Microsoft Azure on justinverstijnen.nl

Create HTTPS 301 redirects with Azure Front Door

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In this post, I will explain how I redirect my domains and subdomains to websites and parts of my website. If you ever visited my tools page at https://justinverstijnen.nl/tools, you will see I have shortcuts to my tools themselves, although they are not directly linked to the instances.

In this post I will explain how this is done, how to setup Azure Front Door to do this and how to create your own redirects from the Azure Portal.

Everything you need to know about Azure Bastion

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Azure Bastion is a great tool in Azure to ensure your virtual machines are accessible in a fast, safe and easy way. This is cool if you want to embrace Zero Trust into your servers management layer and so a secure way to access your servers in Azure.

In this guide I will explain more about Azure Bastion and I hope I can give you a good overview of the service, its features, pricing and some practice information.

I tried running Active Directory DNS on Azure Private DNS

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In Azure we can configure private DNS zones for local domains. We can use this to resolve our resources in our virtual network by name instead of IP addresses, which can be helpful creating failover and redundancy. These could all help to achieve a higher availability for your end users. Especially because Private DNS Zones are free and globally redundant.

I thought of myself; “Will this also work for Active Directory?”. In that case, DNS would still resolve if suddenly our domain controllers are offline and users are working in a solution like Azure Virtual Desktop.

Upload multiple Github repositories into a single Azure Static Web App

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In the past few weeks, I have been busy on scaling up my tools and the backend hosting of the tools. For the last year, I used multiple Static Web Apps on Azure for this, but this took a lot of time administering and creating them. I thought about a better and more scalable manner of hosting tools, minimizing the amount of hosts needed, uniforming URLs and shortcodes with Azure Front Door (guide coming up) andlinking multiple GitHub repositories into one for central management.

ARM templates and Azure VM + Script deployment

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In Azure we can deploy ARM templates (+ script afterwards) to deploy resources on a big scale. This is like an easier version Terraform and Bicep, but without the great need to test every change and to learn a whole new language and convention. Also with less features indeed.

In this post I will show some examples of deploying with ARM templates and also will show you how to deploy a PowerShell script to run directly after the deployment of an virtual machine. This further helps automating your tasks.

Automatic Azure Boot diagnostics monitoring with Azure Policy

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In Azure, we can configure Boot diagnostics to view the status of a virtual machine and connect to its serial console. However, this must be configured manually. The good part is that we can automate this process with Azure Policy. In this post I will explain step-by-step how to configure this and how to start using this in your own environment.

In short, Azure Policy is a compliance/governance tool in Azure with capabilities for automatically pushing your resources to be compliant with your stated policy. This means if we configure Azure Policy to automatically configure boot diagnostics and save the information to a storage account, this will be automatically done for all existing and new virtual machines.

Wordpress on Azure

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Wordpress. Its maybe the best and easiest way to maintain a website. This can be run on any server. In Azure, we also have great and serverless possibilities to run Wordpress. In this guide I will show you how to do this, how to enhance the experience and what steps are needed to build the solution. I will also tell more about the theoretical stuff to get a better understanding of what we are doing.

New: Azure Service Groups

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A new feature in Microsoft Azure rised up on the Microsoft pages; Service Groups. In this guide, we will dive a bit deeper into Service Groups and what we can do with them in practice.

At the time of writing, this feature is in public preview and anyone can use it now.

What are these new Service Groups in Azure?

Service Groups are a parralel type of group to group resources and separate permissions to them. In this manner we can assign multiple resources of different resource groups and put them into a overshadowing Service Group to apply permissions. This eliminates the need to move resources into specific resource groups with all broken links that comes with it.

In-Place upgrade to Windows Server 2025 on Azure

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Once every 3 to 4 years you want to be on the last version of Windows Server because of new features and of course to have the latest security updates. These security updates are the most important these days.

When having your server hosted on Microsoft Azure, this proces can look a bit complicated but it is relatively easy to upgrade your Windows Server to the last version, and I will explain how to on this page.

Azure Image Builder voor AVD

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Even uitzoeken en testen of dit interresant is.

UItgezocht, ziet er heel veel handwerk uit. Naar mijn inziens is het makkelijekr om een image weer op te starten dan customizations te doen en dan weer imagen.

