The Business, Technology, and Cloud Blog https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/robertgates/feed.xml Thoughts, Tips, and Tricks around Technology Tue, 16 Apr 2019 06:15:17 GMT en-US hourly 1 Azure: Azure Resource Manager Getting Started and Beyond https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/robertgates/azure-azure-resource-manager-getting-started-and-beyond Mon, 02 Apr 2018 09:15:21 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/robertgates/?p=155 In the various scenarios, it's not uncommon to need infrastructure or web services to provide endpoints for working with data or accessing resources from other platforms. I have maintaining bullet lists of steps needed to create my testing and demo resources, which get created and torn down frequently. While the bullet lists have been great in helping to manage and deploy consistent Azure resources for my various scenarios, manually going through the steps needed to create the resources through the Azure portal takes time. That time would be better spent sharing experiences and working with the teams. In some scenarios, we have the partners and customer walk through the steps with us to learn through action. In these pre-scripted sessions its critical that the backend is consistently deployed allowing us to focus on the goals and objectives of the session. I have known about Azure Resources Manager templates for a while, but just never took the time to dive deeper. Recently I had an opportunity to work with a team specifically on Azure Resource Manager templates. Let's just say the only time I will use the Admin GUI from now on will be the first time I am exploring an Azure resource and I want to get a visual of all the options and settings needed. Once I understand more about the Azure resource I now create Azure Resource Manager templates to use in all further builds of the specific Azure resource. What is really great about Azure Resource Manager templates is you can deploy, manage, and monitor all the resources for your solution as a group, rather than handling these resources individually. You can repeatedly deploy your solution throughout the development lifecycle and have confidence your resources are deployed in a consistent state.
  • Define and deploy your infrastructure through the declarative syntax in Resource Manager templates, rather than through imperative commands.
  • Define all deployment and configuration steps in the template. You should have no manual steps for setting up your solution.
  • Run imperative commands to manage your resources, such as to start or stop an app or machine.
  • Arrange resources with the same lifecycle in a resource group. Use tags for all other organizing of resources.
  • Spend some time working in the Azure Resource Explorer, it will help you learn the syntax and options available across your tenant.
  • Azure enterprise prescriptive subscription governance
So as you look through the list of resources I have collected there is a lot to learn and review. I would suggest starting with the following resources. Enjoy, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions. You can get me on Twitter, @RobertJGates

Azure ARM Templates

** Please note this list will be maintained and updated at  https://github.com/robertjgates/AzureArmTemplates

Recommended tools

Install Windows Subsystem for Linux on Windows 10 Install the Azure CLI V2 for Windows or Linux Install PowerShell Cmdlets for Azure Install Visual Studio Code and ARM Template plugins Visual Studio Code Plugin - ARM Tools Visual Studio Code Plugin - ARM Snippets Install Azure Storage Explorer - Helpful when you need files accessible from a secure location. Azure Resource Explorer

Resources

Azure Resource Manager Overview

Azure Resource Manager overview Understand the structure and syntax of Azure Resource Manager templates Use Visual Studio Code extension to create Azure Resource Manager template Create your first Azure Resource Manager template Export an Azure Resource Manager template from existing resources Variables section of Azure Resource Manager templates Outputs section in Azure Resource Manager templates Resource functions for Azure Resource Manager templates Azure Resource Manager template parameter section Using linked and nested templates when deploying Azure resources Azure Resource Manager Custom Script Extension with Linux Virtual Machines Azure Resource Manager Custom Script Extension with Windows Virtual Machines Deploying Azure Resouce Manager Templates with Artifacts located in a Private GitHub Repository

Azure Resoure Manager Deployment Methods

Deploy resources with Resource Manager templates and Azure portal Deploy resources with Resource Manager templates and Azure PowerShell Creating and deploying Azure resource groups through Visual Studio

Azure Resource Manager Sample Templates

Azure Quickstart Templates Azure Policy Templates How to create a Linux virtual machine with Azure Resource Manager templates How to create a Windows virtual machine from Azure Resource Manager templates Azure Resource Manager templates for Web Apps Use Visual Studio Code extension to create Azure Resource Manager template Define the order for deploying resources in Azure Resource Manager templates

Azure Training and Videos

Mastering Microsoft Azure Resource Manager Microsoft Azure: Design and Deploy ARM Templates Azure Resource Manager Overview Azure Resource Manager Templates Building Infrastructure in Azure Master VMs in Microsoft Azure Resource Manager Tips and tricks with Azure Resource Manager Azure Resource Manager DevOps: Overview Azure Resource Manager DevOps: Tooling Azure Resource Manager DevOps: Customizing Templates Azure Resource Manager DevOps: Role-Based Access Control Azure Resource Manager DevOps: ARM and ALM Integration

