It’s like going on an adventure when you start your cloud journey. It may make you happy, but if you’re not prepared, it might quickly overwhelm you. You will require a strong foundation whether you are creating a small-scale cloud environment or aiming for a huge enterprise-grade solution. The purpose of Azure Landing Zones is to give you a formal foundation for creating a cloud environment that is scalable, safe, and well- organised.

Stated differently, Azure Landing Zones serve as the cornerstone of a home or the design for a city, guaranteeing that everything is done right from the start so that you can easily scale when demand increases. This tutorial will provide you a very basic introduction to Azure Landing Zones.

Azure Landing Zone: What Is It?

Imagine it. You’re starting to make plans for building a new city. Would you purposefully plan the locations of roads, water pipelines, electrical lines, schools, hospitals, and parks, or would you just build homes and businesses at random? In order to support people’ lives over time and promote progress, you would make sure everything is well- organised.

The same concept applies to Azure Landing Zones, which function similarly to the framework that already makes sure your Microsoft Azure cloud environment is well- structured and optimised. This indicates that planning for scale, security, cost control, and compliance is done in advance. In essence, they are there to keep you from messing up your cloud setup, which can lead to expensive expenses, security difficulties, and operational issues that affect efficiency.

Why is an Azure Landing Zone Necessary?

Starting your cloud journey is simple: you only need to install apps, set up storage, and create a few virtual machines. However, without a well-thought-out plan, this may easily become a costly, insecure, and difficult-to-manage jumble of resources.

Microsoft’s Azure Landing Zones provide a carefully planned environment that is focused towards best practices. A few of the reasons they are so crucial are as follows:

Scaling: You will require a larger cloud as your company grows. The landing zones are designed to grow with you; whether you are a major corporation or a small start-up, they can easily scale.

Security: Identity management, firewalls, and encryption are already integrated into your cloud environment.

Cost Efficiency: Landing Zones assist you in efficiently monitoring and controlling expenses by providing governance tools and appropriately allocating resources.

Compliance: Azure Landing Zones are made to industry standards, guaranteeing that your setting complies with laws like as GDPR, HIPAA, or ISO.

To put it briefly, they assist you in avoiding the confusion and creating a cloud environment that is both practical and prepared for the future.

Key Components of an Azure Landing Zone

Each Azure Landing Zone addresses a crucial component of your cloud environment and is based on a set of architectural ideas and regions. Let’s break them down:

1.  Design Guidelines

Azure Landing Zones follow industry best practices in several domains to provide a stable, secure, and business-oriented deployment. Everything from automation and governance to identity management is guided by these concepts.

2.     Design Areas

The following aspects of your cloud environment are the emphasis of each design area:

• Azure Billing and Microsoft Entra Tenant:It makes certain that your billing system is effective and works in unison with your Microsoft Entra tenant (previously Azure AD).

• Identity and Access Management:

  It is clear who has access to what data and how by putting in place a secure identity management system. Features that help ensure that only the right people have access include role-based access control (RBAC) and multi-factor authentication (MFA).

• Resource Organization:

  Presents standardised conventions for labelling, classifying, and arranging cloud resources. Effective organisation improves visibility and streamlines management.

• Network Topology and Connectivity:

  A virtual structure that is both efficient and safe. It necessitates a link that flows data and ensures its relative security with Azure services, on-premises systems, and external end users.

• Security and Compliance:

  Complies with Azure standards, which include security features like privileged access control and encryption at every level of the cloud environment. Azure Landing Zones are therefore committed to data protection in accordance with international requirements.

• Management:

  Describes methods and tools for effective workload management, such as monitoring, updating capabilities, and uniform policy application across the environment.

• Governance:

  Certain measures like Azure Policy and Azure Advisor help control and govern your environment. These give assurances that resources are utilized wisely, expenditures are kept under control, and compliance is enforced.

• Platform Automation and DevOps:

  Using infrastructure as code and DevOps practices, automate resource provisioning and operational tasks. Automation reduces manual work, speeds delivery while minimizing errors.

How Azure Landing Zones Assist You on Your Cloud Adventure

Two examples of tools that assist in managing and controlling your environment are Azure Advisor and Azure Policy. These ensure cost containment, compliance enforcement, and the wise use of resources.