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Use Azure Logic Apps to automatically start and stop VMs

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

With Azure Logic apps we can save some money on compute costs. Azure Logic apps are flow based tasks that can be run on schedule, or on a specific trigger like receiving a email message or Teams message. After the trigger has been started, we can choose what action to do. If you are familiar with Microsoft’s Power Automate, Logic Apps is almost exactly the same but then hosted in Azure.

How to implement Azure Firewall to secure your Azure environment

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In this article, we are going to implement Azure Firewall in Azure. We are going to do this by building and architecting a new network and creating the basic rules to make everything work.

Requirements

Around 60 minutes of your time
An Azure subscription
Basic knowledge of Azure
Basic knowledge of Networking
Basic knowledge of Azure Firewall

Overview

Before creating all resources, it is great to plan before we build. I mean planning your network before building and having different overlaps or too much/less addresses available. In most cases, Azure recommends building a Hub-and-Spoke network, where we connect all spoke networks to a big hub.

What is Azure Firewall?

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Azure Firewall is a cloud-native Firewall which can be implemented in your Azure network. It acts as a Layer 3, 4 and 7 Firewall and so has more administrative options than for example NSGs.

Requirements

Around 15 minutes of your time
Basic knowledge of Azure
Basic knowledge of networking and networking protocols

What is Azure Firewall?

Azure Firewall is an cloud based firewall to secure and your cloud networking environment. It acts as point of access, a sort of castledoor, and can allow or block certain traffic from the internet to your environment and from environment to the internet. The firewall can mostly work on layers 3, 4 and 7 of the OSI model.

Azure Default VM Outbound access deprecated

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Starting on 30 September 2025, default outbound connectivity for Azure VMs will be retired. This means that after this date you have to configure a way for virtual machines to actually have connection to the internet. Otherwise, you will get an VM that runs but is only available through your internal network.

In this post I will do a deep dive into this new developement and explain what is needed and what this means for your existing environment and how to transition to the new situation after this 30 September 2025 date.

Microsoft Azure certifications for Developers

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This page shows what Microsoft Azure certifications are available for Developer-minded people. I intend to focus as much on the developers as possible, although this is not my primary subject. I did some research and i didn’t find it very clear what to do, where to start etcetera.

The certification poster

Microsoft has an monthly updating certification poster available to have an overview for each solution category and the certifications of that category. You can find the poster here:

Creating Static Web Apps on Azure the easy way

Thu, 29 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft Azure has a service called the ‘Static Web Apps" (SWA) which are simple but yet effective webpages. They can host HTML pages with included CSS and can link with Azure Functions for doing more advanced tasks for you. In this guide we will explore the possibilities of Static Web Apps in Azure.

Requirements

Around 45 minutes of your time
An account for Github (recommended)
An Azure subscription to host your Static Web App
Some basic knowledge of Azure
A custom domain to link the web app to your domain

Introduction to Static Web Apps and Github

Before we dive into Static Web Apps and Github, I want to give a clear explaination of both the components that will help us achieving our goal, hosting a simple web app on Azure.

Create custom Azure Workbooks for detailed monitoring

Thu, 08 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Azure Workbooks are an excellent way to monitor your application and dependencies in a nice and customizable dashboard. Workbooks can contain technical information from multiple sources, like:

Metrics
Log Analytics Workspaces
Visualisations

They’re highly flexible and can be used for anything from a simple performance report to a full-on investigative analysis tool. A workbook can look like this:

Using the default Azure Workbooks

In Azure we can use the default workbooks in multiple resources that contain basic information about a resource and it’s performance. You can find those under the resource itself.

Setup a Minecraft server on Azure

Thu, 01 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes, we also want a step down from our work and want to fully enjoy a videogame. Especially when you really like games with open worlds, Minecraft is a great game. And what if I tell you we can setup a server for Minecraft on Azure so you can play it with your friends and have a 24/7 uptime this way.

Requirements

An Azure environment
Basic knowledge of Azure
Basic knowledge of Linux and SSH
Basic knowledge of networking and TCP/UDP
Experience with Minecraft to test the server
Around 45 minutes of your time

System requirements of a Minecraft server

For a typical Minecraft server, without Mods, the guidelines and system requirements are as stated below:

Deploy Resource Group locks automatically with Azure Policy

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Locks in Azure are a great way to prevent accidental deletion or modify resources or resource groups. This helps further securing your environment and make it somewhat more “fool proof”.

