There is no denying that the rate of change in the Microsoft Cloud in astounding. Microsoft continues to innovate and improve very rapidly with new features often being deployed weekly. Security and Compliance is understandably a huge area of focus and it can be a challenge to stay up to date with all the continuous change - this challenge requires an innovative solution. We're excited to talk to our old friend and fellow MVP Michael Van Horenbeeck about his new book project 'Microsoft 365 Security for IT Pros' - a book all about Microsoft 365 Security with a monthly update cadence. 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 Check out Microsoft 365 Security For IT Pros at https://m365securitybook.com A transcript of [this episode can be viewed here: https://gist.github.com/TheCloudArch/8c0ab26b4ab7dc9ce192987744193758 Click the icon below to listen.        

We're Back! Yes! it's been a little while since we last recorded an episode. Needless to say, the COVID-19 situation globally upset our planned travel and recording schedule just a little. We hope you and yours are keeping safe and well during these crazy times. In this episode we delve into Cybersecurity, something that has been very topical for many organizations as they have been forced to operate remotely during COVID-19. Our guest, Francisco Donoso helps unpack and explain some common security concepts and shares the top three things you can do to help your organization be safer in today's cyber world. Francisco Donoso is the Director of Global Security Strategy at Kudelski Security, a global pure-play security services provider. His passion and hobby is researching and understanding Nation-State hacking or “APT” capabilities and tools. He has been on the forefront of research into the Equation Group’s post-exploitation tools and capabilities since their release by the Shadow Brokers and has spoken about this research at Derbycon, Thotcon, Microsoft Bluehat, and other conferences. You can connect with Fran on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Francisckrs) A transcript of this episode can be viewed here: https://gist.github.com/TheCloudArch/d88bff2c63e0547c7a23f49d7d7c5402 Click the icon below to listen.        

There is no denying the ever-increasing popularity of Microsoft Teams. Microsoft recently reported an unprecedented spike in Teams usage due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, with usage rising to more than 44 million daily users - showing an increase of 12 million users over the course of just seven days. When I sat down with fellow MVPs Paul Bloem and Andrew Morpeth in Auckland, New Zealand last month, we would never have predicted the current work from home situation that most of us find ourselves in at the moment. We did however talk about their favorite new Teams features, social contracts, Teams modes and of course the adoption of various features and functionality in Teams. Paul Bloem is a Collaboration Principal Consultant, Microsoft MVP, Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams enthusiast with almost 30 years experience in numerous disciplines of Enterprise voice solutions. You can connect with Paul on Twitter (https://twitter.com/PaulB_NZ) or at ucsorted.com Andrew Morpeth is passionately devoted to providing customers the best advice on Microsoft centric modern communication & collaboration solutions, and to help drive productivity through user adoption and process automation. With 10+ years as a Unified Communications Consultant specializing in Lync, Skype for Business and now Microsoft Teams, Andrew provides deep insight into what solutions are best for any given customer. You can connect with Andrew on Twitter(https://twitter.com/AndrewMorpeth) or at ucgeek.co Click the icon below to listen.        

Multi-cloud is a hot topic at the moment and in this episode we talk to Rick Claus and Joey Snow - a.k.a Patch And Switch from Microsoft about this new trend. Is Azure the cloud to rule them all or is a sound multi-cloud strategy essential in today cloud world? Rick Claus engages in person and online with the worldwide Ops community on behalf of Microsoft. As a Cloud Advocate on the Azure engineering team, his role is to connect with technical communities in order to share knowledge about the ecosystem and capture feedback on how to make things better. You can connect with Rick on Twitter (https://twitter.com/RicksterCDN). Joey Snow is a Senior Program Manager in the Customer and Partner Success Team for the Microsoft Identity Division. Previously Joey worked as an IT Pro Evangelist working with Windows Server, Windows Client and Windows Azure. You can connect with Joey on Twitter(https://twitter.com/joeysnow). Be sure to check out their podcast - Patch And Switch (https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Patch-And-Switch) A transcript of this episode can be viewed here:(https://gist.github.com/TheCloudArch/7dfc6ddb3c596713583beecab06fe56b) and can also be downloaded in the following formats: * .pdf(https://thearchitects.cloud/transcript/episode42.pdf) * .srt(https://thearchitects.cloud/transcript/episode42.srt) Click the icon below to listen.        

Azure AD business-to-business (B2B) collaboration allows organizations to securely share applications and services with guest users from any other organization, while maintaining control over their data. In this episode we chat to returning guest Elisabeth Olson about some of the improvements in the B2B experience, the new bring your own identity functionality and she even helps Warren solve his viral account problem. Elisabeth Olson is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft with over a decade of varied experiences, including contributing directly to SharePoint, Windows, and Microsoft Identity. Elisabeth is passionate about creating great features that remove obstacles and empower users, and she believes that considering the end-to-end experience for all users is critical to a successful product. You can connect with Elisabeth on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ElisOl) Here are some links to the admin take over process discussed during the episode: * Take over an unmanaged directory as administrator in Azure Active Directory (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/domains-admin-takeover) * Perform an internal admin takeover in Office 365 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/misc/become-the-admin?view=o365-worldwide) Click the icon below to listen.        

