Alan and Sam discuss the management of macOS and how it is a little different to other operating systems. Alan guides through what can be configured and the reasons why. Here are a few things we covered: How is macOS different to other operating systems to manage? What Microsoft tooling can you use to manage them What licences do you need What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a voice message in the bottom right corner of our site. Read trans...
May 17, 2024•46 min•Season 5Ep. 18
This week Alan and Sam discuss Azure Data Box. It is a ruggedised appliance designed to simplify the process of transferring large volumes of data to Azure cloud storage, offering high-speed data transfer and secure encryption. It enables organisations to overcome bandwidth limitations and easily migrate large datasets, ensuring efficient and reliable data transfer. What is Azure Data Box? What can you back up with it? How does the process work? How much does it cost? What did you think of this ...
May 10, 2024•39 min•Season 5Ep. 17
This week, Alan and Sam talk about new features and services that have gone into Public Preview or General Available status in the last month. We dive into a couple of these updates that peaked our interest. Some of the Microsoft product features and update we covered: FIDO2 authentication & Keypass Security group provisioning to Active Directory using cloud sync Unified security operations platform New API Manager v2 App Service v1 and v2 environments retirement What did you think of this e...
May 03, 2024•31 min•Season 5Ep. 16
Alan and Sam discuss Microsoft Entra Global Secure Access. A identity-centric Security Service Edge (SSE) solution that helps secure user's internet and on-premises access. Here are a few things we covered: What is a Security Service Edge ? What is Microsoft Entra Global Secure Access? How does Entra Internet access for Microsoft 365 help secure and prevent data leakage? What is Entra Internet Access and Private Access? What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact fo...
Apr 26, 2024•52 min•Season 5Ep. 15
This week Alan and Sam discuss Azure Backup. It is a comprehensive solution offered by Microsoft Azure for safeguarding data across cloud and on-premises environments, providing seamless backup and recovery capabilities. It enables users to protect critical workloads, applications, and files with automated backups and flexible retention policies. What is Azure backup? What can you back up with it? How can you secure your backups? How much does it cost? What did you think of this episode? Give us...
Apr 19, 2024•55 min•Season 5Ep. 14
Alan and Sam discuss Microsoft's new Cloud PKI service, which enables the management and deployment of device and user certificates through Intune. Below are some key points we addressed: What are user and device certificates and how are they used How would you normally manage PKI services What is Microsoft’s Cloud PKI How much does it cost? What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a voice message in the bottom right corner of our site. Read tr...
Apr 12, 2024•36 min•Season 5Ep. 13
This week, Alan and Sam talk about new features and services that have gone into Public Preview or General Available status in the last month. We dive into a couple of these updates that peaked our interest. Some of the Microsoft product features and update we covered: Copilot for Security and M365 Syslog and CEF AMA connector for Microsoft Sentinel Lots of Azure changes, new features and retirements! What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a ...
Apr 05, 2024•34 min•Season 5Ep. 12
Alan and Sam discuss Azure Key Vault, it is a centralized cloud service designed for securely storing and managing cryptographic keys, certificates, and secrets used by cloud applications and services. It offers robust access control, encryption, and auditing capabilities to safeguard sensitive information and streamline key management processes. What is Azure Key Vault? What are the common use cases for Azure Key Vault? What does it integrate with? How much does it cost? What did you think of t...
Mar 29, 2024•48 min•Season 5Ep. 11
Alan and Sam talk about the Microsoft Connection Program (CCP). A Community of Technical professional from Customers, to Partners and MVPs that interacts with Microsoft Product groups around new features.. Here are a few things we covered: What is the Customer Connection Program? What are the benefits of being in the CCP? What is my experience being in the various CCPs? How do you get involved? What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a voice m...
Mar 22, 2024•33 min•Season 5Ep. 10
This week, Alan and Sam talk about new features and services that have gone into Public Preview or General Available status in the last month. We dive into a couple of these updates that peaked our interest. Some of the Microsoft product features and update we covered: Dark Mode in Defender XDR Cloud PKI Improvements in Azure Key Vault Configuration-as-code customizations in Microsoft Dev Box What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a voice mes...
