RunAs Radio

How do you manage CosmosDB? Richard chats with Deborah Chen from the CosmosDB team about what it takes to care and feed the cloud-based NoSQL data storage solution. Deborah talks about the advantages of not having to manage the infrastructure of storage, with replication and fail-over solutions integrated into CosmosDB from the start - as well as at-rest and in-transmission encryption always on! The management tools are pretty straightforward too, with thorough logging and diagnostics tools integrated into Azure. CosmosDB can make your life simpler!

How can a deployment tool make your disaster recovery process easier? Richard chats with Michael Richardson of Octopus Deploy about Operations Runbooks. Octopus Deploy handles deployments very effectively, and with Runbooks, you can expand that functionality to include all sorts of other related processes, like backing up and restoring data, running failover scripts and more. Through deployment, Octopus already knows where all your resources live and the rights they need, making it easy to expand your automation over all sorts of disaster recovery needs!

It's 2020 - why are we still using passwords? Richard chats with Libby Brown about the on-going efforts to make passwordless authentication work great for everyone. The problems with passwords are well-known, but can we really get to a place where we don't have them at all? Libby talks about the challenges of using multi-factor authentication, including authenticator applications, FIDO keys, facial recognition and more. You need multiple methods of authentication and recovery strategies available before you can consider turning off passwords - but it is possible!

What does it take to get your team learning new skills? Richard chats with Don Jones about the entire learning process in the IT profession. Don discusses outcomes - why are we learning? What new skills will help the company? Answering these questions leads to budgets and times, but also commitment and deadlines. You can't just learn for fun (although you should), you have to provide value to the company. The good news is, we already learn all the time, we just have to remember that we do!

Links:SQL Server 2019Query Tuning AssistantLearn T-SQL QueryingAzure SQL DatabaseSQL Workshops

Azure Sphere continues to evolve - what's the latest? While at Ignite in Orlando, Richard sat down with James Scott to talk about how Azure Sphere has progressed. Azure Sphere is a highly secure IoT solution that follows the seven properties of highly secure devices (check show notes for the white paper). James also talks about how Azure Sphere will be in general availability in February 2020 - and it should be your IoT solution!

SharePoint custom solutions are powerful - but how do you get them into the cloud? Richard talks with Christina Wheeler about her work moving complex on-premises SharePoint applications into the Power Platform that includes Office 365, Power BI, Power Apps and more. Christina talks about the cultural shift that happens both to her and her customers as the cloud becomes a compelling option for business. That cultural shift opens up a world of best-of-breed options for CRM, CMS and other tools - all that can be integrated together with the Power Platform. SharePoint still plays a role, but evolved!

What are SQL people concerned about at the end of 2019? While in Las Vegas 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, SQL in the cloud, new clustering services, challenges around working with developers and more!

Happy New Year! It's 2020 - the future is here! What is the career of an IT Professional going to look like in this decade? Richard flies solo, pulling together a summary of the past few decades and how they will shape this new decade just starting. Don't expect any crazy predictions - the IT industry moves carefully, with logical progressions. In some ways, you can expect more of the same - more computers that people rely on, more security challenges, and more of the new technology being used in new ways we may not have considered. Your fundamental skills are still useful and important - keep improving them!

How do you share company data outside of the company? While at Ignite in Orlando, Richard talked to Joanna Podgoetsky about Azure Data Share, a new tool specifically designed to make it easy to share data outside your organization in a controlled and measurable way. Joanna talks about the various Azure data sources you can use to share data, and how to provide access to it for individuals and applications as well as being able to measure who has accessed the data.