Azure Resource Manager is a management platform for Azure resources. It enables you to deploy, manage, and monitor resources on Azure, including virtual machines, web apps, and SQL databases. Some key features of Azure Resource Manager include: Resource groups: You can use resource groups to group related resources together and manage them as a single unit. Templates: You can use Azure Resource Manager templates to deploy and manage resources consistently and predictably. Templates are written in JSON and allow you to define the infrastructure for your application. Role-based access control: You can use Azure Resource Manager to set fine-grained permissions on resources so that only authorized users can access them. To use Azure Resource Manager, you can use the Azure portal, the Azure Resource Manager APIs, or the Azure CLI. Resource providers: Azure Resource Manager works with resource providers to create, manage, and delete resources. Each resource provider offers a set of resources that you can use, such as virtual machines, storage accounts, and databases. Resource Manager model: Azure Resource Manager uses a declarative model, which means that you define what you want your resources to look like, and Azure Resource Manager takes care of creating and configuring them for you. This is in contrast to an imperative model, where you have to specify the exact steps to create and configure a resource. Locking resources: You can use Azure Resource Manager to lock resources to prevent accidental deletion or modification. This is useful if you have resources that are critical to your application or business. Auditing and tagging: You can use Azure Resource Manager to audit changes to resources and to apply tags to resources for the organization and cost management.Example of an Azure Resource Manager template that creates a virtual machine: I hope this helps!

Here we will see how to backup the repository using the YAML file. This includes the following steps Create an Azure DevOps Personal Access Token (PAT) Create a YAML file Create Subscription Connection Create an Azure DevOps Personal Access Token (PAT) Step 1: Sign in to your Azure DevOps Portal Step 2: Go to Personal Access Token Step 3: Create a Token by clicking on “New Token“ Give it a name Select the “Read” checkbox to fetch the repository Click on Create Note: Copy and Save the token as you will not be able to see it again Create a YAML Pipeline Step 1: Go to Pipelines Step 2: Choose Azure Repos Git Step 3: Select your repository Step 4: Configure it as a starter Pipeline Below is the default code you will see. Trigger: The wildcard (*) will monitor all the branches, the pipeline will be triggered whenever you have any changes in your repository CmdLine: The command calls “git clone –mirror ” to make a copy of your repository. PAT needed to be used while fetching a repository Archive Files: It will take the git repository which was cloned in the previous step and then zipped to “Backup.zip” File Copy: It will take the archive copy and send it to Azure Blob Storage Creating a Subscription Connection Step 1: Go to Project Settings Step 2: Go to Service connections Step 3: Click on New service connection Step 4: Choose Azure Resource Manager Step 5: Select Authentication Method as Service Principal (automatic) Note: Make sure to use the same credentials to login to DevOps as in Azure Portal Step 6: Subscription will be chosen automatically. Give it a name Select a resource group where you have your storage account Then save Step 7: Use the connection name in YAML. Save and Run It will create a Job See the status of the Job After Job gets completed, you will see a zip file in your blob

Learning serverless Azure Functions and deploying them, might sound like a daunting task. Azure functions are one of the most essential features of Microsoft Azure. In this article, we will see how we can create and deploy our first function using Azure Portal itself. In the next blog, I will also demonstrate how we can publish functions using visual studio. To start, login into your Azure Portal. Search for the Function app and click on create. Select desired resource group, give your function app a unique name, and fill in the rest of the options as required. After the deployment completes, open the resource. Go to the functions section on the left-hand pane. Click on the Create button. Select the “Develop in Portal” option as we are using Azure Portal to create our function. And select “HTTP trigger” now as we want to trigger the function using its API. Go to the “Code+Test” option, you’ll find a sample code. Change values in it for a personal response. You can also change the logic of the code from default. Here I am passing my name as Body in the request (input) section. As you can see based on the request body I have received a personified response. You can use the get function URL option and display desired output on hitting the URL. The output section in the default code is the last line “return new OKobjectResult(youroutput);” Hope you learned to deploy a function using the portal from this blog. Have a great day!

