This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Azure App Services currently provides two workflows for scaling: scale up and scale out.
Scale up: Get more CPU, memory, disk space, and extra features. You scale up by changing the pricing tier of the App Service plan that your app belongs to.
Scale out: Increase the number of VM instances that run your app. You can scale out to as many as 30 instances, depending on your pricing tier. App Service Environments in Isolated tier further increases your scale-out count to 100 instances. You can scale manually or automatically based on predefined rules and schedules.
These existing scaling workflows work well, but you may want to instead have the App Service platform automatically scale your web app without the hassle of defining auto-scaling rules & schedules.
We are introducing a new platform-managed automatic scaling feature in Azure App Services. Below is a list of key features provided by App Service’s built-in automatic scaling feature:
The App Service platform will automatically scale out the number of running instances of your application to keep up with the flow of incoming HTTP requests, and automatically scale in your application by reducing the number of running instances when incoming request traffic slows down.
Developers can define per web app scaling and control the minimum number of running instances per web app.
Developers can control the maximum number of instances that an underlying app service plan can scale out to. This ensures that connected resources like databases do not become a bottleneck once automatic scaling is triggered.
Enable or disable automatic scaling for existing app service plans, as well as apps within these plans.
Address cold start issues for your web apps with pre-warmed instances. These instances act as a buffer when scaling out your web apps.
Automatic scaling works with the existing Premium Pv2 and Pv3 SKUs.
Automatic scaling is billed on per second basis and uses the existing Pv2 and Pv3 billing meters.
Pre-warmed instances are also charged on per second basis using the existing Pv2 and Pv3 billing meters once it’s allocated for use by your web app [For additional details about pre-warmed instances refer to AZ Cli section below ]
Use Azure CLI or ARM templates to enable automatic scaling.
Suggested scenarios for automatic scaling:
You want your web app to scale automatically without setting up an auto-scale schedule or set of auto-scale rules based on various resource metrics.
You want your web apps within the same app service plan to scale differently and independently of each other.
A web app is connected to backend data sources like databases or legacy systems which may not be able to scale as fast as the web app. Automatic scaling allows you to set the maximum number of instances your app service plan can scale to. This helps avoid scenarios where a backend is a bottleneck to scaling and is overwhelmed by the web app.
Enable Automatic scaling using Azure CLI:
Step 1:
This step enables automatic scaling for your existing app service plan and web apps within this plan
az resource update -g <<resource group name>> -n <<app service plan name>> –set properties.ElasticScaleEnabled=1 –resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms
az resource update -g sampleResourceGroup -n sampleAppServicePlan –set properties.ElasticScaleEnabled=1 –resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms [This enables automatic scaling for the app service plan named “sampleAppServicePlan”]
*** In some scenarios while setting the value of ElasticScaleEnabled=1 for an existing app service plan for App service Linux you may receive an error message (“Operation returned an invalid status ‘Bad Request’”). In such scenarios follow below mentioned steps:
Execute above step using the — debug flag to return details about the error
az resource update -g <<resource group name>> -n <<app service plan name>> –set properties.ElasticScaleEnabled=1 –resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms — debug (You can now view detailed error message which should be similar to “Message”:”Requested feature is not available in resource group <<Your Resource Group Name>>. Please try using a different resource group or create a new one.”)
You should now create a new resource group and an app service plan (It is recommended to use PV3 SKU for the new app service plan) and then set ElasticScaleEnabled=1
Step 2:
This step defines maximum number of instances that your app service plan can scale to
az resource update -g <<resource group name>> -n <<app service plan name>> — properties.maximumElasticWorkerCount=** –resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms
az resource update -g sampleResourceGroup -n sampleAppServicePlan — properties.maximumElasticWorkerCount=10 –resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms [This sets the max scale out limit of app service plan named “sampleAppServicePlan” to 10 instances]
*** Value of maximumElasticWorkerCount should be less than or equal to 30 (Maximum instances that a premium SKU app service plan can scale out)
*** Value of maximumElasticWorkerCount should be greater than or equal to current instance count (NumberOfWorkers) for your app service plan
Step 3:
This step enables minimum number of instances that your web app will always be available on (per app scaling)
az resource update -g <<resource group name>> -n <<web app name>>/config/web –set properties.minimumElasticInstanceCount=** –resource-type Microsoft.Web/sites
az resource update -g sampleResourceGroup -n sampleWebApp/config/web –set properties.minimumElasticInstanceCount=5 –resource-type Microsoft.Web/sites[This sets the minimum number of instances for the web app named “sampleWebApp” to 5. In this example Web app named “sampleWebApp” is deployed to app service plan named “sampleAppServicePlan “]
Step 4:
This step enables the number of pre-warmed instances readily available for your web app to scale (buffer instances).
