We recently had a lot of fun catching up with our old friend and possibly our biggest fan - Stephen L Rose. We talked a little about his passion for really listening to customers and some of the new innovations in Microsoft Teams. Stephen also as passionate about community and sharing knowledge through various platforms, including his own podcast "Inside Microsoft Teams"

Stephen Rose works in IT Pro and Security marketing for Teams at Microsoft where he leads their efforts for IT pros worldwide around Microsoft Teams security, privacy, and management. Stephen is also the host of the popular Inside Microsoft Teams podcast - aka.ms/InsideMSTeams. You can connect with Stephen on Twitter - https://twitter.com/stephenlrose

Episode 53: Catching up with Stephen L Rose

If you follow the Microsoft productivity space, you have no doubt seen or heard about the "Autodiscovering the Great Leak" research paper recently published by Amit Serper, a security researcher at Guardicore. The paper details more than five months' research into the Autodiscover service used by Microsoft Exchange. Amit's research was picked up and in many instances misreported by the tech press, which in turn caused a certain degree of panic. We're deeply passionate about Exchange and have been for a very long time, so we thought it would be a good idea to sit down with Amit to talk through his research and better understand his findings.

During the episode, Amit talks about the following resources:

* https://detectionlab.network
* https://autodiscover-vulnerable-tlds.com

Amit Serper is a security researcher that spent almost a decade in the Israeli intelligence community where he worked in vulnerability research, exploit development and designed the architectures of uniquely complicated, highly reliable, one-of-a-kind communication systems. During his 9 year tenure in the IDF and Israeli government, he received 4 certificates of excellence and two commendations.

During his career he has been on both the red and blue sides, joined an early stage start-up to build EDR products from scratch on various operating systems, conducted low level operating system research, reverse engineered malware, performed countless IR engagements, helped build a global research team and brand, and stopped a few global attacks (NotPetya, BadRabbit, Operation softcell to name a few). Amit is a frequent public speaker at security conferences all over the world and shares his research and knowledge in various blog posts, conferences, and podcasts. You can find Amit on Twitter - https://twitter.com/0xAmit

Episode 56: Is Exchange leaking your creds?

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)

Episode 67: PSA - The end of Basic Auth in Exchange Online (no, really!)

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/)

Episode 68: In the kitchen with Chef

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/

Episode 69: Exchange Server - Fine wine or Swiss cheese?

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

Episode 70: All about Teams

We're Back! Happy 2023 to all - and yes, I realize that it's February. We often talk on this podcast about cyber readiness and the important of having a plan but, felt it would be important to unpack that a talk about what is means in practical terms. In this episode we welcome back our friend Fran Donoso to explain what cyber readiness entails and provide some great advice to help you and your organization get ready for when you have to deal with an incident.

Francisco Donoso is the Vice President 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)

Be sure to check out our blog: https://thearchitects.cloud/2023/02/01/episode-72-cyber-readiness/

Episode 72: Cyber Readiness

In this episode we're joined by long-time friend Robby Pedrica as we talk about Open-source software. We asked Robby about Open-source technologies in the enterprise and discussed the history, ins and outs of using Open-source projects in your environment.

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/)

Episode 77: Open-source

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)

Episode 78: The Modern Admin

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/)

Episode 79 - It was DNS!

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)

Episode 80: Cyber Security Awareness

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

Episode 82: All bad things happen inside the allow rule

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

Episode 83: @merill

"Back by popular demand" - even if they do say so themselves! In this episode we are excited to welcome back to the show Tarek Dawoud and Mark Morowczynski from Microsoft's Identity CXP team. We discuss the current state of Identity and dive into Conditional Access, phish-resistant MFA, the latest threats and why attacks only get better, they never get worse. Tarek and Mark share some great tool tips and we close the episode by talking about Mark's new KQL book and how KQL is fast becoming an essential skill.

