Marco Obinu
former Azure MVP, Azure Technical Trainer @ Microsoft, Geek to the bone
Arenzano, Italy
Curious by nature, talkative geek who can speak in front of a public or a camera, in love with technology, especially Azure and SQL Server.
I want to understand how things work and to solve problems by myself during work as in my many hobbies.
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Show off your skills and get the recognition you deserve with Microsoft credentials 🙌
Do you work with Azure all day long? Do you know its hidden scecrets by hammering away at it? Maybe it’s time to consider getting a Microsoft credential, for personal satisfaction and to spice up your LinkedIn profile and resume!
Whether you want to validate your expertise for a specific scenario, or prove your proficiency for a job role, Microsoft credentials are the way to go. They are trusted, verified, and awesome! 😎
Training is a key issue nowadays, both from a business and an individual point of view: the IT world is constantly evolving and you have to stay on top of it always and anyway.
We will start a short journey through the landscape of Microsoft certifications. We will see where to find the material to prepare and some tips & tricks to face the exam with more confidence.
We will also introduce the world of Applied Skills, the new credentials that allow you to demonstrate your practical level of preparation on a vertical topic. A great way to spend a couple of hours of your time, and take home a certificate to add to your profile.
Don’t miss the opportunity to boost your career and impress your peers with Microsoft credentials. You know you want them. You know you need them. You know you can get them. 💯
So what are you waiting for? Start your learning journey today. You’ll be glad you did. 😊
Template Spec e Deployment Stack: come Babbo Natale gestisce gli ambienti Azure per i suoi regali
Babbo Natale ha una mission aziendale chiara: consegnare i regali a tutti i bambini del mondo.
Questa si traduce nel far preparare tonnellate di regali agli Elfi, che si occupano di progettare e realizzare i progetti più belli e innovativi. Ogni regalo richiede un ambiente Azure dedicato a supporto, dove gli elfi possono testare le funzionalità e la qualità del prodotto nonché per supportare la catena di montaggio.
Come possiamo aiutare Babbo Natale a gestire tutti questi ambienti in maniera efficiente e sicura? La risposta è Template Spec e Deployment Stack, due nuove funzionalità di Azure che permettono di definire e distribuire gli ambienti Azure in modo standard e basato su template.
In questa sessione, introdurremo Template Spec e Deployment Stack nell'infrastruttura di Babbo Natale, e scopriremo come possiamo adottarli anche noi per migliorare la nostra esperienza di deployment in Azure.
Planning a successful migration to Azure for your SQL Server workloads.
Let's say you want to migrate your on-prem SQL Server workloads to Azure, and your boss asks you to define a successful strategy that considers both technical and economic aspects.
Which of the different services should you consider as a target for the migration?
What are the key aspects that may impact your choice? And what about the licensing implications?
After the migration, how can you define if it was successful, or if it needs adjustments?
And what about the tools you can use in the distinct phases to support your migration?
I often had to face the above questions in my career. Save yourself some time and join me in this session to learn which aspects you should focus on while preparing for your migration.
Is your Azure architecture ready for a disaster recovery plan?
Some customers think using geo-redundant Azure services keeps them safe if a disaster strikes: well, this may not be enough, especially if your company needs to adhere to strong regulations.
In this session, we'll go through the decisions you have to make while designing your DR strategy. Thanks to some lessons learned from the field, I'll point your attention to the fundamental aspects you must take care of, depending on the technologies you implement, spending some thought about the tools you can use.
Implement a Zero Trust Approach with Azure Active Directory (IT)
Zero Trust is a security model that assumes breach and verifies each request as though it originated from an uncontrolled network. It requires explicit verification, least-privileged access principles, and continuous monitoring of your IT environment.
Azure Active Directory is the cloud-based platform that governs the identity and access management to the Power Platform, as well as to all the other M365 services, the Azure resources you have in your subscriptions, and eventually the third-parties SaaS applications you are federated with.