This is blog is intended to share information about creating a CI / CD Pipeline using YAML file. Case Study Create a CI/CD pipeline using YAML for a web application So, let’s start with lets creating a project Use cmd to create a project and then bind it to a solution Create Solution dotnet new sln -o Test_CI_CDPipeline Then change the directory cd Test_CI_CDPipeline Then create a Web Project inside Test_CI_CDPipeline dotnet new mvc -n Test_CI_CDPipeline Now bind the project to solution dotnet sln HelloWorldApp.sln add HelloWorldApp.Web\HelloWorldApp.Web.csproj Need to restore all the dependencies dotnet restore Now, build the solution. Do not restore dependencies while we are building the solution. dotnet build –no-restore –configuration release Publish the solution dotnet publish –no-build –configuration release. Now a project is created, built, and published on local Machine. The aim is to achieve the same using a continuous integration pipeline. For this one need to have an Azure DevOps account. In that, create an organization (if not created already) and then create a project. You can either create a private project or a public project. Before that, one needs to initialize git in the location machine. Go to the working folder (location of the location file). Initiate the git git init The purpose of git is to host the source code. Ensure that binaries created while building a project should not be included. For this add gitignore file to the project. Now, you need to stage all the content git add . Commit the content git commit -m “—Name-it—” Now you can push this to the Azure DevOps repo. Copy and paste the command and everything from the local machine will be pushed to Azure Repo. Create Pipeline Go to Pipelines on the Left panel and click on Create Pipeline. It gives two options YAML or Classic editor. Select Azure Repos Git (YAML) as it will be used to push the local project in further steps Select the project created earlier Select the type of project you are creating After this, you will see a YAML file. Here one needs to edit the file and make changes as per the need. Below is a sample code Trigger:  specifies which branches cause a continuous integration build to run Pool: specifies which pool to use for a job of the pipeline. A pool specification also holds information about the job’s strategy for running. Steps: specifies a list of tasks that need to be run Task: specifies commands/tasks that need to perform to achieve a build file. Build the project first Publish the Project Publish it as an Artifact Click save and run. Below shows the artifact created Now, this artifact needs to be consumed by an Azure website. For this, one needs to create a web application. Create an app service for that in the Azure portal. We need to create a service connection to connect Azure resource. Go to Project Setting, then service connections Create a New connection and select Azure Resource Manager Choose Automated (here you need to login with the same credentials that you use for the Azure portal) and click next Choose the subscription and Resource group. Give a name to the connection Now, proceed with creating a release pipeline Select the template you want to use and then apply. Choose the artifact from where you want the files to be picked up and click add Click on Job to a stage Add your Azure subscription, select the app service you have created, and save it. Then click on Create release Click on Deploy Once you are done deploying, click on the URL from the App service

If you earlier have exported a Logic app template for further use and deleted that logic app, then below are the steps to import an already existing Logic app template as a Logic app. Go to https://portal.azure.com and then to the Logic app. Open any Logic app. For example, I took the below logic app. Go to Export Template. Click on Deploy Click on Edit Template Click on Load File. Select the template you want to import. Change the name to whatever you want. Here I will keep it as it is and Copy the name for further use. Copy the Name and click on Save. Check this page if it’s the same name and resource group as desired. Click on Review and Create. And then again, click on Create to create the Logic app. Now the Logic app template is imported and ready to use. I hope this was helpful.

In the previous blog, we learn about how to use the Environment variable in Azure Function. Environment variables are most important and confidential as they might contain the system credentials or configure that you don’t want any to access directly. The most unsecure way to store them is directly inside the Configuration of Azure function so in this blog we will see how to store the Environment variable inside the Key Vault and use the Key Vault reference in Configuration. You can create an Azure function and use Environment Variable to do so do refer to my previous blog: Step 1: Create a Key Vault Login to Azure Portal and click on + Create a resource called “Key Vault”. Click on Create You can create a new resource group or select the existing group based on your preference. (You can create all resources related to a single project in one resource group so that it will easier to manage resources project wise) You need to set up the Access policy during the creation or after creating the Key Vault. We will set up an access policy for Azure Function later in the blog. Step 2: Set an Access policy for Azure Function. Open the Azure Function in which you want to use the reference of Azure Key Vault. Navigate to Identity Tab and toggle System assigned status to “ON”. Copy the Object (Principle) ID as we are going to use it during adding access policy. Open Azure Key Vault and Navigate to the Access Policies section. Click on + Add Access Policy We will only Add Get Permission in the Secret permissions section. You need to only add the permission that you want to allow your Azure Function can perform. Select the Principle User. Copy the Copied “Object ID” into search it will be easier to find it. Click on Add. Once you will add a resource in the access policy, it will allow your resource (Azure Function) to perform a Get operation on all the secrets from Key Vault. Do not forget to Save after you add the policy. Step 3: Add Secret and Configure it inside Azure Function Navigate to the Secrets section and Click on + Generate/Import Enter the Name and Value(Credentials/Configuration) Open the current version and Copy the secret URL as it will be required while configuring the Reference. Navigate to the Configuration section of Azure Function. Change the Configuration and add the KeyVault Reference as below: @Microsoft.KeyVault(SecretUri=<Copied SecretURL>) Do not forget to Save after changing the configuration Step 4: Testing using Postman We will require the API testing tool, here I am using Postman and the following is the link to download “Postman”. https://www.postman.com/downloads/ Copy the Function URL and send a post request. As result, you will notice the username is coming from KeyVault as we have to change the configuration. Conclusion: This is how you can secure your Environment Variable using Azure KeyVault. You can set up multiple KeyVault for different deployment and access policies depending on the requirement. When you are storing the Credentials and Configuration in KeyVault, you just need to set up the Access policy. All configuration is managed by the Azure Admin and if origination has a policy that they don’t want to share the credentials they can follow this process and only share the KeyVault URL with the developer so that they only need to configure it.

