You're listening to the identity at the center podcast. This is the show that talks about identity and access management and making sure you know who has access to what let's get started. Welcome to the identity of the sender podcast. I'm Jeff and that's gem a gem. Okay. Jeff. How are you? Oh not so bad yourself Jeff Jeff Jeff. No but I do take us off the know my going to take us off the rails today but I've been thinking about just kind of canceled please.
No no. Well you have full edit capability. That's true. So okay. I've been thinking about one of the most fundamental concepts of identity and access management or Digital identity, whatever you want to call it and it's the word trust. And what does the word trust mean? I'm going to get back to that but I also was thinking about I think is the opposite of trust when it comes to Identity which is anonymity and anonymity. On the Internet is more than just a minor thing.
I mean I think it's it's kind of like a fundamental concept. Do you see what's going on with Twitter? Right? And to me, Twitter exemplified not only, you know, not solely responsible but kind of the Cesspool of the internet if you will, right. And I'm not talking about sis, where are you? Check out our Twitter Handle by the biggest festivals and Ideas,
he podcast. How's that for commercial but it is and I think it's the fact I think it's a not anonymity, that drives a lot of it. I mean, I think your Twitter like you have a lot of people who will be very bold in their own name, but a lot of us like you can't be too bold in your private, you know, in your Communications that are in the public assigned to your true identity because you can wind up
getting yourself fired. And I would say that maybe Stop a large percentage of society so people wind up creating these, an anonymous handles and going on, whatever you know, website, has a comment section or on Twitter or something like that and they posted things. Now, my question to you, I'm going to give one more example before I turn it over to you. My question to you is going to be, is that anonymity, a good thing or a bad thing? Should it be eliminated?
Should there just be one? If Steadman or should you also be able to create a Jeff Steadman, an anonymous account. So, you know, Joe Steadman, and here's why I asked. So, yeah, we all know that you, you ran a Chili's, right? And I was reading an article recently where it was there. It was about Olive Garden and someone post.
The question, you know is that is the unlimited breadsticks, truly unlimited, you know, is there A point where you order to many breadsticks and they say, no. And I person got on there said, I work at Olive Garden and if you were I forget what the number was honestly because it was like so outrageous like who the heck would order 12? Masses of breadsticks, something like that like that's the cutoff point. And they're probably not allowed
to say that, right? That might be a fireable offense, whether it is or not, I don't know, but I'm getting to the point that in that sense, an enmity would be good that you go out there and like shared that information and not have to worry about it, like having a blow back on you. Well, I think it's a good thing, and for the most part, it sure it's like anything else. There is downsides to anything
and for in second of all. Well, first of all, the world was not ready for to just admins can barely handle one. So, let's just get that clear right now. Yeah, I got is an, is being anonymous on the internet. Good holistically. Probably, I tried to die to get and I try to see the positive where I can. I think of things like what's happening with governments, may be that I have, you know, Less than ideal Free Speech rules.
Right being anonymous. There is probably helpful, not only to get the word out, but maybe even for your own personal Safety and Security, you know, when it comes to voicing descent, not every country has the same, you know, free speech that we do in the u.s. does Free Speech come without repercussions though. No, I think there are always a, you know, an action that can result from anything, any other
action. So, some people are brave enough to Attach your name to it. Some people aren't for any, you know, reason. It could be safety security or maybe they just, you know, they are putting on a public Persona versus what they think, privately. So I don't, I mean, I don't know how to answer the question then you were talking about trust and the opposite trust being anonymous. I immediately went to deceit as the opposite of trust and thinking of from a negative
standpoint, it's okay. Well, if I trust so-and-so and we're and we're an identity show. So let's talk with indication, right? If You're doing an occasion, you're essentially trying to establish a trust between people if you're trying to break that up and ication, then you're trying to deceive the system which probably means you are not the person that is the intended recipient of whatever that that's a trust session is about.
So I don't know if they answer your question or not that was a very existential of you but it's very extensible overall, but I kind of feel like the Authentication It is kind of the middle of the chain because the authentication is proving you are the identity. But if you set up the identity into seat, then you're authenticating just deceptive identity. Yeah. And I also thought about this trust component.
