It's that time of year again! The time to be jolly and experience the Month of December by looking at the Festive Tech Calendar!

This year the Festive Tech Calendar Team is raising money for the charity @missingpeople.

We believe its important to support charities that do great work. Without fundraising Missing People wouldn’t be able to find vulnerable missing people and reunite families.

If you would like to donate please visit our Just Giving Page​

Today, we sent our present and took a peek inside the box - at Microsoft Dev Box!

Overview​

Microsoft Dev Box provides self-service access for developers to high-performance, cloud-based workstations preconfigured and ready-to-code for specific projects - all while maintaining security and corporate governance. With Microsoft Dev Box, organizations can:

• Maximize dev productivity with ready-to-code, self-service Dev Boxes.
• Central management of workstations running anywhere to maintain greater security, compliance, and cost efficiency.
• Customize dev boxes with everything developers need for their current projects.

Microsoft Dev Box supports any developer IDE, SDK, or tool that runs on Windows. Developers can target any development workload built from Windows, including desktop, mobile, IoT, and web applications. Microsoft Dev Box even supports building cross-platform apps thanks to Windows Subsystem for Linux and Windows Subsystem for Android. Remote access allows developers to securely access dev boxes from any device, whether it's Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, or a web browser.

Microsoft Dev Box is a managed service that enables developers to create on-demand, high-performance, secure, ready-to-code, project-specific workstations in the cloud.

Microsoft Dev Box is available today as a preview from the Azure Portal. During this period, organizations get the first 15 hours of the dev box 8vCPU and 32 GB Memory SKU for free every month, along with the first 365 hours of the dev box Storage SSD 512 GB SKU.

Beyond that, organizations pay only for what they use with a consumption-based pricing model. With this model, organizations are charged per hour depending on the number of Compute and Storage consumed.

To use Microsoft Dev Box, each user must be licensed for Windows 11 or 10 Enterprise, Microsoft Endpoint Manager, and Microsoft Entra ID P1. These licenses are included in M365 F3, E3, E5, A3, A5, Microsoft Business Premium and Microsoft 365 Education benefit plans.

Disclaimer: At the time of writing, this service is still in Public Preview, some services and license requirements may change by the time this becomes generally avaliable.

So, where does Microsoft Dev Box fit in?

Microsoft offers a plethora of services, from Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, and now Microsoft Dev Box - where would you use Microsoft Dev Box over another service, such as Windows 365?

General scenarios at a high level are:

Microsoft Dev box can help project and development teams get up and running quickly, independent of what hardware a developer or contractor has, whether they prefer Mac, Windows, or Linux - the Microsoft Dev box can be used to get developers and contractors up and running in a secure environment that supports Intune!

Concepts & Roles​

The following are typical Azure Dev Box roles.

Deployment​

Create Dev Center​

First, we need to create our Dev Center. A Dev Center allows us to centrally manage our developer environments and enable development teams with self-service capability. Dev Center is used by more than just Microsoft DevBox - an example is Azure Deployment Environments - which allows devs to spin up templated (ARM) application infrastructure quickly - but we will focus on components of Dev Center - used by Microsoft Dev Box.

Please confirm what region you can deploy Dev Box. As this is in Public Preview at the time of writing - only certain regions are supported.

Let's create a standard Dev Box environment in your favourite browser, starting with the Dev Center...

1. Log in to the Microsoft Azure Portal
2. Click + Create a resource
3. Search for: Dev center, select your Dev center and click Create
4. 
5. Select the Subscription and ResourceGroup you want to deploy your Dev Center; you can use this opportunity to create a new Resource Group.
6. Type in the name__ of your DevCenter **(in my example, it is named DevCenter-Devs)
7. Then select the location (region) in which you want to deploy your DevCenter.
8. 
9. Click Review + Create, then Create

Deployment of the Microsoft Dev Center will take a few minutes.

Create Virtual Network​

To use Microsoft Dev Boxes - like any Virtual Machine in Azure, you need a Virtual Network! The Dev Boxes can connect to existing Virtual Networks, which could be peered with other VNETs, have connectivity to on-premises - or have standalone secure connectivity through network links! In my demo, I don't currently have a Virtual Network - so I will create a Virtual Network from scratch.

