In this blogpost I describe how you can easily update your Onedrive 4 B version to the latest version.
Go to the following directory : %appdata%\Local\Microsoft\Onedrive
There you will find the following files and folders :
Double click OneDriveStandaloneUpdater.. this automatically downloads the latest version of OneDrive into the Update folder.
Now execute OneDriveSetup to update to the latest version. It’s as easy as that!
It’s very easy to backup all your data on your QNAP NAS to the public Cloud from Azure. In this blogpost I’m describing all the necessary steps.
First make sure you have an active Azure account with a subscription. You can easily sign up for a one month free trial period. Go to portal.azure.com and create a Storage account. Go to the big plus, and select Storage/Storage account.
Ok, let’s create a storage account :
Give it a name, Storage v1 is alright. Local redundancy is cheaper then Global Redundancy. Default performance is more then enough, choose your subscription and give your new resourcegroup a fancy name 🙂
It takes a couple of seconds for this account to be created. Now go to your storage account and copy the Access Keys (Toegangssleutels in Dutch), You will need that later on.
Ok… step 2
Go to your QNAP interface and download the QNAP Azure Storage APP.
(Choose App Center)
Choose Backup / Sync and then Azure Storage
After downloading & installing, open the App:
Go to Account, to configure your Storage Account.
The first name can be anything, the second name is the name of your storage account (without the UPN..) and the last is the secret key your copied earlier. Make sure you select the SSL option.
You now can create a new Backup Job. It’s very easily and doesn’t need any explanation. The App has all the necessary options you wish for :
Take notice : it’s recommended to encrypt all your data on Azure. So that no one has access to your data. Even when they have access to your storage account! Don’t forget your password, no one else can recover it!
You can tune these options when you wish.
It can take some time when you back-up your entire NAS to Azure. It’s recommended create multiple tasks. A task for each folder.
Wat about pricing? Check out the costs here : https://azure.microsoft.com/nl-nl/pricing/details/backup/
In my case I use 2 TB for approx € 40 monthly.
For the last couple of years I’m using Evernote. And frankly.. I’m quite happy with Evernote. But besides Evernote, I’m also using EverNote for Business purposes and why not use EverNote for both of them?
Evernote Premium costs $ 49,99 or $ 59,99 yearly and when you are already using Microsoft Office 365 ($69,99 yearly) that seems a bit unnecessary.
I never investigated how to migrate from EverNote to another solution but found out that’s be very easy. Microsoft developed a migration tool which is very easily to use.
Download the Migration tool here:
Make sure you have the Evernote tool installed on your device. Alright let’s start the migration tool:
Click to accept the License terms. 🙂
Choose the Evernote content you wish to migrate.
Sign in with your Microsoft OneNote account and the migration starts off! Depending on your number of notes it can take some time.
The migration tool creates a new tab for every 100 notes :
In this blogpost I’m going to describe the steps to Download Windows Server 2019 Insider Preview.
First subscribe to the Windows Insider Program : https://insider.windows.com/en-us
After answering a couple of questions you have an account on Windows Insider.
Now go to the Windows Server Insider Preview : www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewserver
Now select the version (ISO, VHDX format etc), language etc to download and Microsoft will you provide you with a download link to download your Windows Server 2019 Insider Preview!
Use the following command to check the date you’ve installed your Windows 10 device :
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systeminfo | find /i "Install Date" |
My sponsor launched an exciting contest in celebration of Sysadmin Day.
Altaro we’ll be giving away Amazon eGift Cards to the first 100 eligible entries and 1 Grand Prize for 1 lucky winner.
They have some fantastic options for the grand prize including a Playstation 4 Pro, Xbox One X, 3-year membership of Amazon Prime and more, but it will be up to the Grand Prize winner to choose his/her Grand Prize.
My sponsor Altaro is hosting a webinar called “Journey to the Clouds”. There are 2 sessions, feel free to register to one (or both :-)) of them :
(Click this banner to register)
Some information about the webinar :
I will be joing the webinar also, see you there! Grt Xander
Recently I build a XenApp environment on Azure for demo purposes. I used –> this <– website helping me calculating the costs.
This website (running on Azure :-)) makes it easy to calculate the costs of your XenApp/XenDesktop environment on Azure.
You can provide the locations, working Hours, Workloads and number of users (and their profiles). It automatically loads the costs of Azure (so no outdated data!) for Comput, Storage and Network.
I’m moving more and more of my whitebox environment towards Azure. But some parts are still running in my home environment. So I would like to create a Site-to-site VPN between my office @home and Azure. Because an Express Route would be slightly overkill I decided to build an Site 2 Site VPN.
Some information about my test environment @home. I’m running a Hypervisor in a seperate tenant with only 2 virtual machines : pfSense and a Windows 10 virtual machine.
Let me take you through the steps of creating a Site2Site VPN, hold on!