• Better Collaboration:

  Teamwork is well supported by the appropriate architecture. Because the framework supports their interests, users, developers, IT administrators, and business stakeholders may all work together without any problems.

• Speedy Deployment:

  Since company progress is now a fast-paced act, Landing Zones might significantly reduce the time, effort, and effort required to provision new resources or applications by automating essential activities. Many of these would be significant.

• Efficient Operations:

  Your cloud’s future neatness and operational efficiency are guaranteed by standardised organisational resource management, monitoring, and governance.

• Futures Ready:

  Landing Zones offer scalable and adaptable methods to prepare your environment for upcoming possibilities or problems, like growing into new areas, incorporating AI workloads, or supporting new applications.

Common Use Cases for Azure Landing Zones

Azure Landing Zones are incredibly adaptable and may be set up to meet a variety of requirements. They are appropriate in the following situations:

1. Enterprise-Scale Cloud Adoption:Large organizations employ Landing Zones to configure an environment that scales, secures, and meets compliance requirements for multiple regions and teams.

2. Hybrid Cloud Scenarios:

   While moving from on-premises to the cloud, Landing Zones provide a smooth path for other companies that integrate their on-premises systems with Azure.

3. Startups and Small Businesses:

   A startup or smaller business would use Landing Zones to guarantee that its cloud configuration is cost-efficient and secure from day one.

4. Regulated Industries:

   Landing Zones can be used in the healthcare, finance, and other industries to help meet those compliance details without hassle.

Final thoughts:

Azure Landing Zones establish a benchmark for achieving overall cloud journey success. They offer flexibility, security, and structure so that the full potential of the cloud can be realised. Are your cloud strategies ready to be implemented? Talk to us now to begin developing your cloud strategy!

In this blog we will dive into Microsoft Fabric and go over the core services offered on the Fabric platform. We will see how it has transformed since it’s launch and how it can benefit businesses with their growing data needs.

What is Microsoft Fabric?

Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is an end-to-end analytics platform designed for enterprises that require a unified solution. It consists of data movement, processing, transformation, and report building. It offers services like Data Engineering, Data Factory, Data Science, Real-Time Analytics, Synapse Data Warehouse, and Databases.

By using Fabric, you don’t need different services from multiple vendors. It offers a unified, user- friendly platform that simplifies your analytics requirements.

Microsoft Fabric integrates separate components into a cohesive stack. Instead of relying on different databases or data warehouses, you can centralize data storage with OneLake. AI capabilities are seamlessly embedded within Fabric, eliminating the need for manual integration. With Fabric, you can easily transition your raw data into actionable insights for business users.

Core Features and Capabilities

OneLake Architecture

A data lake is the core where all Fabric workloads are stored. In Microsoft Fabric, this is called OneLake. OneLake is part of the Fabric platform and acts as a single place to store all your organization’s data used by different workloads.

OneLake is built on Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2. It offers simple, unified experience for both technical and non-technical users. OneLake makes using Fabric easier by removing the need to understand complex concepts like resource groups, access controls, or cloud regions.

Data Warehouse

Fabric Data Warehouse delivers top-tier SQL performance and scalability. By separating compute from storage, it allows each component to scale independently. It also natively stores data in the open Delta Lake format.

Database

Databases in Microsoft Fabric are developer-friendly transactional databases, like Azure SQL Database, making it easy to create operational databases within Fabric. With its mirroring feature, you can seamlessly bring data from various systems into OneLake. You can continuously replicate your existing data estate directly into OneLake, including data from Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Databricks, Snowflake, and Fabric SQL Database.

Data Factory

Data Factory is a powerful tool for scheduling jobs and run ETL pipelines. It allows users to bring in data from all kinds of sources and ingest the data to a specific destination.

Power BI

Power BI makes it easy to connect to your data sources, visualize insights, and share them with anyone in form of reports and dashboards. This seamless integration within Microsoft Fabric allows business users to quickly access all data, explore key insights, and make more informed decisions with ease.

Real-time Intelligence

Real-time Intelligence is a complete solution for event-driven scenarios, streaming data, and data logs. It allows you to extract insights, visualize, and take action on data in motion by managing data ingestion, transformation, storage, analytics, visualization, tracking, AI, and real-time actions. The Real-Time hub offers a wide range of no-code connectors, bringing together organizational data in a protected, governed, and integrated catalog within Fabric

Unified Service

Building on the vision started with SQL Server and Synapse, Microsoft Fabric takes the next step in unifying technical capabilities. It integrates compute and storage into a single, simplified solution, including data serving and visualizations. Unlike the previous setup in Synapse, where the Power BI workspace had to be integrated separately, Fabric offers a truly unified workspace, making the experience much smoother.

