RunAs Radio

Should you inject a little chaos into your systems? Julie Gunderson says yes! Richard chats with Julie about how deliberate failing portions of your system teach you more about your dependency and resiliency. But it's not just about breaking things - you need to build a hypothesis around how you see the reliability of the system and then create tests to challenge that reliability - and how to recover quickly if the test does harm to productivity! Julie talks about starting small, maybe just a development pipeline before moving on to more significant systems like production. The goal is to be resilient, but you're only resilient if you test!Links:Chaos MonkeyGremlin BootcampsPage it to the Limit PodcastRecorded October 12, 2021

Episode 800! Richard chats about making 800 episodes of RunAs with Microsoft Technical Fellow Jeffrey Snover. The conversation digs into the state of the IT business today, with the huge role of the cloud and digital transformation, and how it impacts the nature of work. Jeffrey talks about how the artificial intelligence in M365 is emerging as a tool to help people be more productive, by watching what they're working on and helping them to organize their information and efforts better. This leads to a discussion about privacy, understanding objectives and key results, and the ultimate goal of any system - better outcomes. Could this actually be the next generation of Microsoft technology? Hopefully it won't take another 800 shows to find out!Links:The Strength of Weak Ties Recorded October 11, 2021

Is ransomware getting worse? Richard talks to Microsoft VP of Cybersecurity Ann Johnson about the state ransomware today. Ann quotes Sutton's law: "Why do criminals rob banks? Because that's where the money is." An increasing number of cybercriminals have successfully extorted money from companies using ransomware. So yes, ransomware is becoming more popular amongst criminals and will continue to do so until it doesn't pay. Ann explains that the Zero Trust Security Model is essential - as are data backups that you know how to restore! Beyond our efforts at the IT level, Ann talks about ongoing relationships with organizations like the FBI to go after cybercriminals at a higher level, shutting down infrastructure and charging the criminals with crimes. Ransomware is getting worse, and it's up to us to fight back!Links:Cybersecurity During the PandemicRiskIQAfternoon Cyber Tea with Microsoft's Ann JohnsonRecorded August 23, 2021

What's the right way to have virtual desktops in the cloud? Richard talks to Aidan Finn about a virtualization project he was involved with that started with Citrix Cloud, which runs in Azure. Aidan talks about the number of virtual machines involved in a large-scale VDI implementation, many of which are infrastructure and plumbing. Why own the plumbing when you can get it as a service? The conversation then digs into Azure Virtual Desktop, which doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Citrix Cloud, but does simplify implementation a great deal. No virtualization implementation is ever simple, but working at the platform level can make it easier!Links:Citrix CloudRemote Desktop ServicesAzure Virtual DesktopPackerAzure MonitorAzure VM Image BuilderMSIXRecorded September 9, 2021

How do you add custom audio, video, and text communications into your organization? Richard chats with Mary Anne Noskowski about Azure Communications Services (ACS), a set of APIs and tooling that brings the features of Teams communications into custom applications and more. Mary Anne talks about Teams integration, providing a means to customize the guest access features into Teams via ACS. The conversation also digs into a few different scenarios for optimizing customer, vendor, and employee experience in communications. It's early days for ACS, but they are taking the reins from the Skype for Business APIs - and it's the same APIs that Teams depend on, so you know they will scale!Links:Azure Communication ServicesAzure Active DirectoryACS on Microsoft MechanicsACS Health Care Demo AppACS Retail Demo AppRecorded August 5, 2021

Are you stuck in the print nightmare? Richard talks to Jeremy Moskowitz about the ongoing battle over potential exploits through the point-and-print system in Windows. Jeremy talks about the discovery of the vulnerability in July 2021 and how it has led to a series of patches and registry key changes to resist a potential exploit. Meantime, people need to print! There are several workarounds with Group Policy, and Jeremy's own PolicyPak has some practical solutions. If you put some time into thinking through how your organization prints, you can find a solution that works and is secure!Links:July Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution VulnerabilityAugust Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution VulnerabilityRestrictDriverInstallationToAdministratorGroup Policy Settings for Controlling PrintersUltimate Guide to PrintNightmarePDQ DeployRecorded September 9, 2021

