How to Use Azure Policy for Better Cloud Management

When you work in the cloud, keeping things organised is very important. Azure Policy is a simple tool that helps enforce rules on your resources. In this post, I’ll explain what Azure Policy is and show you a basic example of using it to require a tag on all your resources.

What is Azure Policy?

Azure Policy lets you set rules for your cloud resources. For example, you might want every resource to have a tag called Cost Centre so you know which department it belongs to. If someone tries to create a resource without that tag, the policy can stop it from being created.

This tool is very useful because it helps everyone on your team follow the same guidelines and keeps your cloud resources well organised.

A Simple Example: Requiring a "Cost Centre" Tag

In this example, we’ll create a custom policy that requires every resource to have a Cost Centre tag. If the tag is missing, the resource won’t be allowed.

Overview of the Steps
  1. Create the policy rule file.

  2. Create the policy parameters file.

  3. Create the policy definition in Azure using the Azure CLI.

  4. Assign the policy to a scope.

  5. Check if your policy is working.

Continue reading “How to Use Azure Policy for Better Cloud Management”

Unlocking Nested Virtualization in Azure: A Step-by-Step Guide

Azure

Nested virtualization in Azure is a powerful feature that enables running a Hyper-V hypervisor within an Azure virtual machine (VM). This capability is invaluable for developers, machine learning engineers, and data scientists who require flexible and scalable environments for testing, development, or containerized applications. This post provides a step-by-step guide to setting up nested virtualization, ensuring you can leverage its full potential.


Prerequisites and Supported VM Sizes

Before diving into the setup, ensure you choose an Azure VM that supports nested virtualization. Compatible VM sizes include:

  • Dv3, Dsv3
  • Dv4, Dsv4
  • Ddv4, Ddsv4
  • Ev3, Esv3
  • Ev4, Esv4
  • F2s_v2 to F72s_v2
  • FX4 to FX48
  • M series

For most use cases, the Dv3 and Ev3 series are excellent choices. Make sure the VM size meets the system requirements for your intended workloads, such as Docker Desktop.


Step 1: Deploying an Azure VM

  1. Create the VM:
    • Log in to the Azure Portal.
    • Select a Windows Server image and choose a compatible VM size.
  2. Configure Networking:
    • Set up the required inbound and outbound port rules.
  3. Deploy:
    • Review your configuration and deploy the VM.

Continue reading “Unlocking Nested Virtualization in Azure: A Step-by-Step Guide”

Microsoft Announces Mandatory MFA for All Azure Users

Authentication Icon

Microsoft has recently announced a significant change that will impact all Azure users: the mandatory implementation of Multifactor Authentication (MFA). This update aims to enhance security across the Azure platform by requiring additional verification for users accessing various Azure services.

Official Announcement: Read Microsoft’s MFA Requirement for Azure Users

Understanding the Changes

This update will affect all users interacting with the Azure Portal, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell Modules, and Terraform when deploying to Azure. This includes guest accounts, service accounts, and break glass accounts.

Continue reading “Microsoft Announces Mandatory MFA for All Azure Users”

Expressway – Exporting Banned addresses using PowerShell

Hey guys,

In this post I will show you one situation I came across this week.
Due some attacks we’ve been suffering, we decided to get all blocked IPs on Expressway and block them also in the local Firewall, as a workaround while we investigate it better.

The thing is, how can we export the list of Banned IP addresses on Expressway?
As I didn’t find anything, I decided to do on my way, automating it.

Continue reading “Expressway – Exporting Banned addresses using PowerShell”

Welcome to Get Practical !

Well guys, we decided to create this Blog so we can discuss, answer questions, see tutorials and mainly contribute with the IT community in the dissemination of useful information. With our experience of working in IT, we will provide you with solutions to various issues that we have already faced and we were successful in trying to solve them. Every project and related troubleshoot that we experience from now on will be posted here so that a knowledge base is generated for everyone, and so everyone can consult and answer questions if we are facing similar problems.

Cheers,

Get Practical Team!