In addition, Delta Lake becomes the standard format for all data in OneLake, no matter which transformation tool you use. This is a game changer, reducing the need for complex data movement and making both processing and consumption more efficient.

Microsoft Fabric provides everything needed to deliver data insights in one complete package. It also aligns well with industry concepts like Data Fabric and Data Mesh.

Benefits for Businesses

Integrations

The primary strength of Fabric is that it connects easily with Microsoft products and services. This saves a lot of time and effort from engineering point of view. The connections between various service are seamless and secure.

Scalability

Fabric can easily scale as per the need of business. It provides an optimize solution so that data is processed in the most efficient way. Data engineers can use big data frameworks to build large scale processing pipelines. This will allow businesses to analyze their data quickly even if it is huge in scale.

Security and Data Governance

Fabric offers centralized data management, allowing users to make governing policies on data. This makes sure that users can only see that data that they are authorized to.

Cost Effectiveness

Fabric eliminates the need for big upfront costs in hardware and software. With its unified capacity model and integration with Azure, businesses can save by paying only for what they use. This makes Fabric an affordable option for companies of any size.

Use Cases

Enterprise Data Warehousing

Collect data from multiple sources into a single, comprehensive warehouse.

AI and Machine Learning

Provide data scientists with a robust platform for developing and deploying advanced analytical models.

Real-Time Analytics

Process and analyze streaming data in near-real-time.

Conclusion

In summary, while the goal and challenges faced by data professionals remain the same, Microsoft Fabric offers a new unified platform to deliver insights more efficiently. It helps drive business growth and improve decision-making by significantly reducing time to insight. With its Software-as- a-Service model and integration with the popular Power Platform, it empowers business users to easily access and act on data.

Uncover how MS Fabric is transforming predictive analytics and what innovations lie ahead for businesses and technology.

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Introduction: Because, Of Course, It Had to Be the CEO

Let me paint you a picture: we were managing the Microsoft 365 environment for one of our long-time customers, let’s call them Company A. We had everything running smoothly—mailboxes organized, Teams working like a charm, and security policies in place. You know, the usual IT perfection (or at least close enough!). Then, out of nowhere, Company A gets bought by Company B—another company that was also using Microsoft 365 but on a completely different tenant. I mean, what’s better than managing one tenant? Managing two, of course! 🙄

The plan was simple: assess the current environment, plan the migration, and move over a few hundred—okay, maybe a few thousand—users from Tenant A to Tenant B. Easy, right? Well, it would have been if the CEO of Company B (now CEO of both companies) hadn’t decided to send a heartfelt, company-wide welcome email to all employees from Company A. You know, one of those, “Welcome to the family, let’s make magic happen together” emails.

Sounds nice, right? Except that for some reason, this email didn’t land in everyone’s inbox. Oh no, it decided to take a detour straight into the junk folder of several employees in Tenant A. And of course, it couldn’t be just anyone. Nope—it’s always the CEO, CFO, or some other high-level executive who faces this kind of issue. Why is it always the top brass? I’m convinced it’s the universe’s way of keeping us humble

So there we were, tasked with quietly and efficiently moving the CEO’s email out of the junk folder and into the inbox—without raising any eyebrows, of course. No one needs to know that the new CEO’s warm welcome was rejected by the company’s spam filter

That’s where the Microsoft Graph API comes in to save the day (and our sanity). In this blog, I’m going to walk you through how we used the Graph API to find those misplaced emails and move them to the inbox, all without anyone even noticing. You’ll get code samples, tips, and maybe a few laughs along the way—because, let’s be honest, if we can’t laugh at our IT woes, what else can we do?

Stick around, and I’ll show you how to become the email-moving ninja your CEO desperately needs. Ready? Let’s dive in!

What You’ll Need to Become an Email-Rescuing Ninja

Alright, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how we’re going to rescue those poor, misplaced emails from the junk folder using the Microsoft Graph API. Before we start flipping bits and bytes, here’s what we’ll be doing (and don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it step by step—funny analogies included).