Making mistakes with reporting or analytics can lead to mistakes in business and a loss of trust - now what? Richard chats with Melissa Coates about building mechanisms in tools like PowerBI to make it easier to get correct results. Melissa talks about having a diligent core of analytics and a flexible edge - making sure the expert data stewards and building data flows and repositories for accurate analytics, allowing the self-service PowerBI users to explore. Sure, everyone needs some guard rails, but over-governance leads to tools going unused. Let them experiment and find value, then look at how to keep things under control!Links:Coates Data StrategiesPowerBIAzure PurviewAzure Data CatalogPowerBI Adoption RoadmapRecorded August 5, 2021

How does your organization work with files in Microsoft 365? Richard chats with Jason Moore about the role of OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, and the many tools available for files, folders, and lists in the M365 world. Jason talks about how under the hood, every file ends up in some pretty standard spots, like Azure Blob Storage - so you know that compliance, governance, and policy are consistent. The conversation also ranges over how different organizations come to different solutions based on their past experiences and skill sets - there's a lot of choice for a reason!Links:One Drive for BusinessM365 To Do AppM365 ListsRansomware Detection and Recovery in OneDriveM365 and Microsoft DefenderOneDrive Personal VaultOneDrive Photo StorageSharing OneDrive Files and FoldersRecorded August 6, 2021

Does Windows need a package manager? Richard talks to Sarah Lean about Windows Package Manager, aka winget. Of course, there have been package managers for Windows before winget, and Sarah talks about her favorite, Chocolatey. But winget is destined to be a part of Windows itself and opens the door to some great deployment automation. The conversation also dives into exporting - making a copy of the manifest of applications currently on a workstation. Could we get to full local workstation localization, where you could build and re-build workstations on demand? Maybe some next-level hot-desk workstations are possible!Links:Windows Package Manager on GitHubChocolateyInTune, aka Microsoft Endpoint ManagerAZCopyTechielass - Blog of Sarah LeanRecorded August 13, 2021

It's a hybrid and multi-cloud world - how do you manage it? Richard talks to Microsoft VP Jeremy Winter about Azure Arc and its ability to work across on-premises and multiple clouds to give you a view of your whole infrastructure - and ways to govern, manage and secure it! Jeremy talks about the role that Kubernetes plays in the hybrid world to help manage applications and how Azure Arc helps you manage Kubernetes itself with consistent security and implementation policies. It takes some training, but Azure Arc can play a key role in your infrastructure and application modernization!Links:Azure ArcAzure Arc Enabled Data ServicesAzure Kubernetes ServiceAzure FastTrackContainerizing Java ApplicationsAzure StackAzure Security Center Azure Stack HCIRecorded August 5, 2021

There's value in the data your organization has gathered - do you know how to use it to help your company succeed? Richard chats with Jen Stirrup about the new tools and techniques for data analytics. Jen talks about how cloud-based tools like PowerBI and Power Automate open the door to rapid interaction of analytics so that folks can get value in a short amount of time, and you can bring new capabilities quickly. The conversation digs into getting beyond data-driven reporting into more insight-inspired: That good analytics can help you understand the true value of different customers, even to the point of recognizing that some customers are actually costing you money!Links:Power AutomateMicrosoft Forms/a>PowerBIJen's Blog Recorded July 8, 2021

How do you respond to a ransomware attack? Richard talks to Dana Epp about dealing with a ransomware attack. Dana discusses making a plan - if you don't have a plan already, dealing with an attack is very difficult. And make sure your plan exists outside of your regular network since one of the first things you're going to do during an attack is shut down the network. The conversation focuses on how ransomware attacks are a crime and need to be treated accordingly - it's a business problem, not just a technical problem.Links:Canadian Center for CyberSecurityCybersecurity and Infrastructure Security AgencyRansomware Detection and Recovery in OneDriveAzure BackupTwilio Recorded July 19, 2021

