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Windows Azure provides a way to secure the user’s applications through the use of a Secure Socket Layer (SSL). This protects the data exchanged between the browser and the server. The process of enabling SSL for a web application involves specifying an HTTPS end point for a web role and adding a SSL certificate for the website.

The user must obtain the SSL certificate for the application prior to attempting the above mentioned exercise. The service definition file should be amended to include information about the SSL certificate in the web role section, as described here.

This how-to guide describes step by step how to install and configure the SSL certificate for an Application that is hosted on the Windows Azure Cloud

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AWS Auto Scaling allows the user to automatically scale the Amazon EC2 compute resources up or down as per the defined conditions. The AWS resources launched with Auto Scaling require the AWS security credentials to access other AWS resources. AWS provides the IAM Role to easily access the other AWS resources from the newly launched EC2 computer resources.

(For example, a newly launched EC2 instance may need the AWS credentials to take a regular backup of the EBS volume).

To assign the IAM Role to Auto Scaling, the user has to create an IAM instance profile with EC2 access. An instance profile is a container for the IAM Role. The user has to first create an IAM role, which has the permission to access the EC2 resources. The above mentioned role must be added to the instance profile.

The present guide demonstrates how to launch Auto Scaling with an IAM role. Since AWS does not provide the management console for Auto Scaling, all the tasks would be performed by CLI.

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The Windows Azure Active Directory (Windows Azure AD) is a modern, REST-based service that provides identity management and access control capabilities for your cloud applications. In this video tutorial, learn how you can:

• Use Windows Azure AD to create a team of users who can login and access the Windows Azure infrastructure
• Set up Dir-Sync between your on-premises Active Directory and Windows Azure Active Directory
• Set up federation between your on-premises Active Directory and Windows Azure Active Directory - allowing your developers to use their corporate credentials to access Windows Azure and handing control of the cloud back to your enterprise administration

Check out the video now!

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With the recent announcement by Microsoft that Azure AD has reached general availability and is ready for production use, many Azure users are asking how they can get Azure AD and start developing directory integrated applications.

In this video tutorial, learn how to:

• Create a new Windows Azure Active Directory
• Create a Windows Azure AD as an existing Azure customer
• Use existing Windows Azure AD identity through Office 365

Newvem Launches Analytics for Windows Azure Cloud

Check out the video tutorial now!

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In this article, we covered the basics of disaster recovery (DR) and pilot flame architecture using the (AWS) cloud. This post describes the first step towards fault-tolerant architectures as we will explain now.

Functional Architecture of Low Capacity in Standby

A latent functional architecture, while being low capacity, represents a good start in the pursuit of high availability (HA), as it can replace the production infrastructure. Even with the limits resulting from low capacity, functional architecture can support production traffic and provide aid to scaling. You should change the structure of low capacity scaling in order to handle production load.

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It’s gotten easy to publish web applications to the cloud, but the last thing you want to do is establish unique authentication schemes for each one. At some point, your users will be stuck with a mountain of passwords, or, end up reusing passwords everywhere. Not good. Instead, what about extending your existing corporate identity directory to the cloud for all applications to use? Fortunately, Microsoft Active Directory can be extended to support authentication/authorization for web applications deployed in ANY cloud platform. In this post, I’ll show you how to configure Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) to authenticate the users of a Node.js application hosted in Windows Azure Web Sites and deployed via Dropbox.

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The cloud enables great agility and can reduce costs if used right. But does it also manage risk? In fact, the cloud contains the same traditional hosting risks as well as specific related risks to your production environment running on the cloud. With IaaS dynamic environment you pay only for what you use enabling alignment with actual real-time demand. The cloud instance is a temporary resource that is created from a gold master image automatically and on demand. This basic cloud automation capability makes traditional patching redundant and fast provisioning extremely easy. It is an important consideration that changes some basic security deployment perceptions when moving from traditional infrastructure to the cloud.

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Understanding the ‘shared responsibility model’ is one of the most important keys for getting to the cloud and staying there.  Successful ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ (IaaS) cloud adoption cases can be likened to a stool with three legs -

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Amazon’s AWS  VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) is like a canvas. It lets you define private networks, the way they interact with each other, routing, and security. Now, it even lets you terminate VPN connections from your main corporate network out-of-the-box and, best of all, it doesn’t cost you anything to use it.

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There are countless benefits to cloud computing including increased efficiency, streamlined processes and reduced costs. It also, however, threatens the security of your online services. Admins may leave ports open to connect to their servers while also giving access to hackers. Additionally, server sprawl deems security unmanageable. Worst of all, security solutions on the market today don’t have appropriate business models and/or technology that can migrate and scale.

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