Ctrl+Alt+Azure

In this episode, we reflect on Microsoft certifications and what value they provide. It's been a while since we last looked at these, and plenty has happened - what's new, what's retired, and what's useful in 2026? We also reflect on the usefulness of certifications for juniors and seniors.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:10) - Show content starts.Show links- Certification Poster- New AI business solutions credentials- Certification updates- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we look at Microsoft Agent 365 and Entra Agent ID. What are these new capabilities, and why should you care? We dissect them both, in contrast with agentic engineering, vibe coding, and the growing needs of governing agents.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:52) - Show content starts.Show links- What is Entra Agent ID?- What is Agent 365?- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we take a deeper look at Defender for Cloud and Cloud Security Posture Management. We reflect on what this is all about, what you can do, and how you should approach the capabilities as part of CSPM.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(02:42) - Show content starts.Show links- What is Defender CSPM- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we look at recent Microsoft Tech updates. By popular request, we're expanding our scope beyond Azure to include Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and related Microsoft platforms and capabilities. What's new? What's interesting? What's retiring? (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:43) - Show content starts.Show links- Entra ID-based identities for Azure Blob Storage SFTP- GA: Draft & Deploy on Azure Firewall- Microsoft 365 E7 (and Agent 365)- Azure Skills Plugin- Defender for Cloud release notes- Microsoft Sentinel what's new- Defender XDR what's new- Microsoft Entra releases and announcements- AKS supported Kubernetes versions- AKS security bulletins- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we look at the newly released Microsoft Cloud Security Benchmark v2, which is now in preview. What is it, why should you care - and what changed since v1? We take it for a spin, discuss aspects of governance and regulatory compliance, and how to apply them in practice.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:57) - Show content starts.Show links- MCSB v2- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we take a focused look at Startup-Scale Landing Zones. We've previously discussed Enterprise-scale Landing Zones and how the default model from the Cloud Adoption Framework is the usual approach for new deployments. SSLZ is an opinionated approach that is better suited to smaller environments. We talk about the pros, cons, differences, and how to get started.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:51) - Show content starts.Show links- Startup-Scale Landing Zone (GitHub)- Nice intro page for SSLZ- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we're not diving deep into a single feature of Azure - instead, we'll talk and share our insights on how to build a career working with Microsoft security. What should you know? What's relevant? What's less relevant? What are the core skills you should have? (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:51) - Show content starts.Show links- No links this week :)- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we take a look at the transition from "vibe-coding" to shipping verifiable, production-grade AI applications. This is the critical shift from relying on "gut feel" and prompt tinkering to implementing rigorous audit trails, versioning, and security controls. We discuss why many AI pilots fail due to a lack of explainability, the specific risks of privilege expansion and data leakage in agentic workflows, and also outline how to use Microsoft Foundry/Azure AI Studio to operationalize your models like true regulated software. (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(05:30) - Show content starts.Show links- RedAmon (GitHub) for automated agentic offensive security- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we look at recent Microsoft Tech updates. By popular request, we're expanding our scope beyond Azure to include Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and related Microsoft platforms and capabilities. What's new? What's interesting? What's retiring? (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:30) - Show content starts.Show links- Preview: Virtual Network Routing Appliance- Claude and Codex on Agent HQ (Github Copilot)- Disabling NTLM by default- What's