Hey, it's Matt.

Hope you're doing ok in the craziness that is the lead up to Christmas.

Our kids had their last day of school last week for ~8 weeks, and I found out recently their vacation care program is closed for 2 weeks over Christmas! I'll be frantically thinking of things to do to try and keep them occupied. On a totally unrelated note, I need to order another kg of coffee beans before the roaster closes their retail shop for a few days over Christmas 😅

I know it's not cloud related, but I was fortunate to see the Foo Fighters a few weeks ago with a good mate Tim. This was the second time I've seen them live, and it was such an awesome show. I'm inspired to blow the dust off a few of my guitars and get them restrung and cleaned up over the Christmas break.

I hope you're enjoying the content and find it useful. If you do, share the subscribe page with an industry friend, which you can find at https://newsletter.mattallford.com.

Talk soon!

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Azure Diagramming Tool

I'm sure you've got a diagramming tool already, maybe even a few. But if not, or maybe you're looking for something simple and lightweight, I recently came across Azure Diagrams.

Azure Diagrams was developed by Shane Ochotny, Harsha Konduri, and Bret Myers. In the about information, they state "while we are Microsoft employees, Azure Diagrams is not an official Microsoft product or service.".

I like the speed and simplicity of the tool, with all of the services readily available from a fast and easy to use side panel. There are also some cool features such as showing documentation and pricing directly from the resources, as well as showing visual and descriptive context on the type of connection when connecting objects in the canvas!

Azure Lean Coffee

Daniel McLoughlin AKA The Cloud Pirate recently hosted a "Lean Coffee Roundtable" session as part of the Festive Tech Calendar. The idea received great feedback, and Daniel has decided to make this a regular thing, and to quote his blog:

This brought together well known and up-and-coming community members around a virtual table to discuss all things Microsoft Azure, in a way that ensures everyone got a chance to speak, and bring forward topics of their choosing.

Based on some of the fantastic feedback I received, I've decided to try and set this up as a regular thing, and open up the speaking slots to anyone willing to join me.

I bring this to your attention for two reasons. Firstly, make sure to follow Daniel and his YouTube channel so you get this awesome content, he's already had and will continue to have awesome guest. Secondly, consider throwing your hat in the ring to be a guest on the show! Initiatives like this only live for as long as there are people willing to contribute, so my challenge to you is to jump out of your comfort zone, and join in on a great roundtable conversation :)

Find Daniel's Full Post Here

Public Preview for Azure Migrate ASP.NET Assessments and Business Cases

Azure Migrate is a fantastic free tool for discovering, assessing, and migrating applications and services to Azure.

There's capability today to discover and migrate .NET web apps, but this newly announced functionality provides:

• Cloud readiness for AKS and app service
• Recommended configuration of the AKS node SKUs and count, or App service plan
• Yearly cost savings by running the apps on Azure

The business case functionality of Azure migrate is especially interesting, which goes deeper than assessments have previously.

Terraform Cloud View in Terraform VS Code Extension

If you're a Visual Studio Code user and have looked at or work with Terraform, you'll have the Terraform extension. With all the great functionality available in Terraform Cloud, it's also likely you're using functionality there, meaning you often need to context switch out of VS Code to a web browser.

Well, not any more! Hasicorp's latest update to the Terraform VS Code extension provides integration with Terraform Cloud, allowing you to view workspaces, monitor runs and their status, as well as detailed log information, all without leaving the VS Code editor.

This is just the beginning of this integration, with more to come as discussed in their blog post below.

Check out Hashicorp's Post Here

C# For Beginners

I recently came across a YouTube playlist of 19 videos in a series titled "C# for Beginners", from none other than industry legends Scott Hanselman and David Fowler. Both Scott and David are extremely knowledgeable, fantastic presenters, and even better teachers. If you're looking to dip your toe in the C# water, this will be a great investment of a couple of hours of your time.

Find the Playlist Here

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If you're a subscriber, this is a shameless plug to check out my courses! I publish content in the IT Ops and Cloud spaces, make sure to give me a follow on the page below to get alerted when I release a new course.

If you're not a subscriber, click on the Pluralsight logo above to get taken to a 10 day trial sign up page!

Find my Author Profile Here

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Podcast Recommendation

This edition my recommendation goes to a podcast titled "The Cloud Architects", which they elegantly summarise as "A podcast about cloud, technology and the people using it".

​Nicolas Blank, Warren du Toit, and Chris Goosen have great conversations with a range of fantastic guests, usually released every month or so. I highly recommend adding this on to your podcast feed. As usual, click on the logo below to get taken to their main landing page!

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