Azure Naming conventions are one of the key things you should consider when creating a brand new Azure environment. Often I have referred to this Azure documentation https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/ready/azure-best-practices/resource-abbreviations.

When creating some Azure policies for following this recommended naming convention I was unable to find either a policy that used these abbreviations and secondly unable to find these recommendations in a format I could consume to generate some kind of policy programatically.

Being connected is not the same as being at your desk.

Video Conferencing has changed the way we communicate. It has many benefits, making people feel more connected and engaged, enabling people to see one and other as if they were in an office meeting room without the commute. However this has become the default method of communication for many people who work remotely. What happened to the good old phone call?

This is the first time I’ve really seen an AI fail at a simple task. But… has this AI become sentient?

Weirdly Copilot seems to be referring to some code that hasn’t been structured properly, however I am asking it to write Markdown. What code is it referring to here?

Recently, I encountered a challenge with Azure Policy while implementing an “Allowed Locations” policy to ensure resources deployed in the correct regions. Similar to the one listed here but it’s our own custom one to allow us to make our own modifications - AzAdvertizer.net

The Problem:

Our custom policy, configured with “All” mode, was unexpectedly interfering with the creation of new Key Vault access policies.

The “Aha!” Moment:

After careful investigation, we compared our custom policy with the built-in Azure Policy for “Allowed Locations.” This built-in policy, designed specifically for this purpose, leverages the “Indexed” mode. This key difference was the root cause of the issue.

A bit of a revelation I just had… could I blog from the comfort of the sofa on a mobile device?

I’ve used the GitHub mobile app for a while now. Recently they added the ability to add and edit files on mobile.

Because I’m using Hugo and GitHub Actions read more here to deploy this blog I just need to add a markdown file with some text for it to be pushed to this site for you to read.

For people who aren’t currently in a Cloud Engineer or DevOps Engineer role day to day you might wonder, what exactly do people in these roles do? I’ve compiled a list of tasks that I believe fit into the day to day of these types of roles.

Automation

• Automate something that is currently a manual task
• Manage automated deployments and ensure smooth operation
• Maintain automated code
• Automate legacy systems

Cost optimisation

• Create budget alerts
• Create/automate cost reports
• Update resource tags
• Remove unwanted resources
• Scale down resources/select more appropriate SKUs

Pipeline optimisation

• Remove unused pipeline steps
• Add caching to increase pipeline speed
• Optimise pipelines to ensure they are running efficiently

Performance optimisation

• Monitor application code to ensure it is operating efficiently
• Monitor infrastructure to ensure it is scaled correctly

Platform Monitoring

• Platform Security
• Architecting/Re-Architecting

Manage Releases

• Manage releases of new code/applications
• Manage releases and changes to the platform/infrastructure

I’m sure there’s a huge amount of other jobs that these roles include. They differ from company to company. This is just the ideas that came to my mind when I asked myself the question.