In terms of it's actually in two directions, it's the user trusting, the organization that there You know, a part of or they're there, they had an identity in and then just the organization or trusting the user. That this is a real identity and the real person is assigned to this identity and I guess those were things like verifiable
credentials come into play. So to me when I was starting to think about that is like, well I don't want to go through verifiable credentials to. I don't want to tie my Twitter account or my cure. Her account to my driver's license. Because I might want to say something that you know, I don't, I don't want my employer to be like, hey, you know, you can't say something like that. You can't have that public opinion.
So that was kind of my thought. And then, I thought, you know, in terms of trust because we, this comeback came up. I think maybe on our previous episode, where we talked about, you know, the organization's becoming the identity provider. And would people trusted organization?
You think about governments or you think about big tack or corporations, like who trust those entities do people trust the United States government or some state government to be, actually, you know, a credential or an identity that they actually trust. Well, the answer is probably every answer in between like you know, and I don't even think
that it is a binary decision. I think it's anywhere from 0 to 100 percent, maybe even negative number from a trust perspective, is you definitely do not trust you, right? You know, these types of entities or whatever it might be. So I think it's all over the place. Yeah, zero trust - trusts, you know, positive trust, you know, whatever the right terminology would be, but I don't, you know, only only was only a Sith deals
in black and white. So I think there are tons of Shades of Gray in between and I think when we start talking about sort of verifiable credentials and you know, this idea of really kind of like a self Sovereign identity where I can only share the parts of my identity that are relevant to the to the decision that needs to be made, whether it's math, education decision, or authorization decision, you know, it's kind of like That, you know the example I've used
in the past of law, I know it to get into this bar. I need to be 21 to prove that I am of age to drink. I show them my license and the bouncer whoever is checking ID validates that I have the correct birth date to coincide with establishing that I am 21 years old or older at the same time. They're also saying my home,
address my height, my weight. I call her a whole bunch of stuff that isn't relevant that decision and I think this is sort of Where the direction of the industry is heading. When when we start talking about managing your own Dana data, from an identity perspective, is all you really needed to tell the person was, you know, the all they really care about is, are you 21 or older? If the answer is yes, everything else is irrelevant. The answer is no.
Again, still all the answers. All the other things are irrelevant, right? So I think what we're talking about really her sort of managing, you know, to some degree, those those Angels whether it's verified or not, we're starting together until layers of trusts, you know. Sure. You can go and establish a fake identity. It is identity theft. We have a lot of Reliance on. Okay.
Well if I went and got a driver's license and I was able to fake that, that means, now I can fake something else and then fake something else. And you sort of like build this, you know, House of Lies or House to House of Cards that might collapse, right? If one of those identities gets gets, you know, found out or whatever it may be.
So I don't know where I was going with that but no that's a good that's great dialogue and I know we're not going to solve this here but for anyone listening it but I don't think so. But anyone listening, you know, comment on when Joe when Jeff when Joe Hey Joe when Jeff puts out the LinkedIn post that the episode is out, go out there and put a comment they'll do here. People's feedback or their
thoughts on trust and identity. Yeah, Beaker is I think plus it'll be good fodder for, you know, another episode where we kind of talked through. Like, here's what we heard from people, you know, industry and kind of what their thoughts were. So I think I know where you were going. When you start talking about verified credentials? I think we what we wanted to cover today, was Microsoft enter. Is that right? Absolutely. All right. So, Microsoft Ventura came out.
Well, I guess was announced a few months ago I thought this is an episode. That is a long time. Coming is to sort of explain what it is, what it's about.
And hopefully demystify, some of it, we're not going to solve all the answers and all the questions and all that stuff today, but at least hopefully get people kind of an overview of kind of what it is and give people some information around that, and there's probably no better person that we could bring on in his name, is, Eric Woodruff. He's a product technical specialist at Cypress. Welcome to the show. Eric, Thanks Jeff.
Glad to be here, thanks. Yeah, thanks so much for joining us and we've had Gil from Cyprus back on. I think it was September of last year 2021 episode number 110, we're recording episode 191. So it's been about a little while since we had someone on from Cyprus and we're going to
talk about Microsoft entry. Your kind of, hopefully help clear it up in my mind as to what it is and more, maybe more broadly, what it's not but we've got tradition around here, you know, when someone joins us Us first time like to find out what their identity origin story is, how did you get into identity? Is that something that you chose, or did it choose you? That's a good question. And I feel like my career is almost two parts for the first half.
