Does the Azure VM Role still exist? - azure-virtual-machine

I've tried using csupload to get my sysprep'd .vhd file up to Azure Storage, but when I do I get "The subscription is not authorized for this feature." I do have Virtual Machines preview enabled on my account, but I never enabled the VM Role beta, and I can't find anywhere in the portal where it's still offered. I see new videos from Microsoft, including this one posted three days ago, referring to the VM Role, so I assume it's still an offering.
The MSDN documentation is a mess... some of it is old, some of it is contradictory, some of it has to do with Virtual Machines (IaaS) rather than VM Role (PaaS). I've been digging through every link I can find for a few days now.
I realize that this question is slightly more broad than a typical StackOverflow question, and I apologize for that, but... is there still a VM Role (PaaS) that's available to someone who didn't sign up for the original beta? And if there is, how do I get access? I can't find a single announcement from Microsoft about closing the beta period, or moving to General Availability. If the plan is to dump the VM Role (PaaS) in favor of persistent virtual machines (IaaS), I can't find information about that. Anyone know what the plan is?
Thanks!
Scott

As far as I know classic/stateless/non-persistent VM Role feature has been in beta for more than 2.5 years. Microsoft don’t recommend live production deployments that depend on Beta features.
It seems that starting this year, Microsoft has not been accepting any customer for Beta VM Role. Everyone is being advised to move to Windows Azure Virtual Machine (Iaas). There has not been any official announcement in this regard.
People who had VM Role Beta Access they can keep using till any further announcement but no new customer are being accepted. You can reach Windows Azure Support team and they should be able to answer in better fashion.
Also, If Windows Azure Virtual Machine feature is enable you can use Windows Azure PowerShell to upload sysprep'd .vhd .
Update :
Update: "The Windows Azure VM Role is being completely retired".
Here is the updated documentation posted recently : http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/3dae01d2-2397-47ed-a134-f9ffe58a9b52.aspx

Related

Resource Hierarchy and Networking for a Google Cloud Organization with a single developer

I have several projects in GCP which are publically accessible and will become commercial services. Since I found myself with many projects, I thought that I would try out the Google Cloud organization feature. However, I cannot complete the creation due to odd requirements.
Google puts forward a "Checklist" to set up Google Cloud for the organization. If I go under IAM & Admin -> Identity & Organization, the only option there is to go to the checklist to complete it. However, the checklist includes mandatory steps like creating VPCs and a certain Resource hierarchy, which are things that I don't need/want. I am the only developer and don't want to pay more for services that I don't use. I cannot remove these options. As such, the organization seems to be "unconfigured" from the point of view of Google.
At the same time, I'm wondering if it really changes anything and if there is any benefit for me to use an organization.
Edit: I am not following any documentation per se, as there is a quite detailed interactive "tutorial" which takes you through all the configuration steps directly on GCP. The problem is precisely that I cannot chose an option not in the tutorial for some steps. To give you an idea, see this blog post, specifically Step 5.

What could have happened to my website files on my google cloud platform?

I was using google cloud platform to host a ckan based website. The website had a file library with about 5 gigs of documents. Our project got put on hold and I removed billing on the website about 8 months ago. Now we are trying to migrate the data, but when I look at the project in Google Cloud Platform, there are no compute instances, buckets or files under the various storage modules. I cannot find the 5gigs of files we uploaded and filed by various categories on the ckan website. What could have happened to them? I'm not very experience with this platform and a bit confused. Is there any way for me to recover my data?
As the GCP public documentation indicates, if your billing account remains invalid for a protracted period, some resources might be removed from the projects associated with your account. For example, if you use Google Cloud, your Compute Engine resources might be removed.
Removed resources are not recoverable, the best option you had was to review your case with tech support and have a more specific answer, I noticed that there isn't any way to recover resources 30 days later it had been removed, this is also described in Data deletion term, including existing copies.

GCP has suspended my machine and says I'm mining cryptocurrency. How do I fix the issue?

