Are you using SysInternals? Richard chats with Sami Laiho about Mark Russinovich's masterwork. Sami talks a bit about the history of SysInternals and how Microsoft came to acquire them and Mark - and the tool development continues! Process Explorer and Monitor are the best known of the suite of over a hundred tools - and they focus on diagnostics. But once you know what an issue is, there are more tools to help you resolve them. Check out Sami's Pluralsight series on SysInternals - he considers ...
Oct 02, 2019•40 min•Ep. 656
Is your cloud secure? Richard chats with Paula Januszkiewicz about what it takes to secure your cloud - that is, the cloud services that you're paying for. Paula talks about how cloud services are not automatically secure, that many security features are off by default and it takes time to figure out how to configure them to help protect your accounts and services. And since cloud products are relatively new, there aren't many experts around - you have to figure out what is right for you and you...
Sep 25, 2019•37 min•Ep. 655
How are you managing mobile device? Richard chats with Jeremy Moskowitz about the world of mobile device management and how it continues to evolve. Jeremy talks about the balancing act between supporting Windows-centric concepts that group policy did extremely well alongside what it takes to manage the broader diversity of devices today - and in the future! If you want to dig deep on MDM, check out Jeremy's new book!
Sep 18, 2019•36 min•Ep. 654
It's 2019 - has DevOps 'crossed the chasm'? Richard chats with Nicole Forsgren and Dustin Smith about the latest DevOps report, showing that in all aspects of software development and operations, things are getting better - but not evenly! The conversation digs into the latest research showing that it is large enterprises today struggling the most to improve development and delivery of software, while retail operations seem to be leading the pack! There's a lot to explore in the DevOps report, t...
Sep 11, 2019•39 min•Ep. 653
What is it to teach, and what is it to learn when you're in IT? Richard chats with Don Jones about his on-going work on his book Be The Master and how it has evolved since its first publication in 2018. Don talks about how readers connected with him around the book and discussed their own efforts in mastery and teaching - which encouraged Don to revise the book! Remembering how we learn helps inform how to teach, and teaching strengthens knowledge, so everyone benefits - and there's a lot to kno...
Sep 04, 2019•40 min•Ep. 652
Office 365 has a ton of features - how do you manage them effectively? Richard chats with Martina Grom about the various aspects of Office 365 that affect the way the folks in your organization collaborate with each other and get work done. As Martina explains, there are great tools inside Office 365 to make it easier to apply policies and governance around the various services that Office 365 provides, including onboarding and offboarding employees, self-service for collaboration, even policies...
Aug 28, 2019•35 min•Ep. 651
How much is the cloud costing you? Richard chats with Corey Quinn about his work as a consultant for cloud billing - finding ways to reduce the cost of cloud while maintaining the quality of service. Corey talks about his focus on AWS, but every cloud has similar problems - instances that aren't turned off, over-provisioning and more. In the end, you have to take the time to understand what your organization really needs from the cloud to optimize, but it is worth it!
Aug 21, 2019•32 min•Ep. 650
What do you know about software-defined networking (SDN)? Richard chats with Claudia de Luna about her work in SDN, including implementing Cisco's Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI). While the physical topology of your network isn't all that different when technology like ACI is in play, your apps see a much simpler network, and strict controls over what your applications can connect with. SDN is changing the networking game - are you playing?
Aug 14, 2019•32 min•Ep. 649
What questions do you have for the SQL community? While in Orlando at SQL Intersection, Richard hosts the semi-annual question and answer session for SQL at the end of the conference. Panelists include Bob Ward, Kim Tripp, Paul Randal, Brent Ozar, Glenn Berry, Kevin Farlee, Pam Lahoud, Pedro Lopes, Ben Miller and Tim Radney. Questions around SQL Server 2019, reporting and integration services, running SQL in AWS and of course, the obligatory partitioning question.
Aug 07, 2019•48 min•Ep. 648
Does Windows still matter? Richard and Paul Thurrott spend the better part of an hour debating back-and-forth about the state of Windows and the need for Windows. Microsoft has split the Windows team and largely concealed its revenue from reporting, so we don't know how Windows is actually doing. What do we want from Windows today? Is it just part of the plumbing now?