1. Log in to the Microsoft Azure Portal
2. Click + Create a resource
3. Search for: Virtual Network
4. Create a Virtual Network
5. Select your Virtual Network name and region (make sure the region aligns with your workloads and Azure DevCenter location)
6. 
7. Click Next: IP Addresses
8. I will leave the IP address space the default of 10.1.0.0/16 - but change the default subnet name to devbox-subnet.
9. 
10. Click Review + create
11. Click Create

Create a Virtual Network Connection and link to Dev Center​

Now that we have our Dev Center and our Virtual Network - it's time to make a Network connection - this connection will be used by Dev Center - to allow our Dev Boxes to connect to the Virtual Network - and to select your Virtual Machine identification (i.e. Microsoft Entra ID, or Hybrid Microsoft Entra ID).

1. Log in to the Microsoft Azure Portal
2. Click + Create a resource.
3. Type in: Network Connection, find and click Create
4. 
5. As I will be using Microsoft Entra ID joined Virtual Machines, I will ensure that the Domain join type is: Microsoft Entra ID join.
6. For the Network connection name, I will select: ProductionVNETAADJConnection
7. I will select my Virtual Network and subnet, which the Dev Box will be placed into.
8. 
9. Click Review + Create, and click Create
10. Now that we have created the Network connection - it is time to link it to our Dev Center - so it can be used.
11. Navigate to your Dev Center
12. Under Dev Box configuration, select Networking
13. Click + Add
14. Select your Network connection that has just been created
15. 
16. Click Add
17. The Network Connection will check all the network requirements for the Dev Box service, such as the Azure tenant and Intune configuration (i.e. is there a restriction in Endpoint Management for Windows).

Create Dev box definitions​

It's time to create our Dev box definition. The Dev box definition is the type of Virtual Machines -or Dev Boxes that are standard for your environment. A dev box definition will be used to define the image (whether a custom or marketplace image), SKU of virtual machines (Compute + Memory), and available storage. Note that if you want to use a Custom Image - you will need an Azure Compute gallery, and if you decide to go down this route, make sure you check out Azure VM Image Builder to help automate and build your images. You can have multiple definitions per project.

1. Log in to the Microsoft Azure Portal
2. Navigate to your Dev center
3. Navigate to Dev box definitions
4. Click + Create
5. For our Image definition name, I will go with Win11-VS
6. For Images, there are a plethora of images available! For this guide, I will use Visual Studio 2019 Enterprise on Windows 11 Enterprise + Microsoft 365 Apps 22H2 image.
7. 
8. I will select the Latest image version and specify 4vCPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 256 GB SSD drive.
9. 
10. Click Create

You can edit a Dev box definition, change the image, Compute, and storage after it has been created; this could be useful if there are issues with the latest version of the image, you can roll back the version - so people can make their Dev Boxes while the image is worked on.

Create and assign Project​

Now that we have our Dev Center and Virtual Network connection - it is time to create a Project. A Project is intended to be task specific - an example being the following user story "As a developer working on a mobile game, I need access to a Windows 11 Development workstation with Visual Studio installed" - so all users working on that mobile game - will get an identical virtual machine setup with all the pre-requisites that the need to start development, a project team working on another mobile game, may need different software or dependencies - so will be part of another project.

1. Log in to the Microsoft Azure Portal
2. Navigate to your Dev center
3. Navigate to Projects
4. Select + Create
5. Select your Resource Group
6. Select your Dev center
7. Please type in the name of our Project and enter a description.
8. 
9. You can use Tags to add additional information on billing for the project or the project administrator's contact details - but we will select Review + create and Create
10. Once the Project has been created, we need to assign assignees to use the project. I will give a DevBox User role to the project so I can make a Dev Box.
11. Within the Project, click on the Access Control (IAM)
12. Click + Add
13. Select Add Role assignment
14. Select DevCenter Dev Box User
15. Click Next
16. Make sure User, Group, or Service principal is selected and click + Select Members.
17. Ideally, you would assign the Dev Box User role to an Azure AD group - but in my demo, I will select an individual user.
18. Click Next
19. 
20. Once you have confirmed your users have been assigned, click on Review + assign to give your users or groups to the project, allowing them to create Dev Boxes.

Note: I have found it can take 5-10 minutes for access to be granted to the users before they can create Dev Boxes.

Create Dev Box Pool​

Now that we have our project and dev box definitions - it's time to create our Dev Box Pool - which is what the Dev Boxes will be made from.

1. Log in to the Microsoft Azure Portal
2. Navigate to your Dev center
3. Navigate to Projects
4. Navigate to the project you created earlier (i.e. for me, its MobileGameDevelopment)
5. Click on the Dev box pools
6. Click on + Create
7. 
8. Type in a name - i.e. MobleDevelopmentWin11
9. Select your Network connection
10. Select your definition
11. Select your Creator privileges (i.e. select whether your user will be a standard user or have Local administrator rights on their devbox)
12. Configure Auto-stop or skip and confirm licensing.
13. Click Create

After 1-2 minutes, your Dev Box pool has been created.