How can Azure AD Conditional Access help to protect your organization? Richard chats with Nitika Gupta about the tooling available to detect and react to unusual sign-ins and access to data. Nitika talks about how Conditional Access lets you set policies in place to require additional authentication and even lockout an account when certain things happen - like a change in device, application, location, and more. The conversation also digs into providing additional security requirements for company leadership and admin accounts - the kinds of accounts that, when exploited, can do significant harm to the company. Links:Azure AD Conditional AccessMicrosoft Cloud App SecurityMicrosoft Endpoint ManagerPasswordless Authentication for Azure ADMicrosoft Zero TrustAzure AD Privileged Identity ManagementAzure AD Identity Protection Recorded July 9, 2021

Paul is back! Richard chats with Paul about the recently released preview of Windows 11. Paul talks about being a bit surprised by the timing of Windows 11, and how it looks an awful lot like an update to Windows 10, with a UX refresh. The conversation digs into the current controversy around the Trusted Platform Module requirement in the hardware for Windows 11, while also discussing what should be controversial - requiring a Microsoft account to log into Windows 11. The controversy is helping to shape the product, you should be a part of the discussion!Links:Windows 11 Preview 1 Recorded July 19, 2021

As the pandemic starts to wind down in some parts of the world, the conversation is turning to - do we go back to the office? Richard talks to Martina Grom about how some of her customers are responding to a need for hybrid workspaces, with some mixture of working from home and in the office. Martina also digs into the governance challenges of M365 with hybrid workers, and how folks who moved quickly to the cloud during the pandemic are still struggling to use their tools in a sustainable way. There's lots to learn still!Links:Microsoft 365Microsoft Defender for Office 365Guest Access to Azure Active DirectoryGovernance Toolkit 365 Recorded June 30, 2021

The SQL Server & AzureSQL Conference is BACK! After more a year away, the SQL Server & AzureSQL conference happened in Orlando in June 2021. And that means a SQL Question and Answers session at the end of the show. Bob Ward, Anna Hoffman, Buck Woody, David Pless, and many other great speakers answered questions from the attendees of the conference both in-person and online. Topics ranged over migrating to AzureSQL, securing data effectively, failover strategies, keeping up with the endless stream of new technologies coming, and much more! Recorded June 10, 2021

Can you have a private platform on the public cloud? Richard chats with Jennelle Crothers about her work with organizations setting up private Platform-as-a-Service infrastructure in Azure. Jennelle talks about using private DNS Zones, private container registries, and other services to provide a public-like platform experience for a company while not exposing it to the open internet at all. Links:Azure ExpressRouteAzure Container RegistryAzure Kubernetes ServiceAzure Private LinkAzure Private DNSAzure ARM Templates

Ned Pyle is back and he's got cool news! Richard chats with Ned about some of the features coming down the pipe for file storage in Windows Server 2022. First up is encryption - Server 2022 will have direct support for AES-256. Sure, it's overkill for many scenarios, but some organizations are demanding it, so here it is. Ned also talks about SMB Compression - while it has existed for xcopy et al for a while, now you'll be able to enable compression across any mapped drive. Finally, there is SMB over QUIC - file sharing over the internet that is secure by default, and much more efficient than VPNs. File sharing is never going away - how can you do it better!Links:Windows Server 2022 PreviewSMB CompressionServer 2019 Hot PatchingAzure Files

What's it like to build a tool for SQL DBAs? Richard chats with Kendra Little about her role at Red Gate being a product manager for the SQL DevOps tools. Kendra talks about moving to the UK to be closer to the main offices of Red Gate - just in time for pandemic lockdowns to start. The conversation digs into the various strategies around including databases in a DevOps approach, and how tooling can help. Kendra also explores the challenges of making the right thing, working with the team effectively through the pandemic, and software development teams have evolved in this strange time in history. Links:SQL CompareSQL Server Data Tools

What happened to Windows 10X? Richard chats with Paul Thurrott about the ongoing saga at Microsoft to create a lighter version of Windows that can compete with iOS and ChromeOS. Paul talks about various incarnations along the way, including Windows ARM and Windows 10S - Windows 10X is just the latest victim of an extremely challenging problem. Windows has always been about maintaining backward compatibility - but does that still make sense today? What are we willing to do to increase security and reduce complexity?Links:Windows Virtual DesktopWindows Server 2022Project Reunion