new in Microsoft Sentinel- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we take a look at the Unified Tenant Configuration Management APIs, or UTCM. This is a set of capabilities that allow you to monitor and extract tenant configuration for automated and code-based monitoring and management. We discuss why you would use these, how they work, and also try them out by building tooling around the APIs. (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:13) - Show content starts.Show links- UTCM APIs- Jussi's vibe-coded tooling on GitHub- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we take a look at Windows Backup for Organizations. What's the capability, and why should you use it? What's required, and anything that's missing from it? We discuss backups in general, also, and provide insights on what you should back up. (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:30) - Show content starts.Show links- Windows Backup for Organizations- LEGO Arcade Machine (40805)- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we dissect the newly refreshed Well-Architected Framework guidance on building AI workloads. What is AI, actually? The guidance is organized into sections, and we walk through each one, sharing our insights and thoughts. (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:26) - Show content starts.Show links- Google Gemini- AI Workload guidance in Well-Architected Framework- Reference architectures- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we look at recent Microsoft Tech updates. By popular request, we're expanding the scope beyond just Azure to include Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and similar Microsoft platforms and capabilities. What's new? What's interesting? What's retiring? (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:45) - Show content starts.Show links- Update: Retirement date for default outbound access has been extended- GA: Tenant-owned Domain Impersonation for Teams messaging- Preview: Tenant-to-tenant migration with orchestrator for Microsoft 365- Preview: Dynamic Threat Detection Agent- Get started with azureblobcontainer-to-azureblobcontainer migration in Azure Storage- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we take a look at the brand new Microsoft Security Dashboard for AI. We initially spotted this during Microsoft Ignite 2025, and have been eagerly waiting for it to become available. And here it is! We talk about the what, how, and why of this new capability.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(02:40) - Show content starts.Show links- Microsoft Security Dashboard for AI- Fitness tests that Jussi is working on - part 1, part 2 (in Finnish)- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we take a look at Azure networking topologies from the ground up. What options do we have for building enterprise-scale architectures, and when should we choose one over another? We discuss our own experiences, and also the stuff we seemingly do not know enough about.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:59) - Show content starts.Show links- Define an Azure network topology - Traditional Azure networking topology (Hub and Spoke) - Virtual WAN network topology (Managed)- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we dive deeper into Azure Trusted Signing, and how it can help with signing your binaries. Why should you care? What are the tools today and in the future, and how to get this done right?(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:01) - Show content starts.Show links- Signtool - Introduction to code signing - Trusted Signing- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we take a look at three interesting - and free - tools to help you manage and secure Azure and Entra ID. We take each tool for a spin and reflect on the findings and usage.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:15) - Show content starts.Show links‑ ScEntra‑ azqr - Azure Quick Review‑ EntraExporter- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we look at recent Microsoft Tech updates. By popular request, we're expanding the scope beyond just Azure to include Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and similar Microsoft platforms and capabilities. What's new? What's interesting? What's retiring?(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:25) - Show content starts.Show links- Agent 365 tooling servers - Mistral 3 available in Microsoft Foundry - Microsoft 365 Copilot Business - Entra ID support for RDP Connections- Ignite 2025 Next Steps- Foundry Control Plane: Where Developers Build, Operate, and Govern Every Agent Feedback - Give us feedback!

