RunAs Radio

How do you keep documents alive and maintained? Make them lists! Richard chats with Lise Rasmussen about Microsoft 365 Lists, the latest versions of lists from SharePoint with lots of extensibility and templates to build up sophisticated workflows. Lise talks about not making documents since they tend to be endpoints for discussions and work - rather, make lists with views and automation so that the work continues to evolve!Links:SharepointBabe BlogMicrosoft FormsPower PlatformLists in Microsoft 365Microsoft PlannerMicrosoft To-DoList Templates in Microsoft 365

Every organization has a culture, and every culture has been affected by the pandemic. How is yours? Richard talks to Dr. Tracy Brower about how the COVID-19 Pandemic has impacted company culture. Tracy starts out talking about how most folks planned for a short pandemic and have attempted to sprint through these challenging times. But the reality is that the pandemic is a marathon, and thinking through your culture and how to strengthen the important parts of it can make for better work experiences and more successful business!Links:Bring Work to Life by Bringing Life to WorkDaniel Pink Drive

What's coming for Exchange? Richard talks to Gareth Gudger about all the news coming out of Ignite and beyond around Exchange server. Gareth talks about Exchange 2019 not being the last version of Exchange - there will be another on-premises version, although likely it will be an in-place upgrade, and without a year designation - call it the last version of Exchange. This leads to a conversation about folks still on-premises, staying hybrid with the cloud, and making it easier to make mail work no matter what, in the cloud or otherwise!Links:Exchange Online PowerShell V2Exchange Team Blog

Now that folks are working from home, how do you re-image their machines? Richard chats with Johan Arwidmark about the changes coming in Configuration Manager and a library for MDT. Johan talks about how the ConfigMgr responded to the pandemic by adding work-from-home features now in technical preview. You can deploy images onto a VM in your Azure tenant that remote workstations can deploy from, no VPN needed. Also, Johan and Michael have built a PowerShell Extension for MDT that works over the cloud as well - check the links for more info!Links:Configuration Manager on AzureiPXE AnywherePowerShell Deployment (MDT)Windows AutopilotConfiguration Manager Version 2006Deployment ResearchViaMonstra

If you're using Office 365, do you know about FastTrack? Richard talks to Erica Toelle about how FastTrack can help you get more value from your Office 365 subscriptions. One of the big services available in Office 365 is compliance around the retention and protection of information. If you have enough seats and the right levels of licensing, Microsoft will help you to take advantage of the advanced compliance features in Office 365!Links:Microsoft FastTrackOffice 365 FastTrackOffice 365 Security & Compliance CenterMicrosoft Trust CenterMicrosoft Compliance ManagerMicrosoft Information Governance in Microsoft 365Microsoft Information ProtectionMicrosoft FastTrack Documentation and Resources

The pandemic rushed some work into the cloud - but getting up to the cloud in an organized way takes some preparation, starting with Active Directory. Richard talks to Jess Dodson about the various clean-up processes we always meant to do for AD, but never got around to it. And now with a move to Azure Active Directory, those cleanups are important - not doing them can be expensive! Jess talks about getting your admin accounts in order, cleaning up services accounts, modernizing onboarding and offboarding, and taking advantage of multifactor authentication. There is lots to do!Links:Azure SentinelAzure Role-Based Access ControlAzure AD Privileged Identity ManagementAzure MonitorAzure Conditional AccessLocal Administrator Password Solutions

Where did Azure SQL come from and where is it going? Richard chats with Bob Ward about his new book, Azure SQL Revealed. The conversation starts out at the beginning of SQL Server in the 90s, all the way to SQL 2005, when the first discussions of a database in the cloud happened at Microsoft. Bob talks about the early days of SQL Server for Windows Azure that eventually became Azure SQL. Today Azure SQL works from the simplest of SQL Server workloads to some of the biggest hundred terabyte hyperscale servers - have a read!Links:Pro SQL Server for LinuxSQL Server 2019 RevealedAzure SQL RevealedCosmos DBAzure PostgreSQLAzure SQL Elastic PoolsAzure SQL HyperscaleAzure Arc

The Pandemic has moved a lot of applications into the cloud. Are you automating the deployment? Richard chats with Steve Buchanan about the ever-advancing tooling for Infrastructure-as-Code. ARM Templates are the standard approach to IaC for Azure, but they can get complex. Terraform is HashiCorp's tool for IaC that utilizes ARM Templates under the hood. But as Steve says, it takes time for new features of Azure to surface in Terraform. And Microsoft is developing Bicep as a new domain-specific language for IaC over ARM as well. What do you choose?Links:Microsoft 365 Desired State Configuration with Nik CharleboisTerraformAnsibleChefPuppetAzure Resource ManagerAzure Cloud ShellAzure BicepPulumi

Artificial Intelligence is here to stay - how did this happen? Richard chats with Amy Boyd about where artificial intelligence came from, starting back in the 1950s - and how it was overpromised and under-delivered, resulting in an AI winter. And this cycle happened more than once! But along the way, some interesting technology developed that leads us to the modern era of AI, where cloud computing and huge data sources have created conditions for some really remarkable software - and a great story!Links:Shoe DogAzure Cognitive Services

The pandemic has accelerated the move to the cloud - but it's not the only reason to migrate. Richard talks to Sonia Cuff about the effects of the pandemic on business transformation. Sonia talks about the response to the pandemic, such as working-from-home and moving to the cloud, as an adaptation to the crisis: Not transformation. The transformation part comes later, as you dig deeper into the new world the pandemic has brought you to. Can you go beyond surviving, and actually thrive?Links:COVID-19 Did Not Lead Your Digital Transformation