What happens when you bring Teams into an organization that already uses SharePoint? Richard chats with Susan Hanley about the intimate relationship between Teams and SharePoint, especially when it comes to files. Susan talks about aligning SharePoint folders and Teams groups to be able to connect existing SharePoint information into Teams - and how Teams can become the interface to everything, especially with Viva!Links:Information Governance in Microsoft 365

What is Microsoft Viva? Richard chats with Hilton Giesenow about the recently announced Microsoft Viva as part of Microsoft 365. Hilton discusses how Viva is a group of products focused on Employee Experience (EXP). Employee Experience being the things that employees need to do at the company outside of the actual work, such as submitting timesheets, requesting vacation, getting training, and understanding company procedures. The conversation turns to the different components of Viva: Learning focuses on employee education with LinkedIn Learning. Connections provide an interface to SharePoint pages for employees that the organization may already have. Topics is a discovery tool, identifying key terminology in the organization from within chats on Teams and elsewhere to bring information together. Finally, there are Insights, which looks at employee wellness. The interface to Viva is Teams - so that employees have everything they need in one place!Links:Microsoft VivaProject CortexMicrosoft Delve

How do you protect your PowerApps? Richard chats with April Dunnam about backing up and maintaining versions of PowerApps over time. April talks about how many PowerApps are developed by people that are more domain experts than developers. That lack of experience in development means that issues like source control and disaster recovery are not on their minds. There is excellent tooling available to help manage PowerApps: You just need to set it up!Links:Power PlatformBackup and Restore EnvironmentsPowerApps DataverseApplication Lifecycle Management with Power PlatformPower Platform Extension for Visual Studio CodeAzure DevOpsDebugging Canvas Apps with MonitorFusion Development

What does cybersecurity look like today? Richard talks with Troy Hunt about the recent news around the Hafnium exploits. The FBI utilized the vulnerability created in Exchange servers to patch the servers and remove the exploit. Is this a good idea? Is it legal? The actions of the FBI lead to a broader conversation about modern cybersecurity - when time is of the essence, should the so-called white hats be able to get legal authority to act to protect people, companies, and property? What's the alternative?Links:The HAFNIUM ExploitsFBI BotNet TestimonyVastaamo Ransomware PodcastThe Hafnium Podcast EpisodeApollo Breach on HIBP

How do you get started with the Power Platform? Richard chats with Sandy Ussia about the familiar places that Power Platform first appears - domain users trying to automate work like approvals, improve or replace forms-over-data tooling, and more! Sometimes it relates to existing custom applications in the organization, and sometimes it is a set of connectors between SaaS services - or is so far down the to-do list, who knows when someone will get to it! Sandy talks about how culture impacts the evolution of Power Platform in an organization - will the people using the tool reach out when they hit an access restriction, or work around it? This is where IT can help - and maybe find some opportunities to use Power Platform as well!Links:Lightning Tools ChatPower PlatformPower AutomateMicrosoft Power Apps CommunityPower AppsPowerBIPowerBI GatewayShane Young on YouTubeExplore Power Platform

So many ways to store data in the cloud, so little time! Richard talks to Karl Rautenstrauch about the array of offerings for your files in Azure Storage. Karl talks about how the rush to move to the cloud last year created some regrets - in the form of large bills for certain services! Planning migrations help because there are several storage choices based on your needs. The conversation digs into the role of Azure Disk, Azure Files, and Azure Blobs - including their relationship to OneDrive for Business, and even a quick chat about NAS products like NetApp!Links:OneDrive for BusinessAzure Storage ServicesAzure MigrateAzure NetApp Files

You moved your data into the cloud - but have you moved your thinking? Richard chats with Jes Schultz about going beyond the lift-and-shift of databases into the cloud to thinking more broadly about what you can do with data once it's there. Jes talks about how the cloud changes your approach to disaster recovery and database storage, opening the door to experimenting with different database capabilities, even different databases entirely! With core operations more automated, you have time to do more tuning - improving performance and saving money!Links:Azure SQLAzure PostgreSQLAzure DatabricksAzure Data Warehouse