Create & Connect​

Now that your Dev Center, Network, and Dev Box project has been stood up - it's time to Create and connect to your new Dev box! Microsoft Dev Box - offers a few ways to connect to the DevBox; we will go through a few options now.

Create Dev Box​

Now it's time to create our Dev Box! To do this, we need to go to the Dev box Developer portal (as a Dev Center Devbox, User)

1. Navigate to the Microsoft Dev Box portal
2. Click on + New Dev Box
3. Enter your name of the DevBox (i.e. what you will name the Virtual Machine and see in the portal - make sure this is meaningful - as you may have more than one Dev Box)
4. Select your assigned Dev Box Pool, and select your Dev Box definition
5. 
6. Click Create
7. 

Note: Dev box creation can take 30-90 minutes. Dev boxes will automatically start upon creation.

Connect Dev Box using Microsoft Dev Box Portal​

1. Navigate to the Microsoft Dev Box portal
2. Click on the Dev Box you want to connect to.
3. Select Open in the browser
4. 
5. 
6. If prompted, then log in with your credentials.
7. 
8. You will now be connected to your new Azure Dev Box!
9. 

Connect Dev Box using Remote Desktop Application​

Like Azure Virtual Desktop, you can connect to your Dev Box using the Remote Desktop client.

1. Download and install the Remote Desktop Client
2. Subscribe to the Azure workspace
3. As long as the Dev Box has been created, you can see your Dev Box and connect to it directly.
4. 

Configuration​

We can configure a few extra things for the Azure DevBox environment.

Auto-Stop​

As the Dev Box is Pay As You Go, you can ensure that a Dev Box is shut down after hours.

1. Log in to the Microsoft Azure Portal
2. Navigate to your Dev center
3. Navigate to Projects
4. Navigate to the project you created earlier (i.e. for me, its MobileGameDevelopment)
5. Click on the Dev box pools
6. Click on Edit on your pools
7. Click Enable Auto-stop
8. Select Yes
9. Configure your Stop Time and time zone

You may also have multiple pools - selected with the exact Dev box image definition - if your project runs across various timezones, so you can schedule a 7 PM Shutdown in New Zealand and a 7 PM shutdown for those developers in the United States.

Delete or Stop​

Not as much as a Configuration item, but more of a quick - howto! As a Dev Box user, you can shut down your Dev Box or delete it from the Microsoft Dev Box portal.

Additional Resources​

As Microsoft Dev Box is still in Public Preview - at the time of writing - the experience may change before its GA (Generally available).

Documentation​

Additional reading on Microsoft Dev Box can be found below:

• Microsoft Dev Box
• Microsoft Dev Box pricing
• Build developer environments fast with Microsoft Dev Box - Youtube

Azure Bicep​

Below are some Azure Bicep samples for Azure Dev Box.

Dev Center​

param name string
param location string
param tags object

resource name_resource 'Microsoft.DevCenter/devcenters@2022-08-01-preview' = {
  name: name
  location: location
  tags: tags
  identity: {
    type: 'none'
  }
}

DevBox Host Pool​

param projects_MobileGameDevelopment_name string = 'MobileGameDevelopment'

resource projects_MobileGameDevelopment_name_MobleDevelopmentWin10Secure 'Microsoft.DevCenter/projects/pools@2022-09-01-preview' = {
  name: '${projects_MobileGameDevelopment_name}/MobleDevelopmentWin10Secure'
  location: 'australiaeast'
  properties: {
    devBoxDefinitionName: 'Win10-VS'
    networkConnectionName: 'ProductionVNETAADJConnection'
    licenseType: 'Windows_Client'
    localAdministrator: 'Disabled'
  }
}

resource projects_MobileGameDevelopment_name_MobleDevelopmentWin10Secure_default 'Microsoft.DevCenter/projects/pools/schedules@2022-09-01-preview' = {
  parent: projects_MobileGameDevelopment_name_MobleDevelopmentWin10Secure
  name: 'default'
  properties: {
    type: 'StopDevBox'
    frequency: 'Daily'
    time: '11:15'
    timeZone: 'Pacific/Auckland'
    state: 'Enabled'
  }
}

Azure is a cloud computing platform that provides a wide range of services and capabilities for building and deploying applications and workloads in the cloud. In contrast, hosting your own datacenter involves setting up and managing a physical infrastructure, including servers, storage, networking, and other components, in a location controlled by the organization.

Azure and hosting your own datacenter are two different approaches for deploying and managing applications and workloads.

