Cloud

Azure recently introduced its first burstable VM size - the B-series. This VM type is meant to compete directly with AWS’ T2 instances. In the below few words (or more :smile: ) I try to explain what this means and why you should care. If you still have questions after reading, hit me up on Twitter or leave a comment below. So why do I need a burstable size anyway? If you have applications that remain idle for a long time and burst occasionally, then the B-series might be the perfect fit for you. To understand why, we first need to understand how the pricing for a VM works in the cloud. When you deploy a VM in the cloud, you’re paying the same regardless of the % of CPU used. Therefore, anytime your VM is not using 100% CPU, you are leaving computing cycles on the table that you are paying for. Typically, users will solve this problem by deploying a VM size with smaller number of cores and lesser RAM. However, sometimes the application demands more computing power. This is a classic vertical scalability problem. As the physics of semiconductors limits the number of cores, CPU clock speeds and RAM you can add to a single node, users have solved this problem by developing applications that can scale horizontally to more nodes. ...

Problem One of the challenges I have come across the last few days while working with Azure Automation & Logic Apps is how to integrate the output of the Automation Runbook in the Logic Apps workflow. Here’s the scenario, I have been trying to solve - Given an AzureRM resource Id, I want to parse out the name of the subscription, resource group & name of the resource. Here’s an example AzureRM resource Id for reference ...

I’m a big fan of typography! Clean and beautiful typography can make the experience of coding or reading an article so much better. It’s no wonder if you search for “best programming font”, there’s no shortage of font comparison articles. However, one of the things that is universally agreed upon is how terrible Courier/Courier New is. Azure Cloud Shell is a great product that takes away the complexity of figuring out the installation methods and authentication (esp. in organizations with 2FA enabled) and gets you a CLI prompt ready to roll! However, Azure Cloud Shell forces you to use Courier New and a default white on black color scheme. ...