Richard chats with Ed Horley about his new book, Practical IPv6 for Windows Administrators. The conversation starts out with the evolution of IPv6 from a Windows perspective, starting back in 2006 with Vista and Windows Server 2008. Ed digs into the fundamental things that all administrators need to know about IPv6, how it works in your internal network, the advantages it gives, and how to get away from the archaic thinking that IPv4 has created to keep itself alive for so long. You need this bo...
Jan 22, 2014•35 min•Ep. 352
What happens when a podcast host talks to another podcast host? You get confused about who is interviewing who. Hal Rottenberg from the PowerScripting podcast chats with Richard about DevOps - and the conversation travels all over the spectrum on the topic. Where is the DevOps movement really at? Is this something we all should be doing? Is it developer-centric or operations-centric? How do you actually get better, and how do you get your whole organization to get better as well? Fun conversatio...
Jan 15, 2014•42 min•Ep. 351
Richard chats with PFE Chris Evans about using Surface devices in the enterprise. After a quick recap of the various Surface models, the hard conversation starts - how do we use tablets in the enterprise in general? What does it take to get your own custom apps on a Surface device? Do the ARM devices make sense? Can Bring Your Own Device really work? Chris takes them all on and outlines some interesting plans for pilot projects in your organization. The Tablets are coming!
Jan 08, 2014•35 min•Ep. 350
Happy New Year! Richard chats with Stephen Rose about the crazy things that went on at Microsoft in 2013 and some thoughts about the potential of 2014. A little Windows 8, tablets, Windows Phone and new development tools... and what about the whole CEO thing? Fun conversation to help you start thinking about your goals in 2014!
Jan 01, 2014•34 min•Ep. 349
Richard talks to Martin Booth from Microsoft about their vision of the People-Centric IT. A cornerstone of this vision is unified device management, covering desktops, laptops, tablets and phones across all platforms. Martin digs into how tools like Intune, Configuration Manager and Window Server 2012 R2 work together to be able to deal with Bring Your Own Device, effective Information Security and data sharing. The conversation gets beyond the devices and into the diversity of services such as ...
Dec 25, 2013•34 min•Ep. 348
Richard chats with Steven Murawski about implementing Microsoft's Desired State Configuration (DSC) in the Stack Exchange infrastructure. DSC is part of the Windows Management Framework 4.0 that comes with Windows Server 2012 R2 but is also backward compatible for Server 2012 and 2008 R2. Steven talks about being able to create detailed configuration documentation as part of DSC that then actually works with tools to generated pre-configured virtual machines in detail. The conversation also dive...
Dec 18, 2013•37 min•Ep. 347
Richard talks to Scott Lowe about VMWare's NSX product, which provides network virtualization to the vSphere world. NSX came from VMWare's acquisition of Nicira in July 2012 and their own development efforts to bring Software Defined Networking to life. Scott talks about being able to provision and configure networking the same way that you do with virtual machines, and what that means to networking, applications, security and performance. The conversation also looks to the future where applicat...
Dec 11, 2013•31 min•Ep. 346
Richard chat with Dana Epp about the latest on Microsoft Intune. Dana digs into the latest in Intune, which is it's second version, both for small organizations and large. The basic version is a pure cloud offering for smaller organizations that allows you to push software, manage policy and track inventory with no on-premise infrastructure. And it works across platforms - Windows, Windows RT, Windows Phone 8 and Apple iOS! Dana talks briefly about large organization implementations using System...
Dec 04, 2013•41 min•Ep. 345
Richard talks to Kevin Kline about what's coming in SQL Server 2014. Yes, the database continues to evolve and Kevin digs into many of the new features. The conversation also jumps into the NoSQL movement and it's many forms, including making simple data storage easier for developers as well as the creation and management of big data solutions. Kevin also talks about the impact of new licensing models and new hardware of SQL, and how the role of the database in the organization continues to evol...
Nov 27, 2013•33 min•Ep. 344
While at DevIntersection in Las Vegas, Richard chatted with Eric Shupps about his experiences dealing with Sharepoint after the deployment. Although the conversation starts out post-deployment, it becomes apparent that more training, more thinking and more planning are all good things to do with Sharepoint, whether after the deploy or before. How do you make governance palatable? And how do you introduce new processes to your users in a way that makes it not an obstacle, but an asset - Eric prov...