There are several key differences between Azure and hosting your own datacenter, including the following:

• Capital expenditure and operational costs: Azure is a pay-as-you-go service, with no upfront costs or long-term commitments, while hosting your own datacenter involves a significant capital expenditure, and ongoing costs for maintenance, support, and infrastructure upgrades.
• Scalability and elasticity: Azure provides automatic scalability and elasticity, with the ability to scale up and down on demand, and pay only for the resources that are used, while hosting your own datacenter requires manual scaling and capacity planning, and may result in underutilized or overutilized resources.
• Security and compliance: Azure provides built-in security and compliance features, with the ability to deploy and manage applications and workloads in a secure and compliant manner, while hosting your own datacenter requires the implementation and maintenance of security and compliance controls, and may expose the organization to security and compliance risks.
• Integration and interoperability: Azure integrates well with other Azure services and technologies, as well as with on-premises environments, while hosting your own datacenter may require the use of complex integration and interoperability solutions, and may result in vendor lock-in and interoperability challenges.

Overall, Azure and hosting your own datacenter are two different approaches, with different advantages and disadvantages. Azure can provide a more cost-effective, scalable, and secure solution, but may require the adoption of a different operating model and a learning curve, while hosting your own datacenter can provide more control and flexibility, but may require a larger investment and ongoing operational costs.

The total cost of ownership (TCO) of Azure and on-premises can vary depending on several factors, including the specific services and resources that are used, the usage patterns and workloads, the pricing options and discounts, and the cost optimization strategies and techniques that are implemented.

In general, the TCO of Azure can be lower than the TCO of on-premises, for the following reasons:

• Azure provides a pay-as-you-go pricing model, with no upfront costs or long-term commitments, and the ability to scale up and down on demand, and pay only for the resources that are used. This can help to reduce the overall TCO, compared to the upfront capital expenditure and ongoing operational costs of on-premises infrastructure.
• Azure provides built-in support and maintenance services, as part of the subscription fees, and the ability to choose from different support and maintenance plans, depending on the specific needs and requirements of the organization. This can help to reduce the TCO, compared to the costs of hiring and maintaining a dedicated IT staff for on-premises infrastructure.
• Azure provides built-in security and compliance features, and the ability to deploy and manage applications and workloads in a secure and compliant manner. This can help to reduce the TCO, compared to the costs of implementing and maintaining security and compliance controls for on-premises infrastructure.

Overall, the TCO of Azure can be lower than the TCO of on-premises, due to the pay-as-you-go pricing model, the built-in support and maintenance services, and the built-in security and compliance features. However, the actual TCO may vary depending on the specific needs and requirements of the organization, and on the implementation and cost optimization strategies that are used.

Azure Storage account SFTP functionality has now gone GA (Generally Available) across most regions as part of the GA release - SFTP support for Azure Storage accounts was free while it was in preview - but now that the service is GA - there is an additional charge for SFTP (Secure File Transfer) functionality.

Enabling the SFTP endpoint has a cost of $0.30 per hour. We will start applying this hourly cost on or after December 1, 2022.

This service has worked for me without a hitch for months, but as with most resources in Microsoft Azure - you pay for what you use! Therefore, there may be instances where you do not need SFTP support 24 hours a day, seven days a week! This is where the following Azure Automation runbook can help.

Feel free to check out a previous article on setting up SFTP support for an Azure storage account.

Overview​

Using an Azure Automation PowerShell runbook and Schedules (as part of the Azure Automation account) - we can turn on the SFTP endpoint - when we need it and disable it - the rest of the time - which is excellent from a security and cost perspective.

Prerequisites​

To do this, we will need an:

• Azure Automation Account
• System Managed Identity set with Storage Account Contributor rights
• PowerShell runbook (supplied below)

For this article, I will assume you already have an Azure Automation account - if you do not - then follow the Microsoft documentation: Create a standalone Azure Automation account.

Deploy & Configure​

Now that the Azure Automation account has been configured and set up - we need to add the Runbook, but before we can do that - there are some dependencies. For example, SFTP is a new service that the currently installed Az Modules in the Azure Automation don't have visibility on - so to configure the SFTP service - we need to update 2 Modules to the most recent version.

These modules are:

• Az.Accounts (≥ 2.10.3)
• Az.Storage

Az.Accounts are a dependent service of the latest Az.Storage account, so let us import that first.

