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Managing Azure API Management with APIOPS

Azure's API Management (APIM) resource is one of the most complex in the Azure ecosystem. It has several configuration pieces such as API endpoints, policy objects and secrets, with relationships between these objects. This complexity carries into Infrastructure as Code (IaC). When exporting an APIM instance with a few configuration items, the resulting ARM template can easily be over 15,000 lines line. Even using Bicep, where we can experience a 4:1 reduction in line count, we would be dealing with a very large file.

This leads to a conclusion that managing an APIM instance solely using Bicep or Terraform would be difficult. Fortunately, Microsoft have provided a toolset called "API Ops" which allows easy importing and exporting of APIM configuration.

  • in Azure
  • 2 min read

Rendering Issues with Nodejs/NextJS and Azure Front Door

Recently at my workplace, a new application using Node JS and NextJS was implemented. As with all our public facing websites, it was placed behind Azure’s Front Door service, to provide web application firewall (WAF) and caching functionality.

During testing, it was discovered that the site would sometimes not render properly. However it wasn’t a 100% failure rate.

An Early Theory – Geography

Early on a common theme was noticed. If the user device was located in Brisbane, regardless of OS, browser or ISP used, the site would fail to render. If the device was in or close to Sydney, it would render properly. Trying a few other geographical points using VPNs showed similar behaviours.

Azure Defender for DevOps – First Impressions

The recent batch of high profile security incidents at various companies in Australia highlights the need for appropriate security measures across all components of an organisation’s infrastructure. Defender for DevOps is a new functional addon (in preview) to Defender for Cloud. It provides security functionality for your code respositories and associated components.

Setup

When navigating to the Defender for Cloud interface, a new option will appear under the “Cloud Security” heading.

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Once we click on this, we are presented with an intro splash page with steps to getting started. The first step is to connect to the environments. Both Azure DevOps and Github repositories are supported environments.