Jul 31, 2019•54 min•Ep. 647
Ready for a new Windows administration console? Richard chats with Haley Rowland about Windows Admin Center, a browser-based administration tool that puts a graphical console over top of PowerShell commands to your on-premises servers and workstations - and your Azure-based resources as well! Haley talks about making hybrid cloud easier, using Windows Admin Center to provide coherent connections between on-premises servers and their Azure-based backup solutions. Doing the same task in Windows Ad...
Jul 24, 2019•32 min•Ep. 646
Is it time for a new Windows Terminal? Richard talks to Richard Turner about the announcement at Build of the new Windows Terminal. The conversation starts with: Why? Richard explains that the ConHost.exe based console of Windows has hit its limits - the need for backward compatibility exceeds the ability to make changes to it effectively anymore. A new open source project has been developed to allow all the features you've always wanted in a terminal, like tabs, font choices, customization per ...
Jul 17, 2019•44 min•Ep. 645
Is DevOps only for startups? Rosalind Radcliffe says no! The largest enterprises can benefit from DevOps practices, the challenge is finding the right approach to changing practices. Rosalind talks about getting buy-in from senior leadership by focusing on reducing waste and improving efficiency. Picking the right project is important also - you want a project that is important, but not the crown jewels of the company. Understanding how work actually gets done in the enterprise helps lead you to...
Jul 10, 2019•35 min•Ep. 644
It's 2019 - what's new with the Internet of Things? While at the Build conference in Seattle, Richard sat down with Sam George to talk about the latest initiatives Microsoft is taking to bring IoT to the mainstream of business. As Sam explains, its starts with instrumentation - knowing what is happening in your business in more detail. That informs ways to make improvements and further roles for IoT. It's a digital feedback cycle, and it can transform your business!
Jul 03, 2019•30 min•Ep. 643
What can PowerApps do for you? Richard chats with Sandy Ussia about her work with PowerApps and Flow to help organizations build custom applications that run in the browser, on the tablet and phone. On the backend, Flow provides access to many Software-as-a-Service platforms, including all of Office 365 and all sorts of other third-party services. Sandy calls PowerApps a low-code solution, and the code you write is more algorithmic like Excel than C++.
Jun 26, 2019•34 min•Ep. 642
The cloud-based distributed database is a product you can buy by the minute! While at Build, Richard chats with Mark Brown about CosmosDB, Microsoft's high performance distributed database. The conversation turns to the modern thinking around storage - you have lots of space, you need speed and reliability. So what does your data storage architecture look like? Mark talks about how CosmosDB reflects this modern thinking, utilizing the cloud to provide fast data services anywhere you need them....
Jun 19, 2019•35 min•Ep. 641
Machine learning has brought new terms and language to data - do you speak it? Richard chats with Jen Underwood about how machine learning has added capabilities to data analytics, but also a number of new terms that need to be understood to take this capability into the business. If you're coming from the DBA role and adding machine learning to your skills, you need to know the language well enough to teach it to others!
Jun 12, 2019•32 min•Ep. 640
How do you maintain Windows Server Update Services? Richard chats with Adam Marshall about all the maintenance that WSUS needs over time - and the toolset he has built to automate it. This leads to a conversation about Windows Update in general... which hasn't been great lately. Can you really count on Windows as a Service? What about InTune? Adam also talks about Windows Update for Business which is a free option for managing updates without having an on-premises update server. Lots of choices!...
Jun 05, 2019•35 min•Ep. 639
Microsoft Teams is popular, but is it effective? Richard talks with Melissa Hubbard about how to get the most of out of Teams. Melissa talks about the natural chaos that comes from adding a new collaboration tool and how that can be a good thing for adoption but ultimately needs some governance. At the same time, too much governance up-front can stop people from using a new tool - so allow a little chaos! Teams is all about collaboration, and works with other Microsoft products like Yammer and S...
May 29, 2019•33 min•Ep. 638
Is it time to migrate to Server 2019? Richard chats with Dave Kawula who says YES! After a bit of a bumpy start, Server 2019 is good to go and offers a ton of great features - and some pretty painless in-place upgrades too. Dave points out that this is a version of Server 'born in the cloud' and since Microsoft does in-place upgrades, for certain roles, it makes sense for you to do it too. File servers and VM hosts are great for in-place upgrades, but domain controllers and app servers, you need...
