How does artificial intelligence fit in with SQL Server? At the Microsoft Fabric Conference in Las Vegas, Richard sat down with Muazma Fahid and Bob Ward to discuss the AI developments in SQL Server. Muazma talks about SQL Server as a crucial source of data for building machine learning models and the new features added to make SQL Server a key store for vector data and other elements of machine learning. There's also Copilot for Azure SQL Data to help with diagnostics in your databases and to use natural language to write queries - it SQL Server Natural Language Query all over again, but certainly better than ever.

Links

• Responsible AI Practices
• Phi-2
• Retrieval Augmented Generation
• Copilot for Azure SQL Data
• JSON in SQL Server
• RegEx in SQL Server
• sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint
• SQL AI

Recorded March 27, 2024

Have you downloaded the latest version of PowerShell? While at the MVP Summit in Redmond, Washington, Richard sat down with Sydney Smith to discuss some of the features in PowerShell 7.4. Sydney talks about the successful delivery of PSResourceGet and PSReadline, two long-in-development features that have reached their so-called "1.0" state. The conversation also digs into the ongoing challenge of some sysadmins sticking with PowerShell 5.1, the last of the Windows-only versions. Today, PowerShell 7 has feature parity with 5.1 and many new features that improve the quality, security, and capabilities of PowerShell. Try the latest!

Links

• PowerShell 7.4
• PowerShell on GitHub
• PowerShell in Visual Studio Code
• Get PowerShell

Recorded March 11, 2024

How can GitHub Copilot help you? Richard chats with Damian Brady at NDC Sydney about the power of GitHub Copilot to help you understand and write the bits of code you need - whether you're using PowerShell, understanding a RegEx expression, or trying to get a Bash prompt right. GitHub Copilot and help to explain the code you've got, even across workspaces - so you can find all the scripts that changes might impact. And if you think it's time to rewrite some old scripts into more modern languages, GitHub Copilot can help with that, too!

Links

• GitHub Copilot for Business
• GitHub Dependabot
• GitHub Code Scanning
• GitHub Copilot in the CLI

Recorded February 14, 2024

As Artificial Intelligence enters our organizations, how do we secure them? While at NDC in Sydney, Richard sat down with Sarah Young to discuss the challenges of securing these new technologies. Sarah talks a bit about the fundamentals - in the end, AI technology is just more software and needs all the same authentication and authorization that other apps need. However, there are some unique aspects and potential exploits that you can address through tooling and education. We're all learning these new AI technologies and how to apply them in our organizations - training is essential!

Links

• Azure OpenAI Service
• System Message Framework and Template Recommendations for Large Language Models
• Microsoft Purview
• Microsoft Entra
• Not with a Bug, But with a Sticker

Recorded February 14, 2024

How can Microsoft Copilot for Security help you? While at NDC in Sydney, Richard chatted with George Coldham about Microsoft Copilot for Security - combining GPT-4 with information about Microsoft security products and your organization's resources in Azure to provide guidance and insight into making your company more secure. George talks about how it's early days for this copilot - and it's only in preview so far. Bringing together the vast array of security products that Microsoft makes, Microsoft Copilot for Security brings the ability of Large Language Models to summarize data to help you understand where the organization's security vulnerabilities exist and how to address them. You want to get in on this preview!

Links

• Microsoft Copilot for Security
• Unified Security Operations Platform
• Microsoft Sentinel
• Microsoft Security Portals and Admin Centers
• Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud
• Microsoft Entra
• Microsoft Purview
• Microsoft Priva
• Kusto Query Language
• Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

Recorded February 13, 2024

What can GitHub do for you? While at NDC London, Richard chatted with April Edwards about how GitHub can help sysadmins - and everyone in your organization! In the end, GitHub is an engine for managing work, with GitHub Actions kicking off workflows that can send messages, run all sorts of code, activate scripts, and more. Ultimately, you get a good report of what happened - or didn't happen. And over time, those scripts can mature to be more reliable and detailed - and keep a record of every change.

