I’ve never been to Sweden, so I’m really looking forward to September, when I’ll be speaking at CloudBurst. Organised by the Swedish Azure User Group (SWAG – love it!), this conference is also streamed and recorded and the sessions will be available on Channel 9. The list of speakers and topics promise some …

Part Two | Part Three | Part Four Over the past month or two I’ve been creating an Azure Resource Template to deploy and environment which, previously, we’d created old-style PowerShell scripts to deploy. In theory, the Resource Template approach would make the deployment quicker, easier to trigger from tooling like …

I have spent a good deal of time over the last month or two building an Azure Resource Template to deploy a relatively complicated IaaS environment. In doing so I’ve hit a variety of problems along the way and I though that a number of blog posts were in order to share what I’ve learned. I will write a detailed post on …

Documentation for using the customScriptExtension for Virtual Machines in Azure through Resource Templates is pretty much non-existent at time of writing, and the articles on using it through PowerShell are just plain wrong when it comes to templates. This post is accurate at time of writing and will show you how to …

Susan Smith has posted an interesting DevOps article on the TechNet UK blog. Hidden away in a footnote is a link to recordings and slide decks for the DevOps track at Future Decoded, including my own session. Both the video and my deck are available for you to view online or download.

I’m excited to be speaking at the Techorama conference in Belgium this May. Richard spoke last year (and is doing so again) and came back raving about the great time he had, so I’m really looking forward to it. Go on, take a look at the site (the agenda is steadily filling out) and register!

It’s January, which can only mean one thing. It’s time for the annual Black Marble Tech Update. If you’re an IT or development manager, come along to hear the stuff you need to know about Microsoft’s releases and updates last year and what we know so far about what is coming this year. Tech Updates are hard work to …

I’ve posted before about helping out at the IT Camps run by the Microsoft DX team. I’m a fervent supporter of them – they are hands-on days of technical content run by great people who know their stuff and, importantly, they are run around the country. Next week will see me in Manchester with Ed Baker for the latest …

We’re only half way through January and this year is already busy. I am really excited to be speaking at SQLBits this year! SQLBits is a conference that various members of the Black Marble team attend regularly and rave about. It’s the event if you want to gain knowledge and insight into all aspects of databases and …

Block out your diary from February 3rd until February 5th. The great guys at Microsoft DX are running another TechDays Online event and it’s absolutely worth your time. I had the absolute pleasure to be involved last year and will again this year, both in front of and behind the camera. For those who don’t know about …