Amazon invited me to record a segment in the AWS Architecture series. This was a fun afternoon in their studio.

Hi Meraki devices have status pages. These can be accessed by internal clients. See https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Tools_and_Troubleshooting/Using_the_Cisco_Meraki_Device_Local_Status_Page Wireless Access points MR - http://ap.meraki.com Switches MS - http://switch.meraki.com Routers MX and Z1 - http://wired.meraki.com Any - http://setup.meraki.com This URL will work for any Cisco Meraki device, but will only access the first device in its path. For example, if you’re on a PC connected to a Meraki switch you can connect to http://switch.meraki.com/ which gives you a status page about your connection.

I gave a talk on using public cloud to host grid computing/HPC workloads. The elastic and on demand nature of public cloud is a great fit for spikey workloads like grid computing. I’d had some fun building an autoscaling MATLAB HPC cluster (scale out and scale back) and talked about it at a breakfast briefing with our consultancy Hentsu. https://www.slideshare.net/hentsu/infinitely-scalable-clusters-grid-computing-on-public-cloud

I gave a talk on cloud security. Before companies will start using Public Cloud they need to know it’s safe to use. There’s plenty of stories in press about security breaches, but AWS for example makes it clear in their “Shared Responsibility Model” that you still have to use security best practices such as least rights privilege, network segmentation (eg a DMZ) to contain any breach. https://www.slideshare.net/hentsu/cloud-security-for-regulated-firms-securing-my-cloud-and-proving-it-65384157?qid=6a90d703-73bf-4892-b99d-cb1da1b9fcbd&v=&b=&from_search=2

Great talk on enabling developers to make use of DevTest labs on Azure https://channel9.msdn.com/events/Visual-Studio/Alm-Days-2016/Needs-when-running-your-DevTest-Infrastructure-on-Azure https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devtestlab http://ClemensReijnen.nl http://www.uk.sogeti.com/services/microsoft-services/oneshare-cloud-based-development-and-testing/

I took some technology to the alps, a GoPro Hero 4 silver. Great bit of kit, was easy to view vids on iPad over WiFI at the end of the day. If attaching to a helmet use a tether to your goggle clip or loose it when you crash on your head. Back home the video editor, GoPro Studio, crashed a lot :-( (https://vimeo.com/152906550) HD file: (http://tinyurl.com/hx9d97u) or (http://1drv.ms/1PezEom)

I ran a project to deploy an HPC cluster using on-demand AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) resources. The HPC cluster provides researchers with compute resource to quickly run mathematical simulations across very large datasets. This deployment was a replacement for aging on premises HPC hardware and an opportunity to trial Amazon AWS in a hybrid cloud configuration. High security implementation: One way firewall rules between company network and AWS (company connects out to AWS resources, AWS resources can’t connect in) Encryption of data in transit and at rest AWS Direct Connect connecting company to AWS.

While hunting for some Hyper-V videos, I came across recorded sessions from the 4th Nordic Infrastructure Conference. No sales pitches, only some great talks from field hardened consultants. The sessions are focused on Enterprise Infrastructure (Microsoft Windows Server, System Centre, Azure, PowerShell DSC, Identity Management, Security/hacking). Session Info http://2015.nicconf.com/sessions Recorded sessions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChu8zqu8d1mjWxNRLlGXUAw

My long running PowerShell scripts now have background musak thanks to: http://www.adminarsenal.com/admin-arsenal-blog/powershell-music-remotely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsoIfkNQYEg http://youtube-mp3.org/ $scriptDir = Split-Path -Path $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition -Parent $musakFilePath="$scriptDir\musak.mp3" $wmplayer = New-Object System.Windows.Media.MediaPlayer $wmplayer.Open($musakFilePath) Start-Sleep 2 # This allows the $wmplayer time to load the audio file $duration = $wmplayer.NaturalDuration.TimeSpan.TotalSeconds $wmplayer.Play() $stopwatch=[system.diagnostics.stopwatch]::StartNew() while ($stopwatch.Elapsed.Seconds -lt $duration) { Write-Progress -Activity "Doing stuff, please hold…" -status "$($stopwatch.Elapsed.Seconds) seconds" -percentComplete ($stopwatch.Elapsed.Seconds / $duration*100) # do something # break when done start-Sleep -s 1 } $wmplayer.

Another super niche blog post. No one is ever going to find this…. So I had to dig into System Centre Configuration Manager today, probably Microsoft’s most complex product. I’ve been using this massively scalable and capable scheduling system since SMS1.2. But it still a bit scary to support… Machines cloned by VDI service VMware View were coming up with the same unique ID. The SMS client had been captured in the reference image that was cloned to create desktop pools.