So actually, when I started my it career, I was a Unix engineer back in the late 90s during the.com, boom. And then fast forward a bit as that whole bubble. Cuffs. The collapsed I started working with active directory for bit at Time Warner and then, I spent a good majority of my career at the New York state courts and
working. There, I would say it was a generalist working within the windows sort of server ecosystem, but when I started, there was a big eater rectory groupwise shop and by the time, I left about 15 years later, you know, as, as your active directory active directory, I'll be going to the cloud and What not?
And I think just looking over the years at the transformation there, I definitely had identity, choose me and I guess I'd say that because as active directory became more and more important we moved away from edirectory and what not like someone sort of had, you know, take rains there and you know, securing identity. When I was there. I never thought of myself as a security person, but I thought of myself as Infrastructure a generalist.
What not? So, but then I actually left the state and spend a bit of time working at Microsoft then. And when I started there, I'd say that's what the sort of chapter 2 of my career started. And there, I would say, I chose identity. So I was a premier field engineer and we were given sort of a luxury to pick out of like
the Azure Suite of things. As to what you want to focus on and just as I started to dig into like MFA and conditional access and other identity Technologies, I really enjoyed it. And so since then I've worked in a few other identity roles. And definitely, though, I find identity interesting and I'm say I think I would say that only then is that when I would consider that I became and identity practitioner strong enough to like call myself one. And now you're with Sampras, I guess.
Those who aren't familiar with, what's a is does, what's the, you know, 30 seconds, maybe 60 second long, elevator, ride pitch, so people can kind of be aware of, you know, what it is that you guys do. Yep. So, you know, it's time for us, we have a few different products, mostly revolving around hybrid identity, which the episode that Gil was on, you know, you guys spoke about that.
But, all right, so talking about active directory, and Azure active directory, but primarily focused on active directory
there. there's one product we had, that's an ID, D our platform, and it's really, you know, securing active directory and also extending that out now to the hybrid identity and Azure ad, and the other piece of software we have, which I actually wish I could go back to places, I used to work and I know this sounds salesy, but we never did Disaster Recovery testing of active directory at a lot of places because I mean it's a huge pain and You know, I started here in August and
actually seeing our other product you know do active directory restores. Yeah. It's a TFR it's pretty pretty cool piece of text so If it leaks disaster recovery of a Diaz. Is where it's at, man, if you're, if you consider yourself a Microsoft shop, you better be doing it because a ransom, where's attacks goal in life would be to own your active directory, they own your active directory, you are in big trouble. If you truly are a Microsoft shop? Yeah, no.
I mean, absolutely. And, I mean, I thought it's interesting and listening to some other podcasts about, you know, ransomware attacks. I mean, it always goes back to write like, regardless of how they threat actor. Initially got in its when they owned active directory, that everything just completely fell apart. So, that's true. That's true. Yeah, I've seen in my own professional experience, so, but we did not bring you on to talk about Disaster Recovery.
We're trying to learn about this. Microsoft entra and would love it if you would, you know, kind of educate us on it. I know. Enter has really like an umbrella for Tools. But whatever, you know about it, that would be great to kind of share with us and the listeners. Yeah, so I mean, I would say entra depending on what angle you look at it, it may be marketing but there's also the sort of Suite of Technologies
under it, right? So, I mean that the piece of Ventura that most folks are familiar with or probably most familiar. I should say is azure active, directory. And then So there's a history
about a couple years ago. Microsoft took all their security stuff and they renamed everything to like Defender 4X like Defender for cloud forecasts, be solution became Defender for cloud apps, Etc. And then they did a similar thing in the spring of 2020, where all their compliance and data governance became Microsoft purview. And then it was this June that they you know announce Tantra and yeah when you saw the announcement it was really You
guys are active directory. And also now bundling in Cloud Knox, as enter a permissions management, so that's there. Kim or Keem, you know, see, I am solution there. And then also entra verified ID, which, when it was in public preview, was Azure active directory, verifiable credentials as your AG has been around for a long time.
So is it just that as uad is now bundled under entra or there's Some new features that make it because I mean, as an old-school, active directory, persons, like you've got the active directory users and computers, which is not a end user facing Administration tool. But, you know, those of us who used it over the years, grew to love it and hate it.
But it gives you ultimate flexibility that I kind of felt like a sure As a lot of similarities in terms of its admin focused rather than kind of an end user Focus. So, I guess let me put my question, like this is entra azure ad meant to, you know, replace having something like cell point or and you know, an IGA or and itsm tool for managing access. So Given the the classic Consulting answer there is it depends, right?
