Microsoft Workloads on AWS

Category: Advanced (300)

How to build an automated C# code documentation generator using AWS DevOps

In this blog post, we will show you how to create a documentation solution on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud that automatically generates and publishes a technical documentation website for a .NET project, based on source code comments, API definitions, and Markdown documents included in the project. Having a technical documentation website improves developer […]

Integrating SAMBA 4 Active Directory with AWS IAM Identity Center

In this blog post, we will show you how to integrate an LDAP open-source solution with AWS IAM Identity Center leveraging either AWS Managed Active Directory or Active Directory Connector. Introduction Microsoft Active Directory has been a widely used identity management solution in Windows networks for decades. It delivers authentication and access protocols, such as […]

How to automate your Microsoft Windows Server upgrades using AWS Systems Manager

This blog post is the second of a four-part series on how to upgrade Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2. The focus of this series is to provide options to handle the upcoming end-of-support event in October. Part 1 overviews the end-of-support dilemma, plus how to perform an in-place, manual upgrade along with an insight […]

How to manually upgrade Microsoft Windows Server 2012 on AWS

How to manually upgrade Microsoft Windows Server 2012 on AWS

This blog post is the first of a four-part series on how to upgrade Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2. The focus of this series is to provide options to handle the upcoming end-of-support event in October. Part 1 overviews the end-of-support dilemma, plus how to perform an in-place, manual upgrade along with an insight […]

Automate Active Directory domain join activities at scale with AWS Systems Manager

In a previous blog post, I showed how you can use AWS Systems Manager Automation to dynamically automate domain join and unjoin activities with Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) for your Windows instances on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). The previous solution showed you how to manually domain join/unjoin activities against single or multiple […]

Provisioning SQL Server on Amazon EC2 with AWS Lambda, AWS Step Functions, and AWS Systems Manager

Automating the process of deploying SQL Server on Amazon EC2 not only simplifies the deployment, but it also gives customers the ability to spin up additional SQL Server instances for additional capacity or spin down instances when not in use to save money. The provisioning of SQL Server is a multi-step process that is outlined in this blog.

Simplifying Active Directory domain join with AWS Systems Manager

A new version of this blog was recently published. The new blog post offers an updated solution to streamline your Active Directory credentials with AWS Secrets Manager. This replaces AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store and AWS Lambda function while maintaining the same Automation workflow. In this blog post, I will present a solution for managing […]

How Dow Jones migrated and modernized its business-critical databases in one motion to gain effectiveness and cost benefits

As one of the largest business and financial news companies in the world, millions of people around the world rely on Dow Jones properties for their daily market data needs. The Market Data platform, one of Dow Jones’ most critical business systems, serves the real-time markets data to all of its news sites, including WSJ.com, […]

SQL Server High Availability Deployments Using Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP

UPDATE: On 26th May 2022, AWS Launch Wizard added support to SQL Server deployments using Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP. AWS Launch Wizard uses a simple console wizard to simplify the deployment of SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) with Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP. To learn more about using AWS Launch Wizard, visit the […]

Instrumenting .NET applications with AWS X-Ray using Aspect-oriented Programming

Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is an approach that enhances modularity by allowing developers to pull out cross-cutting concerns. AOP does so by adding attribute (advice) to the existing code without modifying the code itself. Classic examples of these cross-cutting concerns include caching, logging, monitoring, and, in our case, AWS X-Ray tracing. With AOP, tracing a call […]