The Cloud Architects Podcast

We recently had a great time talking to fellow Microsoft MVP Tom Arbuthnot about all things Microsoft Teams - covered some of the great community work Tom is involved with and discussed Teams call quality, meeting etiquette and how work from home has brought about a massive increase in meetings for many of us. Warren also gives some interesting financial advice *(Not intended to be taken as real financial advice..). Tom Arbuthnot is the Co-Founder of Empowering.Cloud and Solutions Director at Pure IP. A Microsoft MVP and Microsoft Certified Master, Tom stays up to date with industry news and developments and has the opportunity to share information and opinions on TomTalks.blog, the UCToday.com Microsoft Podcast and his TomTalks.email list. He regularly speaks at events around the world. He is highly engaged with the Microsoft community in person and online. You can find Tom on Twitter - https://twitter.com/tomarbuthnot Be sure to check out: * Tom Talks - https://tomtalks.blog * empowering.cloud - https://empowering.cloud

We love Exchange Server! No, really - I've personally been working with Exchange Server in some form or fashion since Exchange Server 5.5 in the late '90s and in some circles that makes me a late bloomer. It is difficult to ignore what seems like an endless list of day-zero vulnerabilities that have plagued our old friend over the last 12 - 18 months. These vulnerabilities have seen security researchers pointing the finger and the tech press calling Exchange Server a security liability. It's 2022, should you really still be hosting your own email? In this episode, Nic and I discuss the relevance of Exchange Server and attempt to answer this question. During this episode we refer to a couple of recent articles, here are the links: Your Microsoft Exchange Server Is a Security Liability - https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-exchange-server-vulnerabilities/It Really is Time to Say Goodbye to On-Premises Exchange - https://practical365.com/time-to-dump-exchange-server/

We apologize for the poor audio at the beginning of this episode - we're not sure what happened, but it does improve as the episode progresses. What is DevOps? The answer will often differ depending on who you ask. In this episode we asked Prashanth from Chef that question. He shares some great insights with us, including how DevOps practices can be used in an infrastructure and IT operations context. We also delve into Infrastructure as code (IaC) and its usefulness for provisioning and configuration management. Prashanth Nanjundappa is the VP, Product Management at chef.io. He is a Product Leader with 20 years of global experience in building & launching Enterprise and Consumer products with a proven expertise in building B2B SaaS and PaaS products at scale across Healthcare, Cloud Telephony, CRM, Analytics, Video/Metadata domain. You can find Prashanth on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/prashanthhn/)

Microsoft first announced the deprecation of Basic Authentication in September 2019 with the intention of starting the retirement process in October 2020. Those plans were subsequently postponed and needless to say it's been a long journey for many organizations to prepare for the inevitable. Sadly though, it seems not everyone received the memo and there are many organizations that still use basic auth extensively. Our old friend, Greg Taylor has been examining the telemetry and shared some interesting insights with us. We talk more about this change, what it means for you and how you can prepare for it (if you haven't already!) The clock is ticking.. Greg Taylor is a Principal Product Manager at Microsoft and is focused on Exchange Online protocols and security in Microsoft 365. Greg spent many years as part of the Exchange Engineering and Customer Experience teams, designing and building Exchange features, working with large enterprise customers, presenting at public events and working with technology communities. Greg also ran the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) and Architect (MCA) and Exchange Ranger Programs for Microsoft, an elite 3-6 week in-person Redmond based program, training Microsoft and partner consultants and engineers how to design and troubleshoot the world’s largest and most complex Exchange deployments. You can find Greg on Twitter (https://twitter.com/gregtaylor_msft) Not sure if and how this affects you and your organization or interested to know more? Check out: Deprecation of Basic authentication in Exchange Online(https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/deprecation-of-basic-authentication-exchange-online)

In this episode we chat to James "UCMadScientist" Arber. Some of you may know him as the guy who ran Doom on a Sonus/Ribbon SBC 1000 or set fire to a Polycom CX series phone, but James is also extremely knowledgable when it comes to all things Microsoft Teams. We had a lot of fun talking about the current state of Teams, room systems, devices, and the importance of using your dongle. James Arber, a.k.a "UCMadScientist" is an experienced UC Consultant and one of only 4 Microsoft Unified Communications MVP's in Australia. Skilled in Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Lync, VoIP deployment and troubleshooting. Microsoft Community Contributor and regular presenter at the Melbourne UC UserGroup. Father of 4 with a hint of "Mad Scientist" and a dash of car nut.. You can connect with James on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesarber/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/UCMadScientist) and be sure to check out his blog (https://www.ucmadscientist.com) Don't forget to check out our blog: https://thearchitects.cloud/2022/08/17/episode-66-use-your-dongle/