GCP suspended my instance on the pretext of mining cryptocurrency on the 3rd of August 2020. In fact, my instance has not been reinstated yet, and I am writing to seek help on the matter.
Details of my instance are:
Machine Type: n1-standard-8 (8 vCPUs, 30 GB memory)
Zone: us-west1-b
Last used on: 3rd August 2020
The two questions I have:1. How do I get my instance reinstated along with its project files? I have submitted an appeal for the same, however, have not received a response.2. What was the issue with my instance? 3. What measures should I take to avoid this situation in the future?
I came across this article on Stack Overflow Google banned the project believing that it has cryptocurrency mining detailing a similar issue but it has no responses.
For further context, this was the email I received from GCP:
We’ve detected that your Google Cloud Project (project id) IP (address not disclosed) is violating the Supplemental Terms and Conditions For Google Cloud Startup Program by engaging cryptocurrency mining, resulting in the suspension of all project resources displaying this behavior.
Abuse Details:
Origin: (project id) / (IP address not disclosed)
Time frame: 2020-08-03 01:35 to 2020-08-03 01:42 (Pacific Time)
Requesting you to help me out with this.
Unfortunately, StackOverflow community can do nothing with such cases, you should wait for response from Google Cloud Support and follow the instructions.
Have a look at the documentation Google Cloud project suspension:
Google Cloud projects may be suspended due to violations of the GCP
ToS, including the Google Cloud Acceptable Use Policy (GCP AUP). When
activities that violate the Google Cloud AUP or ToS are detected in a
project, the project owner has an obligation to fix the violation
immediately. If the violation is not fixed, Google may take action to
suspend the project.
and
To recover a suspended project please fix the issue and follow the
link in the notification email or contact Google support. See the
Policy Violations FAQ for more information on appeal best practices in
case of a Project resource suspension.
More information you can find at Policy Violations FAQ:
What are the best practices for ensuring that my projects are not taken down for abusive activity? Here are some of the best practices
for appealing a warning or avoiding a suspension:
Monitor the relevant email address (the project owner email address) regularly so that you know as soon as your project is warned.
Make sure that emails from google-cloud-compliance#google.com do not go to the spam folder.
Fix the issue as soon as possible. Your email will tell you how you can fix the issue. You have a limited time window to fix the issue as
described in the email.
Ensure that your project does not violate the Google Cloud Platform Terms of Service or Acceptable Use Policy.
Respond to the notification as described above in My project has received a warning. What should I do now?. (Please do not respond
to the email.) Let us know the steps you've taken to fix the issue.
Explain clearly and concisely. Our team needs to know the steps you
took to fix the issue, but we don't need to know the exact code you
used.
If you need help fixing the issue, you can contact support from the Google Cloud Platform Support page.

Google Cloud Platform upgrade conditions

I would like to learn about the upgrade conditions of Google Cloud Platform's services in general :
1) Does Google alert us with a delay (that we could fix ?) before any service upgrade ?
2) Are unavailabilities due to Google update performed in all datacenters at the same time ?
3) Is it possible to schedule the updates ?
I have searched a lot, and I don't find anything about that in Google's documentation for any service.
Thank you for your help
are you asking this to know how to avoid updates from impacting your project?
as i understand the process, data centers will not be unavailable simultaneously rather the will have a rotating schedule as to back up one another.
If you have a support package or an upgraded account check out this link and see which resource will you be using and the service level agreement on each
https://cloud.google.com/terms/sla/

Google Cloud Speech API on production

As we know, Google Cloud Speech API is in Beta now.
Will it be safe to use it in a application on production server?
I was also searching for the applications which is using Google Cloud Speech API, So far I have found the following,
VoiceBase, Hyperconnect, InterActiveTel
Does anyone know of any other applications that could give us more confidence in using it on production server?
The official definition of GCP launch stages, such as Beta, can be found in our documentation here.
Beta is the point at which we are ready to open a release for any customer to use. There are no SLA or technical support obligations in a Beta release, and charges may be waived in some cases. Products will be complete from a feature perspective, but may have some open outstanding issues. Beta releases are suitable for limited production use cases.
Emphasis is mine: Limited production. Ultimately, it is going to come down to your risk appetite.
As of Tuesday, April 18, the Cloud Speech API has reached General Availability, meaning all features are open to developers and are to be considered stable.
Voicebase provides more than just speech recognition and it is currently used in production by large customers. Take a look at some of the features
http://voicebase.readthedocs.io/en/v2-beta/index.html