Secure app development with Azure AD, Key Vault and Managed Identities

‌ Or - How to eliminate your application secrets once and for all. Developing applications using security best practices doesn't have to be hard. And yet, many organizations and developers struggle with this since the space is so vast and it's hard to know where to start. However, if you are developing for Azure, then there are some powerful features in place to ensure that you and your team can develop securely end-to-end. The main component is: Azure Managed Identities, which rely on Azure Active Directory. PrerequisitesAn Azure SubscriptionAzure Active DirectoryIf you don't have an Azure subscription, you can get one …[read more]

Modern authentication with Azure AD for WinForms (native) apps

WinForms? In 2020? Why, yes I say. Because not everyone is fortunate enough to work on cutting edge technology or frameworks. But this shouldn't stop us, developers, from finding ways to modernize our solutions and adopt best practices. I know what you're gonna say: 'WinForms suck'. And I will agree to an extend. WinForms do come with a lot of bad rep and bad code by design - event handlers anyone? - but it also makes for a great, robust solution that can get you off the ground and with a fully running app in 2 days. Can you do …[read more]

Getting started with Microsoft Identity for Developers (AAD)

In this blog post (series) I'll be looking at Microsoft Identity from a developer perspective. In other words, I'll cover how to set up authentication and authorization for your solution using Azure Active Directory (AAD). If you haven't worked with AAD before, don't worry. I'll make sure to cover the basics as we go through this journey together. AAD allows developers to register an app that can then be used to authenticate AD users and provide the appropriate roles and permissions to users to execute certain actions. As one of my colleagues says (Kyle), what developers care about in the …[read more]

2018 Retrospective

2018 is already behind us and what a year it's been! Lot's of exciting changes and a year marked with many successes along with some (smaller) failures but all in all it's been a good year! 2018 was also marked by one, if not the biggest, life-changing decision in my life - moving to the US with my family to take on a new role at Microsoft. It may have been only the second time in my life that I decided to embark in such a big change but the first time was much simpler as it only involved myself! …[read more]

Techorama Netherlands 2018 - The one conference to rule them all

TechoramaNL has been a fantastic experience and I was very lucky to be invited to this inaugural event in the Netherlands. Techorama, if you don’t' know, is one of the best if not the best conference on, predominantly, Microsoft technologies outside Microsoft. That is, outside of events that Microsoft organizes. Techorama has been running for 5 years in Belgium but this was the first time that the conference was run in the Netherlands. Despite the fact that this was the first year, the Techorama team are seasoned developers, speakers, and conference organizers. Therefore, it's no surprise that everything was …[read more]

Christos's Notebook - 20181006.2

I had many conversations over the past couple of weeks trying to explain what it is that I do these days at Microsoft as a Product Marketing Manager. And you know what? It's hard to explain as it was for my manager when I asked him to explain what a typical PMM day looks like. The best way I can put it is that it's very different from a developer role but these developer skills are invaluable in doing what we do. My goal is to more or less work with the engineering teams, PMs and other marketing teams to …[read more]

Christos's notebook - 20181006.1

That's the start of a new series - tagged '#RandomThougts'. As the tag implies, these will contain short, random thoughts about work, life, and various observations. My hope is to write at least once per day and hopefully, you'll find them useful. If nothing else, it will definitely be an interesting personal experiment. Enough with the fluff in the intro These past 2 weeks have been equally exciting and frustrating. I got to work at Ignite running a few booths and making sure that our staff and attendees got the best out of the conference. Then a flight out …[read more]

.NETConf 2018 - From developers for developers

.NETConf, the virtual Microsoft conference on all this .NET, cloud and mobile is back for another year and it's only a couple of weeks away! This year, the conference is scheduled to run for 3 days but the last day comes with a twist. We plan on having local developers and MVPs from around the world broadcasting live for 24hrs. This is a totally new format and will even feature some non-English talks! We have an excellent line-up of speakers covering everything .NET from local desktop development to Azure Serverless. The goal of the conference is to showcase new features, …[read more]