In this session we'll discuss the native Azure AD functionalities you can use to cover the different pillars of Zero Trust, like:
- Strong Authentication, Identity Protection and Conditional Access.
- Privileged Identity Management.
- Access Reviews
Whether you are architects, cloud or security admins, or citizen developers that want to increase the security of their solution, you'll learn more about the above components, and how they can be used to implement your Zero Trust approach.
Serverless automation con Azure Functions e PowerShell
Le Azure Functions sono uno strumento molto potente, utilizzabile anche per automatizzare la gestione delle proprie risorse in maniera event-driven.
Tra i diversi linguaggi supportati per la loro creazione, PowerShell è quello che si adatta meglio alla creazione di funzioni di integrazione e gestione delle risorse, disponendo di moduli già pronti all'uso ed essendo alla portata anche di chi non ha particolari esperienze di programmazione.
Vediamo insieme come funzionano le Azure Functions, quali strumenti utilizzare per crearle e qualche esempio pratico di integrazione con altri servizi Azure, come Event Grid ed Azure Monitor.
Secure your Azure SQL deployment (IT)
Do you have any Azure SQL Database that supports your production applications?
Are you sure you implemented all the best features to protect your solution?
Nooo?? What are you waiting for in the lobby?!?
Jump into the room and have a quick overview of how to protect your workload by improving authentication, securing network and data, auditing access, and so on!
We'll discuss topics like:
- Authentication and authorization mechanisms for Azure SQL Database, with a focus on Role-based access control (RBAC) and database-level permissions, as well as other interesting features you can leverage by integrating with Azure Active Directory.
- Connectivity options, introducing Service Endpoints and Private Endpoints to implement a network boundary around PaaS resources.
- Transparent data encryption (TDE) and always encrypted.
- Data masking and classification.
- Vulnerability assessment and advanced threat protection.
- Auditing and monitoring using Azure native tools.
By the end of this session, you will have a better understanding of how to secure your Azure SQL Database instances and ensure that your data is safe in the cloud.
What's new on Azure SQL Managed Instances?
Se devi migrare un'applicazione esistente in Azure, molto probabilmente una Azure SQL Managed Instance è il target ideale per la componente dati, perché unisce le capacità di un'istanza "tradizionale" con le comodità fornite dall'utilizzo di una piattaforma gestita.
In passato la piattaforma aveva qualche carenza, che poteva limitarne l'adozione in favore di una più tradizionale virtual machine. Microsoft ha recepito i feedback degli utenti ed ha introdotto nuovo hardware e nuove funzionalità per supportare ancora più scenari.
Vediamo insieme quali sono le novità introdotte su questa piattaforma.
Terraform o Bicep? Quale strumento per i deployment su Azure?
Sono un fan degli ARM Template della prima ora, ed un utilizzatore entusiasta di Bicep. Riconosco gli assoluti pregi derivanti dall'utilizzo di un tool nativo, ma devo ammettere che ultimamente mi sono dovuto ricredere su Terraform, altro strumento con cui sto avendo un incontro ravvicinato per i deployment su Azure.
In questa sessione vi racconto cosa mi piace e cosa no delle diverse soluzioni, tramite qualche esempio pratico.
Securely connect to your PaaS resources with Azure Private Link
Azure Private Link is the technology that permits you to securely connect to PaaS resources from your on-premises or Azure network by using a private IP instead of a public endpoint.
How a Private Link Endpoint differ from a Service Endpoint? What about the DNS configuration you need to implement to satisfy different scenarios? How can you use the Private Link service to allow your customers to reach your Azure-deployed solution from their own network securely?
Let's answer all the above questions with some real-world examples!
Protect your data in a full-PaaS Azure architecture
Azure Platform-as-a-Service services are ideal for deploying your solution in a fully-featured, easy-to-adopt managed environment.
You can focus more on the application side than on the infrastructural topics, but this can have side effects.