Links

• GitHub Actions
• Pester
• Dev Containers
• PowerShell 5.1
• GitHub Advanced Security
• GitHub Code Scanning
• Dependabot
• GitHub Copilot

Recorded February 2, 2024

Aren't we all platform engineers? Steve Buchanan says yes! But there's more to it - and Steve talks about the mindset of looking beyond individual products that we might have skills with and owning the entire problem of providing platforms for your organization to get work done. The conversation dives into the many products that can help our applications function better and the challenge of making them secure and fast. Are containers the solution? Possibly! It's your platform; focus on the fundamentals and go further!

Links

• VS Code
• File Server Resource Manager
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Kubernetes Namespaces
• Open Service Mesh in AKS
• Microsoft Defender for Containers
• Azure Chaos Studio
• Azure Virtual Desktop
• GitHub Codespaces
• AKS with Azure Pipelines
• Azure Draft
• Security Copilot

Recorded February 5, 2024

What do you know about large language models? While at NDC in London, Richard sat down with Dr. Jodie Burchell to discuss how machine learning has reached this new technological milestone. Jodie talks about different types of machine learning and how large language models fit into the landscape. The conversation explores where LLMs come from, what they are good at, and what they should not be used for. They are not intelligent and certainly not a panacea for work - but they can be valuable when used correctly!

Links

• GPT-2
• Microsoft AI Supercomputer
• GPT-NeoX-20B
• Jodie Burchell on .NET Rocks
• Anthropic
• GitHub Copilot
• Retrieval Augmented Generation
• The Busy Persons' Into to LLMs by Anderj Karpathy

Recorded February 1, 2024

Have you upgraded to TLS 1.3? While at NDC in London, Richard chatted with Scott Helme about his work moving companies onto the latest version of TLS. But do you need to? Scott talks about how SSL 2 and 3 were used until they were broken by the black hats, leading to a panic to update quickly. While there is no evidence that TLS 1 and 1.1 are breached, they are already deprecated - and are slower than the later versions. Want a performance boost? Move to TLS 1.3!

Links

• KeybaseAPI Root Certificate Expiry
• Let's Encrypt
• Brownout Notice at GitHub
• When Logging Causes Security Incidents
• Deprecation SHA-1
• Google Post Quantum Encryption

Recorded February 1, 2024

How are we going to manage the use of M365 Copilot? Richard chats with Martina Grom about her experiences helping organizations prepare for M365 Copilot. Martina talks about getting your data estate in shape - and the challenge that represents in terms of identifying what data should be available within an organization. The conversation also digs into the larger picture of the Microsoft Graph - all the information about how people interact on M365, the resources they create and use, and the potential the Graph offers to help with productivity. It's still early days, but it's never too early to work hard on ensuring we have the right governance in place to allow Copilot to help the company succeed!

Links

• SLRProject
• Microsoft Delve
• Microsoft Purview
• GitHub Copilot Policies
• Data, Privacy, and Security for M365 Copilot
• Extend Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365
• Manage Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 with the Copilot page
• Manage access to public web content in Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 responses
• Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 Requirements
• Protect your sensitive data with Microsoft Purview
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Readiness Assessment

Recorded January 5, 2024

What's coming next for Windows Server? Richard chats with Jeff Woolsey about the latest information around Windows Server vNext! Jeff discusses how customer feedback influences Windows Server and the challenges of moving folks to the latest versions. Server vNext is designed to live in a cloud hybrid world and includes improvements for interacting with Azure, but it also has plenty of on-premises features. The conversation turns to Active Directory and its ongoing modernization to make it more secure, robust, and scalable. The same goes for the rest of the Windows Server - coming soon!

Links

• Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition
• Azure Arc
• Storage Spaces Direct
• Windows Server vNext Talk from Ignite

Recorded December 14, 2023