1 min read
Container Management with Azure Container Registry
Run the task: 1. Use Premium SKU for production with geo replication and security features 2. Enable content trust for image signing 3. Implement lifecycle…
Blog
Thoughts on data engineering, cloud architecture, and technology. 2205 articles and counting.
Showing 24 of 2205 posts — page 84 of 92
2 min read
Scalable Compute with Azure Batch
Batch is underused. Every time I describe it to an engineering team—"managed pool of VMs, automatic scaling, job and task model, retry on failure…
2 min read
Building ML Workflows with Azure Machine Learning Pipelines
The first ML pipeline I helped build was a series of Python scripts duct-taped together with a bash wrapper and a nightly cron job. It worked exactly as…
1 min read
Enterprise Big Data Analytics with Azure HDInsight
HDInsight supports multiple cluster types for different workloads: Apache Spark Fast, general purpose cluster computing Apache Hadoop Batch processing with…
2 min read
Big Data Processing with Azure Synapse Spark Pools
Synapse Spark pools are the feature that stops the "should I use Databricks or Synapse?" question from being purely a product choice and makes it an…
2 min read
Data Transformation with Azure Data Factory Mapping Data Flows
Mapping Data Flows are the feature that ended most of my "should I use PySpark or Spark SQL for this?" debates. Visual, yes—but reviewable in JSON and…
1 min read
Centralized Security Management with Azure Firewall Manager
Azure Firewall Manager provides: Hierarchical policy management Parent and child policies for inheritance Global deployment Manage firewalls across regions…
1 min read
Enterprise Network Architecture with Azure Virtual WAN
Virtual WAN simplifies enterprise networking by providing: Hub and spoke architecture Automated connectivity between hubs and spokes Branch connectivity VPN…
2 min read
Secure VM Access with Azure Bastion
I keep writing about Bastion because I keep finding jump boxes I have to replace. VM with a public IP, port 3389 open, "admin" password in a sticky note in…
2 min read
Securing Azure Services with Private Link
Private Link provides several key benefits: Private connectivity Access services over private IP addresses Data exfiltration protection Service endpoints…
2 min read
Advanced Traffic Management with Azure Front Door Rules Engine
Front Door's global load balancing and caching are easy to understand. The Rules Engine is the part that turns it into a real edge platform. Conditions on…
2 min read
MLflow Integration with Azure Databricks for MLOps
MLflow is the closest thing to a standard the ML tooling space has right now—experiment tracking, run metadata, model registry, and a deployment abstraction…
2 min read
Environment Governance with Azure Blueprints
The first time I helped a platform team stand up a new environment from scratch, we got it right on the third try. The first two tries had a RBAC assignment…
2 min read
Enforcing Cloud Governance with Azure Policy
The tagging policy conversation is the one I have in every landing zone engagement. Someone inevitably says "we'll just ask people to tag resources…
1 min read
Securing Your Cloud Infrastructure with Azure Defender for Cloud
Azure Defender extends the capabilities of Azure Security Center by adding: Advanced threat detection using machine learning and behavioral analytics…
2 min read
Power BI Dataflows - Best Practices for Enterprise Data Preparation
Dataflows are collections of entities (tables) that are created and managed in workspaces in the Power BI service. They allow you to: Connect to various…
2 min read
Building Personalized Experiences with Azure Cognitive Services Personalizer
Most recommendation systems I've seen in enterprise settings are either "sort by recency" in a trench coat, or a Spark job that runs weekly and calls itself…
2 min read
Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server - A Deep Dive
Flexible Server is the deployment option I now default to when a client asks "which PostgreSQL on Azure should I use?" The original Single Server mode…
2 min read
Getting Started with Azure Spring Cloud for Java Microservices
If you're running Spring Boot applications, you've probably dealt with the complexity of setting up Kubernetes clusters, configuring service meshes, and…
8 min read
Traffic Manager Failover Engineering: TTLs, Probes and Nesting
How to make Azure Traffic Manager failover behave in practice: TTL and probe maths, nested profiles, weighted cutovers and health endpoints that tell the truth.
7 min read
Automating Azure Site Recovery DR Drills with Recovery Plans
Turn Azure Site Recovery recovery plans and Azure Automation runbooks into a scheduled, unattended DR drill that proves failover works and records evidence.
9 min read
Hardening Azure Backup: Vault Decisions, Policy and Restore Drills
The Azure Backup settings you can't change once a vault holds data, how to enforce coverage with Azure Policy, and why a scripted restore drill matters most.
8 min read
Synapse Link for Cosmos DB: Is It Time to Retire the Nightly ETL?
When Azure Synapse Link can replace a Cosmos DB export pipeline, the limits to check first, and how to query the analytical store from SQL and Spark.
7 min read
Relevance Tuning in Azure Cognitive Search: Analyzers to Scoring
How to tune Azure Cognitive Search relevance with BM25 settings, custom analyzers, synonym maps, scoring profiles and query syntax, and when to leave defaults.