Why and when to use static classes and methods

A friend asked me a question, a while ago, stating: Hey Jan, One stupid question around which I have thought a lot and often get stuck while deciding. When to make a function static/non-static specifically the helpers or utility ones. I read 2 arguments All the functions that don’t need to use a state of the object, (don’t update any variable value of the object ) should be static. All the functions that should/can be test independently and have some logic. Read more →

Create Open API Schema (Swagger) during your automated build

A few years ago, I was assigned on a project with a friend of mine, Marnix van Valen and we needed to update our APIs in API Management with the latest Open API schema for each release. As we don’t like to do this work manually, it got added to our build- and release pipeline. I like this approach, as it removes the need to host Swagger / Open API compute on my own service and only static files need to be hosted in some folder. Read more →

Let Azure API Management its identity authenticate with your backend services

Aside from Azure Traffic Manager, Azure Functions, and Azure Service Bus, Azure API Management (APIM) is one of my favourite services to use in just about any solution. A useful little nugget for APIM is it’s able to have its own Managed Identity. You can choose to use a System Managed Identity or a User Managed Identity. Both options have pros and cons. When you have configured APIM with a managed identity, this identity can be used to authenticate with the backend services. Read more →

Create and configure Azure Traffic Manager using Bicep

There are a ton of useful Azure resources, and one that I don’t read or hear a lot about is Azure Traffic Manager. According to the docs: Azure Traffic Manager is a DNS-based traffic load balancer. This service allows you to distribute traffic to your public facing applications across the global Azure regions. Traffic Manager also provides your public endpoints with high availability and quick responsiveness. Meaning it’s a very good service to make sure the requests to your backend are routed to the backend that’s able to respond the fastest. Read more →

Create a Power Query custom connector using your own identity to access resources

If you’ve read my previous post on how to create a Power Query custom connector with authentication, you might be wondering if the same can be achieved by using your own identity instead of a service principal being used. The answer is: YES! There are a couple of resources that I found helpful, but didn’t provide me with a complete answer, but did help me get to a solution. These are the ones I used as a reference: Read more →