Ok, let’s go! First download and install pfSense and the Windows 10 VM. My pfSense virtual machine has 2 network adapters, One WAN (Bridged mode) and one Custom (VMNet 10). The Windows 10 is in the same custome mode (VMNet 10) and is running in a separate subnet (192.168.1.X). Make sure that the LAN interface of pfSense is running the DHCP service.
Log on to the Windows 10 virtual machine and check if you have internet Access :
Check! (great website btw :-)) We have internet access!
Now login to Azure, select your subscription and check create a Virtual Network. In my situation I already had a virtual network (the network I would like to connect to). I only had to make an adjustment.
In my virtual network (@Azure) the following resources are running :
As you can see my network is using the 10.0.0.0 subnet. It was created using the /24 mask but I had to change that to /23. So now my virtual Network is running the 10.0.0.0/23 subnet. You can also create a new virtual network to connect to. For this example let’s use the following information :
In my environment I’m using the same IP addresses. You can choose your own name(s). Now go to the virtual network you’re running or just have created and go to subnets. Click +Gateway subnet.
Add the following information :
Now we are going to create a new Virtual Network Gateway :
Use the following information :
Give it a new, use VPN/Route-based. Choose Basic for SKU (is enough, can be upscaled later). Create a new public IP for your VPN and select the subscription and resource group. Choose to create and wait approx 30 min.
Now we must create a Local Network Gateway :
You can choose your own name, make sure to use your public IP address of the WAN Adapter of pfSense. Choose to create your local network gateway. This can take approx 45 minutes.
Now go to the local network gateway you have just created and go to connections.
Give it a name, a think about a very long & secure Pre Shared Key. Remember this. You will need it later on!
Ok…. #Azure #work #done… now fire up the pfSense interface :
Go to VPN/IPSec. Click on Add P1 at bottom right. This is the first phase of the IPsec tunnel negotiation. Fill out these values and make sure that you replace it with your specific IP. You can find your Azure Public IP here :
Ok, you will need these neccessary info for Phase 1:
For Phase 1 Proposal (Authentication) use the values and I hope you still know your shared private key 🙂 :
For Phase 1 Proposal (Algorithms) use the values :
Use these Advanced options :
Now go to VPN / IPsec / Tunnels
Expand Show Phase 2 Entries and Click Add P2 :
Use the following information (General Information) :
Use the following information (proposal) :
Leave the Advanced configuration default :
Now let’s open pfSense a bit, let’s allow the firewall IPsec traffic. In orde to do that, from the main menu go to Firewall, Rules and then click on the IPsec sub-menu.
Ok, now we are done! Great job… but let’s test it first! Go to the Windows 10 test VM. In Azure I opened RDP and Ping for testing purposes.
As you can see from my internal network @home I can ping and RDP to the INTERNAL (!) IP Address of my Azure resources. Job well done!
A couple of days while I was driving to the beach I noticed a problem with one of my machines running on Azure. Ofcourse I didn’t bring my laptop, so I first tried the Azure App in real life. I was very pleased. You can’t always predict what will happen or when, but you can be prepared. That’s where the recently updated, Azure mobile app comes in. Stay connected to your Azure resources – anytime, anywhere.
Using the App it’s possible to :
You can take the power of Azure with you on your mobile phone/tablet!
After downloading the App from the store, it was very easy to get it up and running (support for MFA).
In my case I tested the Android version, but there is a iOS version also. Normally I don’t prefer working on my phone or tablet but just using my laptop or desktop but sometimes it’s very handy to be able to quickly restart a VM for example. Or see the load (metrics) of some of your services. Even be able to receive notifications is very handy!
The Azure app puts every subscription from every service in your pocket. Scroll through all your resources and resource groups, search by name, or filter by resource to find the resource you need.
Each resource includes the following information (when applicable):
For those of you with a lot of subscriptions and resources, scrolling and filtering – on your mobile device! – might get a little tedious. Save swipes and taps by adding the resources you want to keep a close eye on to your favorites list. Just open the resource, tap the star, and go! The next time you open the app, you will start on the favorites tab to help get you to your resources faster than ever.
Perhaps the most important aspect of building your business in the cloud is the confidence and knowledge that everything’s up and running and your customers aren’t impacted by unexpected events. With the Azure app at hand, you’ll never need to guess. Just open the Notifications tab for a personalized list of Azure health alerts and important metrics that you’re monitoring for your resources.
If any of your resources in the selected subscription have been impacted by an Azure health event over the last week, you’ll see the details listed on the Notifications tab. Every health alert includes:
You’ll also find your custom resource metric alert rules in the list. Each metric alert includes:
In addition to getting metric alerts on the Notifications tab, you’ll also be notified about these alerts when you visit resource details. Just tap the notification to open the details.
Many services offer simple commands to help you resolve common issues for your resources from the Azure app:
Of course, many more are on the way. As a companion app for mobile workers, the Azure app doesn’t include every feature in the Azure portal, but as you can see it provides great flexibility while using your phone or tablet.
I think the Azure App is a need to have for every Azure administrator! Just download the app in the appstore and let me know what your thank about the app!