Budget alerts are helpful for managing costs within your Azure Portal. Budget alerts notify you when spending, based on usage or cost, reaches or exceeds the amount defined. It’s a great way to keep an eye on your spending within Azure. I find it useful with my MSDN account which comes with a monthly limit.
Note: You can also set alerts on allowed budgets at the resource group or management groups scopes.
Login to Azure Portal portal.azure.com
Click subscriptions or browse via the search bar
If the subscriptions option is not visible in the left pane, you can add it by marking it as a favourite. You can do this with any of the icons within the Azure portal.
Hover over the icon and click the star as shown below
3. Once you’ve clicked subscriptions, click your subscription. In my case i’m running a month free trial subscription.
4. Click Budgets
5. Click +Add
6. Complete budget details (See example below)
7. This is a new subscription so I don’t have any past monthly cost data. But if you were running your subscriptions for a few months, you will get an idea of how much you have spent in previous months and could base your amount on past statistics.
8. When ready, click next to move to the alerts sections
9. Complete alert details. In the example below, I will receive an alert at 75% (£75 monthly cost). I will receive another alert when I reach 90% (£90 monthly cost).
10. Click create
Future alerts will be sent to you via email and can also be accessed via the option Cost Alerts as shown below.
If you wish to look at whether there is are any potential cost savings within your Azure Portal. Take a look at the Azure Advisor feature – Click Save Costs With Azure Advisor
In this blog post, i will create a WVD application group within the Azure Portal. Application groups are a collection of remote applications that you can present to a user or group of users. Please note that this applies to a pooled host pool.
In this blog post I will go through the process of installing and configuring Azure AD Connect in a lab environment within the Azure Portal. I will also sync a test OU and a couple of test users to Azure AD.
I already have a Azure trial subscription with a custom domain configured and verified within Azure AD. I have also built a server within Azure for Azure AD Connect and also have a single domain controller (Windows 2019 server) hosted in the Azure Portal.
Please note, the links above demonstrate builds within a Lab environment. Please follow best practice depending on the solutions you’re building in your production environment.
If you don’t have access to the Azure Portal, you can setup a free month trial account at Azure Free Trial.
Ok, so we’re all set. Let’s get started with installing Azure AD Connect and syncing some test accounts to Azure AD!
As you’ll see from within Azure AD, the current status of Azure AD Connect is not enabled and a sync has never taken place. You can locate the below info by clicking Azure Active Directory and then the overview option found in the left pane.
2. I have built a server within the Azure Portal, and for the purpose of this Lab, I have assigned the server a public IP address and opened the RDP port. Something you don’t want to do in a production environment.
So i’m RDP’ing to my newly built server in Azure
3. Download Azure AD Connect. From the Azure Portal, click on Azure Active Directory and from the left pane click Azure AD Connect
4. Click Download Azure AD Connect. You can also down the Azure AD Connect app from the Microsoft website
5. Click download
6. Launch the AzureADConnect MSI file
7. Allow the install to initiate
8. When ready, click I agree to the license terms and privacy notice. Click continue.
9. For the purpose of this demo, i’ll be clicking use express settings. In most cases this option does the job. Take a look at the customize option if you have different requirements, such as specifying a custom location for or connecting the application to a dedicated SQL server.
10. Provide credentials. This is a one off authentication for now. You will be required to login again each time you wish to make changes to the application.
If you receive a password expiry message. Login with the account at portal.azure.com and change your password when prompted.
11. When connected to Azure successfully, you’ll move on and be prompted to type in a domain account.
12. Input details and click next
13. For now, I am going to untick the option to start the synchronization process. I only want to sync a couple of accounts to Azure AD as part of this demo. Click Install. The process may take up to 10 mins
14. Now that you have Azure AD Connect installed, launch the application. For the purpose of this demo, I created a test OU and a couple of test accounts as shown below.
15. Click configure
16. Please familiarise yourself with the other options that Azure AD Connect offers. For the purpose of this demo, I will only be configuring Azure AD Connect to sync a couple of accounts to Azure AD.
Click Customize synchronization options and click next.
17. You will be prompted for your global admin account
18. Click next
19. For the purpose of this demo, i’m syncing the cloudbuild OU containing two test users to Azure AD. See screen shot below. Click next
20. Click next. Please study the other options
21. Start the sync process and click configure
22. We’re done. Let’s move onto the Azure Portal and check the results
The process below will guide you through adding a custom domain to Azure AD. For the purpose of this demo, I will be adding and verifying cloudbuild.co.uk to my lab setup
Please comment towards the end of this post if you have any questions
Login to the Azure Portal at portal.azure.com
If you’re starting out with Azure, you can setup a free trial at Azure Free Trial
2. Select Azure Active Directory from the menu towards the left or use the search field as shown below
3. Select custom domain names from the left menu
4. Click + Add Custom Domain
5. Add your domain and click Add domain
Note: To add a domain, you must already own a domain name and have the necessary sign in credentials to update the DNS records with your domain name registrar.
6. At this point you need to add a txt record to your domain DNS portal. This process verifies that you own the domain that you’re trying to add.
7. Let’s login to the domain portal. In my case, i’ll be adding the txt record to the cloudbuild.co.uk domain portal at my registrar’s website
8. I have now added details to my domain portal as per instructions above
9. Let’s move back to the Azure Portal and verify the domain. If the domain does not verify, wait for DNS replication.
Where do I begin, it’s been a busy 30 days mainly packed with Microsoft Azure related stuff, apart from the time when i was unwell 🙁
If you’re not already aware, we launched a new website 30 days ago, AzureCrazy.com and I am very pleased that the website has performed extremely well. We have had great feedback from both beginners and existing users of Microsoft Azure. Thanks to the support from all the Techies including Microsoft Employees and MVP’s who volunteered to provide us with a written interview and shared their experiences. Azure Crazy is an Azure Blog which provides great information on how existing Azure Techies started their journey with Azure, recommendations on how to get started with Azure, learning and certification paths, starting a career in Tech and much more! Please do check out the website and subscribe as there are more interviews to come.
Further GOOD NEWS! The Founder of FeedSpot loved the AzureCrazy website and listed the website on the Top 100 Azure Blogs to follow on the Web! The list can be located here Top 100 Azure Blogs On the Web
More GOOD NEWS, this blog (CloudBuild.co.uk) was also listed on the top 100 Azure Blogs to follow. Thankyou FeedSpot! I was and still am really excited and honoured with this news. I first started blogging my IT fixes in 2008 and it’s been great to know that my blog posts have assisted Techies from all around the world. I would recommend starting a blog and sharing your knowledge, it’s a great feeling when shared knowledge benefits others. I’ll be back blogging about Microsoft Azure in the next few days so watch this space!
We also had the three exciting days of Microsoft Ignite sessions, thanks to all who helped bring this event together and brought us great virtual sessions. I admit that it wasn’t the same with the event being held online compared to visiting a venue and being able to network with other Techies face to face. But the sessions were great and I really appreciate the efforts which went into bringing those sessions to us from around the World. A few late nights with the time difference but it was well worth it. Twitter was buzzing with Microsoft Ignite related tweets throughout the night and early hours. It was great! I still have a few videos to catch up on that I saved to my virtual back pack because i wasn’t able to join multiple sessions at once.
I also got started on preparing for MS-700 Managing Teams and hope to sit the exam soon. I’ll document my experience on how I prepared for the exam, so watch this space!
That’s it for now, but i’ll be back with further posts soon 🙂
