RunAs Radio

SQL Server runs on Linux and in containers! Richard talks to Bob Ward about the on-going evolution of SQL Server and how the latest version literally has a common codebase between the Windows and Linux versions - feature-for-feature identical! The tooling is different, but the new SQL Operations Studio is built to be cross-platform, running on Windows, Mac and Linux! The conversation also dives into container strategies using Docker and Kubernetes, both on-premises and in the cloud. Lots of data choices!

What can you automate in the cloud? Everything! Richard chats with Dana Epp about how the tooling in Azure allows for automating a huge range of tasks, starting with Dana's personal focus - security. Dana talks about using automation to catch whenever security rules change anywhere, just for logging if not for direct action. The combination of Azure ARM Templates, Automation and Azure Functions is hugely powerful. The challenge is in managing that tooling, which leads to a conversation around source control, just enough administration and DevOps!

What does it take to build a great cybersecurity team? Richard chats with Paula Januszkiewicz about the work she's doing to create more cybersecurity professionals. The challenge is that cybersecurity still isn't really a profession - there are no certifying bodies out there that take on responsibility for their members. Paula talks about different certifications you can get, but in the end, doing the work is the most important thing - and how you approach security problems. It's a full-time task - if you can't think about security all the time, it's hard to keep up!

So many collaboration offerings - what's the right way to go? Richard chats with Tom Arbuthnot about his experiences around the modern digital collaboration world - using technologies like Slack, WebEx and Skype. Today, Microsoft is pouring its energy into Office 365 Teams. Tom discusses what the strengths of Teams are and the choices moving forward. The conversation also dives into the etiquette of these new tools. For those that grew up with them, it's easy to do the right thing. But people are new to these collaboration tools make mistakes - training is worthwhile!

What does modern service management look like? Richard talks to ex-Microsoft Carroll Moon about his experiences modernizing service management at Microsoft, and now for his customers at CloudFit. The cloud has made compute and infrastructure effectively unlimited for the right price - how does a great IT group take advantage of this? Carroll talks about applying DevOps principles effectively in the operations space to focus on the applications that cause you the most grief, and where improvements can have the biggest impact. You have to measure to know where to work!

Spring in Orlando - time for a SQL Server Questions and Answer panel! Richard hosts a panel of Kim Tripp, Paul Randal, Bob Ward, Aaron Bertrand, David Pless, Tim Radney and many more to answer the questions that the SQL Intersection attendees have. The conversation ranges over challenges around partitioning, scaling, various disaster recovery strategies, the advantages of upgrading to the latest version and providing direct feedback to the SQL team members in the room! These question and answers shows provide a snapshot about the thinking around SQL Server and database administration - have a listen!

Your developers want to do some DevOps - what does it mean to you? Richard chats with Tim Warner about what operations needs to care about and learn when the organization wants to roll out software faster. DevOps is an umbrella term for a lot of different technical changes, but also procedural and culture changes too. Tim hits on the key points for operations folks, including understanding source control (and learning to value it), automating all the things, and being able to get to a known reliable state. Better systems faster!

After email, what's the next thing you want from Office 365? Peter Schmidt says its OneDrive for Business. Starting with the ability to get rid of file attachments in email and instead make the files links to OneDrive for Business - but it goes both ways. Peter talks about how Office 365 Flow can automate the process of moving incoming attachments into OneDrive for Business folders automatically. And then there's the new versioning and backup/restore features in OneDrive for Business. This is not your grandfather's cloud storage solution!

Why should you care about containers? Richard chats with Jennelle Crothers about what container technology does for operations. Like virtualization before it, containers allow you to densify your infrastructure into fewer machines and VMs - and all container tech focuses on configuration-as-code. Containers make sense when you have services that are regularly updated or need to scale elastically. And they work on-premises as well as in the cloud. There are some tricky bits to containers, but if you're looking to provide more services to your customers in less time and at a lower cost, they are certainly worth the look!

What can Microsoft Graph do for you? Richard talks to Sahil Malik about his experiences working with Microsoft Graph - starting with rationalizing all the different versions of Graph that have come along in recent years. While largely they're back to a single version, there still are aspects that are more Active Directory oriented as opposed to broader mobile mindsets. But the issues of identity with users, devices that users use and the rights that applications have with those users and devices is the key - can you keep track of what rights are out there, what is appropriate and contain them? The tools are getting better, but there's still a lot to do!