Windows Server 2022 is in preview - have you checked it out? Richard chats with Robert Smit about the early stage preview of Server 2022 released to Windows Insiders. Anyone can be an insider if you want to check it out! Robert mentions a minor problem with the early build that broke sysprep. Check out his blog post in the links below for the workaround. The focus of Server 2022 seems to be on security, although not all the features are in place for the preview. But this is the version of Windows Server that will be in long-term support - and worth checking out!Links:Windows Server 2022 Insider PreviewRobert's Blog Post on Installing Server 2022 PreviewAzure Active Directory

Ready to have your Azure virtual machines auto-managed? Richard chats with Phoummala Schmitt about Azure Automanage, recently released into public preview. Phoummala talks about how Automanage sits atop Azure Update, Azure Backup, Azure Security Center, and more. The combination of tools gives you an overview of all of the virtual machines in your tenant and the ability to managing patches, governance: All the things you'd typically do by hand or in ARM templates. Virtual machine management is getting easier!Links:Azure AutomanageAzure BackupAzure Update ManagementAzure Security Center

How can Azure Security Center help you? Richard talks to Yuri Diogenes about the array of security tools in Azure, starting with Azure Security Center (ASC). ASC is free, and you enable it as soon as you set up your Azure tenant. Yuri talks about how ASC analyzes your Azure tenant and points out potential vulnerabilities, culminating in a security score. Your score goes up as existing resources in Azure are secured, or when you add already-secured resources - and your score goes down when the opposite happens! Talk of security leads to a conversation around Azure Defender for threat detection, Azure Sentinel for security event management, and ultimately to Azure Arc providing security access beyond Azure, into AWS, GCP, and even on-premises servers!Links:Azure Security CenterMicrosoft DefenderAzure DefenderAzure Defender for DNSAzure Defender for AppServiceSecuring Privileged AccessAzure SentinelAzure ArcAzure Security Center in the FieldAzure Security Center Ninja Training

What did the pandemic do to your infrastructure? Richard chats with Stephanie Donahue about the array of digital transformations that have taken place in the past year. Stephanie talks about moving workloads to the cloud - and how it is not just an IT problem. Work-from-home and other remote aspects of work have helped drive cloud adoption, but the opportunities are much larger than that! The conversation dives into new ways to collaborate, understanding how people work together on projects, and the potential for the latest tools available today!

A severe set of exploits have hit the on-premises Exchange server world. Richard talks to Tony Redmond about the so-called Hafnium exploits, a collection of four zero-day exploits that can allow an attacker to run arbitrary code on Exchange servers visible to the internet. Exchange Online is not affected, and it appears that on-premises Exchange servers only accessible by VPN are also safe. The patches are available for Exchange 2010 on upward, but it is likely too late for tens of thousands of Exchange servers. What happens now?Links:Office 365 IT ProsJohn Hammond Hafnium AnalysisTony's Blog Post on HafniumMicrosoft Post on Hafnium Exploit

What is Azure Purview, and how can it help you with data governance? Richard chats with Laurie Litwack about the preview version of Azure Purview. Laurie discusses how Purview focuses on an overall view of data in an organization - collecting metadata about data wherever it is stored. That means collecting information about data in databases, file shares, on-premises, in the cloud, even on the various SaaS platforms like Salesforce. The result is a data catalog that can help your organization utilize data more effectively, as well as understand where sensitive data exists and is being created!Links:Azure PurviewTry Azure Purview

Are your teams secure? Richard chats with Tobias Zimmergren about securing Office 365 Teams - both internally and externally! The challenge of Teams collaboration is the risk of sharing too much - and as Tobias says, by default, everyone can see everything. Certain teams in your organization, like HR, legal, and RnD, have to limit who can see their collaborations: Teams has information barriers to protect sensitive collaborations. Tobias also dives into eDiscovery and Data Loss Prevention, two huge topics on their own, and typically connected with Exchange: But also important with Teams. Get secure!Links:Managing Teams SecurityManaging External Access in TeamsSecurity and Compliance in TeamsInformation Barriers in Microsoft TeamseDiscovery Solution in Microsoft 365Office 365 Data Loss PreventionMicrosoft Defender for Office 365Microsoft Cloud App Security