In this blog, we will learn how to configure and use Environment Variable in Azure Function. Concept of using Environment variable during your development which needs to deploy on multiple servers and connect to multiple systems. Whenever you use Environment variables to store the global constant or system credentials it reduces the time which was required to modify the code base for multiple deployments. Let’s get started with Creating the Azure Function and using the Environment variable. Step 1: Create an Azure Function inside the Visual Studio: I have created the HTTP Trigger Azure function inside Visual Studio and the authorization level is Anonymous Once you create an Azure Function project you will notice there are many files created with the project.  We have a “local.setting.json” file that we are going to use and it holds the environment variable while the development and testing phase of your Azure function. Step 2: Declare credentials/global variable inside “local.setting.json” Information on local.setting.json – This file represents your local application setting for your Azure Function and it stays with your local build only. While you publish your azure function to Azure Portal or commit your code to your Repo this file is never pushed to the server as they are excluded/prevent from committing or publishing. Step 3: Access variable inside the code You can access the environment variable using the Environment class(required System lib). Based on your preference you can either access Environment variable the directly inside the code or you can create a CONSTANT class as mentioned below screenshot. Here, I am passing this environment variable inside a response so that we can test it. Step 4: Testing using Postman We will require the API testing tool, here I am using Postman and the following is the link to download “Postman”. https://www.postman.com/downloads/ To test the application, click on the Start button on top of the Navbar as mentioned below in the screenshot [Button will have Project Name]. It will take a few minutes to Load the Azure Emulator Following is the screen you will be able to see and copy the URL highlighted in the red below and paste that URL into Postman. Result: Now, you need to configure the Environment while deploying the Azure function on Azure Portal, and below are steps for the same: Step 1: Deploy an Azure Function on Azure Portal. You can directly create it on Portal or you can create it from Visual Studio. Here I am going to create and deploy it from Visual Studio: Right Click on the project and select Publish: Select Azure and Click on Next: Click on the + icon to create a new function, You can use the existing resource group or create a new resource group as per your preference: After deployment is completed you can see the deployed Azure function on Azure Portal: Now, if you try to use the Azure Function URL and post the request then you will notice that all the environmental credentials part is missing as we have not configured the environment variable on the Azure portal inside Azure Function App: Step 2: Configure the App Environment variable on Azure Portal for online deployment. Navigate to the Configuration section of your deployed Azure Function Add the Application setting in your Configuration and the Name should same as you have declared in your local.setting.json file. Make sure your click on Save to update the configuration on Portal. After configuration if you test your deployed Azure function using postman you will get your expected result: This is how you can configure and use the Environment variable inside your Azure Function. It will make your life easier while deploying Azure on Development, UAT, or Production Environment. You can store the Source and Destination system credentials, SQL Access credentials, or Custom Global Variable based on your business requirement of integration.

If you want to create new records from a json data, you can do it by using Logic App. First you need to make sure to upload json file in blob container Steps for Logic App: First select a HTTP Trigger block in a new logic app designer Next step is to select Get blob content (V2) and choose the storage account name and the blob file where you uploaded the json file. Note: If you don’t have a connection to Blob Storage account already you need to create one by clicking on change connection and the Add New. You need to fill the details properly to create a correct connection. Access Key of the storage account can be found in Storage account in access keys section Now select Parse Json block to extract all values. Click on use sample payload and paste your payload there to get a schema. Note: In Content if you directly put File content then you will get error after you run the logic. Error: You get this error so for the you need to convert the octet-stream file to json file by writing the following function json(body(‘Get_blob_content_(V2)’)) Now once your json is parsed you need to create record in CRM using this data by selecting Create a new record block in CRM. You need to first sign in with your CRM account and then choose the organization and entity. Later you need to map the fields. Note: If there are mulitple records in json then the logic app will automatically take the create new record block in  for each block as a step. Now the records will be created in CRM.

In this blog, we will see how we can create a table using HTML language using the Azure logic app. If you see carefully, there is an action block present which is “Create HTML table” but it does not give formatting flexibility. so in this blog, I will explain how we can use compose block to create a table with HTML syntax Step 1: To start with the logic app I took the recurrence trigger. you can use any trigger as per your requirement (which is set to run once a day) Step 2: Compose block is an important block as we are writing HTML syntax to format our table. For the demo I used sample data otherwise you can enter dynamic fields as well. in the highlighted section. Step 3: So output of Compose block is sent as the body of the email as shown in the below screenshot. Output: Email Hope this blog helps you. Thank you !!

In this blog, we will see how we can update the records  CRM with the help of a logic app workflow. Step 1: Add the recurrence trigger in the logic app and set it to run in a one-day interval. you can set any interval. Without a trigger, you cannot create a logic app. Step 2: Add new step after recurrence trigger Step 3: Add the List records action from Dynamics 365 and connect to CRM with your credentials Select Account entity Step 4: For testing purposes, I have created a test account (account number = 1001)in the UAT environment as shown below. Step 5: Initialize the variable with account number is 1001. The account where you want to change/update the data Step 6: Filter the list of accounts where the account number is equal to 1001 as mentioned above step. Step 7: After finding a record from the account list then we will update the record here I updated the account name and city(Note: Account number should unique) Result Hope this blog helps you Thank you!