Update Az.Accounts module​

1. In the Azure Portal, navigate to Azure Automation accounts.
2. Find your Azure Automation account and, click on it, navigate to Modules (under Shared resources).
3. Select Browse Gallery
4. Search for: Az.Accounts
5. 
6. Click 'Az.Accounts' and select Select.
7. Set the runtime version to: 5.1 & select import
8. Wait for 5 minutes while the module imports.

Update Az.Storage module​

Note: the Az.The accounts module will need to finish its import before the Az.The storage module is updated.

1. In the Azure Portal, navigate to Azure Automation accounts.
2. Find your Azure Automation account and, click on it, navigate to Modules (under Shared resources).
3. Select Browse Gallery
4. Search for: Az.Storage
5. 
6. Click 'Az.Storage' and select Select.
7. Set the runtime version to: 5.1 & select import
8. Wait for 5 minutes while the module imports.

Create System Managed Identity​

Now that the base Modules have been updated, we need to create a System Managed Identity - this Managed Identity will allow the Azure Automation runbook to authenticate to your Azure resources - and, in our example - make changes, such as Disabling or Enabling the SFTP service. This System Managed Identity will need Storage Account Contributor rights.

1. In the Azure Portal, navigate to Azure Automation accounts.
2. Find your Azure Automation account and click on it; click on Identity (under Account Settings)
3. Select Status to: On and select Save
4. Click on: Azure role assignments
   1. Select your Scope (in our example, we will go with Storage - to limit what changes this Azure Automation account can make)
   2. Select the Subscription and Storage account Resource on which you want to disable or enable the SFTP service.
   3. For the role, select Storage Account Contributor.
   4. Click Save

You should now see the Azure automation account, listed as having Storage account contributor rights - under your Automation account's Access Control (IAM) blade.

Import Runbook - Set-AzStgFTP.ps1​

Now that the AzAccounts, Az.Storage modules have been updated, and the Azure Automation account has been given permission - to enable and disable the SFTP service on the storage account- it's time to import the Runbook that will make this happen.

1. In the Azure Portal, navigate to Azure Automation accounts.

2. Find your Azure Automation account and, click on it, navigate to Runbooks (under Process Automation).

3. Click + Create a Runbook

4. Enter your runbook name (i.e. Set-AzSFTP)

5. Select the Runbook type as PowerShell

6. Select the Runtime version as: 5.1

7. [Optional] Add a description of what this Runbook does and who to contact.

8. Click Create

9. Open the newly created blank Runbook, and select Edit

10. Copy the following PowerShell script into the Edit pane:

     param
        (
            [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,Position = 0, HelpMessage = 'Enter the Azure Resource Group, that contains your Azure Storage account')]
            [string]
            $resourceGroupName,
        
            [Parameter(Position = 1, Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage = 'Enter the Azure Storage account name')]
            [string]
            $storageAccountName,
        
            [Parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage = '$True = Enable SFTP & $False = Disable SFTP')][ValidateSet('False','True')]
            $enableSftp
        )
      
          <#
        .SYNOPSIS
        Disables or enables SFTP support on an Azure Storage Account.
        .DESCRIPTION
        Disables or enables SFTP support on an Azure Storage Account. The intention is for this script to be used in Azure Automation, alongside a Schedule to enable or disable SFTP support on an Azure Storage Account.
    
        .EXAMPLE
        Set-AzStgSFTP -resourceGroupName sftp_prod -storageAccountName sftpprod0 -EnableSFTP $true
      #>
    
      
      # Ensures you do not inherit an AzContext in your runbook
    Disable-AzContextAutosave -Scope Process
    
    Import-Module -Name Az.Storage
    # Connect to Azure with system-assigned managed identity
    $AzureContext = (Connect-AzAccount -Identity).context
    
    Write-Output -InputObject $AzureContext
    Write-Output -InputObject $AzureContext.Subscription
    Write-Output -InputObject $resourceGroupName 
    Write-Output -InputObject $storageAccountName
    Write-Output -InputObject $EnableSFTP
    # set and store context
    $AzureContext = Set-AzContext -SubscriptionName $AzureContext.Subscription -DefaultProfile $AzureContext
    
      
      $SetSFTP = [System.Convert]::ToBoolean($enableSftp)
    
        $SFTPStatusBefore = Get-AzStorageAccount -DefaultProfile $AzureContext -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Name $storageAccountName | Select-Object -ExpandProperty EnableSftp
    
        $Status = $SFTPStatusBefore -replace 'True', 'Enabled' -replace 'False', 'Disabled'
    
        Write-Output -InputObject ('SFTP for {0} currently has SFTP set to: {1} before update.' -f $storageAccountName, $Status)
      
        Set-AzStorageAccount -DefaultProfile $AzureContext -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Name $storageAccountName -EnableSftp $SetSFTP 
       
    
        $SFTPStatusAfter = Get-AzStorageAccount -DefaultProfile $AzureContext -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Name $storageAccountName | Select-Object -ExpandProperty EnableSftp
    
        $Status = $SFTPStatusAfter -replace 'True', 'Enabled' -replace 'False', 'Disabled'
    
        Write-Output -InputObject ('SFTP for {0} currently has SFTP set to: {1} after update.' -f $storageAccountName, $Status)
    

11. Click Save

12. Click Publish

Run Runbook - Set-AzStgFTP​

Now that the Runbook is imported, we need to run it.

