This post shows how to add an AI assistant plugin to Backstage that lets internal developers chat with their own domain data using Azure AI Foundry Agents. We cover agent concepts, minimal API usage, plugin structure (frontend + lightweight backend proxy), security (secrets & identity), and deployment guidance. 1. Why an AI Chat Plugin in… Continue reading Building Backstage AI Chat Plugin with Azure AI Foundry Agents
Category: IAC
Observability Unleashed: OpenTelemetry in Azure Functions with Go
In the evolving landscape of serverless computing, observability has become paramount for building reliable, scalable applications. This article explores how to implement OpenTelemetry (OTel) in Azure Functions using the new Flex Consumption plan with Go custom handlers, providing comprehensive telemetry data through Azure Monitor's Data Collection Endpoint (DCE) and Data Collection Rule (DCR). What is… Continue reading Observability Unleashed: OpenTelemetry in Azure Functions with Go
End-to-End Security: Function, Azure SQL, and API Management
Introduction In the dynamic realm of today's digital environment, safeguarding your applications and data holds utmost importance. This blog post is designed to lead you through the steps of establishing comprehensive security measures for an Azure Function App, Azure SQL database, and API Management. Our approach involves leveraging Azure Virtual Network (VNet) for robust network… Continue reading End-to-End Security: Function, Azure SQL, and API Management
Azure Communication Service with Managed Identity
Background A few months ago, I have written a Demo application that shows how to send email and SMS via Azure Communication Service. The code was written in Spring Boot (Java) and hosted on Azure Container Apps. During the demo, I have used Connection strings of Azure Communication Service which is not ideal for production… Continue reading Azure Communication Service with Managed Identity
Secure API with API Management, network integrated Container Apps
Introduction In today's digital landscape, APIs play a crucial role in connecting applications and enabling seamless interactions. However, with the increasing importance of APIs, ensuring their security becomes paramount. In this blog post, we'll explore how to create a secure API using .net and hosted on Azure Container Apps, expose them via Azure API Management… Continue reading Secure API with API Management, network integrated Container Apps
Azure DevOps security as Code
Accompanied source code can be found here. A while ago, I have written an application that could simplify managing Azure DevOps security. The idea was that one could define bunch of YAML file that describes numerous security aspect for an Azure DevOps project (for example, security for teams, build and release folders, repositories etc.) and… Continue reading Azure DevOps security as Code
Accelerate Governance with Deployment Environments
I am super excited to explore and learn this new Azure capability: Azure Deployment Environment. Azure Deployment Environments empowers development teams to quickly and easily spin-up app infrastructure with project-based templates that establish consistency and best practices while maximizing security, compliance, and cost efficiency. This on-demand access to secure environments accelerates the different stages… Continue reading Accelerate Governance with Deployment Environments
Demystifying Azure Container Apps & Dapr – Part 1
I have played with Dapr on Kubernetes (AKS to be specific) before and loved it for its ability to simplify distributed applications development with out of the box binding, service to service communications, secret abstractions, actors and observabilities. I have previously worked with LinkerD and Istio as service mesh and ran workload in production, but… Continue reading Demystifying Azure Container Apps & Dapr – Part 1
Empower Kubernetes developers with guardrails
Background A while ago, I wrote a post: Azure DevOps Multi-Stage pipelines for Enterprise AKS scenarios. The idea was having a platform team that enforces best practices, security and other compliance aspects to Kubernetes platform and allows one ore more workload-teams (i.e., product teams) build and deploy their workload into the cluster. The previous post suggested… Continue reading Empower Kubernetes developers with guardrails
Azure Resource Governance with Template Specs & Biceps
All the example codes are available in GitHub. Background Governance of cloud estates is challenging for businesses. It’s crucial to enforce security policies, workload redundancies, uniformity (such as naming conventions), simplify deployments with packaged artifacts (i.e., ARM templates), Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) across the enterprise. Generally, the idea is, a centralized team (sometimes… Continue reading Azure Resource Governance with Template Specs & Biceps
Reverse Engineering 