Ready for some real-time intelligence? Richard chats with Yitzhak Kesselman about Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric. Yitzhak talks about what it means to be real-time - that your company has a data analytics need with an ROI affected by a short amount of time. Perhaps it's a factory making products incorrectly or even issues with response times in a call center. The process involves bringing streaming data sources into the real-time hub and then attaching dashboards to them to see data as it changes. Fabric simplifies this tooling so domain experts can do much of the exploration. Once you have valuable and actionable information coming in, you have the activator options, including messaging via email or Teams, all the way to Power Automate to affect almost anything!

Links

• Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric
• Fabric Real-Time Hub
• Real-Time Dashboard
• Real-Time Activator
• Power Automate

Recorded October 29, 2024

Can government agencies use M365 Copilot? Soon! Richard chats with Angela Dugan about how government entities: federal, state, counties, and cities, are exploring the power of M365 Copilot. Angela talks about the US Government GCC process for making M365 Copilot available in the next few months. The conversation turns to the usual challenges of data governance and security - all the same problems any other organization would have with tools that explore every element of data. Getting your data estate in order isn't easy - but the potential benefits in government are tremendous - providing more services to constituents for less cost!

Links

• Microsoft 365 Copilot GCC
• SharePoint
• OneDrive for US Government
• Microsoft Purview

Recorded October 29, 2024

Need some gift ideas for your favorite sysadmin? We're here for you! Richard brings back Rick Claus and Joey Snow for another round of great gadgets that sysadmins love. There are some inexpensive options, some expensive options, some silly things, and some awesome toys! Share this show with your loved ones to help them get something great for you!

Links

• LinkTree
• The Help Desk Girl Stickers
• 50th anniversary of D&D Dice
• Nixie Tube Clock
• RGB Raspberry Pi 5 Case
• SCRIB3D
• Meater Pro Duo
• XBox Series S 2-Slice Toaster
• SteamDeck OLED
• ROG Ally X
• Baby's Blogging Kit
• Ember Baby Bottle System
• TryHackMe
• WiFiMan
• Elgato Prompter
• Dual Arc Electric Candle Lighter
• Yoga Slim 7x
• OzloSleep
• Leatherman Wave Plus
• The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding a Civilization

Recorded November 29, 2024

How does your organization respond to incidents? While at NDC Porto, Richard chatted with Mandi Walls about her experiences with different incidents, from corrupted files to data center failures. Mandi talks about detecting and determining the scope of an incident, whether it is specific to a customer (or group of customers), or possibly system wide. The conversation ranges over external attacks, bad software updates, unique configuration problems, and more. Keeping good records during the incident helps clean up after the event and provides for an effective retrospective.

Links

• PagerDuty

Recorded October 17, 2024

How do you test your database? While at NDC Porto, Richard chatted with Dan Mallott about building unit tests for transactional databases like SQL Server. Dan talks about using testing frameworks constructed for the purpose, like TSQL-T, to make it easier to test individual database elements, from stored procedures to column constraints. The conversation digs into the challenges around testing, tolerating the changes to the database, and tweaking how you write your T-SQL code to be more testable. But the power of getting database tests into your CI/CD pipeline is enormous - catch more problems in testing before they become problems in production!

Links

• tsqlt
• DbFit

Recorded October 17, 2024

What's happening with SQL Server Management Studio? Richard chats with Erin Stellato, now at Microsoft, about the big jump coming for SSMS. Erin talks about how folks felt SSMS was a bit neglected when the reality is that there was a push to catch up with its parent codebase in Visual Studio. However, the next version of SSMS makes that jump, which opens the door to some excellent extension models. The conversation dives into the role of the Copilots in SQL Server through SSMS - helping you understand databases, write queries, and diagnose problems - eventually!

Links

• SQL Server Management Studio
• Azure SQL Database
• SQL Server Integration Services
• SQL Server Data Tools
• SQL Formatter

Recorded September 26, 2024

How does Software-Defined Networking in Azure work? Richard chats with Aidan Finn about his experiences working with the suite of Azure networking products, including Firewall and Route Server. Aidan talks about the training available on Microsoft Learn to get up to speed with the power of Azure Firewall, including building policy rule sets. The conversation also explores the power of defining how traffic can move within your network to clarify when potentially malicious software is active.

Links

• Azure Firewall
• Secure Networks with Zero Trust
• Azure Route Server
• Azure Firewall Training
• Azure Firewall Policy Rule Sets

Recorded September 24, 2024

ARM for Windows is here in the form of the Snapdragon Copilot+ PCs - how do you update them? Richard talks with Aria Hanson about how Windows Updates treat ARM like just another Windows device - all the updates! Aria talks about the transition time with Windows 24H2 update, which has some specific Copilot+ PC features. But when looking at ARM-based Windows devices, don't just focus on the Copilot part; check out the great battery life and the simpler architecture that should lead to long-life machines. The conversation also digs into the Windows Insider program, which now has four channels for updates, in order of likelihood to blue screen: Canary, Dev, Beta, and Release Preview.

Links

• Windows Insiders
• Copilot+ PCs
• Windows Insider Blog
• Windows Autopatch
• Windows Autopilot
• Pluton

Recorded September 18, 2024

How can you secure your company information with Azure Virtual Desktop? Richard talks to Jim Duffy about his work helping companies comply with NIST SP 800-171 security standards. These are the new standards required for Department of Defense contracting - including all subcontractors and suppliers. The security standard is thorough, with over 100 requirements. And you have to be audited to show that you comply! Even if you don't work with the government, the NIST security standard is excellent, and Jim talks about how you can use AVD to create a secure enclave for protecting data. And if you need help complying with NIST 800-171, Island Systems can help!

Links

• Azure Virtual Desktop
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev 3
• Secure Future Initiative
• Island Systems

Recorded August 12, 2024

Can you pen test yourself? Paula Januszkiewicz says yes! Richard talks to Paula about taking an active role in understanding your organization's security vulnerabilities. Paula talks about the low-hanging fruit she often finds as a professional penetration tester - typically on poorly maintained infrastructure like PKI servers. The conversation digs into tooling you can use to find vulnerabilities - just make sure you trust the source of those tools. Not everyone is a good guy in open source! And, of course, there's always a time to bring in professionals to do a deeper level of testing. Don't wait until the breach happens to take some action!

Links

• Cqure
• Penetration Testing
• GitHub Secrets Scanning
• HaveIBeenPwned

Recorded August 22, 2024

How can OpenAI help you with PowerShell? Richard talks to Doug Finke about his experiences with ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot to help him write PowerShell and how he incorporated the OpenAI API into a PowerShell library to create a conversational interface in his PowerShell scripts! Doug talks about his productivity gains using OpenAI to write better quality PowerShell faster - helping him understand the code, automate test writing, and explore aspects of PowerShell he had never dug into. But beyond writing code for him, adding the conversational interface to a PowerShell script opens a whole new interactive opportunity to make it easier for folks to use scripts and do more with them!

Links

• GitHub Copilot
• PSAI
• GPT-4o
• Doug's Blog
• Doug's YouTube Channel

Recorded August 7, 2024