The Runbook uses the following parameters:

1. Next, find your Runbook, and select Start.
2. Enter your parameters, Resource Group, Storage Account and Enable SFTP.
3. 
4. Click Ok
5. The Runbook will run, and as you can see - outputs its state Before the Runbook ran and after.
6. 

Once working correctly, you can set up an Azure Automation schedule to trigger the runbook to enable and disable the SFTP when needed only!

Azure-Firewall-mon is a near real-time Azure Firewall log viewer.

Azure-Firewall-mon provides an alternative_and_opinable 😊 way to access and inspect Azure Firewall logs. The recommended approach for analysing Azure Firewall logs is to set up a Log Analytics Workspace to collect all the data and use Kusto (KQL) queries to check what's happening.

In Azure-Firewall-mon, the idea is to provide an approach much more like Sysinternals Process Monitor or Check Point's SmartView, where there is no queries or dashboards that you need to implement first to get working. Still, all events are available as a log stream. In addition, a full-text search at the top of the page lets you quickly filter the content displayed on the screen, helping you understand what is happening right now (or close to present).

Overview​

Azure-Firewall-mon (AFM or Azure Firewall Monitor) is a custom solution (currently in a functional beta) created by an Italian Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect called: Nicola Delfino, its worth mentioning that although a Microsoft CSA makes AFM, IT IS NOT A SUPPORTED MICROSOFT PRODUCT.

Monitoring Azure Firewall can be a pain - with trawling through logs - using the Azure Firewall Workbook - helps fill in the gap - especially around the application and network rule traffic. Still, you may want something more straightforward and designed for real-time traffic to assist with in-the-moment troubleshooting.

Azure-Firewall-mon is an open-source, single Page Application written in Angular and hosted on an Azure WebApp - so to use this, you don't need to deploy to your environment.. add in an Event Hub connection string, and away you go (there is also a demo mode - so you can see what the experience will be like)!

We can deploy it to an Azure Static Web App for those who would instead host it in our environment.

"Azure Static Web Apps is a service that automatically builds and deploys full-stack web apps to Azure from a code repository. When you create an Azure Static Web Apps resource, Azure interacts directly with GitHub or Azure DevOps to monitor a branch of your choice. Every time you push commits or accept pull requests into the watched branch, a build is automatically run and your app and API is deployed to Azure."

Deployment​

Prerequisites​

Today, we are going to deploy Azure-Firewall-mon into an Azure Static Web App - to do this; we will need the following prerequisites:

• A GitHub account
• An Azure subscription_(with permissions to deploy Event Hub, deploy an Azure Static WebApp, and configure Diagnostics on the Azure Firewall)_
• Azure Firewall (provisioned)

Note: Also, ensure that your Event Hub is in the same region as your Azure Firewall so that you can use Diagnostics settings. Regarding the Azure Static WebApp - it doesn't matter; this is a global service - and you will be entering the Event Hub listener.

We will use the Azure Portal and a browser to provision the workflow (however, I will have added Azure Bicep to the bottom of the article for reference).

This article - assumes you have basic knowledge of GitHub and Microsoft Azure.

For this demo, I am using a Hub & Spoke Azure topology.

Fork the GitHub repository​

The first thing we need to do is clone the Azure-Firewall-mon repository; this repository holds the source control of Azure-Firewall-mon. First, however, we need a clone of it - to use in our Static Web App - this will also allow us to pull down and build the latest changes and updates of the Azure-Firewall-mon tool while having the stability of maintaining your version of the device.

1. In your favourite browser of choice, navigate to: https://github.com/nicolgit/azure-firewall-mon.
2. Click Fork (top right of the repository)
3. 
4. Click Create fork
5. You have now created a fork of the 'azure-firewall-mon' repository; when a new update of Azure-Firewall-mon comes out - you can also select 'Sync fork' - to keep your fork up-to-date and trigger a new build.

