Building a Simple Smart Restart Bot with Teams & Azure QnA Maker

You’re returning to work and you want to get your Smart Restart off the ground, but you are concerned about a flood of requests hitting your service desk. You want to create something that will provide immediate value but has a low time to implement. We had the same problem and started with a simple […]

by Nathan Lasnoski May 19, 2020

Azure Function python ModuleNotFoundError from Visual Studio Code

I was working on creating an Azure Function to download an image from Azure Blob Storage and return certain EXIF values. I had loaded some modules but for some reason they weren’t functioning properly in the Azure Function once deployed. I found out that I needed to update my requriements.txt file via pip (after much […]

by Nathan Lasnoski May 13, 2020

Changing Azure Account in Visual Studio Code

I was using an account in Visual Studio Code to access a certain set of subscriptions I was working against and deploying to. This was prior to getting my pipelines ready, as that was my eventual deployment destination. In the meantime, I needed to change the account and noticed there wasn’t any GUI way to […]

by Nathan Lasnoski May 11, 2020

Return JSON from Azure Functions with Python

I was working on an Azure Function for an open source wildlife IoT project and came across a lack of documentation in docs.microsoft.com. I had successfully returned HTTP content from my Azure function, but wasn’t sure how to get it to return JSON so I could interpret it elsewhere. In this case I’m storing latitute […]

by Nathan Lasnoski May 7, 2020

Migrating SQL Server to Azure: What Should You Migrate?

Once you have answered the question "Why should I migrate SQL Server to Azure?", you need to determine what you will migrate.  This post contains methods for inventorying your SQL Server estate and figuring out what to migrate.

by Frank Gill Jan 3, 2020

Why Migrate SQL Server to Azure

When making the decision to move SQL Server workloads to Azure, there are a series of questions that need to be answered.

• Why are you migrating to Azure?
• What are you going to migrate to Azure?
• Where will you migrate in Azure?
• How will migrate to Azure?
• When will you migrate to Azure?

The answer to the first of these questions is extremely important to answering the others.  In my experience, it is often neglected.

by Frank Gill Jan 3, 2020

What is a Bastion Host?

Security is one of the many cornerstones of IT and a focus of what we do at Concurrency. When building in Azure, it is important to be able to connect to your resources securely. Bastion hosts are the common way to provide administrative access to private areas of your cloud network.

by Paul Harris Dec 12, 2019

Azure Backup for SQL Server 2019

How to backup your important data stored in SQL is something on the minds of many IT professionals. Recently, Azure announced a new feature for backing up SQL servers running in VMs on Azure.

by Paul Harris Nov 27, 2019

New Additions to Azure Infrastructure as a Service - Microsoft Ignite 2019

Last week, the yearly Microsoft Ignite conference occurred in Orlando, Florida. At this conference, Microsoft brings together developers and IT Professionals to learn what is coming next with Microsoft’s product offerings. Let’s discuss some of the new developments in the IaaC world

by Paul Harris Nov 14, 2019

Microsoft VSS Backup Retryable Error

I recently was involved with a case involving trying to track down the cause of Exchange VSS writers reporting a “retryable” error.

by Paul Harris Oct 30, 2019

10 Ways Manufacturers Can Do More with Less in 2023 - Part 1

As we enter the new year, manufacturers are assertively focusing on how they optimize their business during uncertain economic conditions.  The goal of most manufacturers is to do more with less, or at minimum optimize their ability to execute their mission for their customers.  Working with many manufacturers, I am seeing a variety of ways that companies can leverage technology to do more with less year. 

Part 1 of this series outlines the first five ways that manufacturers can do more with less.

by Nathan Lasnoski Jan 17, 2023

10 Ways Manufacturers Can Do More with Less in 2023 - Part 2

As we enter the new year, manufacturers are assertively focusing on how they optimize their business during uncertain economic conditions.  The goal of most manufacturers is to do more with less, or at minimum optimize their ability to execute their mission for their customers.  Working with many manufacturers, I am seeing a variety of ways that companies can leverage technology to do more with less year. 

Part 2 of this series outlines the second five ways that manufacturers can do more with less.

by Nathan Lasnoski Jan 25, 2023

Driving Efficiency from Cloud Investments

I’m asked frequently, “how do I know if there is waste in my cloud environment?” or “how do I know if my cloud environment is following best practices?”.  In response, I have six initial tests to evaluate the state of an already deployed cloud environment.  These tests can also be used in reverse to think about the critical tests for a cloud environment you are deploying new.  In this article I’ll walk through each of those six tests and how to evaluate them. 

by Nathan Lasnoski Feb 22, 2023

10 Optimizations for Your Azure Environment - Part 1

As we enter the new year, I’d like to challenge every company with an Azure environment to “do more with less” by raising the operational maturity of their cloud environment.  Successful companies look at the cloud as a financial advantage to their businesses because of the opportunity to apply optimizations across each spending area.  The unsuccessful companies deploy services and are ineffective at applying spend to improvement, likely leaving it as they initially provisioned it.   

by Nathan Lasnoski Feb 8, 2023

Cost Savings Ideas for Your Azure Environment

I’ve seen that 20% – 40% of cloud spend is waste!  In this post I’ll cover cost savings ideas for your Azure environment that will help you “get more with less” from your cloud spend.  

by Nathan Lasnoski Mar 14, 2023

10 Optimizations for Your Azure Environment - Part 2

As we enter the new year, I’d like to challenge every company with an Azure environment to “do more with less” by raising the operational maturity of their cloud environment.  Successful companies look at the cloud as a financial advantage to their businesses because of the opportunity to apply optimizations across each spending area.  The unsuccessful companies deploy services and are ineffective at applying spend to improvement, likely leaving it as they initially provisioned it.   

by Nathan Lasnoski Feb 10, 2023