Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

This Week I Learned -  *  Azure landing zones are the output of a multi-subscription Azure environment that accounts for scale, security, governance, networking, and identity. Azure landing zones enable application migrations and greenfield development at enterprise-scale in Azure.  * Oracle WebLogic Server (WLS) is a key component in enabling enterprise Java workloads on Azure. The WLS solutions built in partnership between Oracle and Microsoft simplify migration by automating boilerplate provisioning of virtual networks and storage, installing OS/Java resources, setting up WLS, and configuring integration with key Azure services. The partnership between Oracle and Microsoft was announced in June of 2019.  * Google Cloud VMware Engine is a fully managed service that lets you run the VMware platform in Google Cloud. VMware Engine provides you with VMware operational continuity so you can benefit from a cloud consumption model and lower your total cost of ownership....

This Week I Learned -  * The first chapter of the book " Azure SQL Revealed " [PDF] covers the history of Azure. Fun fact: Windows Azure was officially launched on February 1, 2010 and, along with it, the first truly PaaS relational database service in the industry, SQL Azure  * React interacts with HTML documents through a 'virtual DOM,'  which is a copy of the actual DOM, but all of the elements are represented as JavaScript objects. These elements, along with React’s declarative programming style and one-way data binding, simplify and speed up development. The biggest similarity it shares with Vue is the use of the virtual DOM. * BigQuery is Google’s serverless cloud data warehouse.  * Accessibility Insights for Web is a browser extension that helps developers find and fix accessibility issues  * Many enterprises consider hybrid cloud environment their ideal operating model. For these enterprises, running a mixed model of private cloud, public cloud...

Key points in a single tweet by David Perell: ∙ Shorten your sentences. ∙ Make your point fast. ∙ Shorten the introduction. ∙ Use simple words. ∙ Add graphs and statistics. ∙ No buzzwords. ∙ Use more periods, fewer commas. ∙ Write for skimming, not deep reading. ∙ Bold the main takeaways. Related - How to lie with statistics

A compilation of key info & links from Azure documentation - The term mainframe generally refers to a large computer system, but the vast majority currently of mainframes deployed are IBM System z servers or IBM plug-compatible systems running MVS, DOS, VSE, OS/390, or z/OS (64-bit OS). Common components of a typical IBM mainframe architecture DB2 for z/OS typically uses Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) datasets to store the data. Logical partitions, or LPARs, are used to divide compute resources. A physical mainframe is partitioned into multiple LPARs. A mainframe might use one LPAR for a CICS region with associated COBOL programs, and a separate LPAR for IBM Db2 database.  Migrating to the cloud enables companies to modernize their infrastructure.  The new core-dense, Intel-based systems have as much compute capacity as mainframes . Azure VMs can run mainframe emulation environments and compilers that support lift-and-shift scenarios. Common server components t...

 This Week I Learned -  * One view to the question "Has the cloud datacenter (Azure) achieved a tier 3 (or higher) classification?" -  From a Microsoft Q&A thread (paraphrased) - There is no official tier certification for Microsoft Azure Datacenter. Uptime which is the institute that manages Tiers certification doesn't have Microsoft listed in their certified Tier Database. That's why there is no official certification. What does it mean? This means that MS Datacenters are good, we all know but are not certified.  Another view - "From generation 1 the datacenters have been designed to meet the customer SLAs and service needs of 99,999%. Given that a tier 4 datacenter is designed towards a customer SLA and service need of 99,995%, we can state that an Azure Datacenter exceeds the expectations of a tier 4 datacenter."  *  Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database Migration (DMS) is a fully-managed service that provides a high performing, self-service exper...

Like hoarders in the physical world, those who spend a lot of time on the internet may find it difficult to close tabs lest they miss something important - Digital FOMO .   Chrome now has a "Search Tabs" feature to indulge tab hoarders .  It can be invoked with the Ctrl+Shift+A keyboard shortcut.  BTW, Ctrl+Shift+T will undo a closed tab.

There is a nice Google Cloud developer’s cheat sheet describing Google Cloud products in 4 words or less. There are short & crisp descriptions of  Azure & AWS  products in the official documentation. As one aggrieved VMware user pointed out on Reddit that it is hard to find short descriptions of VMware products . This compilation is based on that Reddit thread and other online sources. I'll keep revising these descriptions as I come across better definitions. * vSphere - virtualization platform that uses the power of virtualization to transform data centers into simplified cloud computing infrastructures. Name of the product line that includes the ESXi hypervisor. vSphere = vCenter+ESXi * vCenter - virtual appliance to manage and configure ESXi/vSphere hosts * ESXi - enterprise-class, type-1 hypervisor (run directly on a physical host server unlike type 2 hypervisor which runs as a software layer on an OS)  * vSphere 7 is the biggest release of vSphere...

This Week I Learned -  * The ASM-based deployment model for Cloud Services has been renamed Cloud Services (classic). Cloud Services (extended support) has the primary benefit of providing regional resiliency along with feature parity with Azure Cloud Services deployed using Azure Service Manager (ASM). Cloud Services (extended support) also supports two types of roles, web and worker. There are no changes to the design, architecture, or components of web and worker roles. *  Azure Deployment Manager (ADM) allows you to perform staged rollouts of resources, meaning they’re deployed region by region in an ordered fashion. As part of this rollout, the health of your services is monitored, and if unacceptable performance degradation is detected, deployment automatically stops, allowing you to troubleshoot and reduce the scale of the impact. These tools are used internally by hundreds of Microsoft services to ensure safe, reliable deployments, ensuring high availability and...

Web developers may occasionally have a need to test for scenarios when a web application doesn't have access to the internet. Rather than turn off access to internet completely, it is possible to selectively turn off internet access for a single browser tab just like muting audio playing within a web page. In Chromium-based browsers, open Dev Tools (F12 keyboard shortcut) and within the Network tab change the setting to Offline in the dropdown as shown in the screenshot below. This feature can also be used to conserve bandwidth for web pages that make numerous AJAX calls but can work even while offline.

This Week I Learned -  * Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) is a software-defined, unified system that combines all the disparate and siloed elements of a traditional datacenter: secure storage, compute, network, and management. This integrated solution runs on off-the-shelf x86 servers to replace expensive, purpose-built hardware. Azure Stack HCI is built from the ground up to leverage an advanced level of HCI without sacrificing legacy functionality.  Azure Stack HCI connects to Azure hybrid services through Azure Arc. * The initial version of Azure Stack HCI, launched in 2019, was based on Windows Server 2019 Datacenter. Now, Azure Stack HCI is decoupled from Windows, becoming its own operating system .  * The difference between Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI is that the latter targets customers that still need to run key workloads in-house but also want to start their cloud journey. Azure Stack is a totally managed environment, meaning you really ca...