Azure Resource Manager Books

Quick and Practical Guide to ARM Templates by Aman Sharma

Azure Resource Manager Template GIT resources

Azure Citadel - Workshops, Demos, Labs, Guides, Videos ]]> Microsoft Teams - There is no "I" in Teams https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/robertgates/microsoft-teams-there-is-no-i-in-teams Sun, 11 Mar 2018 09:35:55 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/robertgates/?p=75 Have you been curious about Microsoft Teams, jumped in, poked around some, maybe sent a message to someone, only to find yourself wondering what the big deal is? There are some aspects of Teams that you can leverage by yourself, but the most powerful part of Microsoft Teams is when you focus on the "We" and "Collaboration" aspects and not on just "I". I want you to try again, but this time do not open Microsoft Teams, instead, start with a brief scan of your email and IM. Take a look at the past month of emails and IM. The goal is to identify one or two groups of individuals you collaborate with frequently and one or two common themes discussed with them.
  • Who are the most frequent people you communicate with day to day?
  • What are the topics you typically engaged in with those individuals, pay attention to the email conversations that are noisy and contain many Reply All's?
  • Can you identify common groups of individuals you speak with frequently about shared topics?
Once you have identified the people and shared threads take a moment and look inside of Microsoft Teams, check and see if you are part of existing Teams with the individuals. Speak with the individuals you have identified, see if there are existing Teams that share common people and conversations. If there are existing Teams that contain the collective groups of people great, join those Teams and then evaluate if the channels in that Team cover your specific topics, if not discuss with the Team creating a new channel or just jump into an existing channel and start collaborating. If there is no Team in place, consider creating a Team and inviting those folks into the Team to start communicating and collaboration. Now before you stop reading and assume your all set, let's talk about habits and commitment. It's essential that the team agree and commit to this new way of working. Create some guidelines with your new team and don't be shy to remind folks when they are engaging in communications outside of the various Teams and Channels. Below are some ways to help to drive usage, increase productivity, and drive better communication.
  • If you get an email that is relevant to your team and you want to share it, don't forward it to the Team via email. Instead just forward it to the email address assigned to the relevant channel. The message will then be placed in that channel, making it available for the team, it will be easy to find and search for in the future, and will reduce the volume of emails.
  • If you want to communicate with someone ask yourself is this dialog relevant to an existing Team and Channel. If it is, great go to that location and engage in communications and collaboration on that topic. If it is not, consider having a one-to-one or group Chat with the folks on that topic. If over time you are finding that you have frequent Chats with a common theme with those folks over one-to-one or group chats its time to consider driving that conversation into a new or existing Channel in a Team.
  • Work out in the open, this one may feel weird at first, but the collaboration and level of engagement you will get are amazing. What is great is that you do not have to feel pressured to ask peers to review your work. It will happen naturally when you are working on a document in a channel and out in the open.
  • When someone posts a message and you want to let them know you saw the post and provide an acknowledge don't reply with a message like "Got it", just use the Thumbs up button on the specific message. This will help reduce the volume of messages and keep the messages meaningful.
  • Prioritize your communications by Following channels and taking advantage of @Mentions. When you Follow channels, you will get toast notifications as well as emails regarding conversations that are happening in the channels, allowing you to stay very engaged in those discussions. For the remaining channels, you can review them at your leisure by merely looking for the channels that are bold indicating there are new messages in those channels you have not yet seen. Since people are not aware of what channels you may follow it is a good habit if you have a message that you need someone to see or take action on you should @Mention them or the entire Team. Using @Mentions will provide a notification as well a RED indicator next to the message letting the person know they need to take action.
  • Consider moving Email Distribution lists you may be on into Teams or Office 365 Groups. Doing so will help reduce the noise in your email account and contribute to organizing the communications better.
  • If you want to have a Voice, Video, or Screen sharing session with someone consider if the conversation is relevant to a group or channel. If it does consider starting the meeting within the channel. While other folks on the team may not be available by starting the conversation in a channel the other team members can see the active meeting and join in if they are available and feel they can contribute to the discussions.
  • Slash Commands, if you have not tried them give them a shot. It makes getting things done amazingly fast. Such as "/call John Doe".
There are a lot of significant aspects to Microsoft Teams. Once you start using it, you will find you want to incorporate more conversations and collaboration within the tool. Once I started to leverage Microsoft Teams on a daily basis, I quickly saw benefits in how I engage and collaborate. The interests range from being more efficient, consolidation of information into a single platform, and working in new productive ways. I often work and collaborate with folks across multiple time zones, with Microsoft Teams, and it's persistent chat aspect it's effortless to collaborate outside of the bounds of time. When I am ready to engage with an individual or team my first action is to determine how I can do it in Microsoft Teams. While I could easily use Skype, Email, Phone, text, etc., by centralizing all my work and communications within one interface, I find I am more organized and can better manage my day. I have also discovered I can find items from previous discussion or collaboration very quickly. Below is a quick flow I go through before starting a conversation. Chat: General Communication and Collaboration that often start as a chat, and then escalate to voice, video, and/or screen sharing.
  • When reaching out to someone on a new topic
  • When I want to have a one to one discussion with someone
  • When I want to have a group discussion with individuals on a topic or group of individuals that do not exist in a Teams and Channel already.
Teams: Team / Project-based Communication and Collaboration that often starts as a chat, and then escalates to voice, video, screen sharing, and document collaboration.
  • When I want to communicate and collaborate with a group of individuals in a team on a new topic, I will use the General Channel.
  • When I want to communicate and collaborate with a group of individuals in a team on a specific topic that is already defined by a particular channel.
Hope this helps in thinking about one way to get started with Microsoft Teams, let's get Teaming.]]> Microsoft Teams - A Tipping Point For Productivity Improvements. https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/robertgates/microsoft-teams-a-tipping-point-for-productivity-improvements Wed, 27 Dec 2017 23:42:02 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/robertgates/?p=35 I have been into technology for many decades. What started off as a hobby when I was young grew into a career that has seen a constant level of change. Back in that early 90's I was introduced to an email platform called Microsoft Exchange and the Exchange client. Having used early command line and graphical based email clients the Exchange client was exciting as it offered new features and functions. When the Exchange client was paired with a software called Schedule+ you suddenly had a great tool to help communicate with folks and schedule your activities. Fast forward several decades and the Outlook client has continued to evolve, today it provides a wide range of features and functions. In today's environment, the speed of communication and working with disperse teams that span multiple time zones has changed how we work and collaborate. The number of teams, projects and overall conversations that we are part of each day has increased drastically. To stay productive, we need to adopt new methods, leverage new tools, workflows, and automation. When I was introduced to Microsoft Teams I saw potential in the tool, but old habits kick in and I put it aside and continued with my standard communication and collaboration methods. Six months ago I decided to go all in with Microsoft Teams. I have been exploring a variety of opportunities to leverage Microsoft Teams as part of my day-to-day workflow. The list below highlights some of the ways I am now using Microsoft Teams. The benefits that I have seen using Microsoft teams has been impactful, and the benefits continue to grow each day.