Here are the links to content mentioned in the episode:

Microsoft Digital Defense Report (https://aka.ms/mddr)
Road to the cloud - Moving from AD to AAD. (https://aka.ms/AD2AAD)
Video explaining how passkeys are phishing resistant (https://aka.ms/PhishingResistantExplained)
Entra ID assessment for customers to examine their environments (https://aka.ms/ZTAssess)
Hiding in the clouds - app consent and permissions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxOHcqHxpi8)
AzureADToolkit - script to go look at the over permissioned apps (https://github.com/microsoft/AzureADToolkit)
Legacy Protocol Workbook (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sentinel-blog/azure-sentinel-insecure-protocols-workbook-implementation-guide/ba-p/1197564)
Identity workbooks (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/monitoring-health/howto-use-workbooks#access-microsoft-entra-workbooks)

Tarek Dawoud is an expert of 10+ years in Microsoft's Identity division serving on the core directory team and for the past 4 years on the Customer Success Team. He is now the lead of the architect team writing white papers and creating workshops and reference architectures to facilitate customers' Identity journey to the cloud.

Mark Morowczynski is a Program Manager in the Identity CXP team. He works with some of the largest and most complex customers on their deployment of Azure AD. You can find Mark on Twitter (https://twitter.com/markmorow)

Check out Mark's book "The Definitive Guide to KQL" - Coupon code 'KUSTO' (https://www.microsoftpressstore.com/store/definitive-guide-to-kql-using-kusto-query-language-9780138293383)

Episode 84: "Entra like Magenta"

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/)

Episode 85: M&A Easy Button

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/)

Episode 86: Crusty Critical Apps

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/)

Episode 87: Prompt Architect

In this episode we're once again joined by Philip Miller to continue our AI discussion, and this time we also invited Todd Wright from Progress to discuss data and the importance of data accessibility and connectivity within AI. Generic large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are fun and all, but being able to leverage your own organizational data in a secure way to train models is where the real magic happens. AI is a long-term program and not just a short term 'one and done' project. We discuss some practical guidance on how to make the most of your data and why data quality and governance are so important.

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/)

Todd Wright is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Progress, helping enterprises thrive by providing the best products to develop high-impact business applications securely and reliably, while automating how you configure, deploy, manage and scale those apps on premise or in the cloud. You can connect with Todd on LinkedIn(https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-wright-dm/) and find out more about Progress DataDirect here (https://www.progress.com/datadirect-connectors)

Episode 88: Data is the new oil!

Another in-person episode! We recorded this one at the MVP Summit in Redmond earlier this year and had a great time talking to Katie and Pablo about community as they introduced us to The Microsoft Security Customer Connection Program (CCP). Katie and Pablo help us understand the value the program provides to both Microsoft and its customers, how they gather feedback and what the requirements are to join the program.

Here are the links mentioned during the episode:
*   Security Connection Program (CCP) (https://aka.ms/joinccp)
*   Microsoft Security Community (https://aka.ms/securitycommunity)

Katie Ryckman is the Director of US Small Business Partner Strategy, including partner programs and The Microsoft Security Customer Connection Program (CCP). The goal of the CPP program is to drive quality customer feedback into our prioritization, design, and development process to build the best possible security solutions. You can connect with Katie on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/katieryckman/)

Pablo Chacón is an experienced Senior Engineering Program Manager, most recently helping engineering groups in Azure gather feedback shared by the Security Engineering Advisory Council, a community of selected customers who give candid and expert engineering advice for the betterment of Azure security services. He is also the MVP Product Group Lead for Azure Security, leading the security community of Microsoft's MVP Award program. You can connect with Pablo on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/pjchacon/)

Episode 89: Help us, help you!

In this episode we have the honor of being joined by Richard Campbell - an industry veteran and podcast legend who has recorded more than 3,000 episodes. Richard is a professional storyteller and we really enjoyed talking about a variety of things, including .NET, AI and even Windows on ARM.