So you know, there are components that that existed even before entra for identity governance and sort of, you know, the end-user aspect of things with like a my access portal for entitlement requests. What I think is interesting is within, that's probably been the past two or three weeks noticing that when they add a new features too. Azure active directory identity. Governance, it also is now being renamed to entra Identity governance.
It's not like out there if you go look at like the nth row, sort of sweet. But if you go look at the Docks, it's still refers to as you know, Azure active directory identity governance. But you know, I try to your question. I mean, I think they're definitely making a push, you know, as far as like identity governance goes, right. And they've certainly come a
long way. At least past few years especially but you know I'd say the primary focus just seems targeted at least with getting rid of men, Tim ilm for those customers. Well that's a certain me. That's, that's ultimately the most important thing to most folks who are in our industry with regards to Azure ad is all right, in the On-prem world. I had those products you just talked about and what what's my equal and as your world.
So maybe you talk a little bit about for those who don't know what memphian my LM are, you know, kind of that, you know, approach that Microsoft hook. And then you know what are the the analogous platforms or tools in the act. Our world. Yes, I mean so Nim which was fam and then ilm right was sort of their their sync engine tool. And there's also a web interface that most may find a bit clunky. That's right. Connected to SharePoint. You need like a PhD to operate ma'am.
I've prayed I, I'm proud that I've never actually dealt with him and will admit that I'm not super deep with it. But yeah, you know, ma'am was a lot of like we're bringing in. No user information from an HCM. It was you know, self-service
password reset. It also had some, you know, Pam components to it and you know some of that is a bit scattered through as your active directory and I'd say you know there's certainly some people out there who are like well where is the you know Cloud version of ma'am, right? But if you look at Azure active directory, self-service password reset has been out there for quite a long while, right?
I think a lot of the functionality of man though with the, you know, user lifecycle workflows and entitlement management and all that sort of stuff is what's primarily getting pushed into, you know, enter up identity governance. So I kind of feel like it when you think about identity governance a, the key is answering the question of who has access to what and it's really like two parts.
It's the provisioning side of, you know, Other words to finding who should have access that would be your work clothes and everything where you assign access to people and then provision to some and point, like active directory, or some application. But then there is the actual. What do people actually have, right? So, we're pushing all those out, too. And then point now we're pulling it back. Some funny business may have happened behind the scenes,
right? That we should be able to now pick up and say, Hey, how do, all these accounts have these Your privileges, or who created these accounts because we don't recognize the account QA test, 123 to me, what would MIM always was able to do is only the first part, you know, give you a web-based tool to manage giving access to people or taking it away and then provisioning are so and I kind of always thought of him doing that via some kind of like directory
synchronization. Is that accurate? Yeah, I mean I would say now with entra that, I mean they have access reviews out there, right? So you can have your certifications or at stations or however you want to put it on whether it's may be as robust, isil point, you know. Suppose I won't, I don't know sale Point enough to sort of make a strong comment there, but it definitely is primarily targeted still at. Like the, I'd say, the Microsoft ecosystem, right?
Yeah. And that, I mean, that's, I think, to me, this is kind of my perspective, right? Is that there's no way it could be called up with South Point. South Plains, been doing this for over a decade, right? And so you can't just catch up overnight like that, but that, okay, so that's the first tower that we've been talking about. Is this identity management. If Is the old school term.
The second tower was Keem, or as we've been schooled on recently, when we had Paul on the show last week, Kim. And that's the old Cloud knocks tool, right? So, Microsoft acquired that product, when you're using Cloud knocks, do you feel like you're in Azure is like the same user interface and things like that? No, so with the cloud knock, It's the first round of integration.
I mean, there's definitely done some work on the back end, but when you go to the entry portal and you click on cloud knocks, it opens like a new tab that is basically what feels like Cloud Knox was so okay. Like a totally separate application, they basically, but that in some ways is a good thing because I'm to bring over all that functionality, and try to fit it into You, the existing framework, I'd be a major ordeal in itself, talk to us a little bit about what cloud knocks
does. So that users who aren't familiar with with that would have some baseline understanding. Yes. So I mean, right? That's your Cloud infrastructure. Entitlement management and to the the Kim ver scheme thing. I feel like it's similar where I always thought it used to be seam.
