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Global Infrastructure 101 Understanding Data Centers, Regions, and Availability Zones in Azure
In this blog post, we’ll unravel the key building blocks of Microsoft Azure’s global infrastructure — data centers, regions, and availability zones — and how they all fit together to support performance, compliance, scalability, and resilience. https://dellenny.com/global-infrastructure-101-understanding-data-centers-regions-availability-zones-in-azure/What Is Microsoft Azure? A Beginner’s Guide to the Azure Ecosystem
In today’s digital world, cloud computing is at the heart of modern business operations — and Microsoft Azure stands as one of its most powerful players. Whether you’re an IT professional, developer, or business owner, understanding Azure can open doors to scalability, flexibility, and innovation. https://dellenny.com/what-is-microsoft-azure-a-beginners-guide-to-the-azure-ecosystem/Top 10 Azure Services Everyone Should Know (2025 Edition)
In today’s rapidly evolving cloud landscape, knowing your way around key cloud-platform services is no longer optional. If you’re working in IT, development, or business strategy, understanding the essential services on Microsoft Azure gives you a competitive edge. Azure supports everything from virtual machines to serverless functions to globally distributed databases. According to Microsoft, Azure offers “Compute, Storage, Networking, Databases, AI + Machine Learning” and many more categories. Here are the top 10 Azure services everyone should know in 2025—what they are, why they matter, and when to use them https://dellenny.com/top-10-azure-services-everyone-should-know-2025-edition/Azure Resource Manager (ARM) The Backbone of Cloud Resource Management
In the fast-paced world of cloud computing, effective management and governance of resources are vital. Microsoft Azure provides a powerful and centralized way to handle these tasks through Azure Resource Manager (ARM) — the core deployment and management service for Azure. ARM acts as the backbone of cloud resource management, ensuring consistency, control, and automation across all Azure environments. https://dellenny.com/azure-resource-manager-arm-streamline-and-secure-cloud-resource-management/
🔒 Strengthening Azure DNS Zone Security with RBAC and Resource Locks
🔎 DNS security is more than just configuration it’s about protecting critical assets against unauthorized changes and accidental deletions. 🔎 Managing DNS zones effectively requires a layered security approach. 🔎 Two powerful mechanisms in Azure : Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Resource Locks 🚀 Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) 🚀 * Granular DNS Access Control * RBAC ensures controlled access management at both the DNS zone and record set levels. * Instead of assigning broad permissions, RBAC enables precise delegation using built-in roles such as: 🔹 Owner – Full control over the DNS zone, including configurations and deletions. 🔹 Contributor – Can modify DNS settings but cannot change access permissions. 🔹 Network Contributor – Can manage networking configurations related to DNS, but not modify records. 🔹 DNS Zone Contributor – Dedicated role for managing DNS zones without broader networking privileges. ✅ Key Advantages of RBAC in DNS Security: ✔ Prevent unauthorized modifications by restricting access to only necessary roles. ✔ Ensure operational integrity by limiting exposure to critical configurations. ✔ Improve governance by aligning roles with organizational security policies. 🔐 Resource Locks 🔐 * Guardrails for DNS Protection * Even with well-defined RBAC settings, accidental deletions can still occur. * Azure Resource Locks add an additional safeguard by preventing changes to a DNS zone or specific record sets. 🔹 Zone Lock ----> Protects an entire DNS zone from being deleted, preserving all associated record sets. 🔹 SOA Lock ----> Prevents unintentional zone deletions while allowing record modifications within the zone. ✅ How Resource Locks Enhance Security: ✔ Shields DNS zones from accidental or malicious deletions. ✔ Maintains continuity by ensuring record sets remain intact. ✔ Strengthens compliance controls for critical infrastructure. 🛠 Best Practices for Securing DNS with RBAC & Resource Locks 🔸 Assign least privilege roles—never give unnecessary access. 🔸 Implement locks on essential zones to prevent configuration errors. 🔸 Regularly audit access permissions using Azure Policy & Activity Logs. 🔸 Use Automation & Alerts to track modifications for enhanced security. 🔹 Implementing RBAC & Resource Locks ensures your cloud environment remains secure, operational, and fault-tolerant.URGENT: Accidental Deletion of Microsoft Clarity Project - Manual Restoration Request
Hello Microsoft Clarity Support Team, I am writing to request the manual restoration of a project that was accidentally deleted from our account. We urgently need to retrieve the historical session data for business continuity. I attempted to contact support via the email alias, but my messages to email address removed for privacy reasons were rejected with a 550 5.7.124 error ("Sender not allowed"), which is why I am utilizing this forum for immediate assistance. Please find the necessary project details below: Account Email: email address removed for privacy reasons Deleted Project Name (Exact): Aste Helsinki new Date/Time of Deletion: October 22, 2025, 12:51 AM Finland time (EEST) Could you please confirm if a manual restoration from your backend archives is possible for this specific project? Thank you for your prompt attention to this critical issue. Best regards, Kateryna Shchuka Aste HelsinkiRHEL In-place upgrades and Azure Update Manager
Following the process in this article will cause a disconnection between the data plane and the control plane of the virtual machine (VM). Azure capabilities such as Auto guest patching, Auto OS image upgrades, Hotpatching, and Azure Update Manager won't be available. To utilize these features, it's recommended to create a new VM using your preferred operating system instead of performing an in-place upgrade. According to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/workloads/redhat/redhat-in-place-upgrade, Azure Update Manager will break if any RHEL in-place upgrades are performed due to data/control plane disconnect. As a Microsoft product, this dilemma seems to defeat the benefits of AUM if you're someone like me who uses Redhat 'pet' VMs (as opposed to 'cattle' VMs) for work, and would frankly like to centralize all operations within the lifecycle of a Linux box inside the Azure tenant (patching, upgrading, rollback, any possible automation/application deployment etc). Unfortunately it would seem that this issue is largely something outside of the Azure customer's control. So, to anyone with esoteric Azure knowledge: what gives? Why and how is there a data disconnect between the control planes? What does the process look like from a bird's eye view? Given that the issue exists in the first place I would imagine that there is some kind of developmental contradiction, otherwise a feature like this probably would have been figured out a while ago (or that it is, as I suspect, simply not high priority enough despite a solution which may already exist in development). Furthermore, for those who may have more intimate info on the matter, does any sort of discussion or planning of a solution for this issue exist? With kindness, MadDogOfShimanoAnnouncing the November 2025 Innovation Challenge Hackathon!