Create Static Web App and deploy azure-firewall-mon​

Now that you have created a fork, it's time to make your Azure Static WebApp!

1. Navigate to the Azure Portal
2. Click + Create a resource
3. Type in: Static Web App
4. Select and click Create
5. Create or select a Resource Group
6. Type in the name of your Static Web App
7. For the plan type, we will go with Free
8. Please select your region (this is the staging environment used to create your resource so the Azure Static Web App can then be replicated geographically).
9. Select Source, as GitHub
10. Click Sign in with GitHub (and sign in with an account with access to the GitHub Repository fork of azure-firewall-mon created earlier).
11. Authorise the Azure Static Web Apps to have access to your repositories
12. Select your organisation and the azure-firewall-mon repository you forked earlier.
13. Select 'main' for the branch
14. Under Build Presents, select Angular
15. For App location, enter "/firewall-mon-app/"
16. Leave the API location empty
17. For the Output location, enter: "dist/firewall-mon-app"
18. 
19. If you navigate to your own forked GitHub repository, you should see a new folder created under .github/workflows - and a new GitHub Actions workflow file!
20. 
21. If you select Actions in GitHub, you should see a deployment start.
22. After roughly 5 minutes, your Azure Static App - will have deployed azure-firewall-mon!
23. Navigate to your newly created Azure Static App in the Azure Portal
24. Click Browse
25. You should now see azure-firewall-mon!
26. 

Note: In GitHub, under Actions and the Build and Deploy Job, you may see a message about Note.js 12 actions being deprecated; you can set the node version to be higher.

Add the step to set the node version below submodules and above the Build and Deploy step:

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: "18.x"

Refer to a copy of my Github Actions file here: AzureStaticWebAppsCICD.yml for a comparison of GitHub action - a setup-node step running on the latest version of 18.

Create Event Hub namespace and shared access policy​

Even if you use the externally hosted version of Azure Firewall Monitor, you still need an Event Hub and Namespace to stream the events from our Azure Firewall to the Azure Firewall Monitor.

1. Navigate to the Azure Portal

2. Click + Create a resource

3. Type in: Event Hubs

4. Select and click Create

5. Select your subscription and Resource Group;

6. Type in the Namespace of the event hub (i.e. AzureFirewallMonitor)

7. Select your location (make sure this is the same region as your Azure Firewall)

8. Select your Pricing Tier (in this example, I am going with Basic)

9. Click Review + create

10. Once the Namespace has been created, it's time to make our Event Hub; navigate to your newly created AzFirewallMonitor namespace.

11. Under Entitles, click + Event Hub

12. Under the name, enter the Event Hub name (i.e. AzMonitorCapture)

13. Leave the defaults (and Message retention to 1 day)

14. Click Review + Create

15. Click Create

16. 

17. Now that the Event Hub is created, we need to create a Shared access policy; in the Event Hub namespace, click on Shared access policies.

18. Click + Add

19. Type in a Policy name(i.e. AzMonitorListener)

20. Select Send

21. Click Create

22. 

    Configure Azure Firewall to stream to Event Hub and run Azure Firewall monitor​

    Now that we have an Event Hub configured and a Shared access policy set to Listen - it's time to configure the Azure Firewall to direct logs to the Namespace.

23. Navigate to the Azure Portal

24. Navigate to your Azure Firewall

25. Select Diagnostic Settings

26. Click + Add diagnostic setting

27. 

28. Type in a Diagnostic setting name (i.e. AzureFirewallMonitor)

29. Select All Logs

30. Select Stream to an event hub

31. Select your subscription, event hub namespace, event hub and policy created earlier.

32. 

33. Click Save

34. Please navigate back to your Event Hub namespace and select your Event Hub entity; now, we need to create a Shared access policy to Listen (for the entity, not the Namespace)

35. Click Shared access policies, and create a new Shared access policy with Listen.

36. Copy the Connection string-primary key

37. Navigate to your newly created Azure Static App in the Azure Portal

38. Click Browse

39. You should now see azure-firewall-mon, and enter in the Connection string-primary key copied earlier!

40. Congratulations you have now set up Azure Firewall Monitor on an Azure Static Web App and can troubleshoot your Azure Firewall quickly in real-time!

41. 