And then at some point I was told It's now Sim and that's so we don't confuse it with Siam and you know it goes on and on but you know, to your question I mean, right, so I think of in the Azure world but it's not just Azure specific that, you know, identity would tend to focus on, you know, things that are I guess closer to other its heart. Right? And you'd see a lot of organizations who may have a bunch of subscriptions or if it's AWS accounts, Server or whatnot out there, right?
And the kind of delegate off the administration of you know who has access to what out there and to me I mean I think you know there's more like the I guess I'd say the philosophy philosophical piece of you know does control over access to that belong under like the identity umbrella, which I feel like you're Kim Solutions are kind of bring it back here, but it's
also to help govern that right? To make sure that it's the who has As to what, you know, there's the just-in-time piece for, you know, at the right time and also there's you know, what I'd say is similar to like access reviews out there, right? Making sure that you know you don't have privileges this hanging around makes you think of old file servers or something. Right? Where you'd go look and everyone has permissions to everything and nobody can ever make what's, what a what?
So yeah. So okay, so the first piece was as your Can as Rady second piece was Club knocks, the third piece is verify credentials, right? And what's the what's the company line on that product? Right? What was that all about? So I mean, I would say verified ideas, the area, I have had the least Focus. Just, I mean, to me, having worked more with, you know, customers I guess out in the Old, especially when it's more in the like delivery Consulting role.
You know, you tend to be more focused on like the issues at hand where you know, my opinion verified credentials and you know, decentralized identity and all that feels more like future. When you've got people who, you know, you still have issues with basic things like right fishing resistant MFA but it is it is there, you know, decentralized, I A sort of product out there and what it was announced and even under public preview,
right? That Microsoft has been, I think interestingly good at, you know, running sort of hackathons to try to get people like thinking about, you know, like what can we do with this, right? But I also know that there's some folks who sort of look at it as like a solution where the problem hasn't really been defined yet.
So, yeah, it seems to me that Did making investments in identity, whether it's going out and purchasing kind of Leading Edge Products or you know, developing products themselves and house based on, you know, Azure ad or like the verified adp's, would you just described? I'm wonder you go to a lot of the Microsoft partner conference is right. Talk to us a little bit about where they're heading with these products. At least what what information is being shared. Therefore the public.
Yeah I mean so I think if you like a cloud right there's a lot of times where it's that AWS may you know Trump Microsoft relative to you know I as or Paz I strongly feel like Microsoft is trying to position themselves from. I mean not just an identity but also a security aspect as being like they're like where you're going. Go to for multi-class One, Stop Shop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that's a recurring theme. We've had a lot of folks on the podcast recently, talking about
this. This idea of converged identity which is really taking the components, which were these pillars of identity management and offering at some level all of them. So, maybe grew up as an access management vendor Now you're offering life cycle and privileged access management or maybe you started out privileged access management. Now you're dipping your toe into these other areas it definitely feels like Microsoft wants to be that One Stop Shop. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm, I mean, an honestly, I think, to sort of try to pull that off you, you need to be one of the big sort of players out there. Whether it's, you know, I mean, there's the big three, right? And they seem to be positioning themselves. Ourselves. I guess I'd say well relative to be in like that, that One Stop Shop. So who you point to as the big 30. So the other is B, Google and AWS. OK, Google Amazon Microsoft in terms of providing cloud services to Enterprises. Yeah.
And I mean, I used to, when I say that, I mean, big three in big enough that right. I know I'm one of the I sewed. So thank you, you know, talked about how you know I rocked a sort of tried their hand at IGA right and there's this is no knock on October or anything but just I think Microsoft has the sheer weight of their services also with Office 365. I mean you talked to a lot of customers who they want like that Azure 80 thing, there are 365 shop in your like you
already have it, right? So just just the way it kind of is Is sort of out there whether you know it or not. Sometimes and that weight of their, the company doesn't listen to a podcast with such an Adela actually I had listened to her yesterday. It's called the tools and weapons podcast for anyone who's interested, but he was making the case about, you know, you've got to continue to innovate. You've got to continue to disrupt or someone's going to
eat your lunch. And so while Microsoft is the 800-pound gorilla, doesn't mean couldn't speak in, you know, you mentioned OCTA. They didn't try their hands in lifecycle management. They are actively trying their hands and lifecycle management. You know they're building their platform. And so you know I look Microsoft has been around for like 40 years or something.
