Azure Insights: Metric alerts; Multi-Factor Authentication Server; Key Vault; Health pings

Azure pros share their insights on metric alerts, the Azure Multi-Factor Authentication Server, working with Key Vault and more.

Exploring metric alerts

Stanislav Zhelyazkov continued his multi-part series on Azure Monitor alerts by delving into the details about metric alerts on Cloud Administrator. According to Zhelyazkov, the Azure team has increasingly blurred the lines between metric and log alerts, helping to overcome previous limitations.

After explaining some key differences, Zhelyazkov profiled Application Insights availability tests, which users create via the portal. They need tags and two resources for setting scope. In fact, there's effectively a fourth type of metric alert in form of failure anomalies alerts for Application Insights.

Multi-factor authentication server

Microsoft MVP Sander Berkouwer, writing on The Things That Are Better Left Unspoken addressed Microsoft's release of version 8.0.2.2 of Azure Multi-Factor Authentication Server. The new version fixes a previous issue with syncing the email send process for when a new user gets created. Additionally, the Web Service SDK is upgraded to communicate better with front end-services.

In a separate blog, Berkouwer looked into Azure AD Connect version 1.4, which came out on September 10. For now it's only available for organizations with automatic upgrades enabled. However, there are some initial problems. The new version doesn't sync Windows down-level computers and actually eliminates preexisting device connections. For users running into problems, devices need to have the correct Hybrid Azure AD Join setup.

Testing out new SAS tokens

Karim Vaes decided to test out the newly announced SAS tokens, which are based on Azure AD user permissions. Under the drop down menu of role assignments, Storage Blob Delegator has appeared on the list. Working with the new arrangement, users can easily run into problem if they have an older CLI version installed. Vaes generated a SAS token and added it to the blob URL.

As far as other "gotchas" Vaes cautioned that token generation won't work if user don't have access to data or if they incorrectly format the expiration date.

The user delegation for SAS tokens is an awesome step in the security of storage accounts. It relieves you from needing a storage key…Whilst still in preview, I’m excited to see this one see the light of day!

Working with Azure Key Vault

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