General Availability of Online Migration to Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible server
Online migration minimizes downtime by keeping your source database operational during the migration process, with continuous data synchronization until cut over. How can I use Online migration? The Online migration is available in the Azure portal on the Migration setup screen, in the “Migration mode” drop down selection box, once you initiate a migration from the Flexible server page. Figure 1: Screenshot from the Azure Portal from the Migration setup page. Here you can select the “Online” migration mode to migrate from any of the listed PostgreSQL sources to Azure Database for PostgreSQL- Flexible server It can also be used from the Azure CLI by specifying the 'migration-mode' parameter as 'Online'. How does Online migration work? In an online database migration to Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server, your application that is connecting to your Postgres source is not stopped while your database(s) are copied to Flexible Server target. Instead, the initial copy of the database(s) is followed by replication to keep the Postgres Flexible Server in sync with the Postgres source. A cutover is performed when the Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server is in complete sync with the Postgres source, resulting in minimal downtime. Figure 2: Cutover in Online migration: Screenshot from the Migration status screen, where you can execute the cutover and complete the migration. The latency here is zero indicating that target Postgres Flex server is in sync with the source Postgres instance. In the ‘OnlineMigrationDemo’ above, the Latency is 0 which indicates that the Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server is in sync with the source Postgres instance. Similarly, Online migration can be executed using the Command Line Interface (CLI) as well. Figure 3: Online migration through CLI: Screenshot when you execute ‘show’ to get the Migration status displays latency for the individual Databases In the ‘OnlineMigrationDemo’ above, the Latency is 0 for the ‘customer-info’ Database being migrated which indicates that the target is in sync with the source. Whether you execute the migration from the Portal or the CLI, once the latency parameter decreases to 0 or close to 0, you can go ahead and execute the cutover to complete the migration. Before you execute the cutover, it is essential that you: Stop all writes at the source Postgres instance Validate the data that has been migrated to the target Flexible server Copy any custom server parameters and connection security details from the source to the target server Once you execute the cutover, the migration shows successful completion. At the point, ensure that you make changes to your application to point all connection strings to the Flexible server. What are the differences between Offline and Online migration? The following table gives an overview of Offline and Online modes of migration. Comparison of Migration modes Online Offline Ideal for small Databases ✓ Simple to execute, with no manual intervention for cutover ✓ Migrate without logical replication restrictions ✓ Ideal for Production databases ✓ Minimal downtime to Application & better user experience ✓ Depending on the nature of your workload, you can choose either Offline or Online migration. Get started with Online migration If you’re looking to migrate to Flexible Server from any of the listed PostgreSQL sources, you’ll find the Migration service overview quite useful. If you only have a small downtime window in particular and you want to minimize the downtime of moving your production workloads from any compatible PostgreSQL source to Flexible Server, then Online migration could be a good fit for your situation. Where to find more info about Online migration for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server? Overview: How to migrate from your PostgreSQL source to Flexible server Tutorials: How to migrate Online from your Azure VM/On-premise instance to Flexible server How to migrate Online from your Amazon RDS instance to Flexible server How to migrate Online from your Amazon Aurora instance to Flexible server How to migrate Online from your Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance to Flexible server We’re always eager to hear from you, so please reach out to us at migrationpm@service.microsoft.com.
Creating a Reliable Notification System for Azure Spot VM Evictions (preempt) events
Introduction Azure Spot VMs offer significant cost savings but come with a trade-off: they can be evicted with minimal notice when Azure needs the capacity back or price change. Building a reliable notification system for these evictions is critical for applications that need to respond gracefully to these events. What are Azure Spot VMs? Azure Spot VMs are virtual machines that use spare capacity in Azure data centers, available at significantly discounted prices compared to regular pay-as-you-go VMs. Microsoft offers this unused capacity at discounts of up to 90% off the standard prices, making Spot VMs an extremely cost-effective option for many workloads. However, there's an important caveat: when Azure needs this capacity back for regular pay-as-you-go customers, your Spot VMs can be evicted (reclaimed) with minimal notice - typically just 30 seconds. This eviction mechanism is what allows Microsoft to offer such deep discounts, as we maintain the flexibility to reclaim these resources when needed. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/products/virtual-machines/spot Benefits of Spot VMs Significant cost savings: The most obvious benefit is the substantial discount, which can be up to 90% off standard VM prices. Same VM types and features: Spot VMs provide the same performance, features, and capabilities as regular VMs - the only difference is the eviction possibility. Ideal for interruptible workloads: For workloads that can handle interruptions, such as batch processing jobs, dev/test environments, or stateless applications, Spot VMs offer enormous value. Flexible sizing options: Spot VMs are available in most VM series and regions, giving you access to a wide range of computing options. Scaling opportunities: The cost savings enable you to run larger clusters or more powerful VMs than might be financially feasible with regular VMs. Effective for burst capacity: When you need additional capacity for temporary workloads, Spot VMs can provide it at minimal cost. Great for fault-tolerant applications: Modern cloud-native applications designed with redundancy and resilience can leverage Spot VMs excellently since they're built to handle node failures. Why Not Just Use Azure Resource Events? A common question is: "Why not simply listen for Azure Resource events like ResourceActionSuccess for VM evictions?" While Azure does emit platform events when resources change state through resource group as source for Azure Event Grid topic subscription, there are several critical limitations when relying on these for Spot VM evictions: Timing issues: By the time a ResourceActionSuccess event is generated for a VM eviction, it is possible that the VM is already being evicted. This gives you no time to perform graceful shutdown procedures. Reliability concerns: These events pass through multiple Azure systems before reaching your event handlers, adding potential points of failure and latency. Ambiguous events: Resource action events don't clearly distinguish between a normal VM shutdown and a Spot VM eviction, making it difficult to trigger the right response. For example: I initially attempted to capture Azure Spot VM eviction events by setting up event notifications on an Azure resource group and publishing them to Service Bus. While this configuration successfully captured some Azure Resource events, it ultimately proved unreliable for eviction monitoring. The solution missed several critical eviction events and, more problematically, could not reliably distinguish between intentional VM shutdowns and actual eviction events. This lack of differentiation made automated response handling impossible, as the system couldn't determine whether a VM was being evicted by Azure or simply stopped through normal administrative actions. Azure resource group as an Event Grid source - Azure Event Grid | Microsoft Learn For these reasons, the most reliable approach is to detect eviction events directly from within the VM using the Azure Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) Scheduled Events API, which is specifically designed to provide advance notice of impending VM state changes. This blog post will guide you through implementing a solution that: Detects Spot VM eviction events from within the VM Formats these events properly Sends them to an Azure Event Grid custom topic Sets up proper event handling downstream Understanding Spot VM Eviction Notices Spot VMs receive eviction notifications approximately 30 seconds before being reclaimed. These notifications are delivered through the Azure Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) Scheduled Events API - an endpoint available from within the VM at http://169.254.169.254/metadata/scheduledevents. When a Spot VM is about to be evicted, a "Preempt" event appears in the Scheduled Events data. Your application needs to poll this endpoint regularly to detect these events in time to take action. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/scheduled-events Solution overview Our solution consists of below components: A custom Event Grid topic to receive and distribute the events - optional if you wish to handle on own from VM A monitoring script running inside the Spot VM - actual script to poll events running on VM Logic to format and send events from the VM to Event Grid Event subscribers that take action when evictions occur A) Setting Up the Event Grid Custom Topic First, create an Event Grid custom topic that will serve as the distribution mechanism for your eviction events - this can be optional if you plan to take actions from VM only like gracefully shutting down any existing processes. You can use below documentation to create custom event grid topic: Custom topics in Azure Event Grid - Azure Event Grid | Microsoft Learn B) Creating a Windows-Based Eviction Monitor For Windows Spot VMs, we'll use below PowerShell to poll preempt events & send it to custom event grid. Create a script file named SpotMonitor.ps1: Powershell script : SpotMonitor.ps1 # Configuration variables - replace with your values $EventGridTopicEndpoint = "https://<EG topic name>.westeurope-1.eventgrid.azure.net/api/events" $EventGridKey = "<EG key>" $CheckInterval = 3 # seconds between checks - feel free to modify as per your requirement $LogFile = "C:\Logs\spot-monitor.log" # Create log directory if it doesn't exist if (-not (Test-Path (Split-Path $LogFile))) { New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path (Split-Path $LogFile) -Force } function Write-Log { param ([string]$Message) $timestamp = Get-Date -Format "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" "$timestamp - $Message" | Out-File -FilePath $LogFile -Append } Write-Log "Starting Spot VM eviction monitor..." while ($true) { try { # Get the VM's metadata including scheduled events $headers = @{"Metadata" = "true"} $scheduledEvents = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/scheduledevents?api-version=2020-07-01" -Headers $headers # Check if there are any events if ($scheduledEvents.Events -and $scheduledEvents.Events.Count -gt 0) { Write-Log "Found $($scheduledEvents.Events.Count) scheduled events" # Get VM metadata for context $vmName = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance/compute/name?api-version=2020-09-01&format=text" -Headers $headers $resourceGroup = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance/compute/resourceGroupName?api-version=2020-09-01&format=text" -Headers $headers $subscription = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance/compute/subscriptionId?api-version=2020-09-01&format=text" -Headers $headers # Process each event foreach ($event in $scheduledEvents.Events) { if ($event.EventType -eq "Preempt") { Write-Log "ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected!" # Extract event details $eventId = $event.EventId $notBefore = $event.NotBefore Write-Log "VM $vmName will be preempted not before $notBefore" # Create Event Grid event as an array (critical for EventGrid schema) $eventGridEvent = @( @{ subject = "/subscriptions/$subscription/resourceGroups/$resourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/$vmName" eventType = "SpotVM.Preemption" eventTime = (Get-Date).ToUniversalTime().ToString("o") id = [Guid]::NewGuid().ToString() data = @{ vmName = $vmName resourceGroup = $resourceGroup subscription = $subscription preemptionTime = $notBefore eventId = $eventId eventType = $event.EventType } dataVersion = "1.0" } ) # Convert to JSON - ensuring it stays as an array $eventGridPayload = ConvertTo-Json -InputObject $eventGridEvent -Depth 10 # Send to Event Grid $eventGridHeaders = @{ "Content-Type" = "application/json" "aeg-sas-key" = $EventGridKey } try { $response = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $EventGridTopicEndpoint -Method Post -Body $eventGridPayload -Headers $eventGridHeaders Write-Log "Successfully sent event to Event Grid" # Take actions to prepare for shutdown Write-Log "Taking actions to prepare for shutdown..." # Example: Stop services gracefully # Stop-Service -Name "YourServiceName" -Force } catch { Write-Log "Failed to send to Event Grid: $_" } } } } } catch { Write-Log "Error checking for events: $_" } # Wait before checking again Start-Sleep -Seconds $CheckInterval } The script above checks for eviction events every 3 seconds by default. You can adjust this polling frequency by changing the "Check_Interval" variable in the script to better match your specific system requirements and performance considerations. More frequent polling provides faster detection but increases resource usage, while less frequent polling reduces overhead but might slightly delay event detection. B) Running monitor script as a scheduler or service For Windows Spot VMs, we'll use PowerShell to create a monitoring service. Run a script file named SpotMonitor.ps1 created in last step: You can use Windows Task Scheduler to run the script at startup or to run as a service and the logs will looks like this: Logs: 2025-03-19 18:48:27 - Starting Spot VM eviction monitor... 2025-03-19 20:04:33 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:04:33 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:04:33 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT 2025-03-19 20:04:33 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:04:33.4655660Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "5d3e6430-dff5-45da-ae90-992e3e342d37", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:04:33 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:04:33 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... 2025-03-19 20:04:36 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:04:36 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:04:36 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT 2025-03-19 20:04:36 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:04:36.6382480Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "b6152429-f4cb-43b9-8c53-b6ceb08946e5", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:04:36 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:04:36 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... 2025-03-19 20:04:39 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:04:39 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:04:39 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT 2025-03-19 20:04:39 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:04:39.7567285Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "e0bde6d0-ae27-4c01-8e69-621e57d70f8d", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:04:39 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:04:39 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... 2025-03-19 20:04:42 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:04:42 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:04:42 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT 2025-03-19 20:04:42 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:04:42.8339675Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "ab7a3b84-bcd8-4651-829e-c57043c54b92", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:04:42 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:04:42 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... 2025-03-19 20:04:45 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:04:45 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:04:45 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT 2025-03-19 20:04:45 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:04:45.9317109Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "eacfae6b-4ea5-426d-8bc2-659320a7baf0", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:04:45 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:04:45 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... 2025-03-19 20:04:48 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:04:49 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:04:49 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT 2025-03-19 20:04:49 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:04:49.0666732Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "b2142ee8-9ecf-441d-846e-c8ed663a949e", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:04:49 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:04:49 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... 2025-03-19 20:04:52 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:04:52 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:04:52 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT 2025-03-19 20:04:52 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:04:52.1310990Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "d9eba318-9773-4e73-a694-dd1c1bf89c10", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:04:52 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:04:52 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... 2025-03-19 20:04:55 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:04:55 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:04:55 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT 2025-03-19 20:04:55 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:04:55.2171546Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "c358c433-50f5-496d-8823-c2ffddd03390", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:04:55 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:04:55 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... 