Mar 08, 2024•29 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Alan and Sam discuss Azure Event Grid. It simplifies event-driven architectures by providing a fully managed service for routing events from various sources to multiple destinations in near real-time, enhancing agility and scalability in cloud-based applications. It enables seamless communication between Azure services, custom applications, and external sources while offering features like event filtering, routing, and dead-lettering for reliable event handling at scale. What is Azure Event Grid...
Mar 01, 2024•41 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Alan and Sam discuss what vulnerability management is, and why it is important to an organisation. Alan dives into how Microsoft security solutions help identify weaknesses and monitor their remediation. Here are a few areas we covered: What are vulnerabilities? why should you monitoring, priorities and resolve them? How can Microsoft Solutions help manage your vulnerabilities? What Microsoft licenses do you need to get started? What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our c...
Feb 23, 2024•49 min•Season 5Ep. 7
Azure AI Studio is an all-in-one AI platform that simplifies the development, evaluation, and deployment of generative AI solutions and custom copilots1. It provides a unified hub for building, managing, and fine-tuning AI models, making it easier for developers of all skill levels to create and deploy intelligent applications. Whether you’re working on natural language processing, computer vision, or other AI tasks, Azure AI Studio streamlines the process and offers a comprehensive suite of too...
Feb 16, 2024•58 min•Season 5Ep. 6
This week, Alan and Sam talk about new features and services that have gone into Public Preview or General Available status in the last month. We dive into a couple of these updates that peaked our interest. Some of the Microsoft product features and update we covered: Microsoft Defender XDR MDA / MDI / Defender for Cloud Azure API Center Azure Containers Apps Multiple Ports Azure API Management Azure Gen1 to Gen 2 Migration Azure Arc Visual Studio Code Extension What did you think of this episo...
Feb 09, 2024•40 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Alan and Sam discuss all things Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE). Alan goes through the history of MDE, what its capabilities are, and the platforms it covers. Here are a few other areas we cover: What capabilities does MDE provide. How is it different from other AV and EDR solutions. How is it licensed. What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a voice message in the bottom right corner of our site. Read transcript...
Feb 02, 2024•57 min•Season 5Ep. 4
This week we cover Azure AI Content Safety provides developers with tools to analyze and moderate user-generated content, utilizing machine learning to detect and filter inappropriate text and images. Customizable rules, scalability, and seamless integration with Azure services empower developers to create applications that maintain a safe and compliant online environment. Sam takes the lead covering: What is content safety and the scenarios it is used. What is Azure AI Content Safety. The produ...
Jan 26, 2024•44 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Alan and Sam discuss Microsoft Defender XDR, a unified portal to manage you incidents across your MS Defender suite. Alan dives into the Extended Detect and Response (XDR) concepts and how it's beneficial to have all products in the same system. Here are few other areas we covered: What is XDR? What is Microsoft Defender XDR? What Microsoft solutions feed into Defender XDR? How is it licensed? What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a voice me...
Jan 19, 2024•46 min•Season 5Ep. 2
This week, Alan and Sam talk about new features and services that have gone into Public Preview or General Available status in the last couple of months. We dive into a couple of these updates and peeked our interest. Some of the Microsoft product features and update we covered: Microsoft Entra Internet Access Public Preview Defender for Cloud Apps - GenAI categories for cloud discovery Defender for Endpoint Updates (User Contain, Simplified connectivity, WSL plugin) Fee tier manage SQL instance...
Jan 12, 2024•46 min•Season 5Ep. 1
In this episode, we wrap up the season, where we explore our favourite episode of the season. We also talk about the challenges and successes we faced behind the scenes, and how the podcast has grown in terms of listenership and engagement. As we bid farewell to the season, we also reveal our exciting plans for the next season, which will start on 5th January 2024. We announce that we will move to one season per year, but with at least 48 episodes, covering more topics and look to featuring gues...
Dec 08, 2023•31 min•Season 4Ep. 26
Alan and Sam discuss Microsoft's Copilot solutions. Alan talks about Generative AI and how it is being used in the world today. Here are a few things we covered: What Generative AI? What are the various versions of Microsoft Copilot? How can Copilot help users be more productive? How are they licensed? Ignite Keynote on Microsoft Copilot What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a voice message in the bottom right corner of our site....
Dec 01, 2023•57 min•Season 4Ep. 25
This week we cover Azure Container Apps. Container Apps is a serverless container service provided by Microsoft Azure, designed to simplify the deployment and scaling of containerized applications using Kubernetes. It offers a seamless and integrated platform for developers to focus on building applications without the need to manage the underlying infrastructure. Sam takes the lead covering: What are containers, and why do organisations use them? What is Azure container apps? And how do they co...