Nov 20, 2013•31 min•Ep. 343
While at DevIntersection in Las Vegas, Richard sat down with Mark Minasi to talk about Windows 8.1. And some of the show is even about Windows 8.1! Mark dives into a discussion around Server 2012R2 (the server side of Windows 8.1) and how Hyper-V is all over VMWare these days. The conversation also explores the evolution of Active Directory, and possibly it's end. Lots of interesting thought and exploration over what it means to live in the latest Windows world.
Nov 13, 2013•36 min•Ep. 342
While at SQLIntersection in Las Vegas, Richard moderates a panel of Kim Tripp, Paul Randal, Brent Ozar and Jonathan Kehayias. The panel takes questions from the audience about SQL Server and hilarity ensues.
Nov 06, 2013•55 min•Ep. 341
Richard talks to Venkat Kalyanasundaram about using IPv6 in your internal networks. Since Vista, IPv6 has been on by default on all versions of Windows. Should you leave it on? What breaks if you turn it off? What is the overhead of leaving it on? Venkat discusses all of these issues, as well as the advantages of using IPv6. We aren't likely to be running in a pure IPv6 world any time soon, but you can start using IPv6 internally today!
Oct 30, 2013•37 min•Ep. 340
Richard talks to Tom Hollingsworth about how Software Defined Networking (SDN) and IPv6 can work together. The conversation starts out talking about how SDN has brought virtualization to networking, with the same amazing impact that it has had on servers and storage. Tom then explains how SDN provides the ability to rapidly customize, deploy and tune networking for each application - and the problems that IPv4 brings to the table. So enter IPv6 and an approach to make IPv6 adoption less frighten...
Oct 23, 2013•34 min•Ep. 339
Richard chats with Clint Huffman about memory management in Windows. But first a quick conversation about the state of affairs these days, including Clint's work on the Windows Performance Field Guide, due to be published in early 2014. Clint runs down the various elements that matter about memory, the effects of running 32 bit apps in a 64 bit OS and more. And along the way, he mentions lots of great resources, including the PFE Performance Guide, the Windows Performance Toolkit and a knowledge...
Oct 16, 2013•36 min•Ep. 338
Richard chats with Erin Stellato about being an accidental DBA. What's an accidental DBA? It's the guy who was standing closest to the SQL Server when the last guy quit! Erin talks about the key things that you need to know to handle the basic care and feeding of a SQL Server. The conversation digs into understanding what you have, how you back it up (and restore it), simple things to keep your databases healthy and knowing when to call for help. You don't have to be a DBA to do things right!...
Oct 09, 2013•33 min•Ep. 337
Richard chats with Stephen Foskett about where storage is at these days. The conversation spans far and wide, talking about how Microsoft's latest products (like Exchange 2013) are rather SAN-hostile, why we're all happy to get away from FibreChannel, our indifference toward iSCSI and the impact of NFS and SMB3 on file systems. Stephen also talks about just how fast fast is these days - whether it's SSDs, PCI-E based storage or USB3 thumb drives! It's all about the iOPs! Make sure you check out ...
Oct 02, 2013•41 min•Ep. 336
Richard talks to Brian Komar about the issues around Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Brian starts out talking about being a responsible PKI authority within your organization and how certificate revocation lists (CRLs) are a bigger issue than ever. From there, the conversation turns to the challenges of actually securing the delivery of certificates to devices that are never going to be joined to active directory. Actually understanding the costs of BYO...
Sep 25, 2013•32 min•Ep. 335
Richard chats with Justin Morris about his experiences deploying Lync 2013 to customers. Lync 2013 has been out for a little less than a year and offers awesome levels of integration between email, instant messaging and telephony. Justin digs into some of the key features of using Lync before the conversation digresses into a debate on smartphones, comparing Skype with Lync and the idea of universal endpoints. Along the way there are some audio quality issues, the humor of which isn't lost on an...
Sep 18, 2013•31 min•Ep. 334
Richard chats with David Jones about identity security. The conversation starts out talking about the wonders of Single Sign On, followed by the horrors - the security exploits that can and do occur. David sites the Mandiant Security Report for more info on the exploits taking place. From there, David talks about using multi-factor authentication and the potential risks, as per the xckd on security. As we get more serious about managing identity, the idea of outsourcing to companies like PingIde...
