Credits and sources Microsoft Learnhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/terminology https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/ready/azure-best-practices/resource-abbreviations#virtual-desktop-infrastructure Intro Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is a managed service that runs virtual desktops and applications in Azure. Some components are deployed and configured to fit your company’s needs, even with a managed solution. In this blog post, I will walk you through the necessary steps before any end-user can log in to the virtualized desktop. I will use Bicep code and PowerShell in this blog post, but there are more options if you prefer other languages.

Credits and sources Microsoft Learnhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/cross-service/github-integration?view=azure-devops https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/boards/github/?view=azure-devops https://docs.github.com/en/issues/planning-and-tracking-with-projects/learning-about-projects/about-projects Intro In this blog post, I will show how to use Azure DevOps pipelines with source code placed in GitHub. I will also show you how to integrate GitHub with Azure DevOps boards so that you can manage your project in Azure DevOps and close work items by using commits to your GitHub repository. This can be useful in migration scenarios and scenarios where you want the repository features from GitHub together with Azure DevOps features like project management and pipelines.

Credits and sources Microsoft Learnhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/build-image-with-packer Hashicorp Hashicorp docs Intro This article is about automating image builds in Azure. I am using Packer in this scenario and will use a Windows image for the examples. Linux builds use the same process. The goal is to make a customized image in Azure and place it in the Azure Compute Gallery for use with either AVD or Scale Sets. I will walk through the process of using Packer on my machine and then move the process into GitHub Action for an automated build.

Credits and sources Microsoft Learnhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/defender-for-cloud/defender-for-key-vault-introduction Intro In this part of the blog series, I want to show you what Microsoft Defender for Key Vault (MDKV) brings. MDKV helps to protect the Azure Key Vaults against suspicious activities, and it does so without any agent installation. MDKV is one of the most straightforward features to manage. Still, it does protect some of the most sensitive resources you will have in Azure, like, for instance, certificates and secrets used to access your resources and data.

Credits and sources Microsoft Learnhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/defender-for-cloud/defender-for-dns-introduction Intro In this part of the blog series, I want to show you what Microsoft Defender for DNS (MDDNS) brings. MDDNS helps to protect the Azure DNS services against suspicious activities, and it does so without any agent installation. Microsoft Defender for DNS features The features that MDDNS offers are protection against: Data exfiltration Malware DNS attacks Communication with domains used for malicious activities (phishing and crypto mining) Microsoft Defender for DNS alerts Microsoft Learn Docs provides a complete list of alerts that MDDNS provides; see the link below.

Credits and sources Microsoft Learnhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/defender-for-cloud/security-policy-concept https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/defender-for-cloud/secure-score-security-controls Intro In this part of the blog series, I want to show you how to remediate or dismiss the recommendation that Microsoft provides. Most of the recommendations are something you will want to implement, but some recommendations might not fit your environment. There are multiple ways of dismissing the recommendation. Here I will show you two, one is to waive the recommendation, and the other is to disable the policy that provides the recommendation.

Credits and sources Microsoft Learnhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/defender-for-cloud/defender-for-cloud-introduction TechTargethttps://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/Cloud-Security-Posture-Management-CSPM Intro In this blog series, I want to focus on how Microsoft Defender for Cloud (MDFC) can help secure your Azure environment. MDFC is a collection of Defender products that provides security and visibility into your security posture in Azure. Still, many security features can also cover on-premises and other public clouds. MDFC offers free features and a range of paid features for your cloud workloads.

Credits and sources Microsoft Learnhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/bastion/bastion-overview Intro I want to look closely into the Azure Bastion service in this post. Azure Bastion is a service that provides secure remote access to Azure virtual machines. Bastion supports RDP and SSH for managing the virtual machines, and all traffic will use TLS for security. One of the key benefits of Bastion is that the need for a public IP address on your resources is removed.

Intro In this part of the series, I am creating the AVD session hosts so my users can start using the new Azure environment. A session host is a virtual machine that users can log in to and use their corporate software while having low latency to other resources placed in Azure. The steps I will go through in this post are. Deploy a virtual machine Install the AVD components on the virtual machine.

Intro In this part of the series, I want to ensure that all permissions are given to the correct groups. I could provide access to individual users, but I try to stick to groups as they are easier to manage across an enterprise. I have identified the following permissions I need to grant to user groups. Azure AD Group to add to AVD Application groups Azure AD Group to add to “Virtual Machine User Login” RBAC role for the session hosts Azure AD Group to add to the “Storage File Data SMB Share Contributor” for the profile storage account There are a few steps to get the storage account configured, and I will go through this process in depth.