*** Default value of “preWarmedInstanceCount” is set as 1 and for most scenarios this value should remain as 1
az resource update -g <<resource group name>> -n <<web app name>>/config/web –set properties.preWarmedInstanceCount=** –resource-type Microsoft.Web/sites
az resource update -g sampleResourceGroup -n sampleWebApp/config/web –set properties.preWarmedInstanceCount=2 –resource-type Microsoft.Web/sites[This sets the number of buffer instances available for automatic scaling for the web app named “sampleWebApp” to 2]
*** Assuming that your web app has five always ready instances (minimumElasticInstanceCount=5) and the default of one pre-warmed instance. When your web app is idle and no HTTP requests are received, the app is provisioned and running with five instances. At this time, you aren’t billed for a pre-warmed instance as the always-ready instances aren’t used, and no pre-warmed instance is allocated. Once your web app starts receiving HTTP Requests and the five always-ready instances become active, and a pre-warmed instance is allocated and the billing for it starts. If the rate of HTTP Requests received by your web app continues to increase, the five active instances are eventually used and when App services decides to scale beyond five instances, it scales into the pre-warmed instance. When that happens, there are now six active instances, and a seventh instance is instantly provisioned and fill the pre-warmed buffer. This sequence of scaling and pre-warming continues until the maximum instance count for the app is reached. No instances are pre-warmed or activated beyond the maximum.
Step 5:
This step disables automatic scaling for your existing app service plan and web apps within this plan
az resource update -g <<resource group name>> -n <<app service plan name>> –set properties.ElasticScaleEnabled=0 –resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms
az resource update -g sampleResourceGroup -n sampleAppServicePlan –set properties.ElasticScaleEnabled=0 –resource-type Microsoft.Web/serverfarms [This disables automatic scaling for the app service plan named “sampleAppServicePlan”]
FAQ:
The App Service automatic scaling feature is currently in early preview.
Automatic scaling is currently supported for Azure App Service for Windows and Linux.(App service for Windows containers and App Service Environments do not support automatic scaling)
Automatic scaling can be configured via Azure CLI and ARM templates only. Azure Portal (UX) support for this feature will be enabled in a future release.
Automatic scaling is available only for Azure App Services Premium Pv2 and Pv3 SKUs
App Service’s automatic scaling feature is different than Azure Autoscale. Automatic scaling is a new built-in feature of the App Service platform that automatically handles web app scaling decisions for you. Azure Autoscale is a pre-existing Azure feature for defining schedule-based and resource-based scaling rules for your app service plans. for your app service plans.
Once automatic scaling is configured, existing Azure Autoscale rules and schedules (if any) will not be honored. Applications can use either automatic scaling, or Azure Autoscale, but not both. If you disable automatic scaling for your app service plan by setting ElasticScaleEnabled=0; existing Autoscale rules if any, will be applicable once again
Health check should not be enabled on web apps with this automatic scaling feature turned on. Due to the rapid scaling provided by this feature, the health check requests can cause unnecessary fluctuations in HTTP traffic. Automatic scaling has its own internal health probes that are used to make informed scaling decisions.
You can only have Azure App Service web apps in the app service plan where you wish to enable automatic scaling. If you have existing Azure Functions apps in the same app service plan, or if you create new Azure Functions apps, then automatic scaling will be disabled. For Functions it is advised to use the Azure Functions Premium plan instead.
This article was originally posted by the FTC. See the original article here.
Since the pandemic began, the Federal Trade Commission has sent hundreds of cease and desist letters to companies that claimed their products and therapies can prevent, treat, or cure COVID-19. The sellers promoted their products and services through a variety of outlets, including social media.
Social media platforms have played a major role in conveying information about how to help stop the spread of COVID-19. But just because the information is running on a platform you use doesn’t mean it’s accurate or truthful. Right now, no one can afford to take information at face value. Before you act on a message you’ve seen or before you share it, ask — and answer — these critical questions:
Who is the message from? Do I know them? Do I trust them? Am I positive they are who they say they are?