Richard Campbell started playing with microcomputers in 1977 at the age of 10. He's really never done anything else since. He is a Microsoft Regional Director and is recognized as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in the area of ASP.NET development. You can connect with Richard on Twitter (https://x.com/richcampbell)

Be sure to check out Richard's other projects:
* .NET Rocks (https://www.dotnetrocks.com)
* RunAs Radio (https://www.runasradio.com)
* DevIntersection group of conferences (https://www.devintersection.com)

Episode 90: Storyteller

In this episode we welcome back a couple of our old friends Stephen Rose and Darrell Webster to talk about Copilot and AI - how useful or useless are these technologies and what does it take to get it to work as advertised. Our guests share some great insight on what is needed to make the most of AI and why so many organizations struggle soon after going all in. We each talk about our own favorite Copilot and how it has changed the way we work - and Warren has a conversation with ChatGPT about living on the moon.

Stephen Rose a highly experienced change management and an adoption expert with a track record of helping the world’s top businesses achieve their goals. For 14 years, he led Microsoft deployment, adoption and usage of Windows, Office, OneDrive and Teams and Co-Pilot for IT professionals worldwide using technical marketing, public speaking, community, and human connection. Stephen currently holds over 15 Microsoft and CompTIA technical certifications. You can connect with Stephen on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenlrose/)

Darrell Webster is a productivity and collaboration specialist who helps individuals and teams to define and refine the way they work by listening, coaching and exploring the possibilities. Darrell believes that the best way to learn is through practical experiences with your information, your people and your environment. You can connect with Darrell on Twitter (https://x.com/DarrellaaS)

Be sure to check out their other shows and projects:
* stephenlrose.com - (https://stephenlrose.com)
* UnplugIT - (https://petri.com/podcast-show/unplugit/)
* The 365 Message Center Show - (https://365mcs.com)
* Modern Work Mentor - (https://modernworkmentor.com)

Episode 91: Copilot is like a teenager

No language encryption here... In this episode we have the honor of sitting down for a late-night discussion with our Dutch friends Koos, Jeroen and Maarten. We really enjoyed their interesting and unique perspective on the global threat landscape and how the ransomware-as-a-service economy continues to grow. We also talk about cyber warfare, the challenge of attack attribution and share some practical guidance on how keep your organization secure.

Koos Goossens is a Microsoft Security MVP with a focus on Microsoft Azure Security and other Microsoft Security products like Microsoft Sentinel. Koos is also an avid photographer, watch nerd, pinball enthusiast and BBQ grill master. You can connect with Koos on Twitter (https://x.com/KoosGoossens)

Jeroen Niesen is a Microsoft MVP and serves as the Lead MxDR at Wortell, where he plays a pivotal role in managing and enhancing the company's managed extended detection and response services. Jeroen is a speaker at various events around the world and also runs the AzureVlog channel on YouTube (http://youtube.com/@AzureVlog). You can connect with Jeroen on Twitter (https://x.com/jeroenniesen)

Maarten Goet is the CTO & Director Cybersecurity at Wortell and a long-standing expert in Microsoft technologies, achieving the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and Microsoft Regional Director (RD) designation consistently for the last 18 years, a recognition for his efforts in knowledge-sharing and building Microsoft communities around the world. You can connect with Maarten on Twitter (https://x.com/maarten_goet)

Episode 92: Dutch!

Have you heard the story of malware that targets programmable logic controllers (PLCs) on industrial systems and causing fast-spinning centrifuges to tear themselves apart? How about the disgruntled employee in Australia who tampered with a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system and released 265,000 gallons (~1M l) of sewage from a waste management plant? In this episode we're joined by Operational Technology (OT) Security expert Roger Hill as we discuss OT security, the convergence of OT and IT and how we can defend against OT / IOT attacks.

As the Founder of Hillstrong Group Security, Roger Hill brings over 30 years of deep expertise in industrial automation and cybersecurity, specializing in OT GRC and cybersecurity for manufacturing and critical infrastructure. Throughout his career, he's consistently tackled the most pressing challenges that CISOs face in securing Operational Technology (OT) environments within the ever-evolving industrial landscape. You can connect with Roger on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerlhill/)

Episode 93: Things that go bang!

It seems everyone is selling AI at the moment - how can we make the most of these technologies in a measured, controlled way without exposing ourselves to data leakage or other unintended consequences? In this episode we're joined by Saaim Khan as we dive into some of the challenges faced by organizations rushing to adopt AI technologies. Saaim takes us through the role of governance in AI, the importance of a well-thought-out business case, and shares 5 simple questions to help you start taking control of your data governance.