I often face environments with a less-than-desirable security posture because customers are more focused on functional aspects than infrastructural topics, leaving their data at the mercy of potential attackers.
Let's see how to leverage the native Azure functionalities to convert a simple, full-PaaS, data-oriented design into a reasonably secure solution that reduces the attack surface and data exfiltration risks step-by-step!
Infrastructure as Code on Azure: why Bicep is so cool?
Despite all the different options, when it's time to adopt an Infrastructure as Code approach on Azure, my first choice is always Bicep.
Why? I can enumerate several reasons for this, starting with its simplified syntax, the incredible instruments we can use to code it, as well as some really interesting native features we can leverage.
In this session, I'll go through all the key points that make Bicep so cool to me. Additionally, I'll show you how easy is to implement it in a structured way in comparison to ARM templates, thanks to the simplified reusability of the code and its integration with CI/CD pipelines.
Infrastructure as Code on Azure: Bicep & CI/CD pipelines
Bicep is a breath of fresh air for our toolbox when it's time to implement Infrastructure-as-Code on Azure.
It offers you many interesting features, and one of its strong points is how easy to start with it, thanks to the increasing number of tools that natively support it.
Let's have a quick dive into its peculiarities and how we can leverage it in deployment pipelines with Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
Implementa una pipeline CI/CD multi-stage per deployment su Azure con Bicep & GitHub Actions
Se stai pensando di arricchire la tua pipeline di CI/CD su GitHub con degli step in grado di distribuire l'infrastruttura su cui insisterà la tua applicazione, Bicep può essere la scelta giusta per te: le sue peculiarità e semplicità di utilizzo lo rendono uno dei miei strumenti preferiti quando si deve fare Infrastructure as Code su Azure.
In questa sessione vedremo come costruire una pipeline multi-stage, in grado di distribuire una soluzione Azure su più ambienti in maniera sicura. Vedremo inoltre come sfruttare funzionalità come i moduli ed i registry per facilitare la riutilizzabilità dei nostri script su più progetti.
Govern your bicep modules with a CI/CD approach
One of the main benefits of using bicep as your language for Infrastructure as Code on Azure is how easy it is to reuse your code via bicep modules.
However, sharing them with your colleagues may become challenging if you're working in a team: you need to be sure that everyone is using a working release, and possibly the latest one.
You can improve your process for authoring, testing, and sharing your modules by leveraging a CI/CD pipeline and a bicep registry.
Let's see together an example of how you can implement a pipeline that validates your bicep files, executes a test deployment, and push your bicep to the registry applying a version tag to them.
Myth-busting Azure SQL VMs
Often, during lift & shift migrations, customers ask me to move their SQL Server workloads to Azure VMs.
I love Azure VMs in all their aspects, but in a whole lot of scenarios, Azure SQL Database in one of its different flavors can make the difference.
When are you supposed to deploy a VM, and when should you embrace the PaaS way?
In this session, we will discuss the key aspects you should consider to perform a conscious design choice, and explore the common misconceptions about Azure IaaS and PaaS when talking about SQL Server performance, high availability, security, licensing, and costs.
IaaS vs PaaS: myth-busting Azure SQL VMs
I've participated in several migrations between on-premises data centers and Azure, where SQL Server workloads had a significant impact on the overall picture.
Customers often ask me for VM-based SQL Server deployment: they seem to be more comfortable with them for various reasons. I love Azure VMs, but I recognize they can bring complexity in the architecture. At the same time, the PaaS approach, based on Azure SQL Database in its different flavors, can keep things incredibly simple.
Like Myth Busters, let's go through different aspects like performance, availability, security, manageability, and costs to discuss whether an Azure SQL VM is the right target for your migration, or you should evaluate Azure SQL PaaS services.
IaC on Azure: show your Bicep!
ARM Templates are the native IaC solution for Azure deployments. They have a great potential, but their JSON can be difficult to read and maintain.
Bicep is the new open-source Domain Specific Language, created by the same team that maintains ARM Templates, that aims to reduce the JSON complexities.