Now with Azure Policy we can automatically deploy Locks to Resource Groups to secure them from deleting or read-only resources. In this guide I will explain how this can be done and how it works.

Note: Locks on Resource Groups can stop some automations. If you use read-only locks on a Azure Virtual Desktop resource group for example.

Monitor and reduce carbon emissions (CO2) in Azure

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In Microsoft Azure, we have some options to monitor and reduce your organizations Carbon emissions (CO2) from services hosted in the cloud. When hosting servers on-premises, they need power, cooling and networking and those are also needed in the cloud. By migrating servers to the cloud doesn’t mean that those emissions do not count. Those emissions are generated on an other location.

In this guide, I will show some features of Microsoft Azure regarding monitoring and reducing carbon emissions.

Migrate servers with Azure Migrate in 7 steps

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This page is about Azure Migrate and how you can migrate an on-premises server or multiple servers to Microsoft Azure. This process is not very easy, but it’s also not extremely difficult. Microsoft hasn’t made it as simple as just installing an agent on a VM, logging in, and clicking the migrate button. Instead, it is built in a more scalable way.

Requirements

A server to migrate to Microsoft Azure
Ability to install 1 or 2 additional servers
- Must be in the same network
Around 60 minutes of your time
Administrator access to all source servers
RDP access to all source servers is useful
Secure Boot must be disabled on the source servers
A target Azure Subscription with Owner access
1 server dedicated to Migration based on Windows Server 2016*
2 servers for Discovery and Migration based on Windows Server 2016*

*Windows Server 2016 is the only supported OS, please do not install other versions as this will not work.

Save Azure costs on Virtual Machines with Start/Stop

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

With the Azure Start/Stop solution we can save costs in Microsoft Azure and save some environmental impact. In this guide I will explain how the solution works, how it can help your Azure solutions and how it must be deployed and configured.

Requirements

Around 45 minutes of your time
An Azure subscription
One or more Azure VMs to automatically start and stop
Basic knowledge of Azure
No fear of JSON configurations
Some drink of your choice

Introduction to the Start/Stop solution

The Start/Stop solution is a complete solution and collection of predefined resources built by Microsoft itself. It is purely focussed on starting VMs and stopping VMs based on some rules you can configure. The solution consists of some different resources and dependencies:

Deep dive into IPv6 with Microsoft Azure

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In Microsoft Azure, we can build servers and networks that use IPv6 for their connectivity. This is especially great for your webservers, where you want the highest level of availability for your users. This is achieved the best using both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols.

In this guide we do a deep dive into IPv6 in Microsoft Azure and i will show some practical examples of use of IPv6 in Azure.

Using Azure Update Manager to manage updates at scale

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Azure Update Manager is a tool from Microsoft and is developed to automate, installing and documenting Windows updates or updates to Linux server on Azure. This all in a single pane of glass and without installing any additional software.

Requirements

Around 15 minutes of your time
An Azure subsciption
An Azure server or Azure Arc server

Supported systems

Azure Update Manager supports the following systems for assessments and installing updates, therefore managing them:

10 ways to use tags in Microsoft Azure

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When being introduced to Azure, I learned about tags very quickly. However, this is something you can use in practice but is no requirement to make stuff actually work. Now some years ahead in my Azure journey, I can recommend (at least) 10 ways to use them properly and to make them actually useful in your environment.

I will explain these ways in this article.

What are Tags in Azure?

Tags are a pair of editable values in Microsoft Azure. These are in this pair-convention:

Azure VPN Gateway Maintenance - How to configure

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Most companies who use Microsoft Azure in a hybrid setup have a Site-to-Site VPN gateway between the network in Azure and on-premises. This connection becomes mission critical for this company as a disruption mostly means a disruption in work or processes.

But sometimes, Microsoft has to perform updates to these gateways to keep them up-to-date and secure. We can now define when this will be exactly, so we can configure the gateways to update only outside of business hours. In this guide I will explain how to configure this.

Azure Key Vault

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Azure Key Vault is a type of vault used to store sensitive technical information, such as:

Certificates
Secrets
Keys

What sets Azure Key Vault apart from a traditional password manager is that it allows software to integrate with the vault. Instead of hardcoding a secret, the software can retrieve it from the vault. Additionally, it is possible to rotate a secret every month, enabling the application to use a different secret each month.

