Are you ready for more IPv6 in your life? Richard talks to Pierre Roman about recent support added to Azure Active Directory for IPv6 - specifically around Conditional Access. Pierre talks about how in the past, IPv6 addresses weren't a part of Conditional Access - but now they are. This could cause problems for folks connecting to an Azure tenant via IPv6 if those IPv6 ranges aren't included as named locations. Even if this update hasn't impacted you yet, it can - changes to your ISP or when connecting to the internet can result in IPv6 access being required - don't get locked out!Links:Google IPv6 AdoptionPierre's Blog Post on IPv6IPv6 Support in Azure Active DirectoryAzure DNS FAQRecorded March 27, 2023

Does multi-cloud make sense? Richard chats with Phoummala Schmitt about her explorations into building workloads that can survive a cloud outage. Phoummala begins the conversation with some definitions because most organizations are multi-cloud already, using more than one cloud provider. Referencing Gartner and Thoughtworks, the term "polycloud" covers that idea. Then the hard part - a workload that needs perfect uptime, even in the face of a cloud provider outage. That is a more complex and expensive proposition, but it is possible once you work through the details. The question is - is it worth it?Links:PolycloudKubernetesKubernetes Cloud Controller ManagerAzure ArcRecorded February 16, 2023

Secure remote file access without OneDrive or VPNs? Richard chats with Ned Pyle about the power of SMB over QUIC. Ned talks about the ongoing battle to put older versions of SMB to bed and how QUIC is becoming the de facto standard for moving files around, both within the network and across the internet. While a lot of business files can be served effectively from OneDrive for Business, often, you have applications and infrastructure that depend on UNCs and other file mapping approaches. SMB for QUIC through Azure VMs and Azure Stack HCI allows the same UNC paths to work securely inside and outside your office network. Check it out!Links:SMB1 Product ClearinghouseWindows ServerSMB CompressionSMB SigningSMB over QUICAzure Stack HCILearn SMB over QUICSMB Insecure Guest AuthRecorded February 3, 2023

What is your approach to incident management? While at NDC London, Richard talks to Hila Fish about her work in incident management. Hila talks about understanding when you have an incident and trying to grasp the scope before acting - is it impacting customer value? The goal is to learn from an incident to stop them from happening, and often immediate mitigations, like rebooting, destroy information needed for later analysis. Making the dashboard lights turn green is not enough - you want to get to a place where they never turn red!Links:Jira TicketingPagerDutyGrafanaSwimm Documentation EngineRecorded January 27, 2023

Ready to go passwordless? While at NDC in London, Richard chatted with Kyle Kotowick about the FIDO2 specification and how it is being implemented to provide more passwordless options for authentication. Kyle talks about how FIDO2 does not necessarily mean physical keys like the Yubikey - there are more options! The TPM chip in your PC or smartphone can act as the token generator when combined with a second authenticator, like fingerprint or facial recognition in Windows Hello. Ideally, this superior level of authentication is effortless - you use multifactor without even realizing you are!Links:Fido AllianceYubiKeysWindows Hello for BusinessWebAuthnCTAP2Recorded January 25, 2023

Managing reliability means being available when things go wrong. But how do you make the on-call time productive? While at NDC in London, Richard talked to Lesley Cordero about her work with the New York Times on reliability management teams. Lesley talks about how putting regular sprint work into on-call time causes more problems than it solves - the quality of work suffers, and people get frustrated. Better to focus on preventative work, which is more contemplative. Even better to have an array of preventive efforts that can be worked on over time. The goal is to have fewer outages and more reliability, and that means being able to communicate reliability needs to leadership - document all the things!Links:HoneycombRecorded January 25, 2023

Are you ready to move your organization to Windows 11? Richard talks to Michael Niehaus about the upcoming end of support for Windows 10 in 2025 and the pressure to get to Windows 11. Michael talks about how slow Windows 11 adoption has been, mainly because there hasn't been a significant reason to do so. But as of October 14, 2025, organizations will have to pay for long-term support - and it's cheaper to move to Windows 11. The conversation digs into how Microsoft seems to be updating Windows 11, deployment strategies, and the optimal ways to move your workforce to a new operating system.Links:TaniumWindows 11Windows 10 Enterprise LTSCMicrosoft Deployment ToolkitWindows AutopilotSupporting Windows 11 in MDTMichael's Blog post on MDT and Windows 11Recorded January 12, 2023

How do you improve the security of your organization? Richard talks to Jess Dodson about the current security environment we're living in and what you can do to improve your security posture. Jess talks about how breaches happen and what you can do to detect them early before things get worse. The conversation dives into getting more resources - in most cases, improving security means having the time to work on preventative measures, like implementing multi-factor authentication, security information and event management, and setting up Just Enough Administration. And you need the time to review the activities in your network to let you stop a breach before it turns into something worse!Links:Privileged Identity ManagementJust Enough AdministrationMicrosoft SentinelLocal Administrator Password SolutionRecorded January 20, 2023

How about a free suite of over 500 tools for SQL Server best practices, administration, development, and migration? Richard talks to Rob Sewell about the ever-growing dbatools PowerShell module. While its origins are in migrating SQL Server databases from one environment (and version) to another, the range of capabilities is extensive. Rob talks about the power of repeatability when attempting to do these potentially complex tasks - which is best served by scripting. But why write the scripts when they already exist? The conversation also digs into learning as a DBA, including getting involved with conferences like SQLBits!Links:dbatoolsdbachecksdbatools on PowerShell GallerySQL Server Management Objectsdbatools in a month of lunchesRunAs at SQL Bits!Recorded January 10, 2023

Are you ready to move your intranet into the cloud? Richard talks to Susan Hanley about her work helping organizations migrate intranets into Microsoft 365 Sharepoint Online. Susan talks about avoiding lift-and-shift implementations for intranets - or anything going to the cloud. Better to take what you have learned about your intranet and build a governance plan in M365 to migrate content piece by piece. The good news is most of your old SharePoint customizations are now built-in capabilities in SharePoint Online! The conversation also digs into building pages to replace documents and what should be searchable - an intranet migration is a great chance to build an even better intranet!Links:Viva ConnectionsPrivate Channels in Microsoft TeamsSharePoint News PartRecorded January 6, 2023