In this episode, we unpack what's new with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. During Ignite 2025, Microsoft announced that the public preview of MDC would be available shortly, and it has arrived now. We'll take a look at what changed, what didn't, and why you should care.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:52) - Show content starts.Show links- Defender for Cloud Preview- Give us feedback!

In this episode, we take a look at the new Microsoft Zero Trust Assessment tool. We reflect on Zero Trust in general, its application in the Microsoft security landscape, and what this exciting tool will offer you.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(05:00) - Show content starts.Show links- Microsoft Zero Trust Assessment tool- Demo of Microsoft Zero Trust Assessment (Merill Fernando)- Give us feedback!

Microsoft Ignite 2025 is here! We reflect on the hero announcements and what they mean for the future. Some exciting announcements were made during the first keynote, and we already had a chance to try a few of them out.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:35) - Show content starts.Show links- ESPC’25 in Dublin- Microsoft Agent 365- Security Copilot announcement- Azure Copilot- Microsoft Foundry, and more here- Defender for Cloud- Give us feedback!

Microsoft Ignite 2025 is just around the corner. As is tradition by now, we take a look at what to expect from Ignite: the announcements, expectations, and sessions.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:55) - Show content starts.Show links- Microsoft Ignite 2025- Give us feedback!

This week, we unpack the hero announcements from GitHub Universe 2025. Much of this is related to agents, agentic AI, and GitHub Copilot. We reflect on these new announcements as we proceed.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:59) - Show content starts.Show links- Agent HQ- Custom agents examples- Copilot integrations - Agentic code review in Copilot- Plan mode- Agents.md- GitHub Code Quality- Usage metrics and API- Enterprise AI controls and agent control plane- Give us feedback!

This week, we review the Microsoft Digital Defense report 2025. We did the same for 2024 and 2023, so this time we'll look at what's interesting in the report and what to focus on from a security perspective.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:40) - Show content starts.Show links- Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2025- Ctrl+Alt+Azure: Episode 275: Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024- Ctrl+Alt+Azure: Episode 210: Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2023- HackTheBox- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we look at recent Microsoft Tech updates. By popular request, we're expanding the scope beyond just Azure to include Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and similar Microsoft platforms and capabilities. What's new? What's interesting? What's retiring?(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:40) - Show content starts.Show links- Public preview: VM Customization in Azure: Disable Multithreading & Constrained Cores- Containerization Assist (GitHub)- Microsoft Azure Migration Hub- Private Link service Direct ConnectFeedback - Give us feedback!

Today, we talk about identity mistakes, with our guest, Stephan van Rooij. We learn about OWASP top 10, his project IdentityProxy and things to avoid when building custom solutions that revolve around identities.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(02:50) - Show content starts.Show links- Blog: https://svrooij.io- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/stephanvanrooij - IdentityProxy: https://github.com/svrooij/identityproxy- OWASP Top 10- GitHub servers being migrated to AzureFeedback - Give us feedback!

Today, we go through the three recommended and must-have alerts you should configure in all of your Azure tenants. We touch upon FinOps, security, a bit of WAF and CAF, and find out if we're using these recommendations ourselves.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:20) - Show content starts.Show links- Azure Quota Alerts (Preview): Still overlooked, but incredibly useful | Microsoft Community HubFeedback - Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we take a tour of Microsoft PowerToys in 2025. What's in there? What's new? Do we actually use these tools, or are they just gimmicks?(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(06:44) - Show content starts.Show links- Microsoft PowerToysFeedback - Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we talk about our experiences with SharePoint and Project. Now that Project Online is going away, as well as SharePoint 2013-style Workflows, we discuss the options for moving to more modern capabilities, and why these are still very valid tools. (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:58) - Show content starts.Show links- Project Online is retiring- SharePoint 2013 Workflow retirement- SharePoint 2013 Workflow Assessment Tool- SharePoint Workflow ManagerFeedback- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we share ideas, experiences and lessons learned running AI workloads at home. On a laptop, in a custom-built AI rig, and everything in between!(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:37) - Show content starts.Show links- HuggingFace- Ollama & Open WebUI- LMStudio- Azure AI Foundry LocalFeedback - Give us feedback!

This week, we dive deep into security-focused updates from Microsoft. As we've done with more generic tech updates, this time we'll focus on the interesting security updates from Microsoft.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:29) - Show content starts.Show links- RETIREMENT: Migration from Azure China CDN to Azure Front Door- PREVIEW: Custom block response codes and body for Application Gateway WAF- PREVIEW: Azure Bastion now supports connectivity to private AKS clusters via tunneling- PREVIEW: Workspace-level Private Link for Microsoft Fabric workspaces- GA: AKS Security Dashboard- WAF: CAPTCHA, and JS challengeFeedback - Give us feedback!

Today, we take a look at Azure Storage Discovery. It's a new preview feature that gives you insights and actionable items across all your Storage Accounts. We discuss our experience using it and how to properly test its capabilities.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:25) - Show content starts.Show links- Azure Storage Demo Populator tool (GitHub) - Azure Storage Discovery- PricingFeedback- Give us feedback!