May 22, 2019•38 min•Ep. 637
What's a data lake and why do you need one? Richard chats with Stacia Varga about the evolving landscape of data analytics - focusing on how the cloud is changing the way a company can gather, store and analyze data. This leads to a conversation about the role of the data lake, a place where raw data can arrive and then be processed on-demand for analytics. The cloud provides the elasticity and scaling to be able to analyze data quickly on demand - you just need to take advantage of it!
May 15, 2019•38 min•Ep. 636
WIndows Server 2019 has been out since November 2018 - is it time to install it? Richard talks to Jason Helmick about how the creation of Windows has evolved and how Microsoft's new practices around building Windows has affected adoption and interest in the latest operating system. Jason talks about how the continuous improvement model of Microsoft products including Windows can be a challenge for some folks, but provides huge benefits also. Should you install Server 2019? Jason says YES!...
May 08, 2019•36 min•Ep. 635
SharePoint is not just a product, it's a tool for helping your organization manage critical information. Are you taking advantage of it? Richard chats with Susan Hanley about what information architecture is about and how SharePoint can play a key role in helping an organization find, store and share data. Every organization needs this capability, successful organizations do it well - how well do you do it?
May 01, 2019•34 min•Ep. 634
IT may be evolving, but are all aspects of your IT organization advancing? Richard chats with Jeff Stokes, former Microsoft PFE and now working at Tanium about the challenges IT people have around improving performance. Arguably the least advanced part of much of IT infrastructure is the network - so what does a modern network look like? Jeff talks about being able to get visibility into what servers and desktops are talking to each other, and how to set logical boundaries around them. At least ...
Apr 24, 2019•36 min•Ep. 633
How do you make your SQL queries go faster? Richard chats with Erin Stellato about how Query Store in SQL Server 2017 and its ability to provide detailed information on query performance, including where SQL Server is compiling new query plans for repeated calls. Erin talks about how ORMs can cause repeated ad-hoc queries and how Query Store can be used to help educate developers and explore options for tuning those queries with stored procedures or parameterization. But you can't blame code by ...
Apr 17, 2019•35 min•Ep. 632
Firewalls and MFA are awesome, but how's your physical security? Richard chats with Ned Pyle about a story surrounding a consultant able to walk into a data center, take a VM host server and walk out - and then was able to exploit it to pull all sorts of information out of the Active Directory service on it! Ned talks about taking both physical security and policies seriously, and then moves to the next phase: How do you protect a virtual machine even when its stolen? Enter Guarded Fabric and Sh...
Apr 10, 2019•36 min•Ep. 631
The next DevOps Report Survey is out, and Nicole Forsgren needs your help! Richard chats with Nicole about the changes at DORA (now part of Google) - but the work to understand how to make high performing teams continues! Nicole discusses her now expanded team of researchers getting to the heart of what it takes to make great software in your organization. Its never one simple thing, but many aspects that work together so that everyone involved in the creation and operation of software can be as...
Apr 03, 2019•36 min•Ep. 630
Office 365 is growing in popularity - but is it fast enough? Richard chats with Paul Keely about how IT needs to monitor Office 365 to understand performance problems and worse. Paul talks about all the various aspects of performance that can be impacted by working with Office 365, including needing more overall bandwidth. The discussion turns to the Azure Service Map tool that runs on workstations and in the cloud to understand what services are eating resources - and how that can turn up poten...
Mar 27, 2019•40 min•Ep. 629
Is Artificial Intelligence part of your data analytics strategy? Richard chats with Jen Stirrup about how data analytics and business intelligence continue to evolve to include different elements of artificial intelligence. Natural language interfaces are one aspect, but machine learning can play an even larger role - if you continue to do your diligence! Jen talks about needing quality data to feed to machine learning algorithms and the challenges of dealing with data bias and confirmation bias...
Mar 20, 2019•35 min•Ep. 628
Whitelisting is a good idea - but not easy to make happen! Richard talks to Aaron Margosis about his work making it easier to use AppLocker to implement whitelisting on Windows, a set of scripts and tools named by Chris Jackson as AaronLocker. Aaron talks about implementing the whitelisting strategies outlined in the NSA whitepaper on the subject, making it easier to maintain the whitelist when apps need to be updated. Admins can choose how locked down to make a machine, providing flexibility ar...
Mar 13, 2019•33 min•Ep. 627