Nov 24, 2023•52 min•Season 4Ep. 24
This week talk all things Microsoft Ignite 2023! Microsoft Ignite is an annual conference hosted by Microsoft, centred around technology trends, product innovations, and announcements concerning Microsoft's cloud services, enterprise solutions, and developer tools. The event usually gathers IT professionals, developers, business leaders, and technology enthusiasts in one place. Alan is out at Ignite in person, we covered: The latest announcements at Ignite Alan and Sam’s favourite announcements ...
Nov 17, 2023•53 min•Season 4Ep. 23
Alan and Sam have a discussion around Microsoft accreditations and how they have recently changes. Here are a few things we covered: What are Microsoft accreditations? What has change recently around the exams for certifications? What are the new applied skills accreditation? Where do you start your Microsoft skills accreditation journey? What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a voice message in the bottom right corner of our site. Read trans...
Nov 10, 2023•38 min•Season 4Ep. 22
This week we discuss Azure App Service. Azure App Service is a robust, cloud-based platform that streamlines web app and API development. It simplifies deployment, auto-scaling, and management, supporting diverse programming languages and frameworks. Developers benefit from a fully managed, productive environment, enabling rapid development and easy integration with Azure services. With built-in security and compliance features, Azure App Service ensures a reliable and efficient solution for bui...
Nov 03, 2023•59 min•Season 4Ep. 21
Alan and Sam the concept discuss cloud identities and how cloud identity providers like Microsoft Entra ID can help manage and secure those identities. Here are a few things we covered: What is a cloud Identity? What capabilities does Microsoft Entra ID have? Can you bring your on-premises ID up to the cloud? How can it integrate into SaaS application? What security features are available? How is it licensed. What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or lea...
Oct 27, 2023•49 min•Season 4Ep. 20
This week we discussed Azure DDoS protection, a managed service from Microsoft in Azure to mitigate against DDoS attacks. DDoS or distributed-denial-of-service attacks are commonly used to overwhelm internet facing resources in the hope of disrupting their operation. Azure DDoS protection is a simple to use managed service which allows organisations to rapidly apply protection to their resources. Sam takes the lead with providing insights such as: What are DDoS attacks, and why do we need to mit...
Oct 20, 2023•48 min•Season 4Ep. 19
Alan and Sam discuss how Microsoft Entra External ID can help organisations collaborate and provide identity to their services. Alan goes through the B2B and B2C options and their scenarios. Here are a few things we covered: What are B2B and B2C identities How are these identities used What is an Microsoft Entra Multi-tenant organisation How is Microsoft Entra External ID licenced What did you think of this episode? Give us some feedback via our contact form , Or leave us a voice message in the ...
Oct 13, 2023•46 min•Season 4Ep. 18
This week we discussed Cosmos DB, a No SQL and relational database system hosted and managed by Microsoft. Cosmos DB is a cloud first service from Microsoft on Azure. It’s a modern approach to a database management system, built to achieve global scale and high availability. There are many APIs to pick from: NoSQL MongoDB PostgreSQL Apache Cassandra Apache Gremlin Table Storage Sam takes the lead with providing insights such as: What is Cosmos DB and how it’s different to other database manageme...
Oct 06, 2023•54 min•Season 4Ep. 17
Alan and Sam discuss how Microsoft Intune can help manage your Windows 10/11 estate from anywhere that has an internet connection. Alan goes through the capabilities and how it can help organisations. Here are a few things we covered: How has Windows endpoints traditionally been managed? What is Intune? How can Modern management help an organisation? What is the process to move to Intune to manage your Windows 10/11 endpoints? How is Intune licenced? What did you think of this episode? Give us s...
Sep 29, 2023•42 min•Season 4Ep. 16
This week we discussed Purview Insider Risk Management. Insider Risk Management is a compliance solution that enables organisations to discover, track and manage insider risk. Insider risks can be introduced to an organisation in a multitude of ways, understanding and correlating these activities is complex and needs to be automated, this is where Insider Risk Management shines. Sam takes the lead with providing insights such as: What are insider risks and why organisations manage these risks Wh...
Sep 22, 2023•43 min•Season 4Ep. 15
