Category: Uncategorized

SQL Server 2022 on Windows Server 2022 Core Edition

Today I’m going to install SQL Server 2022 on Windows Server 2022 Core Azure Edition. In a previous blog I installed ADDS on Windows Server Core edition.

Part 1: Install and configure ADDS on Windows Server Core in Azure
Part 2: Install and configure ADDS on Windows Server Core in Azure

I have done a large number of SQL server implementations in recent years, both in on-prem datacenter and in Azure (IaaS). Now that SQL 2022 is available, I’ve taken a look at the differences compared to previous versions. Installing on Windows Server Core edition is also supported, so I take that scenario as a starting point.

Basic Infrastructure

As a basis, it is of course important that an Active Directory environment is available. In my demo environment I ran a domain controller in Azure based on Windows Server 2022 Azure Edition. This server provides the other servers with DNS. The domain is called ‘demo.lab’.

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Reduce costs with Azure Spot virtual machines

What is Azure Spot VM?

Azure Spot VM is an Azure feature that allows you to take advantage of the unused capacity of the underlaying platform. If an host has some capacity compute left, these ‘spots’ will be filled with you Spot enabled virtual machines. When enabling this feature, you receive a discount up to 90 percent of the normal pricing in some cases.

Only pricing and eviction are the differences between Spot enabled virtual machines and the regular virtual machines. The compute, networking, storage, etc are exactly the same. The virtual machine can be attached to a virtual network or a load balancing solution, such as a internal/external load balancer. Also, the management capabilities are exactly the same and are done though the Azure Portal or with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) like Bicep, ARM, Powershell or Terraform.

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Part 2 – Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for Groups

In my previous post I explained what PIM for Groups is, what it takes to get started with PIM for Groups and how the configuration works. In this post, we are going to look at the different settings that are possible for activating PIM for Groups.

Sign in to the Azure portal and navigate to Azure Active Directory and select Groups. Find the right group, in this example the previously created group ‘PIM-for-Groups-example-group’. Select Privileged Access (Preview), then Settings.

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Part 1 – Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for Groups

What is PIM for Groups?

PIM for Groups is part of the Azure Active Directory Privileged Identity Management. With PIM for Groups users can activate membership or ownership of an Azure AD security group or Microsoft 365 group. These groups can be used to assign access to for example Azure AD roles or Azure roles.

When using Azure PIM with PIM for Groups, you’re following the Microsoft best practices of ‘least privileged’ strategy.

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How to enable hidden Education Themes for Windows 11

Microsoft has released a new Education Theme for students. Using this theme, you can more personalize your desktop with some great wallpaper.
By default, this theme is hidden, but you can enable this option on your Windows 11 device. Important note: you need to have Windows 11 22H2!

1.) Open ‘regedit’
2.) Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device
3.) Create a new ‘Key’ with the value ‘Education’
4.) Create a new ‘DWORD (32-bit) Value’ with the value ‘EnableEduThemes’
5.) Set the value to ‘1’ (Hexadecimal)
6.) Restart your device
7.) After restarting your device, make sure you’re connected to the Internet

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Enable Accelerated Networking using Azure Cloud Shell

What is Accelerated Networking?

Accelerated Networking provides consistent ultra-low network latency via Azure’s in-house programmable hardware and technologies such as SR-IOV. By moving much of Azure’s software-defined networking stack off the CPUs and into FPGA-based SmartNICs, compute cycles are reclaimed by end user applications, putting less load on the VM, decreasing jitter and inconsistency in latency.

Please double check the supported operating systems and VM sizes in the following documentation links to check the availability of this feature.

In 3 simple steps, we will learn to enable accelerated networking to an existing VM using Azure Cloud Shell (within the Azure Portal). Execute the following steps.

  1. First stop/deallocate the VM

    • az vm deallocate –resource-group myRG –name myVM

  2. Once stopped, enable Accelerated Networking on the NIC of your VM:

    • az network nic update –name myNic –resource-group myRG –accelerated-networking true

  3. Restart your VM. It’s that simple, isn’t it?

    • az vm start –resource-group myRG –name myVM

                    

Free eBook – The Backup Bible

As the old adage goes: fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

It’s the perfect description for backup yet to this day so many companies don’t have an adequate backup & disaster strategy in place for when the worst-case scenario happens. Just how well are you protecting your vital data?

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The Backup Bible, a free eBook from Altaro, guides you through the stages of preparing for, responding to, and recovering from a substantial data loss event, which can otherwise be disastrous for a company of any size.

This eBook is the first instalment of a 3-part series comprising the complete guide to data protection. It covers how to get started with disaster recovery planning; how to set recovery objectives and loss tolerances; how to translate your business plan into a technically oriented outlook; how to create a customized agenda for obtaining key stakeholder support; and the essentials to setting up a critical backup checklist.

The second and third parts in the series will be released later this year but by downloading the first part, you’ll automatically receive the other eBooks in your inbox as soon as they become available!

Whether you’re just starting to put together a backup and disaster strategy or you want to make sure your current plan is up to scratch, every IT admin needs to read The Backup Bible.

Download your free copy today