What do they want me to do? Just know something — or are they trying to get me to act in some way? Do they want me to buy something, download something, or give up personal info?
What evidence supports the message? Use some independent sources to fact-check it — or debunk it. Maybe talk to someone you trust. But always verify, using a few additional sources. Once you’ve done that, does the message still seem accurate? Approaching information by asking and answering these questions can help you sort out what’s helpful…and what’s a scam. So, for example, if the message is about a treatment or cure, you know where to go: Coronavirus.gov.
Bottom line: when you come across information, stop. Talk to someone else. Focus on whether the facts back up the information you’re hearing. Good, solid evidence will point you in the right direction. Then decide what you think and what you want to do with the message – pass it on, act on it, ignore it, or roll your eyes at it. And if you suspect a scam, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov so we can shut the scammers down.
Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
This article was originally posted by the FTC. See the original article here.
If it takes a village to raise a child, crowdfunding may be what it takes to make that invention a reality. But scammers could be behind those crowdfunding efforts and take your money without delivering what they promise.
Crowdfunding can help raise money to develop a new product or invention. To get investors, the organizer may promise something in exchange for contributions. Investors might get a payout once the invention is profitable, be the first to get the new product, or get the new product at a discount later on.
When you give money to a crowdfunding campaign, it goes directly to the campaign organizer. But a dishonest businessperson might lie about the project, product, and timeline. And they might lie about the rewards you’ll get once the product is finished.
So before you pledge funds to any crowdfunding campaign, check on a few things first:
Who created the campaign? Find the name of the organizer on the crowdfunding page and do your own vetting. If you can’t find anything about that person, or the details don’t match what they’re telling you, that’s a sign of a scam. Search for the name of the organizer and project with the words “complaint,” “review,” or “scam” to see if anyone has already had a negative experience.
What’s the purpose of the campaign? Be clear what the funds are for and what you should expect from your contribution. Not all campaigns promise you’ll get anything in return.
What happens if the project doesn’t get off the ground? There’s no guarantee that the project will be successful and completed.Find out what happens to your money if the project doesn’t get going. Can you expect a refund? How you will get it?
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets lets you create and manage a group of virtual machines to run your app or workload and provides sophisticated load-balancing, management, and automation. This is a critical service for creating and dynamically managing thousands of VMs in your environment. If you are new to the service this show will get you up to speed or if you haven’t looked at VM Scale Sets in a while we’ll show you how the service has significantly evolved to help you efficiently architect your apps for centralized configuration, high availability, auto-scaling and performance, cost optimization, security, and more.
We are Microsoft’s official video series for IT. You can watch and share valuable content and demos of current and upcoming tech from the people who build it at Microsoft.
-Welcome to Azure Essentials. I’m Matt McSpirit, and in the next few minutes, I’ll give you an overview of Azure virtual machine scale sets, a critical service for creating and dynamically managing thousands of VMs in your environment. Now if you are new to the service this will get you up to speed, or if you haven’t looked at VM scale sets in a while we’ll show you how it has significantly evolved to help you efficiently architect your apps for centralized configuration, high availability, auto-scaling and performance, cost optimization, security, and more.
-So, let’s start by addressing what is a Virtual Machine Scale Set in Azure? Well as the name implies, this Azure service lets you create and manage a group of virtual machines to run your app or workload and provides sophisticated load-balancing, management, and automation. VM Scale Sets lays the foundation for centralized and consistent configuration of VMs in your environment. One of the primary functions is to specify a VM template with the characteristics that you need for your apps and workloads to run reliably. This includes: the VM image, with support for Windows and Linux platform images as well as your own custom images, the VM size, your networking parameters, the number of VM instances in the group, and with virtual machine extensions you can also add post-deployment configuration like monitoring, anti-malware and automation.
-As you set them up, there are two management modes to deploy your scale sets: Uniform Orchestration, which is optimized for large stateless workloads where your VM instances are identical. Or the newer Flexible orchestration mode, which adds more options: from running workloads with different VM types; or changing your VM sizes without redeploying your scale set; to architecting your scale sets for high availability. And the good news is, they are all easy to set up. You can define your Virtual Machine Scale Set in the Azure Portal as you just saw or with an Azure Resource Manager Template. Of course, if you prefer you can use scripting tools like Azure CLI, PowerShell, and even infrastructure as code tools like Terraform.