Today, we'll take a look at something that is of the essence for anyone working with identities and the shift to the cloud. What is Group SOA, and why should you care? We reflect on the dependencies of Active Directory, the five stages of transformation, and what this capability will help you achieve. (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(05:20) - Show content starts.Show links- Group SOAProvide feedback- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we look at recent Microsoft Tech updates. By popular request, we're expanding the scope beyond just Azure to include Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and similar Microsoft platforms and capabilities. What's new? What's interesting? What's retiring?(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:15) - Show content starts.Show links- Create Tenant Level Service Health Alerts (preview) - Azure Monitor | Microsoft Learn- AKS Updates- What is Azure App Testing?- Azure 128 & 192 vCPU sizes- Azure Cloud HSM- GA: Network Security Perimeter- Two-way forest trusts for Entra DSFeedback - Give us feedback!

Back in 2020 we did our first episode on Microsoft Sentinel. We feel it's time to revisit Sentinel after five years, and take a look at where it stands today. What's relevant, what's new, and what's happening with Sentinel?(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:29) - Show content starts.Show links- Microsoft Sentinel Quickstart- Sentinel Data Lake- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we break down Model Context Protocol, or MCP. What is it, why should you care, and how does it change your solutions? We discuss the concept, the architecture, and share our experiences working with MCP solutions.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:02) - Show content starts.Show links- MCP home: modelcontextprotocol.io- Use MCP: Connect to Remote MCP Servers- Build a server: Build an MCP Server- Build a client: Build an MCP Client- modelcontextprotocol/csharp-sdk: The official C# SDK for Model Context Protocol servers and clients.- MCP Dev Days session- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we'll take a look at n8n—the agentic workflow engine/tool/product/service. How does it compare to Power Platform, Azure Functions, Azure AI Foundry, Copilot Studio, and other similar offerings from Microsoft? Self-hosting vs. cloud-hosted? We also share lessons learned and other insights. (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:44) - Show content starts.Show links- n8n.io- n8n GitHub Repo- n8n workflowsFeedback - Give us feedback!

This is episode 300! Massive thank you and gratitude to everyone for tuning in over the years. We reflect a bit on the past 6 years of the show, and then we dive deep into security-focused updates from Microsoft. (00:00) - Intro and catching up.(03:02) - Show content starts.Show links- What's new in Microsoft Defender for Cloud features | Microsoft Learn- Containers support matrix in Defender for Cloud | Microsoft Learn- Alerts for AI services - Microsoft Defender for Cloud | Microsoft Learn- Manage workspaces in Microsoft Security Copilot | Microsoft Learn- Manage security compute unit usage in Security Copilot | Microsoft Learn- Azure DNS security policy | Microsoft LearnFeedback - Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, it's time to share insights and lessons learned from self-hosting stuff at home! We'll talk about the why and the what, and also some stuff that didn't work at all. You'll also hear about how to best service workloads from home, and what sort of equipment is needed.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:04) - Show content starts.Show links- Cloudflare Tunnel- Jussi's ipecho service- Give us feedback!

Today, we'll talk about AVNM, or Azure Virtual Network Manager, with insights from Microsoft's Jack Tracey. What is it, and why do you need it? We talk about mesh networks, routing, IP address management, AVNM with Azure Landing Zones, and more!(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(05:08) - Show content starts.Show links- What is AVNM?- Frequently asked questions about Azure Virtual Network Manager | Microsoft Learn- Azure Virtual Network Manager in Azure landing zones - Cloud Adoption Framework | Microsoft Learn- Give us feedback!

In this week's episode, we'll talk about vibe coding - the practice of writing code that prioritizes aesthetics, creativity, and personal expression. What's our experience on this? What tooling are we using? What does this mean for productivity?(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(04:14) - Show content starts.Show links- Mistral Small 3.2Feedback - Give us feedback!

Today, we'll talk about Azure Landing Zones, with insights from Microsoft's Jack Tracey. What are landing zones, to be more exact? We touch topics on application and platform landing zones, networking, architectures, infrastructure as code, and many others.(00:00) - Intro and catching up.(02:30) - Show content starts.Show links- Azure Landing Zones | Cloud Adoption Framework- Azure Landing Zone Accelerator- Azure Landing Zone Brownfield- Development environments- Give us feedback!