With over 20 years in IT and cybersecurity, Saaim's journey has been anything but ordinary. He initially built my career in software development and marketing before diving into cybersecurity. Today, he is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Cyber Matters. Cyber Matters advise, consult and solve cybersecurity problems in ways that are easy to understand and follow. Feel free to connect with Saaim at Cyber Matters (https://www.cybermatters.io)

Episode 94: Clown Car!

We've all been prompted to create a Passkey when logging in to online services like Google - but are Passkeys ready for enterprise use? Do we still need MFA? What's is FIDO2? We asked Microsoft MVP Darren Robinson to help us dive into the world of Passkeys & verifiable credentials. Darren helps us understand the different types of Passkeys, their use-cases and, he shares some strategies for dealing with those pesky legacy apps and authentication protocols.

Darren Robinson is an Identity Architect and Microsoft MVP with over 30 years' experience in technical sales, holistic strategy, detailed design and implementation of On Premises, Hybrid and Cloud Identity & Access Management solutions across all industry verticals. You can connect with Darren on Github (https://github.com/darrenjrobinson) or check out his blog (https://blog.darrenjrobinson.com)

Episode 95: Passkeys & Verifiable Creds

In this episode we sit down with our old friend Antonio Maio. We recorded this episode at Microsoft Ignite 2024 in Chicago, and as always it was an enjoyable conversation with actionable insights. Antonio shares some tips from this Ignite talk to help you assess your environment at scale, protect your information and educate your users

Antonio gives us some great information about preparing for Copilot, why it helps to encourage everyone to build their own relationship with Copilot and how to find the balance between data protection and productivity.

Antonio Maio is a Managing Director and Senior Enterprise Architect with Protiviti. Based in Canada, he is an 13-time Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). His work specializes in Microsoft 365, collaboration and the modern workplace, Office Apps and Services, security and compliance. Antonio’s work focuses on helping organizations assess and implement security, compliance and data governance solutions within Microsoft Cloud environments. You can connect with Antonio LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonio-maio-b082191/) or check out his blog (https://antonio365.com) and podcast (https://m365voice.com)

Episode 96: Copilot in the real world

At Microsoft Ignite 2024, we sat down with our old friend Anthony Bartolo to discuss the industry’s shift from traditional infrastructure roles to development, a transition heavily influenced by AI and automation.

As companies increasingly adopt "vibe coding" — the trend where developers focus on rapid prototyping and intuition-driven coding rather than rigid syntax — Anthony’s journey is a perfect example of how infrastructure professionals are embracing this new paradigm. He shared his experience moving from network engineering to full-stack development, and how AI tools helped bridge knowledge gaps. This aligns with vibe coding’s emphasis on leveraging AI-assisted development to lower entry barriers, allowing generalists to build functional applications without deep technical expertise. The discussion highlighted how AI is democratizing software creation, empowering both infrastructure specialists and non-traditional coders to build solutions quickly. While AI lowers the barrier to entry, it also raises questions about shallow expertise and long-term sustainability. Are we building real solutions or just stitching together AI-generated snippets with no real understanding?

Be sure to check out the AI Tour (https://aitour.microsoft.com)

A special thanks to the folks from ENow Software (https://www.enowsoftware.com) for helping us out with a location to record this episode.

Episode 97: Reinvent

Our first Episode !!

Welcome to the Cloud Architects Podcast.

In this Episode we discuss what is in the news with regard to Cloud as well as some Tips and Tricks in the Software Defined Networking space. We also introduce who we are and why we decided to start this new series.

Here are the show note links:
Nic’s Blog: http://blankmanblog.com/
Warren’s Blog: http://www.waza.co.za/
Zerotier: http://www.zerotier.com/
Warren’s post on using Zerotier to break out in another country and a cost effective VPN solution: http://www.waza.co.za/2017/06/19/zerotier-and-azure-sdn-at-its-best-with-quick-and-easy-point-to-site-vpn/

The Cloud Architects

Episode 1: Who we are?