Step 1: Authenticating with the Graph API (Because We Need the Keys to the Castle Before We Can Move Anything Around)

Before we can start shuffling emails from the junk folder to the inbox, we need permission. Think of it like trying to get into a fancy club—you need to show your VIP pass at the door. In our case, that VIP pass is the OAuth2 access token, which lets us call the Microsoft Graph API to interact with users’ mailboxes.
In this step, we’ll be:

• Setting up app registration in Azure AD (because no API wants to talk to just anyone).
• Getting the appropriate permissions to read and write emails using the Mail. ReadWrite scope.
• Generating our access token, which is like getting the master key to every user’s mailbox. (Don’t worry, we’ll be responsible with this power. It’s not like we’re looking for juicy gossip or anything.)

Step 2: Searching for Those Sneaky Emails in the Junk Folder

Once we’ve got our access token (a.k.a. the keys to the castle), it’s time to go email hunting. The good news is, the Graph API is like a professional detective—it’ll help us track down those misplaced CEO emails that thought they could hide in the junk folder.
We’ll use the API to:

• Search through the JunkEmail folder for emails with specific subjects, senders, or time frames (in this case, our poor CEO’s welcome message).
• Get the email IDs of the junked messages so we know exactly which ones to move.

Think of it like finding that one sock that always goes missing after laundry day. You know it’s there somewhere, hiding in plain sight.

Step 3: Moving Emails to the Inbox—Where They Belong (Like Putting Socks in the SockDrawer After Laundry Day)

Now that we’ve found the elusive CEO email in the junk folder, it’s time to move it where it rightfully belongs—the inbox. This is the digital equivalent of putting socks back in the sock drawer after laundry day. It’s a simple act, but one that makes all the difference in avoiding chaos. 😅

In this step, we’ll:

• Use the Graph API’s move endpoint to relocate the emails from the junk folder to the inbox.
• Make sure everything is neatly organized in its proper place—no more important
  emails getting flagged as junk

Step 4: Doing All This Without Tipping Off the Users (Stealth Mode: Activated!)

Finally, we’ve got to make sure all this happens without anyone noticing. No one needs to know that their brand-new CEO’s heartfelt welcome email was considered digital garbage by the spam filter. We’ll move the emails in stealth mode—silent, efficient, and completely under the radar

In this step, we’ll:

• Ensure the users aren’t alerted by unnecessary notifications.
• Keep everything quiet, like a ninja slipping into the shadows after a job well done.

Because the last thing you want is for someone to ask, “Hey, why did the CEO’s email land in junk?”

Step 1: Authenticating with the Graph API (Because No Ninja Gets into the Castle Without the Right Keys)

Alright, warriors, the first step of our mission is to secure access to the Graph API—this is your golden ticket to all the inbox-saving power. But, like any good ninja, we don’t just barge in through the front door. We need to sneak in the right way by grabbing an OAuth2 token that’ll let us call the Graph API like pros. Ready to get your key to the castle? Let’s break it down:

Step 1.1: Registering Your App in Azure AD (The Secret Entrance)

To get started, you need to register your app in Azure Active Directory. This is where we create a stealthy identity for our app, which we’ll use to request the magical token that gives us access.

• Head over to the Azure Portal and sign in.
• In the left-hand menu, click Azure Active Directory.
• Go to App Registrations and hit New Registration.
• Give your app a name (something cool like “NinjaEmailMover”).
• Under Supported account types, select Accounts in this organizational directory only (if you’re only working within your organization).
• For the Redirect URI, choose Public client/native and enter https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/nativeclient.
• Click Register, and boom—you’ve just created the app that will let you perform your ninja magic

Step 1.2: Granting Permissions to the App (Power Up)

Now that we’ve registered the app, we need to give it the right

permissions

to read and move emails. Because without the right permissions, our ninja tools are pretty much useless.

• In your newly created app, go to API Permissions.
• Click Add a permission, then choose Microsoft Graph.
• Select Delegated Permissions and check the following:
  • > Mail.ReadWrite (Allows your app to read and move emails)
  > User.Read (This one’s default, and it’s just to read basic user profile info)
• Once you’ve added the permissions, click Grant admin consent to give your app the green light to actually use them.