Sep 11, 2013•34 min•Ep. 333
Richard chats with Mickey Gousset about System Center Orchestrator 2012. Mickey talks about the role orchestrator plays interacting between other System Center products (like Operations Manager and Service Manager), and/or third party apps, creating a place for all your scripts to live. Yes, it's true, scripts live on with Orchestrator, although you can use other tools to build runbooks using drag-and-drop tools as well. The conversation also digs into the thriving third-party community for Orch...
Sep 04, 2013•34 min•Ep. 332
Richard talks to Brian Desmond about some of the new features coming to Active Directory in Server 2012 R2. The conversation starts off talking about the focus on Federation Services in Server 2012 R2, including support for non-Windows devices connecting to a domain via Workspace Join. Brian also digs into features that were added in Server 2012 like multi-factor authetication and refers to the Active Directory Team Blog post on Multi-Factor Security. Is Active Directory getting old? Perhaps, bu...
Aug 28, 2013•30 min•Ep. 331
Richard talks to Mitch Garvis about his experiences comparing vSphere and Hyper-V. Which one is better? Mitch gets right to the point - they're both incredibly capable virtualization solutions. It's all about the tools around the hypervisor - whether that's vSphere on the VMWare side and System Center on the Microsoft side. So they both have their merits, but Mitch is all about Hyper-V. The conversation dives deep on the evolution of IT using virtualization, not just in the data center, but all ...
Aug 21, 2013•31 min•Ep. 330
Richard chats with Robert Bogue about the current state of SharePoint 2013. As Robert states, there still isn't a shrink-wrap version of SharePoint 2013, but if you have a Volume License Agreement or similar, you can download SharePoint 2013 today. But should you? The conversation digs into the cloud focus of SharePoint 2013, and how installation and configuration has gotten substantially more complex - it's all about the certificates! Or you can run in the cloud. If you can, take a SharePoint 2...
Aug 14, 2013•39 min•Ep. 329
Richard talks to Jeffrey Snover about Desired State Configuration (DSC). DSC is part of the Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview, although it is also available as the Windows Management Framework 4.0 Preview that can run on Windows 7 SP1 and Server 2008 R2 SP1. Jeffrey explains that DSC is all about building configuration information that can be applied to a server to install and configure services exactly to specification and resist 'drifting' of the configuration over time. DSC takes Powershell to t...
Aug 07, 2013•35 min•Ep. 328
Richard chats with Scott Forsyth about IIS 8 and 8.5. IIS 8 shipped with Server 2012, and IIS 8.5 with Server 2012 R2 (which at publication was still in preview). Scott talks about the new features of IIS 8, many of which are focused on large scale web hosting, where hundreds of web sites are hosted together. The conversation also digs into the back porting of features, including dynamic IP restriction and FTP Login restrictions, while being released with IIS 8, are also now available for IIS 7....
Jul 31, 2013•36 min•Ep. 327
Richard chats with Steven Murawski about building a DevOps culture at your organization. The conversation talks about the fundamentals of DevOps, digging into bringing operations and developers closer together to be able to iterate on features more rapidly - as Steve says, it's about deploying small changes more frequently. Steven refers to a .NET Rocks episode with Jez Humble about Continuous Delivery as well as a RunAs Radio episode with Jeffrey Snover on DevOps. Want to get going on DevOps? C...
Jul 24, 2013•37 min•Ep. 326
Richard brings Richard Hicks back to talk about Software Defined Networks (SDN). Windows Server 2012 brings many new capabilities to the role, but Hyper-V's advancements in virtual networking are especially important. Richard talks about how Windows Server 2012 R2 takes virtual networking to another level, making SDNs more a reality than ever before. The conversation digs into the challenges around bridging between the virtual network and the rest of the world, as well as new generation tools fo...
Jul 17, 2013•39 min•Ep. 325
Back in the studio at last, Richard talks to Konstantinos Theos about disaster recovery strategies for Active Directory. Backup and restore, test environments, policy management and practice - all the essentials of keeping Active Directory alive through a disaster. AD isn't much different from any other system, it takes all of these things (and did we mention practice?) to be effective in a disaster.
Jul 10, 2013•34 min•Ep. 324
While hanging at TechEd US in New Orleans, Richard chatted with Paula Januszkiewicz about her talks and experience working the 'black hat' side of security. Paula describes some of the amazing tools that hackers have today to break into servers and desktops - including an amazing discussion on how to break into a PC using the recovery options in Windows! This is a discussion that will get you thinking hard about your policies around patching, security-in-depth and auditing!
Jul 03, 2013•33 min•Ep. 323
