When Software Attacks!

An Introduction To Azure Resource Templates

I have spent a good deal of time over the last month or two building an Azure Resource Template to deploy a relatively complicated IaaS environment. In doing so I’ve hit a variety of problems along the way and I though that a number of blog posts were in order to share what I’ve learned. I will write a detailed post on certain specific servers within the environment shortly. This post will describe Azure Resource Template basics, problems I hit and some decisions I made to overcome issues.

Complex Azure Template Odyssey Part One: The Environment

Part Two | Part Three | Part Four Over the past month or two I’ve been creating an Azure Resource Template to deploy and environment which, previously, we’d created old-style PowerShell scripts to deploy. In theory, the Resource Template approach would make the deployment quicker, easier to trigger from tooling like Release Manager and make the code easier to read. The aim is to deploy a number of servers that will host an application we are developing.

Speaking at CloudBurst in September

I’ve never been to Sweden, so I’m really looking forward to September, when I’ll be speaking at CloudBurst. Organised by the Swedish Azure User Group (SWAG – love it!), this conference is also streamed and recorded and the sessions will be available on Channel 9. The list of speakers and topics promise some high-quality and interesting sessions and I urge you to attend if you can, and tune in to the live stream if you can’t.

Using the customScriptExtension in Azure Resource Templates

Documentation for using the customScriptExtension for Virtual Machines in Azure through Resource Templates is pretty much non-existent at time of writing, and the articles on using it through PowerShell are just plain wrong when it comes to templates. This post is accurate at time of writing and will show you how to deploy PowerShell scripts and resources to an Azure Virtual Machine through a Resource Template. The code snippet below shows a customScriptExtension pulled from one of my templates.

My Future Decoded session is now online

Susan Smith has posted an interesting DevOps article on the TechNet UK blog. Hidden away in a footnote is a link to recordings and slide decks for the DevOps track at Future Decoded, including my own session. Both the video and my deck are available for you to view online or download.