itself, @ 2000 MegaBytes (‘2 Gigs’).

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Interesting Microsoft Purchase of Windows Phone App Maker

I normally get what is needed from my Windows phone Outlook, but some searching and sorting type of improvements would not be turned down.

Microsoft Acquires Email Startup Acompli to Give Outlook a Mobile Advantage

“Microsoft has acquired the mobile email startup Acompli, the tech giant announced today on its website.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the tech news site Re/code reports that Microsoft paid over $200 million.
Acompli makes an email client for Android and iOS designed to make common but sometimes complex tasks—such sorting messages, sending typical responses, and finding attachments—much easier to accomplish on mobile devices. But even though it runs on devices from competing companies—Google and Apple—the app seems like a good fit for Microsoft. The product has long been focused on selling software to large companies—Microsoft’s bread and butter—and it already plugs into Microsoft’s primary email server software, Exchange.”

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/microsoft-acquires-new-age-email-app-acompli/