References: GitHub Action​

name: Azure Static Web Apps CI/CD

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened, closed]
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  build_and_deploy_job:
    if: github.event_name == 'push' || (github.event_name == 'pull_request' && github.event.action != 'closed')
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Build and Deploy Job
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          submodules: true

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: "18.x"
      - name: Build And Deploy
        id: builddeploy
        uses: Azure/static-web-apps-deploy@v1
        with:
          azure_static_web_apps_api_token: ${{ secrets.AZURE_STATIC_WEB_APPS_API_TOKEN_POLITE_CLIFF_06D4C2810 }}
          repo_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} # Used for Github integrations (i.e. PR comments)
          action: "upload"
          ###### Repository/Build Configurations - These values can be configured to match your app requirements. ######
          # For more information regarding Static Web App workflow configurations, please visit: https://aka.ms/swaworkflowconfig
          app_location: "/firewall-mon-app/" # App source code path
          api_location: "" # Api source code path - optional
          output_location: "dist/firewall-mon-app" # Built app content directory - optional

          ###### End of Repository/Build Configurations ######

  close_pull_request_job:
    if: github.event_name == 'pull_request' && github.event.action == 'closed'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Close Pull Request Job
    steps:
      - name: Close Pull Request
        id: closepullrequest
        uses: Azure/static-web-apps-deploy@v1
        with:
          azure_static_web_apps_api_token: ${{ secrets.AZURE_STATIC_WEB_APPS_API_TOKEN_POLITE_CLIFF_06D4C2810 }}
          action: "close"

References: Azure Bicep​

Below are some Azure Bicep references:

Azure Static Web App​

param staticSites_AzFw_Mon_name string = 'AzFw-Mon'

resource staticSites_AzFw_Mon_name_resource 'Microsoft.Web/staticSites@2022-03-01' = {
  name: staticSites_AzFw_Mon_name
  location: 'Central US'
  sku: {
    name: 'Free'
    tier: 'Free'
  }
  properties: {
    repositoryUrl: 'https://github.com/lukemurraynz/azure-firewall-mon'
    branch: 'main'
    stagingEnvironmentPolicy: 'Enabled'
    allowConfigFileUpdates: true
    provider: 'GitHub'
    enterpriseGradeCdnStatus: 'Disabled'
  }
}

Event Hub​

param namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name string = 'AzFirewallMonitor'
param location string = resourceGroup().location


resource namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_resource 'Microsoft.EventHub/namespaces@2022-01-01-preview' = {
  name: namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name
  location: 'Australia East'
  sku: {
    name: 'Basic'
    tier: 'Basic'
    capacity: 1
  }
  properties: {
    minimumTlsVersion: '1.2'
    publicNetworkAccess: 'Enabled'
    disableLocalAuth: false
    zoneRedundant: true
    isAutoInflateEnabled: false
    maximumThroughputUnits: 0
    kafkaEnabled: false
  }
}

resource namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_AzMonitorListner 'Microsoft.EventHub/namespaces/authorizationrules@2022-01-01-preview' = {
  parent: namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_resource
  name: 'AzMonitorListner'
  location: location
  properties: {
    rights: [
      'Listen'
      'Send'
    ]
  }
}


resource namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_azmonitorcapture 'Microsoft.EventHub/namespaces/eventhubs@2022-01-01-preview' = {
  parent: namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_resource
  name: 'azmonitorcapture'
  location: location
  properties: {
    messageRetentionInDays: 1
    partitionCount: 2
    status: 'Active'
  }
}

resource namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_default 'Microsoft.EventHub/namespaces/networkRuleSets@2022-01-01-preview' = {
  parent: namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_resource
  name: 'default'
  location: location
  properties: {
    publicNetworkAccess: 'Enabled'
    defaultAction: 'Allow'
    virtualNetworkRules: []
    ipRules: []
  }
}

resource namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_azmonitorcapture_AzMonitor 'Microsoft.EventHub/namespaces/eventhubs/authorizationrules@2022-01-01-preview' = {
  parent: namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_azmonitorcapture
  name: 'AzMonitor'
  location: location
  properties: {
    rights: [
      'Listen'
    ]
  }
  dependsOn: [

    namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_resource
  ]
}

resource namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_azmonitorcapture_Default 'Microsoft.EventHub/namespaces/eventhubs/consumergroups@2022-01-01-preview' = {
  parent: namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_azmonitorcapture
  name: '$Default'
  location: location
  properties: {
  }
  dependsOn: [

    namespaces_AzFirewallMonitor_name_resource
  ]
}

You don't have a be a Microsoft MVP to engage with Microsoft product teams, and help give feedback! One of the best ways that the Microsoft product teams engage with the community- is through Public Community Calls!

Here is a list of the community calls across Microsoft Azure products.

There may be other communities I have missed - so feel free to add links in the comments.

Up-to-date links to additional public Microsoft community calls can also be found on the AWESOME-Azure-Architecture list.