How to learn Azure - My learning resources

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When starting to learn Microsoft Azure, the resources and information can be overwhelming. At this page I have summarized some resources which found out during my Azure journey and my advice on when to use what resource.

To give a quick overview of all the training resources I used throughout the years and give you different types and sorted the resources from beginning to end:

Text based
Video’s
Labs and Applied Skills

1. Starting out (Video and text-based)

When starting out, my advice is to first watch the following video of John Savill explaining Microsoft Azure and giving a real introduction.

Introduction to Azure roles and permissions (RBAC/IAM)

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When managing a Microsoft Azure environment, permissions and roles with RBAC is one of the basic ways to improve your security. At one hand, you want to have the permissions to do basic tasks but at the other hand you want to restrict an user to be able to do only what he needs to. This is called, the principle of “least-privilege”.

In this guide, I want to you to understand the most of the basic knowledge of managing access controls in Azure without very complex stuff.

Network security in Azure with NSG and ASG

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When designing, managing and securing a network in Microsoft Azure we have lots of options to do this. We can leverage third-party appliances like Fortinet, Palo Alto, PFSense or Sophos XG Firewall but we can also use the somewhat limited built-in options; Network Security Groups (NSG for short) and Application Security Groups (ASG).

In this guide I will explain how Network Security Groups (NSG) and Application Security Groups (ASG) can be used to secure your environment.

Rename name-tags to resource groups and resources

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When it comes to naming your Azure Resource Groups and resources, most of them are not renameable. This due to limitations on the platform and maybe some underlying technical limitations. However, it is possible to assign a renameable tag to a resource in Azure which can be changed or used to clarify its role. This looks like this:

How to add those renameable tags in the Azure Portal?

You can add this name tag by using a tag in Microsoft Azure. In the portal, go to your resource and go to tags. Here you can add a new tag:

Introduction to the Microsoft Cloud Security Benchmark (MCSB)

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the modern era like where we are today, security is a very important aspect of every system you manage. Bad security of 1 system can mess with all your systems.

So have a good overview of how secure your complete IT environment is, Microsoft released the Microsoft Cloud Security Benchmark, which is an collection of high-impact security recommendations you can use to secure your cloud services, even when utilizing a hybrid environment. When using Microsoft Defender for Cloud, this MCSB is included in the recommendations.

Introduction to the Azure Well-Architected Framework

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Azure Well-Architected Framework is a framework to improve the quality of your Microsoft Azure Deployment. This does it by spanning 5 pillars so an architect can determine with IT decision makers how they can get the most Azure with the planned budget.

The 5 pillars of the Well-Architected Framework are:


Pillar	Target
Reliability	The ability to recover a system and/or contine to work
Security	Secure the environment in all spots
Cost Optimization	Maximize the value when minimizing the costs
Operational Excellence	The processes that keep a system running
Performance Efficiency	The ability to adapt to changes

Cloud Adoption Framework Introduction (CAF)

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

More and more organizations are moving to the cloud. In order to do this succesful, we can use the Cloud Adoption Framework which is described by Microsoft.

The framework is a succesful order of processes and guidelines which companys can use to increase the success of adopting the cloud. The framework is described in the diagram below:

The CAF has the following steps:

Strategy: Define the project, define what you want to achieve and define the business outcomes.
Plan: Plan your migration, determine the plans and make sure the environment readiness is at a good level.
Ready (and migrate): Prepare your new cloud environment for planned changes and migrate your workloads to the cloud.
Optimize: After migrating to the cloud, optimize your environment by using the beste solutions possible and innovate at this level.
Secure: Improve the security of your workloads and plan your perodical security checks.
Manage: Manage operations for cloud and hybrid solutions.
Govern: Govern your environment and its workloads.

Intention of use

Increase the chance of your cloud success
Gives you a best practice of how to perform the migration by proven methodology
Ensures you don’t miss a crucial step

Intended users/audience

IT Decision makers
Company Management Teams
Companies who want to profit from cloud solutions
Companies that are planning to migrate to the cloud
Technicians and project managers for planning the migration

For more information, check out this page: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/scenarios/