As an IT professional, governance and compliance have never been the sexiest of concepts. For many of us, these are things that distract us once a year when they require the yearly tick-in-the-box. It is important that we face the reality of the world we live in though and understand that we do have a responsibility of bridging two worlds. In this episode we had the opportunity to sit down with Rufaro Warinda to talk all about compliance, ISO 27001, CIS and a whole bunch of other acronyms. Rufaro does a fantastic job of explaining various concepts like the difference between legislative and regulatory compliance and we also take a look at how Microsoft technologies map to the new ISO controls. Rufaro Warinda is a Modern Work Cloud Analyst. He has a qualification in Industrial Engineering with an emphasis on process optimization, business analysis, security, compliance and identity management in the modern workplace (M365 & Azure). He has experience in the implementation of Information Security Management Systems (ISO/IEC 27001:2013), in order to assist organizations with maintaining governance and industry best practices as they expand into the digital workspace. You can connect with Rufaro on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rufaro-warinda-975b26187/) Here's a link to Rufaro's really handy reference New ISO 27001:2022 controls & How Microsoft Saves the Day.(https://thearchitects.cloud/downloads/ISO_27001_and_Microsoft_365.pdf)

We recently had a lot of fun connecting with Koos Goossens to talk about Microsoft Sentinel. Koos has a wealth of knowledge and shared some great tips on getting started with Sentinel, the importance of cost management and why a product != process. Koos Goossens is passionate about all things Microsoft Cloud and Security related. In his current role. he has been focussing on implementing Microsoft Sentinel and improving Security Operation Centers by helping with the development of new detections and fine-tuning, but also applying processes for automatic enrichments and investigations. KQL and Azure Logic Apps are two of my new best friends. You can connect with Koos on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/koos-goossens/) and can also check him out on Medium (https://medium.com/@koosg) Here's a link to Koos's blog on how to Optimize your Microsoft Sentinel pricing (https://medium.com/wortell/optimize-microsoft-sentinel-pricing-ca9901840b75)

This episode is all about certifications. I sat my first industry certification exam in the late 1990's and it's safe to say that certifications and the way the industry views them has changed a lot over the years. Are certifications important or even relevant anymore? This can be a very polarizing topic, I recently asked Sly Gittens from Tech Simplified all about it. Sly Gittens is a Partner Technology Strategist at Microsoft and runs the Tech Simplified YouTube channel. A lifelong learner and ever-curious about the world, Sly is committed to personal and professional development for myself and for those around him. His YouTube channel provides resources to help simplify the cloud certification journey. Sly is also incredibly passionate about supporting Women In Technology and has a WIT interview series were he talks to Women who keep moving forward no matter the obstacles in their way. You can connect with Sly on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/slygittens/) and can also check him out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiZFfxc52ANSYp0Qxm3CKIA)

We recently had the pleasure of talking to a long time friend of the show Jay Gundotra. Jay is incredibly passionate about the community and you have most probably seen the ENow Software booth or attended one of their parties at Ignite or some other industry event. We talk about his journey from Exchange Server specialist to Founder and CEO and how everyone has a unique journey. We also get deep about how it is important to learn from our own experiences - good or bad and how self care is vital to longevity in our industry today. Jay Gundotra is the technical founder and CEO of ENow, a leader in the Microsoft systems management space. With over 20 years of experience in Unified Communications and Network computing, he has led ENow to deliver effective monitoring and analytics software to customers in over 130 countries. This has included enterprise companies like Coca Cola, Volkswagen, NYSE, Facebook, DirectTV, CBRE, NBA and Wendy’s. You can connect with Jay on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-gundotra-19079a/)

In this episode we had the pleasure of talking to Kexin Ye and hearing her inspirational story of personal growth and how she went from selling Fair trade "coffee to fighting to tech". We also talk about chaos engineering, technical debt and the importance of a sound cloud strategy. If you're interested in chaos engineering, here are some additional links you might want to check out: Chaos engineering (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/framework/resiliency/chaos-engineering) & What is Azure Chaos Studio Preview (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/chaos-studio/chaos-studio-overview) Kexin Ye is a Woman in Tech, 3rd culture kid, entrepreneur at heart and one of the top contestants on Asia’s The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition. You can connect with Kexin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kexin-ye) Don't forget to check out our blog: https://thearchitects.cloud/2022/03/16/episode-61-inner-warrior/