Project Collaboration – I have used a variety of tools and methods over the years. One thing that I really like about Microsoft Teams is the consistent user experience across desktop, browser, and mobile devices. I can start working on one device and continue on a different device from almost anywhere.

One-to-One Chat – The persistent nature of the One-to-One and One-to-Many chat function is great especially when there are discussions about a topic and there are files shared. The ability to quickly go into that discussion thread, search across the text and files is helpful when you need to go back after the conversation.

Channel Discussion – Channel discussions within various Teams really helps to consolidate discussions around focused topics. The ability to be aware of new messages and the use of @ mentions to specifically draw the team or specific users is helpful in allowing me to prioritize my time and focus in on critical conversations and task.

Document Sharing – One thing that has always been a challenge when collaborating with folks over email has been managing files. Sending a file via email, making changes, and then emailing it back can be very time consuming.  With the document sharing aspects within Teams you can share a file, and edit it with others from a central location. The team can work on it separately and in real time as well have specific discussion threads around the document itself. In addition, working out in the open with your team allows other members the opportunity to contribute and provide feedback.

Workshops / Training - I have been part of a few internal training events and workshops over the past 6 months. We leveraged Teams to simulate an all-day conference where we would meet in a general session at the start, in the middle, and at the end of the day to talk about high level items. Between the general sessions we would break out into small working groups within Microsoft Teams. The ability to quickly shift voice, video, and screen sharing between the general channel and specific teams channel worked well and allowed us to collaborate in a similar style as if we were all at the same conference. The proctors on the team were also able to quickly jump in and out of the various team channels to provide support and guidance as needed.

Automation (Connectors) - One of the quick wins for me in the automation category is a weekly task where I look for new and updated content to share with various Microsoft Partners that I support. There are many websites that I would go to and read through various blogs and newsfeeds to see what has been updated. Through the use of Connectors, I have been able to leverage teams to consolidate the updates into a single location that I can quickly review, and curate as needed.

While I am still exploring Microsoft Teams and as new features are continuing to flow in, the benefits I have had so far have really helped to improve my work environment. The number of emails I received daily has gone down significantly. The level of continued learning has increased as I am able to join in discussions happening across teams inside and outside of my focus area. This has allowed me to learn about other aspects of the organization and know who to pull in when needed. I have increased collaboration and communication with individuals within and outside of my team and I feel less concern that I am  missing out on something. I have saved countless hours using the search functions to quickly find documents and key points within past conversations. And my all-time favorite is the significant reduction in emails as high velocity type communications are now happening in Microsoft Teams, cutting down the reply-all threads. If you have not yet started exploring Microsoft Teams grab your team and give it a try. Stay tuned for future posts on this topic as I explore new features and find more ways to leverage Microsoft Teams as my central dashboard in the Microsoft 365 experience.]]>