Month: November 2016

My Azure IaaS Toolbox

Posted on by Arnaud

<last update 10/09/2017>

As I help customers and partners to build VM and various infrastructure services on Azure, I started to accumulate a lot of tools to make life easier. Here is my list, feel free to comment and share yours, I’d be happy to learn about new ones!

 

Storage

Tool Platforms Notes
Azure Storage Explorer (Microsoft) Linux, Windows, Mac Nice UI to manipulate storage in Azure.
AzCopy (Microsoft) Windows Command line context to upload/download storage content.
Azure Explorer (Red Gate) Windows GUI free tool from Red-Gate to explore Azure storage.
CloudXplorer (Clumsyleaf) Windows Classical tool from Clumsyleaf.
Trucks Because sometimes it’s just too big, send your disks to Azure and we import it for you.
Azure Data Box We will ship you a box, you fill it and we put it on your Azure account for you.

 

Networking

Tool Platforms Notes
http://www.azurespeed.com/ – Tests the speed of Azure Services from your IP location to the rest of the world.
Message Analyzer Windows Network traces and so much more.
Network Monitor (netmon) or WireShark Windows, Mac Netmon 3.4 still works on Windows 10, as an alternative to WireShark.
Fiddler (Telerik) Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. Web debbuging proxy for fun and profit.
tnc (PowerShell) Windows 8.1 Tnc is a tool built-in Windows 8.1 and later, allows you to test network connectivity and latency on various ports.
PortQryUI Windows TCP and UDP Port Query fairly old tool, preset with common Windows Ports and services.

 

Compute

Tool Platforms Notes
Remote Desktop Connection Manager Windows Classical multi windows RDP client.
MobaXterm Windows Multi windows SSH client combined with SCP capabilities.
Virtual Machine Readiness assessment Windows Toolset used to evaluate a VM’s readiness for Azure. Gives you a detailed report of the machine state.
Certification Test tool for Azure Certified Windows This tool allows you to self-assess your VM configuration against Azure best practices for certification (prerequisite for the Marketplace).
Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) Plugin Windows Allows you to manage your Azure resources from VMM.

 

General Automation

Tool Platforms Notes
PowerShell Windows Direct MSI Setup, avoiding the infamous WebPI. Script center to find examples: Browse script center
Cross platform CLI Linux, Mac, Windows The cross platform command line interface for Azure.

 

Documenting platforms

Tool Notes
http://armviz.io/ Visualize a JSON template graphically
http://www.azuredockit.com/ Generate a documentation or diagram of a deployment
Azure, Cloud and Enterprise Symbols, Icon Set – Visio stencil, PowerPoint, PNG, SVG Complete Visio and PNG illustration to document your Azure deployments
Reference Architectures Link to reference architecture and cloud design patterns
Visio File for Reference Architectures Mandatory for all cloud architects!
Architecture blueprints Architecture diagrams and blueprints for various services, can copy/paste the SVG resources from the webpage.

 

Azure Templates Authoring

Tool Platforms Notes
Visual Studio Code Mac, Linux, Windows Very nice tool to edit JSON templates for Azure and Azure Stack.
Visual Studio Windows Complete IDE for your application, includes a comprehensive support to edit and consume Azure resources directly.
Azure SDK Installation Mac, Linux, Windows, etc. Contains installers for all platforms.
https://github.com/Azure/azure-quickstart-templates – Templates and quick starters for JSON templates.
Git Desktop Mac, Windows Allows to sync your Github repos on your laptop.
https://resources.azure.com/ – Allows you to query API in JSON format “graphically”.
Azure Container Services Engine Mac, Windows, Linux ACSEngine helps you build ARM templates for your clustered Docker deployments.

 

Hope this was useful, please comment and have fun on Azure!

Arnaud