It's a newly-created language, and it has to grow a lot to become production-ready, but it's very promising.
What can we already convert from JSON, and what is still missing in this initial phase? What's the benefit in doing this?
Let's discuss how we can migrate our ARM Template know-how to Bicep.
Azure VM 101
Anche se il punto di arrivo di una migrazione verso Azure dovrebbe tendere il più possibile all'utilizzo di servizi gestiti, le VM in IaaS hanno spesso un ruolo fondamentale all'interno delle nostre architetture. Data la loro importanza, vediamo insieme quali sono i criteri che determinano dimensionamento e disponibilità delle macchine, e qualche suggerimento per contenere i costi della nostra infrastruttura.
What's new on Azure IaaS for SQL Server
SQL Server VMs are more alive than ever. They're still the cornerstone that may drive our Azure migrations to success in complex scenarios, thanks to their customizability. On the other hand, configuring and managing an articulated IaaS architecture can be challenging.
The latest additions to the SQL Server VMs world on Azure IaaS can reduce the effort you have to sustain while designing and administering your solution.
What are the current best practices you have to follow to deploy a performant and highly available SQL Server system on Azure IaaS? Are there any new VM series you can leverage to maximize the performance? What about shared storage for our clusters? What is the SQL VM resource provider, and how could it help us?
In this session, we'll discuss all the topics above, including some hints about how to automate various configurations.
Azure and SQL Server: Distaster Recovery for everyone!
Thanks to Azure, you can easily design Disaster Recovery solutions that are affordable also for small and medium-sized companies, leveraging on several Microsoft technologies. During this session, we'll discuss all the possibilities, with a particular focus on Always On Availability Groups. We'll also see how easy it is to extend an existing failover cluster to Azure with Availability Groups, thanks to PowerShell.
SQL Server: journey to the cloud
SQL Server proposition on Azure cloud is full of options: we can create a SQL Server VM, as well as we can take advantage of PaaS benefit by using Azure SQL Database in different flavours and tiers.
Let's have a quick overview of different implementation, talking about single or pooled DBs, managed instances, hyperscale and so on, and how to migrate our on-prem DBs to Azure.
Deploy and manage your SQL Server instances with PowerShell!
When you have to deploy and manage several SQL Server instances, it's difficult to maintain an homogeneous approach between them, applying settings in a constant way: misalignments are just around the corner!
Let's see togheter how to mitigate this problem with PowerShell, thanks to apposite modules that can help us both in delivery and operations tematics.
SQL Server HA solutions for Azure IaaS
If you're deploying a SQL Server VM on Azure into your production environment, you'll probably need to build an high availability solution to minimize downtime for your application.
In the past it was a goal achievable only by using SQL Server Enterprise edition and Availability Groups; now, with Basic Availability Groups or hyperconverged failover cluster, it's possible to implement it also on Standard edition.
Let's see together all the options we have!
Serverless automation with Azure Function and PowerShell
PowerShell support in Azure Function allows ITPros to implement automation tasks in a scripting language they're familiar with.
Let's see together how to move the first steps in this new world, having a look at the instruments we need to use and to some real-world use cases.
SQL Server Lift & Shift on Azure!
You (or your customer) have finally decided to adopt Azure as a public cloud provider, and for some reason, you have to migrate your SQL Server workloads quickly. You've heard about lift & shift migrations, but you're not sure if this approach is the right one for you.
Do you need a quick and dirty migration to IaaS VMs, or should you spend some more effort to embrace PaaS services? Should you move all the databases to the same target instance, or should you use a different approach for each one? What about networking, security, and costs?
Let's talk about all these drivers, which usually lead us during our migration journey, with a particular focus on the assessment phase that, in my experience, may transform a trivial rehosting into a database modernization project.
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Marco Obinu
former Azure MVP, Azure Technical Trainer @ Microsoft, Geek to the bone
Arenzano, Italy
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