What's the right way to migrate SQL workloads to the cloud? Richard chats with Anna Hoffman about the expanding array of choices we have today for moving your SQL Server to Azure. Anna talks about the great support for running SQL Server in an Azure Virtual Machine - and why that sometimes makes the most sense for folks! Then there's moving into Azure SQL, which has some differences to regular SQL Server, but you will find it familiar. The conversation also turns to migrating other databases as well - and the migration tools that provide guidance and tooling to make it easier than ever!Links:Data ExposedSQL Server on Azure Virtual MachineAzure Data Migration Guidance

How does your IT career evolve? Richard chats with Michael Levan about his career journey and some ideas of how your career can evolve as well! The conversation starts out at the help desk, where many IT folks get started, interacting with the various applications in the organization as well as the staff. Michael talks about thinking more broadly about your career, whether self-employment makes sense, how you learn, how you teach, and how you grow!Links:Deep WorkCloudSkills

Everyone needs source control! Richard chats with Nicole Stevens about what IT Pros need to know around source control. Normally the purview of developers, source control is useful anywhere you have text that needs to be stored, versioned, and protected. Nicole talks about how you can use GitHub in a private repository to manage your own scripts - keep track of the changes you make over time, be able to go back to old versions, and so on. And when the whole team gets involved, it gets even more interesting!Links:GitHubGitHub Workflow

What happens when our most private thoughts are ransomed? Richard talks to Sami Laiho about the Vastaamo Ransomware hack. Sami talks about how the hacker succeeded over months to steal private healthcare records, including transcripts of therapy sessions, and then attempted to ransom the company to get the data back. When the company refused to pay, the hacker contacted the individual patients with ransom demands and released several hundred private records in the process. Ransomware attacks are no joke - and Sami was both a victim and one of the folks fighting against the hack. In the end, spending time, energy, and money on protecting data your organization's data is important - you can't wait until after an attack to fix it. Not all genies will go back into the bottle.Links:Wired Story of the Vastamo Hack

Secrets Management ships for PowerShell! Richard chats with Sydney Smith who is the product manager for Secrets Management about how this PowerShell extension helps you access and manage multiple key stores in your organization and provides secrets for your PowerShell scripts. Sydney talks about how the development process of Secrets Management was done out in the open, on GitHub, with lots of feedback from the community. It works with multiple key stores, including its own, and leaves room for you to provide very granular security to your secrets - take a look!Links:PowerShell GalleryAzure Key VaultKeePassAWS Key Management ServiceWindows CredManPowerShell SecretStore on GitHubPowerShell SecretManagement on GitHub

Does M365 work for small business? Richard chats with Ian Williamson about his work as a sole IT person in a small business trying to move into Microsoft 365. Ian talks about how many of the features (and documentation) for Microsoft 365 is aimed at organizations much bigger than what he is working in - and often digging into features his tenant doesn't have! The conversation also focuses on the challenges of identity: Making sure your personal Microsoft identities don't collide with your M365 identities, how to untangle that mess, and perhaps, at some point, actually get some real benefits from M365!Links:Perform an Internal Admin TakeoverDetermining Tenant TypeMicrosoft Hibernates SMB SupportM365 Security Defaults

Do your tools help you work the way you want to? Richard chats with Heather Newman about the concepts of work-life balance and how your tools can make it harder to do the right thing for you and your organization. Heather also dives into the new etiquette around communication, the value of attention, using time and energy wisely. Can our tools help? It's all in how you use them!Links:Debbie Ireland Work Life BalanceOffice DelveThe Power of Full EngagementDriving Adoption BlogJason Stephenson MusicModern Workplace Change

It's 2021 - does PowerShell really need any new features? Jason Helmick says yes! Richard and Jason talk about Jason's move to Microsoft into the PowerShell team and the cool new things coming down the pipeline. First up is Secrets Management, providing a great means to avoid putting passwords in scripts and to be able to utilize secure accounts without ever knowing the secrets in the first place. Jason also explores IntelliSense and IntelliCode with PowerShell and how new AI technologies can make your PowerShell coding experience even better. Finally, Crescendo - tooling to make it easier to wrap native command line tools with PowerShell. 2021 looks to be a great year for PowerShell!Links:Secrets Management ModuleIntelliCodeVisual Studio CodePowerShell CrescendoCrescendo on GitHub

