RunAs Radio

Richard talks to Damian Flynn about Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server and Service Management Automation. Big confusing names for a really simple concept - how do we bring self-service to the users of our infrastructure? The discussion starts out around the idea of service management automation, using tools to make your IT systems more service-centric, allowing people to provision and utilize infrastructure on demand. This leads to a conversation on Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server (WAP) - terrible name, but accurate. WAP is all about making Microsoft Azure tooling available in your own infrastructure. While it can stand on it's own, WAP also works well with various components of System Center including Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager and Orchestrator. This looks to be the best way to bring self-service to your company!

Richard chats with Microsoft PFE Mike O'Neill about his work with customers using large scale Exchange sites. Mike is one of the contributors to You had Me at EHLO, the Exchange team blog site. The conversation digs into how Exchange 2013 is the most Powershell-centric version of Exchange yet... you really need to know it! Mike talks about the efficiency and scriptability of Exchange and Powershell, as well as the migration path from Exchange on-premise to Exchange in the Cloud.

Recorded in front of a live audience at SQL Intersection in Orlando, Florida, this panel discussion focuses on the new features in SQL 2014. The panelists are all Microsoft engineering folks, deeply involved in creating SQL 2014. The discussion does NOT focus on Hekaton, but rather all the other cool performance and reliability enhancements coming in SQL 2014. Okay, there's a little Hekaton.

Hot off of last week's news about Heartbleed, Richard talks to Troy Hunt about the size and scope of the problem. Heartbleed is the cool name (and logo) given to a weakness in the OpenSSL library. The news has been hyped, but the exploit is real and there's really no way to know what data has been compromised. And if you don't run OpenSSL on your servers, do you know what your networking gear runs? After you're done listening to the show, check out Troy's awesome blog post on Heartbleed and do some checks on your systems. You'll be glad you did!

Richard chats with Aidan Finn about the Scale-Out File Server features of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2. Aidan digs into a bunch of the improvements that have come with Windows Server 2012 R2, including SMB 3.0., which opens the door to dramatic network speed advantages for such things as live VM migration. But it also impacts how we do file sharing, and Aidan digs deep into the new features in Storage Spaces and Scale-Out File Servers. Looks like you'll want the latest version!

Richard chats with Michael Nygard about the concept of resilience in the IT world. Michael starts out the conversation talking about what resilience really is - do your systems keep working even when things aren't working perfectly? Or are they brittle, where one problem takes the whole system down. The conversation broadens to more of a DevOps conversation, since ultimately resiliency involves everyone that builds, tests, operates and uses software. And then Michael goes a step further - is your team, processes and organization resilient?

Steve Evans makes a return visit to the show to talk a little DevOps. The conversation starts out with the work he's currently doing with a bio-tech company, and how the little changes their making to their processes are affected overall productivity to the better. You don't have to call it DevOps, you can just call it 'doing your work more effectively.' The conversation digs into the automation side of things as well as how you to gradually move your culture and processes into a faster, more reliable and higher quality lifestyle. DevOps doesn't happen over night!

Richard chats with fellow Canadian Aaron Bertrand about his work with SQL Server. Aaron starts out the conversation with a mention around SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 coming out of primary tech support and the push to get one last service pack out for both versions. You can contribute to that discussion at the Microsoft Connect site. Aaron also discusses some of the nasty bad practices he's found in supposedly 'good' databases - like dates in strings! We all know better, but are we actually doing better? Time to poke around your database for the truth!

Richard catches up with Tony Redmond on all things Exchange. The conversation starts out talking about the fact that Exchange 2013 has a service pack, even though there have been quarterly cumulative updates - in reality, Exchange 2013 SP1 is really cumulative update 4 (CU4). Tony digs into what it takes to install these updates, the fact that testing continues to be not optional - it's your mail system, just because it's tested in Exchange Online doesn't mean it won't have problems in your configuration. The discussion also digs into some of the key features in CU4, including MAPI over HTTP and the simplified DAGs. Exchange continues to evolve!

Richard chats with Microsoft PFE Kurt Falde about the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET). It might be a weak name, but it's an amazing set of tools - a whole different way of defending a workstation from malware exploits. Kurt dives into how EMET can lock down PCs in a standardized way, including controlling specific SSL certificates for key web sites. But the bulk of the focus of EMET is on protecting software from changes by malware. Rather than using fingerprint matching the way typical anti-virus software works, EMET tracks known-good states of common software and stops changes to them from happening - an effective strategy for zero-day exploits!