Silly like some mind-boggling number, you know, people have preconceptions of Microsoft. I think they become they What do you call it reinvented themselves? I guess if you will with Nadella as a CEO I think he really shook things up but I think that you know he's right if they're not going to continue to innovate and disrupt you know even their their core products people start to question. Hey can I do this better cheaper? You know things that companies used to get money for now you
can get for free. Free. Yep. Right? So do they fall in love with making money on certain things so much that they don't adapt to the market? Where movie something is becoming free. So, last question for you on this topic is just around, you know, I meet with a lot of cisos and program, managers security folks who say, we're a Microsoft shop, right? So there, They're buying the e3e five licenses to manage
everything. They have very few usually, very few applications that fall outside of the Microsoft ecosystem, they might be using Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Dynamics or Erp, you know? They're they're like all in of course there they probably have some best-of-breed Cloud Solutions but you know, these are shops where they are doing, think Microsoft way. My question for you is from an I am perspective, do these folks also need. I am tools Beyond what's available with entra.
You know, I guess I'd say it's back to the classic. It depends, right. I mean, I've seen some things, some interesting, you know, I am tools for like Health Care, you know, also for K-12, but I mean, you see it. Go go both ways of had customers that have, you know, stuck with Azure active directory for K-12 and, you know, they're federating Google workspace back to have no other students were using it, but You also see some interesting.
I'd say you know, Technologies developed out there for more of those. I don't know if I'd say they're Fringe cases, right? There's tons of Health Care out there but I can't think of the name. There's a company that sort of is specialized in, you know, authentication for you know, Healthcare Providers, like, you know, you're on the floor. Nurses, doctors stuff like that.
So yeah, I mean, I think it may or may not sort of satisfy your needs and and ultimately write each organization needs I mean I think take a good look at, you know, how they operate what they have and also, you know, put put aside maybe their fan, you know, person this just whether they like or dislike Microsoft or I guess I wouldn't be fan person Miss. But hey, that's what I feel like that's a classic Consulting answer where I didn't actually really answer anything.
So it depends right. Well you know, you If the I think this is kind of worth the undertones that I'm is. I'm listening here. Is preconceived notions right around capabilities and products and vendors and some people are pro Microsoft. Some people are pro not pro Microsoft, right, or Apple or Google, or AWS every product has its fans and its detractors. And I think what we sometimes get stuck into is we use the product?
15 years ago, 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago and it is not the same product, you know, things move forward. I don't think anybody is really in the business of putting out bad products or we say hope that they are and they're always trying to improve the challenges is, do you does your business objective or your technical objective aligned with what the capabilities of the products? You know, if we talked about, you know, Microsoft, 20 years ago, or OCTA, or Ping.
Where sale point for that example, write any of these kind of bigger identity vendors that are out there. Their products were not as capable 20 years ago, they have all gotten better, they're not perfect. And they're still not the answer for everybody. There are still use cases that they just not good at. I think what are the chief knocks? For example, on Microsoft, is that? It's great when you're in the Microsoft ecosystem and then it starts to fall apart pretty quickly.
Once you leave the Microsoft ecosystem and so people look for alternatives. That and they sort of like, you know, they get this bad taste in their mouth or it's like, oh, that thing sucked. We hated it, right. And I'll never use it again. And in the meantime, they're probably doing themselves a disservice because it could be
the right fit. I mean, you see a lot of companies who, you know, they, they have Office 365 and they're using Microsoft but they just like don't want to use Azure for single sign-on for MFA and it would be so much easier if they
did. You know there, maybe there's other technical issues where they just can't, or won't do it or, you know, Whatever it might be, but I always find it interesting when I run into those clients who are very happy to Microsoft for example and they use something completely different. That is totally in The Sweet Spot of what they should be using Microsoft Word yo man, you see no I mean I I see I've seen the Spectrum.
I mean I think you're hitting on an interesting point in that definitely has Technologies evolved. It's more difficult these days to have Technology Drive. Decisions than business Drive technology, but I think a lot of US tech folks still want it. Where technology is driving business, but no, I mean, I've seen I've done workshops where like the second. You say hello there. Like I hate Microsoft especially when you worked for.
