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Chris is joined by Shannon Kuehn, a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, for an accessible deep dive into Azure VMware Solution (AVS) — the dedicated VMware platform hosted within Azure datacentres. Shannon explains how AVS lets organisations migrate on-premises VMware environments into Azure without a forklift upgrade, using live vMotion migrations via HCX with zero downtime, and unlocks Azure-native integrations including Azure Security Center, Azure Active Directory, Application Gateway, and PaaS services.

Recorded on a Monday morning after a sunny weekend, vlog #24 delivers the week's Azure, Azure DevOps, and GitHub news — covering Azure Virtual Desktop's rebrand, enterprise-scale landing zones for AKS, Azure Migrate private endpoint support, and GitHub supply chain security updates. Chris also recaps recent Cloud with Chris sessions on GitHub Actions, Azure Arc for apps, hybrid cloud, and the Geode pattern, then previews the upcoming Azure VMware Solution session with Shannon Keane and John Lund's cloud journey.

I recently started thinking about the typical setup process for a GitHub Action Workflow which will deploy into Azure. Typically, the process is to use the Azure/login GitHub Action, and then use the azure/cli or another Azure GitHub Action to deploy into GitHub. This is a nice approach. However, from my initial research - I wasn't able to see a way use the Azure/login GitHub Action to deploy into Azure using a System Assigned Managed Identity. This got me wondering, is this possible?

Episode 11 covered the Geode pattern in theory — now it's time to get hands-on! Will Eastbury returns to walk through a real-world OData service deployed across three Azure regions (US West, Australia Southeast, and UK West), stitched together by Azure Front Door for active-active routing. Watch how Cosmos DB replicates data across all regions as a shared backplane, how health probes detect and remove unhealthy geodes from rotation, and the ASP.NET middleware pattern needed to handle URL rewriting — a critical authentication gotcha when hosting services behind a reverse proxy.

In part 1 of this Using Azure Arc for Apps series, we explored Azure Arc and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters. In this post, we'll be exploring Event Grid for Kubernetes. At time of writing, this approach is in public preview, so we may see certain limitations / features that are not yet available.

Chris Reddington is joined by Sarah Lean (Techielass), Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, for a deep dive into Azure Arc and hybrid cloud management. They explore how Azure Arc extends Azure governance, policy, and inventory capabilities to on-premises infrastructure, Kubernetes clusters, data platforms, and app services across multi-cloud environments. The session then shifts to a candid conversation about life in Developer Relations — what cloud advocacy really entails, how to build a sustainable content creation rhythm, and how to protect your mental health in a role that blurs the line between work and passion.

We often hear about Kubernetes, App Services, VMs and more. What about static sites? The Static Content Hosting pattern can be cost-effective, and when combined with a CDN can be incredibly performant! We will get hands-on, showing how these resources come together into a Cloud Architecture.

Chris is joined by Karl Cooke (IrishTechie) for a live deep-dive into the GitHub Actions workflows powering CloudWithChris.com. They explore why GitHub was chosen over Azure DevOps, walk through a real-world CI/CD pipeline for a Hugo static site deployed to Azure Blob Storage with CDN purging, and examine how to manage secrets and approvals using GitHub Environments. The session also covers linting Markdown with GitHub Super Linter, early thinking on Playwright-based UI tests, the security considerations around third-party actions from the marketplace, and building a custom .NET GitHub Action for content cross-posting.

Chris rounds up the week's Azure, Azure DevOps, and GitHub news — including the rebrand of Windows Virtual Desktop to Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure FHIR healthcare API updates, SAP on Azure, and a preview of the Azure Arc hybrid and multi-cloud digital event. On the GitHub side, supply chain security takes the spotlight with package registry credential scanning, Dependabot enhancements, and GitHub's Blacktocat fifth anniversary celebrating Black voices in tech. Cloud with Chris recaps include Carl Cook on GitHub Actions, Azure Arc for apps (Event Grid), Sarah Lean on hybrid cloud and DevRel life, and Will Esprit demonstrating the Geode pattern hands-on.

Setting up an Azure API Management Gateway on Azure Arc In part 1 of this Using Azure Arc for Apps series, we explored Azure Arc and Azure Arc enabled …