-Once set up, any new VM added to the scale set will inherit the configurations that you have defined. And it’s easy to make changes across your scale set. For example, with image-based upgrades, when a new version of a custom or marketplace image is made available, Virtual Machine Scale Sets will detect that and start upgrading the VM instances in batches, and you can use protection policies to exclude VMs that you don’t want to upgrade. Or another example of what you can do is to upgrade your existing VMs in one-go to take advantage of the latest and greatest VMs in Azure.
-That said, beyond consistent configurations, scale sets are used to distribute your business-critical application across multiple instances to provide high availability. And this is achieved in a number of ways. For example, you can automatically distribute up to 1,000 VM instances between availability zones in minutes. This gives you utmost availability, up to 99.99%, and helps you to mitigate any possible datacenter wide issues. Availability zones are offered in most geographies and represent physically separate locations in an Azure region composed of one or more datacenters with independent power, cooling, and networking. VMs can be automatically spread across fault domains in a region, or you can specify a fault domain as part of your VM deployment, which makes it easier to replace VMs. Now this is especially relevant for open-source databases like Cassandra or other quorum-based applications.
-Of course, you also have the option to replicate your VM instances to another Azure region for failover compute. And for storage redundancy, you can also back up data disks using Azure Backup. Beyond hardware failure resilience measures, to get ahead of issues before they impact your operations, you can install the application health extension on each VM instance, so that your app or workload can report application-specific health metrics to Azure. And once you enable automatic instance repair, Azure will automatically remove and replace instances in an unhealthy state, to maintain high availability.
-As you architect for availability with Azure VM Scale Sets you can of course also scale your applications on demand while increasing performance. Scale sets integrate with Azure load balancer for basic layer-four traffic distribution and Azure Application Gateway for more advanced layer-seven traffic distribution. This helps you to easily spread your incoming network traffic across the VMs in your scale sets. Which in turn helps you build scalable solutions while maintaining high levels of performance.
-You can also configure your VM scale set to auto-scale. For example, if you’re running an e-commerce site you may need to scale your front end in response to some event, like a holiday sales spike. Azure will automatically add and subtract VM instances in response to demand so that there is no decline in your app or workload experience. Under scaling, you can use metric-based auto-scaling rules and define thresholds that trigger an increase in VM instances to scale out. And likewise, you can set similar thresholds for when to scale in, taking into account a specified cool down period which allows for a buffer of time before the scale in action is triggered.
-And of course, you can manually scale out and in as you need to. The ability to dynamically scale your VM pool also brings numerous efficiencies as you run your workloads on Azure, because instead of pre-provisioning VMs you’re only paying for the compute resources your application needs. And for even more savings, for your interruptible workloads, you also have the flexibility of using Azure Spot VMs that take advantage of spare compute capacity in Azure as and when it’s available.
– You can also mix and match Azure Spot VMs with regular on-demand VMs. And if you’re worried about Spot VM evictions, the try to restore feature in Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets, will automatically try to restore an evicted Spot VM and maintain the target VM instance count in your scale set. In fact, we covered Spot VMs as part of your cost optimization strategy, in our last Essentials overview which you can watch at aka.ms/EssentialsSpotVMs.
-Next, Virtual Machine Scale Sets help you improve the security posture of your applications by keeping them up-to-date. Upgrades can be performed automatically, in random order, manually, or using rolling upgrades in defined batches. In addition to image upgrades, you can also do automatic VM guest patching for critical and security updates, and this helps to ease management by safely and automatically patching virtual machines to maintain security compliance. Patch orchestration is managed by Azure and updates are rolled out sequentially across VMs in the scale set to avoid application downtime. You can also force updates on-demand. And with Automatic Extension Upgrades, critical updates are applied as they become available from publishers.
-So that was a quick overview of Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets and how they can help you to create and deploy thousands of VMs in minutes. The metrics and template-based approach helps you to consistently architect your apps and workloads for auto-scaling, availability, and performance, giving you the control that you need. This lets you focus on your app instead of the complexities of managing your infrastructure. And to learn more visit aka.ms/VMSSOverview and keep watching Microsoft Mechanics for more in the series, bye for now!
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Drupal has released security updates to address vulnerabilities that could affect versions 8.9, 9.1, and 9.2. An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.
CISA encourages users and administrators to review Drupal Security Advisory SA-CORE-2021-011 and apply the necessary updates.
Recent Comments