The Cloud Architects Podcast

AI is everywhere at the moment - it seems like every product or service now includes AI. What does that mean exactly? Can technology really think for itself? What is the difference between Copilot and an LLM and how do these relate to Generative AI? In this episode, we chat to Philip Miller from Progress in an attempt to break down these concepts and discuss how they relate to each other. Is this all hype or are there real-world business benefits? We discuss some interesting AI use cases and Philip recommends an agile approach to AI implementation. Here are the links to content mentioned in the episode: * Semantic Knowledge for Artificial Intelligence (https://www.progress.com/semaphore/solutions/ai) * Unleash the Power of Generative AI Systems in Your Enterprise - eBook (https://www.progress.com/resources/papers/unleash-the-power-of-generative-ai-systems-in-your-enterprise) Philip Miller is a Senior Customer Success Manager at Progress, a leading software company that enables enterprises to accelerate the creation and delivery of strategic business applications. He has over six years of experience helping customers and partners maximise their investment in MarkLogic by Progress, the only enterprise-grade data platform that integrates data from any source and any format. You can connect with Philip on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipdavidmiller/)

We recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Camila Martins from Microsoft to talk about Microsoft's new Security Service Edge (SSE) solution. SSE includes Microsoft Entra Internet Access and Microsoft Entra Private Access. In this episode, we dive deep into these new capabilities that Microsoft is making available to customers and discuss how these can work with technologies like Conditional Access to help secure those 'crusty' critical applications that so many organizations have. Here are the links to content mentioned in the episode: * Microsoft's Security Service Edge Solution Deployment Guide (https://aka.ms/ssedeploy) * Data Security and Privacy Customer Connection Program (CCP) (https://aka.ms/joinCCP) Camila Martins is a Senior Product Manager for Identity & Network Access at Microsoft where she is working on the launch of the new Microsoft's Security Service Edge solution. You can connect with Camila on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/camilacmartins/)

In today’s episode we talk to Twan, Neil and Conrad who are the founders of PowerSyncPro, a software vendor solving complex migration problems for customers in a unique way and, in the shadow of some giant competitors. We delve into their interesting story, their technology and the problems they are working to solve. After more than 5 years heavily investing into developing PowerSyncPro, PSP is now a world class robust identity sync and Windows workstation migration tool that facilitates cross company collaboration with ease. Written and designed by migration experts. PSP is solving directory consolidation, unified GAL and Windows workstation migration issues under a single pane of glass. It is a product that Twan, Neil and Conrad are immensely proud of. Twan van Beers is a Senior Infrastructure Architect with commercial experience in a variety of development and Infrastructure technologies spanning over 30+ years. Having been a consultant for most of this time, Twan has become accustomed to fitting in with diverse teams, with everyone working towards a common goal. Neil Langston comes from an IBM Domino background and has worked on some of the world's largest Domino to Exchange migrations. Neil specialises in large migration projects, tenant to tenant and Google to Microsoft. Neil has a wealth of experience migrating workloads including Identity, Exchange Online, Teams, OneDrive for Business and others for a variety of customers. Neil’s passion for all things migration related is reflected in the enhancements of PowerSyncPro. Conrad Murray has over 25 years’ experience in the IT industry. As a messaging specialist experienced with Microsoft 365 and Azure, Conrad has expertise in all things messaging, Microsoft Exchange, IBM Domino, messaging hygiene as well as enterprise migration tools. Conrad is now using his wealth of experience to improve and innovate PowerSyncPro, to remove end user frustration with mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and consolidations! This episode is sponsored by PowerSyncPro. PowerSyncPro ultimately makes mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and tenant consolidation a breeze. The product is constantly evolving to incorporate more scope to create a seamless migration process. Twan, Conrad and Neil had, and have been, working on migration projects for over a decade. They kept running into the same problems each time with Active Directory synchronisation. Issues for user identities across multiple AD’s or companies with multiple email systems. At the end of 2018 the team ran into some hard technical and commercial limitations with a well-known competitor’s toolset they were using and needed another way. Enter Twan van Beers... During the 2018 Christmas break, with the support of his family, Twan invested his personal time to develop a comprehensive PowerShell module-based solution that could be used by internal consultants. This was the genesis of PowerSyncPro. A directory synchronisation tool that would simplify the process of syncing multiple directories or tenants to help streamline migration projects – an issue that had come up time and time again - Read more on our blog at https://thearchitects.cloud/ or check out the links below. Links: Home page (https://powersyncpro.com) The Business Benefits of PowerSyncPro (https://powersyncpro.com/the-business-benefits-of-powersyncpro/) The Business benefits of PowerSyncPro Migration Agent (https://powersyncpro.com/powersyncpro-migration-agent/the-business-benefits-of-powersyncpro-migration-agent/)

Microsoft Identity CXP team members, Tarek Dawoud and Mark Morowczynski, discuss topics like Conditional Access, phish-resistant MFA, evolving threats in cybersecurity, and the importance of learning KQL. They delve into passwordless authentication, Azure access management, and the significance of continuous security improvements.