What else can Teams do? Richard chats with Christina Wheeler about going beyond the default features of Teams, turning it into the hub of work that it can be. Christina talks about the various plugins available for Teams available from third-party companies, as well as the kinds of add-ins you can build yourself. The conversation focuses on app templates as useful tools unto themselves, like the request-a-team template that lets you control the creation of Teams. But since it is an open-source project, you can customize it, or use it as a starting point for something more extensive. With excellent security and governance features, you can extend Teams to help your users have one place to look for all their work!Links:App Templates for Microsoft TeamsTeams Integration with SalesforceTeams Admin CenterMS-600: Building Applications and Solutions with Microsoft 365 Core ServicesMicrosoft Teams Toolkit for Visual StudioQnA Maker

Ransomware attacks are a disaster! Can your disaster recovery strategy cope? Richard talks to Dave Kawula about his experiences battling ransomware attacks - and how failed backup strategies facilitate the bad guys getting paid. Dave talks about securing your backups with separate credentials - the ransomware folks count on getting all-powerful administrator accounts! When you granularize your security (call it Just Enough Admin) you make it harder for ransomware to succeed. Get smarter about protecting your backups!Links:Azure Storage BlobsAzure Key VaultAzure Backup and Disaster RecoveryAzure Site RecoveryCybersecurity Insurance

What's your Productivity Score? Richard talks to Ulrika Hedlund about productivity in 2021 - the impact of the pandemic on work, and how IT can help. Ulrika discusses the rush to work remotely and the move into the cloud, including Microsoft 365. But the move is not enough - you have to train and learn how to use the new tools available. The conversation focuses on the etiquette of chat, email, video, and audio meetings - and the difference in formality between work and home uses! Ulrika also talks about the Productivity Score that M365 can provide to help IT understand how folks are using the technology so that they can provide support where needed.Links:Microsoft TeamsMicrosoft Surface HubMicrosoft Productivity ScoreStoryals

Happy New Year! A year ago Richard flew solo to talk about what IT looked like in the new decade. And then the pandemic hit and changed everything. With vaccines beginning to roll out, it's a good time to look at what 2021 is going to look like. What changes have been made in your organization, and how many of them will stay as the pandemic ends? Richard also dives into the predictions he made at the beginning of 2020, and how they look a year later. This is also the end of the Pandemic Series - thanks so much for listening!

What can GitHub tell us about DevOps? Richard talks to Nicole Forsgren about her new role at GitHub, studying the behavior of developers (and many others) using the massive set of aggregate data that exists within GitHub. Nicole talks about expanding the annual State of the Octoverse report to dig deeply into development productivity, security, and the community of source code contributors. This opens the door to some great ideas on how operations and development can work together - and isn't that what DevOps is all about?Links:AccelerateDevOps Research & AssessmentState of the OctoverseGitHub Security

Christmas time with COVID! Richard invites Mary Jo Foley on the show to celebrate a bit of Christmas and reflect on what a crazy year 2020 has been. Mary Jo talks about the early days of the pandemic when the tech companies sent everyone home and the challenge of keeping the internet and cloud providers working while the loads went up... it may have been a near thing! The conversation ultimately turns to gratitude for friends, family, and a great career in this industry. All the best to you and yours!Links:All About Microsoft

What role does PowerShell play in DevOps? Richard talks to Rick Taylor about his experiences building deployment pipelines for development and operations using a variety of tools, including PowerShell. Rick talks about how each tool, including PowerShell, can be the easiest solution to a given task. The conversation also turns to cross-platform deployments, where the implementations of tooling vary from platform-to-platform. PowerShell can help there too, but you do have to learn the platform you're working from! In the end, even PowerShell is just a tool, and DevOps is more about culture and process - and the conversation goes there too!Links:TerraformAnsiblePowerShell for macOSPowerShell for LinuxAzure DevOpsPesterServiceNow

A year into the pandemic - how have things changed for IT? Richard talks with Stephen Rose about his experiences working with organizations during the pandemic, from the rapid move to the cloud, facilitating work-from-home, sending all work online, and more. Stephen talks about the social changes happening at work that aren't likely to go away when the virus does. The relationship with IT has evolved also - how are we going to be different in the years to come?Links:Office 365 MFAAzure Power Platform