RunAs Radio

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

How can Query Store help you participate in the DevOps cycle? Richard chats with Erin Stellato about the power of SQL Query Store - born out of Azure SQL, Query Store keeps a record of every unique query that is run, along with its query plan and stats. How does this help with DevOps? By providing data for DBAs to talk to developers about how to make improvements to applications that will have a real impact on customer value in the long run!Links:Erin's BlogDocs on SQL Server Query Store

How has the pandemic affected work? Richard chats with Karoliina Kettukari about the concept of Modern Work and the tools that make it possible. Karoliina points out that only a year ago, the discussion was about the modern workplace - but with the pandemic, the workplace can be anywhere, and the focus is on work. The conversation digs into the role that Office 365 Teams plays in helping teams to collaborate, keep track of cooperative work, and to maintain the connection between team members!Links:Teams

What do you get an IT person for Christmas? Richard chats with Rick Claus and Joey Snow about what's on their list for Christmas - some gadgets expensive, some not so much... but all cool stuff that you could get for yourself, or put on your list for a loved one! Heck, play the show for them - we'll share the ideas directly. The best gadgets are things you'll use, but perhaps not buy for yourself because they are a bit indulgent... or maybe you just haven't thought about it. Here's to a great holiday season!Links:iFixIt Pro Tech ToolkitAmplifi AlienUSB Power MeterFizzicsUKeg NitroCell Phone StandsSmartphone UV SanitizerMeaterThermoworks Mini Thermocouple MeterLogitech Gaming HeadsetsRazer BlackSharkRode VideoMicKaotica Eyeball

How can you empower your users to change their own passwords? Richard chats with Jan Bakker about the self-service password options in Azure and Microsoft 365. With more people working from home, the usual ways of changing passwords using the help desk have gotten harder - you can't do in-person authentication! Jan talks about utilizing Azure AD and M365 features to get additional authentication methods available for users with Microsoft Authenticator, text messaging and more. Once that's set up, you have more choices to make, including allowing Microsoft's Identity Protection to recognize when a password should be changed!Links:Microsoft AuthenticatorMicrosoft Identity ProtectionHave I Been PwnedPassword Reset WritebackAzure AD Authentication OptionsJan's Blog

How do you keep documents alive and maintained? Make them lists! Richard chats with Lise Rasmussen about Microsoft 365 Lists, the latest versions of lists from SharePoint with lots of extensibility and templates to build up sophisticated workflows. Lise talks about not making documents since they tend to be endpoints for discussions and work - rather, make lists with views and automation so that the work continues to evolve!Links:SharepointBabe BlogMicrosoft FormsPower PlatformLists in Microsoft 365Microsoft PlannerMicrosoft To-DoList Templates in Microsoft 365

Every organization has a culture, and every culture has been affected by the pandemic. How is yours? Richard talks to Dr. Tracy Brower about how the COVID-19 Pandemic has impacted company culture. Tracy starts out talking about how most folks planned for a short pandemic and have attempted to sprint through these challenging times. But the reality is that the pandemic is a marathon, and thinking through your culture and how to strengthen the important parts of it can make for better work experiences and more successful business!Links:Bring Work to Life by Bringing Life to WorkDaniel Pink Drive

What's coming for Exchange? Richard talks to Gareth Gudger about all the news coming out of Ignite and beyond around Exchange server. Gareth talks about Exchange 2019 not being the last version of Exchange - there will be another on-premises version, although likely it will be an in-place upgrade, and without a year designation - call it the last version of Exchange. This leads to a conversation about folks still on-premises, staying hybrid with the cloud, and making it easier to make mail work no matter what, in the cloud or otherwise!Links:Exchange Online PowerShell V2Exchange Team Blog

Now that folks are working from home, how do you re-image their machines? Richard chats with Johan Arwidmark about the changes coming in Configuration Manager and a library for MDT. Johan talks about how the ConfigMgr responded to the pandemic by adding work-from-home features now in technical preview. You can deploy images onto a VM in your Azure tenant that remote workstations can deploy from, no VPN needed. Also, Johan and Michael have built a PowerShell Extension for MDT that works over the cloud as well - check the links for more info!Links:Configuration Manager on AzureiPXE AnywherePowerShell Deployment (MDT)Windows AutopilotConfiguration Manager Version 2006Deployment ResearchViaMonstra