If you follow the latest developments in the Entra space, you have no doubt come across Merill Fernando. In this episode Merill joins us for a great discussion as we geek out about Entra and authentication in general. Why is it called Entra (RIP AAD!)? Merill sheds some light on the name change, we talk about AD FS and its relevance today, discuss the deprecation of AzureAD and MSOnline PowerShell modules and introduce some of the great tools and resources he's developed for the community. Merill Fernando is a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft and Senior member of the "Customer Success Team" engaging with Microsoft Entra customers and guiding them through deployments, planning, debugging and driving feedback into the feature teams. Merill has a weekly newsletter on all things Microsoft Entra and is the creator of cmd.ms & idPowerToys.com. You can connect with Merill on Twitter (https://twitter.com/merill) or on YouTube (https://youtube.com/@merillx) Here are some links to Merill's work: * Entra Newsletter - https://entra.news * Merill's site - https://merill.net Here are the links the Identity Architecture Series discussed in the episode: * Azure Active Directory Core Store: Data centers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8ZPjSxNte0 * Azure Active Directory Core Store: Scale units - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcKO44GtHh8 * Azure Active Directory Core Store: Read and write replicas - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeLDtcpKc-U Are you interested in learning from others in the community? Give these folks a follow: * Nathan McNulty - https://twitter.com/NathanMcNulty * Eric Mannon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emannon * Dr. Nestori Syynimaa - https://twitter.com/DrAzureAD * Rod Trent - https://twitter.com/rodtrent

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Nic and I had the great pleasure of talking to John Kindervag. I once read about John that he has "forgotten more about technology than most people learn in their careers" and I'm sure after listening to this episode you'll understand why he is referred to as the Godfather of Zero Trust. In this episode we discuss the origins of Zero Trust and some of the history behind it. John also talks about why trying to control the attack surface is a fool's errand and introduces the concept of a protect surface. With over 25 years of experience as a practitioner and industry analyst, John Kindervag is one of the world’s foremost cybersecurity experts and is known for creating the transformational Zero Trust Model of cybersecurity. At Illumio, John is responsible for driving the adoption of Zero Trust Segmentation through high-touch advocacy and forward-thinking thought leadership. You can connect with John on LinkedIn

We recently had a great conversation with Joe Flynn about modern endpoint management and how the way we manage our devices has changed over the years - we reminisce about the old ways and talk the future of Active Directory. We also discuss management friction, current hybrid work trends and scenarios where technologies like Windows 365 just make sense. Joe Flynn is a Director and Distinguished Engineer at Insight. With more than 25+ years in the IT industry, Joe loves that technology is constantly changing and providing new challenges — pushing him to learn and absorb more each day. Joe is passionate about technology and the business outcomes that it can provide. You can connect with Joe on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeflynn2/)

It's Cyber Security Awareness month and in this episode, we talk to Shannon Garcia about the realities of the security industry and have an honest discussion about some of the areas where we could be doing more to raise awareness and educate our organizations, customers and stakeholders. Shannon shares some fundamental guidance, and we discuss how we could and should be learning from highly publicized incidents and breaches that occur far too often these days. Shannon Garcia is an experienced Senior Leader with a demonstrated history of working in the computer and cybersecurity industry. Skilled in Cybersecurity, Business Management, Program/Project Management, Business Process Improvement, and Building/Leading High Performing Teams. Shannon is a strong and passionate leader focused on helping businesses improve their security posture by maturing their security capabilities and processes. You can connect with Shannon on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannongarcia/) Be sure to check out Shannon's YouTube channel CyberSec Round Table (https://www.youtube.com/@cybersecroundtable)

It's ALWAYS DNS! We've all fallen victim to DNS at some point in our careers. In this episode we are once again joined by Robby Pedrica as we discuss DNS architecture and security - we've been deploying DNS the same way for a long time and perhaps it's time we look at our deployments and consider if they could be more secure. We discuss DNS in large enterprise environments and why monitoring DNS traffic is important, but also look at home use and how DNS can be a valuable privacy tool. Robby recently put together a great blog post on DNS security which is worth a read, you can find [it here - (https://www.xstore.co.za/stuff/2023/06/dns-security-2/) Robby Pedrica is a IT & Network Security Consultant and Owner of XStore. Robby has been in the IT industry for 33 years, and has focused on the data storage, network security and Linux for the last 23 years. Robby have specializes in firewalling across numerous products, storage virtualization solutions and Linux administration with load-balancing, cluster storage environments and databases amongst others. You can connect with Robby on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbypedrica/) Be sure to check out Robby's Blog (https://www.xstore.co.za/stuff/)

Same product, new name - RIP Azure AD/long live Entra ID! In this episode we're joined by long-time friend of the show Michael Van Horenbeeck to discuss the recent Entra related announcements and Microsoft's expansion into Security Service Edge (SSE) with two new products – Microsoft Entra Internet Access and Microsoft Entra Private Access. We've all heard the TLAs PIM, PAW, and talk of Tier0 configurations, but what are these and how are these relevant to the modern admin? Should we be evolving the way we manage our environments or is it just a matter of buying new technologies to hopefully keep us ahead of bad actors? Michael shares his thoughts. Michael Van Horenbeeck specializes in a variety of products and services from the Microsoft 365 product stack, more specifically within Enterprise Mobility + Security, Azure Active Directory, Office 365, etc. He is one of the handful experts in the world to hold both the Microsoft Certified Solutions Masters for Messaging certification and the Office Apps & Services MVP award at the same time. Over the last 18 years, he has worked with various technologies and solutions from different vendors, mainly focusing in the area of Security, Messaging, Collaboration and Intelligent Communications. He works with customers around the globe, helping them to design, implement, migrate, consolidate and secure various solutions and services based on Microsoft's M365 offerings. You can also find him speaking at several international conferences such as Microsoft Ignite, TechSummits, Mobile Workplace Conference. Follow Michael on Twitter (https://twitter.com/vanhybrid) also be sure to check out Microsoft 365 Security For IT Pros here (https://m365securitybook.com)