What about SQL Server in Microsoft Fabric? Richard chats with Anna Hoffman about the preview release of SQL 2025 in Microsoft Fabric and the power of having your data store where you are doing your analytics and machine learning! Anna talks about new applications being developed using AI technologies like large language models and that often those applications need a data store - so why not keep it with the application in a configuration ideally suited for that work? The conversation digs into the relationship between existing SQL data stores and Fabric, how interconnections can happen, and perhaps a future of motion between them - but for now, it's a preview, so take a look!

Links

• SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric
• Microsoft Purview
• Microsoft Entra
• Azure Private Link for Azure SQL Database
• Microsoft Copilot for Azure SQL Database
• sp_invoke

Recorded December 16, 2024

Are your docs part of your DevOps cycle? Richard chats with Mattias Karlsson about automating documentation for APIs, cloud resources, and more! Mattias talks about using tools to build text files that contain every Azure resource being utilized, hopefully per application, along with API info, NuGet packages, and more. He also digs into the different audiences for that documentation - business wants to know what website exist, both interior and publically facing. Operations need to know what resources are consumed on-premises and in the cloud. Development is always looking for versions of APIs, calling approaches, etc. Maintaining documentation by hand is tedious and perpetually out-of-date. But if you can get up to speed with the tooling, you can make your documentation generate at the speed of deployment!

Links

• Bicep
• Azure Resource Inventory
• Azure CLI
• Pulumi

Recorded October 29, 2024

How is least privilege different in 2025? Richard talks to Bailey Bercik about the ongoing efforts to minimize users, administrators, and applications' privileges in 2025. Bailey talks about the power of Entra Permissions Management to help you see what permissions are going unused on various accounts so that you can tailor rights to individual accounts without things becoming unmanageable. Artificial intelligence is a forcing function for many permission issues, with these new tools potentially creating problems when given unnecessary rights. But those same tools can help you understand where permissions are being underutilized and help protect your systems!

Links

• Principle of Least Privilege
• Enable Permission Management
• Entra Permissions Management
• Microsoft Security Copilot
• Copilot in Microsoft Entra
• SEC545: GenAI and LLM Application Security
• How Attackers Use Apps to Attack Video

Recorded December 16, 2024

For the first show of 2025, let's talk about being a sysadmin in the coming year. This is the sixth year of Richard going solo on the show to talk about the things he's seen in the past year and speculate a bit on the next year, at least for sysadmins. Economic uncertainty is still a thing, as is employment. The security situation continues to be tough - and getting worse. But remarkable new tools, including large language models, are on the horizon to make things a bit easier. The adoption rates for LLMs aren't as quick as some people would like, but things are happening, and they can provide value. However, you have to do your homework. Oh, and then there's Windows!

Links

• Microsoft Copilot
• Microsoft 365 Copilot
• Microsoft Security Copilot
• GitHub Copilot
• Privileged Identity Management
• Extended Security Updates program for Windows 10
• Plan for Windows 10 EOS with Windows 11, Windows 365, and ESU
• LAPS
• Microsoft Fabric

Recorded December 31, 2024

What does Windows want for Christmas? Richard chats with Paul Thurrott about the crazy year that Windows has had and what 2025 holds. Paul starts with the Ignite keynote that focused on Windows being an open platform - which sounds funny on the surface, but has some logic to it! Security is a key part of that story, which brings up the issues around Crowdstrike and the Secure Future Initiative. And then there's Windows 10 going out of support in 2025 - what choices do you have going forward? Two grumpy old men ring out the year – have a great holiday season!

Links

• Secure Future Initiative
• Windows Security and Resiliency
• What's new in Windows Security, Productivity, and Cloud
• Windows Server 2025
• Windows 10 End of Support

Recorded December 5, 2024

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