docs.microsoft.com is the new home for all Microsoft documentation and Microsoft Learn is a free, online training platform that provides interactive learning for Microsoft products - There has been significant investment in these platforms in recent years. We caught up with Erin Rifkin to talk about these platforms, the success of Microsoft Learn and how they've grown from 80 to over 700 modules in one year. Erin Rifkin is a General Manager at Microsoft where she leads a team responsible for the architectural guidance, documentation and training for several Microsoft products and platforms. Erin has over 15 years of demonstrated experience in program and product management, leadership in technical and non-technical environments, enablement, documentation, and training. You can connect with Erin on Twitter (https://twitter.com/erinrifkin) Here are some links discussed during the episode: * Microsoft Learn - (https://microsoft.com/learn) * docs.microsoft.com - (https://docs.microsoft.com/) Click the icon below to listen.        

A move to the cloud is almost always accompanied by change. Sometimes these changes are pretty obvious and easy to grasp while other times they are more of paradigm shift - one such shift is in the way we monitor out deployments. Monitoring your tenant and supporting services won't prevent a service problem, but it will help you to respond proactively when one occurs and let your users know about the problem before they start alerting you. In this episode we'll talk to Justin Harris, CTO of ENow Software about how monitoring cloud services is radically different from monitoring traditional on-premises infrastructure and why it is important to get it right. We'll also delve into the built-in tools you can use in your own Office 365 tenant and why you may way to consider augmenting those with some third-party monitoring tools. Justin Harris is a 20+ year technology veteran with a wide range of vertical industry exposure that has a knack for understanding how market trends introduce market needs. Justin directs functional and technical teams in working towards a common goal as Chief Technology Officer for Enow Software. Duties include working with a global partner and customer base, identifying relevant industry trends, identifying gaps in the market, pinpointing urgent problems that need to be solved, designing targeted solutions, crafting go to market messaging, educating internal and external customers and providing support for the sales and marketing teams. You can connect with Justin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-harris-40b11/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/ntexcellence) and be sure to check out ENow Software (https://www.enowsoftware.com/) Click the icon below to listen.        

Outlook for Mac has come a long way since it's humble beginnings as Microsoft Entourage. As avid Outlook for Mac users ourselves, Nic and I were excited to sit down with Alessio and Jessica to talk about the history, the much anticipated new version of the product and how important your feedback is to the team building it! Alessio Roic is a Group Program Manager and 23-year veteran at Microsoft where he leads the product management team for Outlook for Mac. Alessio is passionate about driving the adoption of agile methodologies, data driven design, growth strategies and customer focus. You can connect with Alessio [on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessioroic/) or via email (listen to show for email address). Jessica Wilczek is a Outlook + Exchange Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft focusing on Outlook Mobile, Outlook for Mac, and Bookings. Jessica is driven by challenges, loves to think outside the box, and has a passion for analytical problem solving with creative solutions. You can connect with Jessica [on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicawilczek/) or via email. Here's a link to Outlook for Mac on UserVoice: * Outlook for Mac - Business (https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/335538-outlook-for-mac-business) Click the icon below to listen.        

Message transport in Office 365 "Just works" and is often considered to be the plumbing of the service. Despite the rise in popularity of social messaging apps, 62% of business professionals prefer email for business communications and the number of emails delivered daily worldwide is forecast to grow 18% by 2023. In this episode we chat to Kevin Shaughnessy about some of the message transport enhancements and innovation announced at Microsoft Ignite recently. Kevin Shaughnessy is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft and leads the M365 Exchange Transport team's efforts to address customer mail flow challenges and requests. A 23-year Microsoft veteran, Kevin's breadth and depth of experience across multiple disciplines (Technical Support, Technical Marketing, Analyst Relations, and Engineering) makes him uniquely qualified to transform existing customer experiences into new email innovations and solutions that target the needs of the modern mail flow admin. You can connect with Kevin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-shaughnessy-a9b0a31/) or via email. Here are some additional links discussed in the episode: * Me Too! - The story of “Bedlam DL3” on Tech Community (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/me-too/ba-p/610643) * Exchange Team Blog You Had Me at EHLO.. (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/bg-p/Exchange) * Ignite Session: BRK3312 (https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/79364?source=speakerdetail) Click the icon below to listen.        

Ever heard of Microsoft FastTrack? FastTrack helps customers deploy Microsoft cloud solutions - customers with eligible subscriptions can use FastTrack at no additional cost for the life of their subscription. We sat down with Jennifer Burdett from the FastTrack Team to talk about what FastTrack is, how you can make the most of this benefit and how partners can compliment this offering. Jennifer Burdett is a Senior Program Manager on the FastTrack Team at Microsoft, her area of focus is on email and endpoint security. In her spare time, she enjoys volunteering her time to many causes such as hosting a Microsoft DigiGirlz event each year, being part of the Women@Microsoft group, and improving diversity in the industry. Feel free to connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferb...) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/jburdett7) Check out Jennifer's community work here: * DigiGirlz Winnipeg on Twitter (https://twitter.com/digigirlzwpg) * Women in Communications & Technology Manitoba on Twitter (https://twitter.com/wctmanitoba) Click the icon below to listen.