Now your app has the power it needs to read and move emails. Pretty cool, right? 🔥

Step 1.3: Creating a Client Secret (Your Ninja Tool)

Next up, we need to create a Client Secret. This is like your app’s katana—it’ll let you authenticate and request access tokens when you call the Graph API.

• Go to Certificates & Secrets in your app’s settings.
• Click New client secret.
• Give it a description (like “NinjaSecret”) and choose an expiration time.
• Click Add.
• Important: Copy the secret value and store it somewhere safe (not on a Post-it note!). You’ll need it to authenticate your app, and you won’t be able to see it again after you leave this page.

Step 1.4: Store That Token Securely (Guard It Like a True Ninja)

Your token is your pass to the API, and just like any secret tool in your ninja arsenal, you need to protect it. This token is typically valid for 60 minutes, so make sure you refresh
it before it expires.
What This Script Does?
What This Script Does?

• Authenticate: It first grabs an OAuth2 access token so we can communicate with the Microsoft Graph API.
• Search the Junk Folder: For each user, the script will search the Junk Email folder for emails matching a specific subject.
• Move Emails: If the email is found, it will be copied (moved) to the user’s inbox.
• Log Progress: We’ll get live feedback from the script on whether emails were found and moved successfully or not.

Step 1: Authentication (Because We Need Permission to Move Stuff)

Before we start rummaging through users’ junk folders, we need to authenticate with the Graph API. This is done using OAuth2, and the script will request an access token by passing in the ClientID, TenantID, and ClientSecret of our Azure AD app.
Here’s the function that handles this for us:

This function sends a request to Azure AD, asking for a token that gives us permission to access users’ mailboxes. You’ll need to replace , , and with your actual values from your Azure AD app registration. This token is our “all-access pass” to the Graph API. Fun fact: Getting this token feels like having the master key to the building…except this key only opens inboxes and junk folders. 🗝️

Step 2: Reading User Emails from a File (Bulk Operations for the Win)

To avoid manually specifying each user, this script reads a list of users from a text file. Each email in the file will be processed in turn. Here’s how we grab that list of users:

Each user’s email address should be listed on a new line in the text file. The script will iterate over this list and handle junk email detection for each user. It’s a nice bulk operation—no need to handle one user at a time.

Step 3: Searching for Emails in the Junk Folder (Ninja Radar On)

Now, for each user in our list, we’ll search their JunkEmail folder for any messages that match the specified subject. We’re using the Microsoft Graph API to do this

This part of the script constructs the Graph API URL that targets the JunkEmail folder for a particular user ($userEmail). The ?$filter=subject eq ‘$emailSubject’ part filters the emails to only those matching the subject you specify.

It’s like being a ninja detective, scanning for emails that don’t belong in the shadows of the junk folder. 🥷📧

Step 4: Moving the Email to the Inbox (Time to Strike)

Once we’ve located the email in the junk folder, we need to move it to the inbox where it belongs. Here’s how we do that:

Here’s what happens in this block:

• First, we check if any matching emails were found in the junk folder ($junkEmails.value.Count -eq 0).
• If no email is found, the script logs a message and moves on to the next user.
• If an email is found, we extract the message ID and construct the API call to move (copy) it to the inbox.
• The destinationId = “inbox” specifies where the email will be moved.

Step 5: Logging the Results (Because Feedback is Key)

The script gives you live feedback about whether it found an email and successfully moved it. This way, you can monitor what’s happening and make sure the operation runs smoothly. You’ll know exactly what’s going on, and you can intervene if something looks off.

Wrapping It Up: Ninja Level 100 Achieved!

And there you have it! With just a few lines of PowerShell and the power of the Microsoft Graph API, you’ve become a master of email movement, whisking important messages out of the junk folder and into the inbox—all without breaking a sweat.

This script is especially handy if you’re managing multiple users and don’t want to dig through each junk folder manually. Now, you can let PowerShell and the Graph API do the heavy lifting while you take the credit for saving the day.

So next time a CEO’s email ends up in the junk folder, you’ll be ready. Just don’t forget to add this to your IT ninja toolbox! 🥷✨
Have any questions or issues? Drop them in the comments below, and let’s troubleshoot together!

Tune in for a deep dive into overcoming hurdles in cloud adoption using real-world solutions from our co-founder, Vineet Arora.