Um, it's yeah, it's a difficult conversation to try to be like, well, you know, I hope you don't personally hate me, right? I'm just here to try to help you and he's going, Eric, you spent a ton of money. Any on, you know, Office 365, right? And you have Azure ad, like, let's see what we can do with what you've got so far. And we're talk about Microsoft, you know, I hear the same thing about Oracle and, you know, we would never wish Oracle identity
management, anybody? Okay, well, you know what, you know, all things being said, it's still a pretty good product, especially if you use it where it's supposed to be used. It's like anything else, right? If you have one product, you try to make it do more than what it's designed to do. Of course, it's going to struggle, it's not designed. In for that, right? It's like having the, you know, the label on the shampoo bottle,
do not drink this. It's there because somebody tried to drink it at some point, right there should be like a, you know, a nutrition label or warning on it products, you know? Hey just because you've got memed does that mean that it should be your entire identity and access management platform? Write something like that, we've been talking to kind of a lot here about entra. I guess, if you had to sum up, you know what people need to
think about when they went. When it comes to entra, like what are what's like, the main takeaway that somebody should come off with that? You know, I mean, I think it's really focusing on the, the sort of components of it, right? So to me in particular, I guess I'd say it's Azure active directory, piece of that and if you in particular, are a o365 or em 365, customer right? Looking at how You know, you may
own a lot of stuff. One of the things I would want to Azure active, directory, environments a lot and what you would come across again and again and again our customers who they have, no idea what they own right and some they may have something else deployed. They want to get rid of some. It's just they don't even know, it's out there and it is a lot of stuff, right? It's like trying to boil the ocean sometimes but you just, you know, leveraging leveraging
what you may already own. So, Yeah, I mean, hey, it's important part. Like you marry getting a lot of stuff through your licensing. Why not take advantage of it? I mean, you know, if you're looking for the right way to do things, it's I think you have to leverage. You know, what do you have today that you that you could leverage versus what are the gaps and potential costs?
If you're already paying for something you might as well try to get the most out of it. All right, we're going to go ahead and wrap up this conversation but before we go, we were kind of talking before we hit the road, the old record button here, and we started Little bit about video games. I've got, I got one I want to ask you to share if you don't mind. You see you mentioned, you had a
tattoo. Yep, which I'm going to guess is the answer to my question, which is what is your favorite classic video game? And I guess Jim, you kind of came up with this question. Before you answer Eric defying classic? Like what is classic mean in this context? Hmm. So what I was thinking was a video game that you went somewhere and either God got in or stood in front of maybe at like a pizza shop or something and you put coins into it to play it. Yeah. That's that's what I had in mind.
Some people might be like, what the heck is he talking? A lot of people are like, what are you talking about? They don't remember arcade machines and pumping it borders into those things. Yeah. Well anyway, that's what I had in mind but I look go ahead and answer it, however, you like, alright, Eric go for it. Yeah. I mean, I suppose it would be classic in the sense of the series of Legend of Zelda.
So, but when I mean, the, the first Zelda came out, I was way too young to understand what was going on, but I watched my, my dad play a, but my favorite in the series would not be considered classic, at least at least not breath the wild that or honestly, Twilight Princess. I also really, really enjoyed so but during each Game in the series is so unique.
It's hard to sort of compare and while they've done a pretty good job of really kind of varying, not only like the stories but also the actual, the artistic style of the series for Legend of Zelda. I mean, you know, most people kind of think about it of you know, back in the day link and the master sword in the Triforce, right? And sort of like this 2D top-down, you know, scrolling
sort of Adventure type thing. And then you look at something like a Nintendo switch breath of the wild which is like this masterpiece of a. Now I can open world and intricate systems and say, do you see that mountain of distance? You can go there and you can climb it if you Got enough, you know, strength or energy like to
go up the hill. I mean, it's it's amazing how far it's come and in between then you've had things that have been more stylistic like cartoon versus more like a video game and like cell-based shading and things. Well, yeah, I was going, I mean with Wind Waker. I'd say honestly, you know, I mean, I'm a Nintendo Fanboy, but there's always been the knock on them that everything is underpowered. So, you know, sometimes it seemed like they did that because that's the only way they
can make the game function. Well, you know, it's Though. I mean, whatever reason it still looks great, by any standards. I mean, you know, is it full motion video? And, you know, sort of Cutting Edge, you know Reflections and raytrace Graphics? Right? And all this other stuff. No, but it looks really good and if it is, if it performs really well, right. That's, you know, probably the most important thing. All right. So you got what? What was your choice again, Eric, which selda?