2025-03-19 20:04:58 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:04:58 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:04:58 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT 2025-03-19 20:04:58 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:04:58.3040422Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:04:47 GMT", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "3eacba95-e05f-41dc-b9e7-1593fe2a71e2", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:04:58 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:04:58 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... 2025-03-19 20:05:01 - Found 1 scheduled events 2025-03-19 20:05:01 - ALERT: Spot VM preemption detected! 2025-03-19 20:05:01 - VM anivmnew will be preempted not before 2025-03-19 20:05:01 - Sending payload: [ { "eventTime": "2025-03-19T20:05:01.3842973Z", "data": { "eventId": "DE2EC5FA-AF0A-4D59-85D2-677C66A6BC12", "preemptionTime": "", "eventType": "Preempt", "resourceGroup": "RG-TEST", "subscription": "azure-sub-id", "vmName": "anivmnew" }, "id": "85c058fc-4f2e-49ec-a027-6fcca60f7935", "subject": "/subscriptions/azure-sub-id/resourceGroups/RG-TEST/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/anivmnew", "eventType": "SpotVM.Preemption", "dataVersion": "1.0" } ] 2025-03-19 20:05:01 - Event Grid response: 2025-03-19 20:05:01 - Taking actions to prepare for shutdown... C) Configuring event subscribers Now that your Spot VMs are sending eviction events to Event Grid, set up subscribers to take action when these events occur. For example sending event to service bus queue: Conclusion By implementing this solution, you've created a reliable way to detect and respond to Spot VM evictions. This approach gives your applications precious time to react to evictions, significantly improving reliability while still benefiting from the cost savings of Spot VMs. While Azure does provide resource-level events through system topics, they simply don't provide the reliability, timing, and clarity needed for mission-critical workloads running on Spot VMs. The combination of the Azure Instance Metadata Service Scheduled Events API and custom Event Grid topics creates a powerful pattern for building resilient, event-driven architectures. This approach ensures you're getting the most accurate and timely notifications possible, giving your applications the best chance to gracefully handle Spot VM evictions while enjoying the substantial cost benefits that Spot VMs offer. Disclaimer The sample scripts provided in this article are provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. The author is not responsible for any issues, damages, or problems that may arise from using these scripts. Users should thoroughly test any implementation in their environment before deploying to production. Azure services and APIs may change over time, which could affect the functionality of the provided scripts. Always refer to the latest Azure documentation for the most up-to-date information. Thanks for reading this blog! I hope you've found this approach to handling Spot VM evictions helpful
Single pane of glass to look at all of my SQL Servers
I just got back from SQL Pass Summit 2024 and I was told that I could ARC enable all of my SQL Servers so I would have a single pane of glass to view and scan logs, configurations, view best practices etc. Unfortunately, when I got home, I realized that since we have SQL Servers on Azure VMs we can't use Azure ARC to manage them. Unsupported configurations Azure Arc-enabled SQL Server doesn't currently support the following configurations: ... Multiple instances of SQL Server installed on the same host operating system with the same instance name. SQL Server in Azure Virtual Machines. An Always On availability group where one or more replicas is on a failover cluster instance. Since all our Azure VMs have the SQL Agent installed how can we unify our management experience in Azure?
Azure VM - RemoteApps Mouse Focus Issue
Seeing an issue this morning on multiple VMs and hostpools where Remoteapps have not handling Window Focus correctly. Situation: A maximized app and a secondary app smaller and on the same screen. If attempting to click or use the smaller app. The maximized app is receiving the mouse clicks. In some situations it will even pull to the front covering the smaller app. The only way to interact with the smaller window is to minimize or move the larger window out of the way. Both applications in the scenario are remote apps. Naturally anything running natively off the client PC is unaffected. No updates to the client PC. Trying to identify what would cause this behavior overnight.RD Client Android Fail...
Serious question, why is RD Client for Android the worst RD client? It does not work with Samsung DEX, sure it runs and connects, but fails at basic usability, like recognizing the actual screen size when windowed. Also, dosn't resize properly. Pretty basic stuff, nothing remotely new here. The Citrix and VM Ware clients just work, and work well. Microsoft and Samsung have a partnership in the phone space which makes this even more absurd. So, what's the deal? Laziness, incompetence, just don't care anymore? Will this ever be fixed? This makes me worry about every other product.
mstsc : The term 'mstsc' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file.
I am using mstsc /v:publicIpAddress command to create remote desktop connection from local computer. but getting this error mstsc: The term 'mstsc' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again. how to create remote desktop connection using CLI/powershell?Deploy and Install Windows Admin Center in an Azure VM
The great thing about Windows Admin Center (WAC) you manage every Windows Server doesn't matter where it is running. You can manage Windows Servers on-prem, in Azure or running at other cloud providers. Now if you want to use Windows Admin Center to manage your virtual machines running in Azure, you can use either an on-prem WAC installation and connecting it using a public IP address or a VPN connection, or you can deploy and install Windows Admin Center in Azure. This blog post will show you how you can deploy and install Windows Admin Center in an Azure virtual machine (VM). Check out my blog post to read more: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/10/deploy-and-install-windows-admin-center-in-an-azure-vm/