If you're using Office 365, do you know about FastTrack? Richard talks to Erica Toelle about how FastTrack can help you get more value from your Office 365 subscriptions. One of the big services available in Office 365 is compliance around the retention and protection of information. If you have enough seats and the right levels of licensing, Microsoft will help you to take advantage of the advanced compliance features in Office 365!Links:Microsoft FastTrackOffice 365 FastTrackOffice 365 Security & Compliance CenterMicrosoft Trust CenterMicrosoft Compliance ManagerMicrosoft Information Governance in Microsoft 365Microsoft Information ProtectionMicrosoft FastTrack Documentation and Resources

The pandemic rushed some work into the cloud - but getting up to the cloud in an organized way takes some preparation, starting with Active Directory. Richard talks to Jess Dodson about the various clean-up processes we always meant to do for AD, but never got around to it. And now with a move to Azure Active Directory, those cleanups are important - not doing them can be expensive! Jess talks about getting your admin accounts in order, cleaning up services accounts, modernizing onboarding and offboarding, and taking advantage of multifactor authentication. There is lots to do!Links:Azure SentinelAzure Role-Based Access ControlAzure AD Privileged Identity ManagementAzure MonitorAzure Conditional AccessLocal Administrator Password Solutions

Where did Azure SQL come from and where is it going? Richard chats with Bob Ward about his new book, Azure SQL Revealed. The conversation starts out at the beginning of SQL Server in the 90s, all the way to SQL 2005, when the first discussions of a database in the cloud happened at Microsoft. Bob talks about the early days of SQL Server for Windows Azure that eventually became Azure SQL. Today Azure SQL works from the simplest of SQL Server workloads to some of the biggest hundred terabyte hyperscale servers - have a read!Links:Pro SQL Server for LinuxSQL Server 2019 RevealedAzure SQL RevealedCosmos DBAzure PostgreSQLAzure SQL Elastic PoolsAzure SQL HyperscaleAzure Arc

The Pandemic has moved a lot of applications into the cloud. Are you automating the deployment? Richard chats with Steve Buchanan about the ever-advancing tooling for Infrastructure-as-Code. ARM Templates are the standard approach to IaC for Azure, but they can get complex. Terraform is HashiCorp's tool for IaC that utilizes ARM Templates under the hood. But as Steve says, it takes time for new features of Azure to surface in Terraform. And Microsoft is developing Bicep as a new domain-specific language for IaC over ARM as well. What do you choose?Links:Microsoft 365 Desired State Configuration with Nik CharleboisTerraformAnsibleChefPuppetAzure Resource ManagerAzure Cloud ShellAzure BicepPulumi

Artificial Intelligence is here to stay - how did this happen? Richard chats with Amy Boyd about where artificial intelligence came from, starting back in the 1950s - and how it was overpromised and under-delivered, resulting in an AI winter. And this cycle happened more than once! But along the way, some interesting technology developed that leads us to the modern era of AI, where cloud computing and huge data sources have created conditions for some really remarkable software - and a great story!Links:Shoe DogAzure Cognitive Services

The pandemic has accelerated the move to the cloud - but it's not the only reason to migrate. Richard talks to Sonia Cuff about the effects of the pandemic on business transformation. Sonia talks about the response to the pandemic, such as working-from-home and moving to the cloud, as an adaptation to the crisis: Not transformation. The transformation part comes later, as you dig deeper into the new world the pandemic has brought you to. Can you go beyond surviving, and actually thrive?Links:COVID-19 Did Not Lead Your Digital Transformation

You're moving virtual machines to the cloud - how do you keep them organized and maintained? Richard chats with Samuel Erskine about all the things Azure provides to make the life of a virtual machine better. The conversation starts on organization, using dynamic groups and tags to identify servers - not the machine names! Samuel digs into patch management and monitoring as well. Virtual machines are not going away; keeping them organized and maintained continues to be a crucial part of the job!Links:Sam's Books on AmazonSam's Blog Series on IaaS ManagementPhoenix ProjectAzure AnalyticsAzure Update Management