The blog
Writing
Practical, opinionated notes on Azure, security, and modernization.
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Cloud Clicker: The Cloud's Coffee Break
I bolted a tiny idle game onto my cloud blog just for fun. Extending the site, designing the visuals, and wiring it all together taught me a lot about shipping web apps with AI.
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Richardson Cloud, Rebuilt: Faster, Cheaper, AI-Driven
The blog moved off WordPress to a static site on Azure Static Web Apps, rebuilt the way I think we should all be building now: with AI-driven DevOps, and me still doing the thinking.
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VMSS Zonal Expansion: Add Availability Zones Without Rebuilding
Azure's VMSS zonal expansion lets you add availability zones to a live scale set instead of rebuilding it. Here's how it works, the validation gotchas, and what it doesn't fix.
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VMware to Microsoft: Who's Running Azure Stack HCI
John Miller, a 30-year technology consultant, on real Azure Stack HCI migrations: a 350-site automotive rollout, police departments ditching their SANs, and why AVD is moving back on-site.
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VMware to Microsoft: Customer Stories
Three real VMware to Hyper-V and Azure Stack HCI migrations from Daniel, a Microsoft MVP in Australia: what broke, what got faster, and what it cost.
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Azure VM Hibernation: Same Bill as Stopped, Faster to Come Back
Hibernating an Azure VM costs exactly what stopping it does. The real trade-off is a bigger OS disk and losing Azure Backup, Spot, and Availability Sets, not the monthly bill.
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VMware to Microsoft: The Expert Panel
Seven Hyper-V and Azure Stack HCI guests on one call that ran long enough to become two videos. What it's like getting a group of people who love this stuff talking at once.
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Azure Bastion Developer SKU: Secure Access, Free by Default
Azure Bastion Developer gives you no-public-IP RDP/SSH access to one VM for $0/hour. Microsoft made the secure path the free path. Here's what it does, its real limits, and how it compares.
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VMware to Microsoft: Cloud, On-Prem, or Hybrid
Daniel Apps on the four paths organizations take off VMware, and the real factors (CapEx vs OpEx, geography, licensing leverage) that decide cloud, on-prem, or hybrid.
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Running a Real Data Center on Hyper-V, No VMware Required
A hoster built a GPU-accelerated CAD desktop business on 100% Microsoft infrastructure, no VMware. The real rules for migrating an entire data center off it.
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VMware Migration: Where to Start
Every VMware shop asks the same question first: where do I even begin? Jaromir Kaspar's answer is a free lab you run with right-click, not a whitepaper.
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Migration Paths and Ecosystems: What Moves You Off VMware
A companion to episode 4 of VMware to Microsoft with Ben Thomas: the realistic destinations off VMware, how the VMs move, and the licensing math nobody walks you through.
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Crash-Consistent Restore Points: Beyond Daily Azure VM Backups
Azure Backup's Standard policy for VMs only runs daily or weekly. Enhanced Policy's crash-consistent restore points fix that, and solve a harder problem: keeping multi-disk snapshots consistent.
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VMware to Microsoft: Let's Talk About Hardware
Your existing VMware hardware might already be licensed for Hyper-V. Philip Elder on planning a Hyper-V or Azure Stack HCI migration around the hardware you have.
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VMware to Microsoft, Ep. 2: Why Would I Leave?
A companion to the VMware to Microsoft podcast: Ernie Costa on Broadcom's price hikes, why Hyper-V is the real successor, and whether the ecosystem holds up at enterprise scale.
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VMware to Microsoft: What the Broadcom Price Hikes Actually Mean
Broadcom's VMware price hikes are hitting SMBs and enterprises alike. The real Microsoft paths off VMware, and the licensing benefits nobody advertises.
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Azure B-Series: Burstable VMs That Actually Save Money
B-series VMs use a CPU credit model instead of guaranteed performance. For bursty workloads, that's roughly half the cost of a general-purpose VM. Here's how the credits actually work.
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Front Door vs. Traffic Manager vs. Cross-Region Load Balancer
Azure has three services that all claim to route users to the right region. They're not interchangeable. Here's the actual difference, and how to pick.
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Azure DDoS Protection
Why is our web app down or super slow to load all of a sudden?! Traffic numbers are through the roof! What is going on? Did we go viral? And that is how a denial of service attack looks. An…
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The Future of Azure Hybrid
Azure Hybrid services offer several key benefits and the future services that are coming are even more exciting.
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Azure Virtual Desktop Keeps Your Data Secure but Flexible
How to use Azure Virtual Desktop to keep your data secure while still empowering your users and giving them flexibility to work anywhere.
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How Azure Virtual Desktop Transforms Remote Access
Azure Virtual Desktop transforms remote access by enabling a more cloud native approach while enhancing security
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How Azure Virtual Desktop Enables Zero Trust
Deploying Azure Virtual Desktop enables a zero trust security model for applications that don't natively support strong authentication.
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What is Azure Virtual Desktop?
An overview of Azure Virtual Desktop and how it can enable your organization to achieve your key IT initiatives.
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How to Reduce Azure Firewall Costs
Reduce your Azure Firewall costs by stopping it when you don't need it with a few simple commands that can be easily automated.
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New Azure Storage Options
An analysis of the new Azure storage options released around Ignite 2022 including Elastic SAN and premium SSDv2.
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New - Azure Firewall Basic
An overview of the new Azure Firewall Basic offering and how it compares with other Azure network security solutions.
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Implement a Highly Available Azure VPN
The documentation I wish I had when went to design and implement a highly available Azure VPN solution with Palo Alto.
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Cloud is a Model, Not a Place
Cloud is a model of using modern tools and innovative solutions to deliver high value IT services to your business quickly and at scale.
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WordPress on Azure
Deploying a globally scalable WordPress site on Azure. Cloud native services and marketplace images make this easy to deploy and maintain.