We take for granted everyday that we can login securely to our Office 365 or Azure accounts, but do we ever wonder how that works or why it works the way it does?
Identity is a very large part of every organisation and this is the team that makes Identity possible. From Business 2 Business, Azure AD Connect, Guest access and all the pieces that fit together to make Identity in the Cloud work.

In this episode we talk with Program Manager Elisabeth Olson and Principle Program Manager Robert Lowe. They both work with the Azure Active Directory teams at Microsoft in Redmond. They give us some amazing answers to some burning questions as well as some insight into how the beast that is Azure AD works.

Episode 20: Azure Active Directory and B2B

There is no denying that the only constant with cloud services is change, the nature and rate of this change often brings about some interesting challenges for organizations. We sat down with Anna Donnelly to talk about organizational change management, driving user adoption and how a sound change management strategy is essential to the success of your cloud adoption project.

Anna Donnelly is a Services Product Manager at Insight and a Certified Change Practitioner helping organizations manage change and drive user adoption.

Episode 24: Organizational Change Management and Adoption

Data warehousing is a massive topic! We've all heard of data lakes, data swamps and big data in general, but what does it all mean? We sat down with Melissa Coates (a.k.a SQLChick) in an attempt to gain an understanding of this complex topic and definitely learned a thing or two in the process.

Melissa Coates is a data architect with a focus on data warehousing, data lake, and business intelligence solutions in the cloud. Melissa is the owner of Coates Data Strategies, she produces training courses to help data professionals be successful deploying technologies with the Microsoft data platform. She also provides technical writing and consulting projects related to Azure and Power BI. You can follow Melissa on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SQLChick)

Episode 33: Data warehousing, data lakes and big data with SQLChick

With the explosive growth of cloud services, many organizations suddenly find themselves having to manage multiple cloud environments, either intentionally or by coincidence due to mergers, acquisitions or other such events. With Azure and AWS being two of the most popular choices, we talk to Azure MVP Mike Pfeiffer who is also AWS certified about the parallels between the two services, things to consider when running two clouds and discuss if multi-cloud makes more sense as a transitional state or long-term mode of operation.

Mike is a twenty-year tech industry veteran and entrepreneur. He's worked for some of the largest software companies in the world, including Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS), and has launched two successful consulting businesses since 2003. Today, Mike is founder and Chief Technologist at CloudSkills.io, a cloud training and consulting firm. Feel free to connect with Mike on LinkedIn(https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpfeiffer/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/mike_pfeiffer) or at https://cloudskills.io

Episode 34: Azure For AWS Professionals

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)

Episode 38: Outlook for Mac - No longer a second-class citizen..

Microsoft Teams has seen some incredible growth in recent months as many organizations worldwide adjust to a new normal that involves a remote, work from home workforce. In late April, Microsoft announced that it had seen a 70% increase in Teams usage, increasing to more than 75 million daily active users and seeing 200 million meeting participants in a single day for the first time. In this episode, we talk to MVP Lee Ford about his experience working with Teams, adoption of Teams features such as direct routing and some really handy PowerShell scripts he's written.

Lee Ford is a Microsoft MVP (Office Development) and Solution Architect for Symity and is based in Birmingham, UK. Lee works predominantly with Microsoft Teams but also dabbles in other technologies such as Azure, PowerShell, Power Platform, and Microsoft 365. Follow Lee on Twitter (https://twitter.com/lee_ford) and be sure to check out his blog at www.lee-ford.co.uk

A transcript of this episode can be viewed here https://gist.github.com/TheCloudArch/44e51ecc190a8569e0c95e7406d4d316

Episode 46: Teams and PowerShell with Lee Ford

A podcast about best practice, guidance, news and cutting edge Microsoft cloud technologies. Interviews with passionate people in the cloud space, hosted by MVPs Nicolas Blank (twitter.com/nicolasblank), Warren du Toit (twitter.com/warrendt) and Chris Goosen (twitter.com/chrisgoosen)

The Cloud Architects

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