From November 17 – November 28 we’ll be hosting a hackathon for hundreds of developers from organizations dedicated to advancing the careers of people from groups who are underrepresented in our industry. The Innovation Challenge program brings together Microsoft’s mission to empower every person with our passion for using leading edge tech to solve big problems. In order to qualify for this invitation only event, you need to be associated with one of the organizations in our program and to have achieved a qualifying certification or credential. For this virtual hackathon, participants will team up to solve for real world AI use cases using Azure. There are over $27,000 in prizes, including $10,000 for the winning team. Dozens of Microsoft employees will be volunteering as coaches and judges because we love to see what developers can do! The organizations participating in the program include BITE CON, Blacks in Technology, Black Women in AI, Código Facilito, DIO, GenSpark, Microsoft Software and Services Academy, Musa Labs, NASA Space Apps (Chicago, Mountain View and Toronto), Project Blue Mountain, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and Women in Cloud. If you are part of one of these organizations and interested in competing, let them know you are interested in getting an invitation. Or you can send mail to msdev@microsoft.com if you have questions and want to get involved. This will be the 6 th Innovation Challenge, and it’s exciting to see how the community has come together and grown. If you want to check out what these devs can do, visit our YouTube playlist or see what some of the past winners have built in the past year! June 2025 Innovation Challenge Winners March 2025 Innovation Challenge Winners December 2024 Innovation Challenge Winners October 2024 Innovation Challenge Winners
Unable to add a parent when creating an item in Devops REST api - on premises
Adding some automation to our internal devops processes, and most things are working just fine, e.g., creating Epics, Features, Stories, Tasks. Creating iterations and adding work items to them also works just fine, as well as things like adding an Iteration to a team. However, trying to parent an new User Story to a Feature (or any other relation) keeps failing. Calling to: http://mytfsserver:8080/tfs/myfirstcollection/myfirstproject/_apis/wit/workitems/$user%20story?api-version=6 JSON [ { "op": "add", "path": "/fields/System.Title", "from": null, "value": "My First Title" }, { "op": "add", "path": "/fields/System.Description", "from": null, "value": "We can add a description to the item here if we wish." }, { "op": "add", "path": "/fields/System.IterationPath", "from": null, "value": "MyFirstProject\My First Iteration" }, { "op": "add", "path": "/relations/-", "value": { "rel": "System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Reverse", "url": "http://mytfsserver:8080/tfs/myfirstcollection/myfirstproject/_apis/wit/workitems/526" } } ] This yields the error: { "innerException": null, "message": "Value [ { "op": "add", "path": "/fields/System.Title", "from": null, "value": "My First Title" }, { "op": "add", "path": "/fields/System.Description", "from": null, "value": "We can add a description to the item here if we wish." }, { "op": "add", "path": "/fields/System.IterationPath", "from": null, "value": "myfirstproject\My First Iteration" }, { "op": "add", "path": "/relations/-", "value": { "rel": "System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Reverse", "url": "http://mytfsserver:8080/tfs/myfirstcollection/myfirstproject/api/wit/workitems/526" } }] does not match the expected type Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.WebApi.Models.WorkItemRelation.", "typeName": "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.Common.VssPropertyValidationException, Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.Common", "typeKey": "VssPropertyValidationException", "errorCode": 0, "eventId": 3000 } If I submit the same thing without the relation, the user story is created correctly. Its Devops 2020, and while the URLs are slightly different to a cloud hosted Azure Devops, as far as I can tell there's no real functionality difference. All the corrections and fixes I can find so far indicate that the wrong linktype hierarchy is used, but as far as I can tell this the same as any samples I've seen. All ideas welcome. I've tried a number of variations, including pretty much copy and pasting examples and just tweaking for the server/project names. When the relation is included I get the error, without I don't. Has any one managed this with on premises? Would an upgrade to 2022 make a difference?
