Let Application Insights focus on real problems and not missing data (404) in your APIs

Application Insights is a great tool for collecting insights and telemetry for your Azure (or for that matter almost any) resources such as websites, console apps, apis etc. There are cases however where default settings may log errors that are undesirable. Worst case scenario is that it could hide the real problems or have them…

Azure Functions Dependency Injection – The forgotten greatness

Had a quite big Azure functions project that did not feel right. It had grown quite big, multiple developers and many functions of semi-complex nature. Although we had divided the code into class libraries with different purposes, in order to get logging and configuration in the repository classes we sent references back and forward between…

Azure Database Security Series (Part 2)- Basic Database Protection

Continuing the journey into a more secure setup for personal information in Azure we will discuss some of the simpler things to do when designing your solutions this part of the journey will look at some basic configurations you can perform to limit access to your data containing personal information. This part of the series…

Azure Database Security Series (Part 1)- Introduction & GDPR for Solution Architects

I have spent some time the last few years discussing GDPR (the new EU personal data privacy legislations) and also spent some time designing SaaS solutions targeting the public sector (a.k.a. the state sector) with all that comes with it (laws and tenancy isolation etc.). Both of these required a lot of thinking about how…

Azure Logic Apps Pricing 2018. Do you still need to be careful about costs?

Last year I wrote a post where I illustrated that the costs of the Azure Logic Apps could in some cases may get far too high, especially if the trigger was based on scheduled polling intervals (you can read it here if you are interested). In it I illustrated that even for a single integration…

Azure Archive Tier Blob Storage preview

I wrote a post last autumn regarding the Hot and Cool Blob Storage alternatives (https://peter.intheazuresky.com/2016/09/01/azure-hot-and-cold-blob-storage/) and tried to point out the differences between them. Now a third option for Blob Storage is in preview named Archive Tier Blob Storage. The purpose of this storage seems to be long-term storage of blobs that you (almost) don’t need to access…

Service Bus separation in the “new” Azure portal (or where are my relay services?)

Most of my Service Bus solutions were created from the classic (old) Azure portal. You could previously combine queues, topics, relays and event hubs as you desired in the same namespace. Apparently I had missed some communication regarding the service bus in the “new” portal (how long can we call it that?) and my WCF Relays and Event…

Azure AD B2C can be set up to store user information in EU Datacenters only

European Union EU is, and have been for many years, very strict on where, how and what information you can store regarding its citizens. Now it is even worse with the GDPR regulations (although already implemented) that will be enforced during spring 2018. GDPR is in many matters common sense but it will force companies take have control…

B2B Integrations using Azure (focus Azure Service Bus) – Part 2 Azure Service Bus Best Practices

Azure Service Bus is a great feature for B2B integrations in Azure. For B2B communication- particularly Queues and Topics delivers an extremely price-worthy, reliable and secure messaging as a service platform service. There are some best practices for setting it up and benefits and what to consider that I will share in this post. I…

Web Apps: Outgoing IPs – follow-up post

I have received some comments about a previous post where I discussed the scenario of an Azure web app that needs to call a protected web service. The protected web service needs to be configured to allow access (for example via its firewall) to the outbound IP address of the Web App. You can read the whole previous post here. A few readers have had problems…