I'll go with Twilight Princess Twilight Princess. All right, Jim, what's your favorite old man? Bit No game. Stand up old man was actually one I played in a pizza parlor, but it was sit down. So it was a car game called Spy Hunter Spy Hunter, someone brought it up, on one of our, our project calls the other day and you're like, oh, you know, like reminds you to Spy Hunter, like, oh my goodness I love that game.
You could do like the oil slick. You could do the big cloud of smoke and then you had to dock yourself into the semi on the My I mean for my money that game was and then we had to sit down one to me. It was like you felt like you're driving a real car. Think about that that that total 2D view but it just yeah. So that plus a super classic you know, intro sound kind of theme that doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo and just I was going to do.
I was going to do the what you just did but I was afraid we get a strike. Why did it so porno? So poorly that know? One would ever be able to recognize it in the real world so I think we're probably. Okay. Alright so for myself I guess technically it is a classic it has been around for 18 years World of Warcraft. I still play it to this day. I've been playing it for 18 years. I am one of those nerds that back-in-the-day stood in line to get different expansion packs as they came out.
And yeah it is still my one of my main drugs of choice when it comes to hitting the video game and You know, it's expansion week. Dragon, dragon Niles just came out. So of course, I've got to check that out. When I get time, I don't have as much time as I used to. So not necessarily into the
whole rating thing. My wife and I used to be in a rating Guild. So yeah, we were at World of Warcraft house, you know, for a while there, but what was that one's for one video game is pretty darn good. What was that one video? That was on YouTube and they're on a raid and like the one guy just like goes off. That's what does more dots? Yeah, they were.
There's a A couple famous Warcraft Clips, there's one with, they're going into a raid against the dragon called onyxia and basically the encounter is, as you've got 50 people on your side and then this Dragon who spawns a bunch of little dragon
whelps. And they, the idea is really is, they tend to overwhelm your group and you end up dying when onyxia, takes her deep breath and sort of wipes out the raid and you have this classic raid leader, you know, kind of yelling out, more dots damage over time, which basically means more damage. You know, onto the Things and handling the whelps and add control. Something that's the. Now I'm nerding out about World of Warcraft and the other one is Leroy Jenkins with Steve Reich.
Is also shorter think. Yeah, he charges into a room. Like they're like preparing for like this thing and I read that this was more like a stage thing. It's not actually something that actually happened like just off the cuff, but they're like, trying to like, figure out how to tackle this room and the character of Leroy Jenkins just he comes up on comms on voice. Chase. Like he just yells his name, we wrought. Jenkins he just fits right into the rooster whole plan.
Ruined the whole plan, just kind of kills himself and he's become a very popular culture, you know, cultural icon in the game and it's also stretched outside of the game. So when you hear someone who's 20 Jenkins, they're basically just charging into battle without any really thought? Yeah, I'm ruining everybody else's like, well, laid out plan. Anyway, you have to go in to YouTube and search Leroy Jenkins. If you don't know, we're talking about watch this video.
It's hilarious. Yeah. If we don't play video games, Games. All right, I'm going to before we, I start nerding out, even more about it. We'll go ahead and wrap up for this week. Eric, thank you so much for being part of this will have links to yourself on a LinkedIn for people to kind of connect Reach Out. They've got questions. I know you also had a Blog Eric, and identity, Eric, and I didn't you.com, I guess. What's the to Second sort of what is that?
That is a my Microsoft identity, nerding out. So it's mostly technical Content about, you know, various Azure ad related things. So, yeah, there's a lot of good stuff in there, so definitely a good read and you have been posting content, which is great. So I try it's a lot of work to right. That's why we do a podcast. So I have a link to that, in our show notes all stuff.
Like this Empress scmp, ER, is.com where you can learn more about, what Eric, and the fine folks over there are working on As well as I like to Microsoft enter, if you want to read the company line and kind of what that is all about, from the Microsoft perspective, as well as links to Jim. And I on LinkedIn, definitely looking for always for, you know, a feedback on what you like about the show topics things. You want to see us cover in the future, you know, things like that.
Definitely hang this up on LinkedIn and be happy to take that under advisement. And yeah I think that's going to be it for this week. You can find us on the web identity at the center.com. We're on Twitter so far the dumpster fire that has And into a tidy AC podcasts. And without, go ahead and leave it. Thanks everyone for listening, and we'll talk with everyone. And next one, thanks for listening to the podcast.
If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe and visit us on the web and identity at the center.com.