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Maximizing Metadata with Emily Mancini Feb 14, 2024

Show notes

How does your company organize information? Richard chats with Emily Mancini about the metadata in SharePoint. Emily points out that if you're using Teams, you're using SharePoint - it's all under the hood. And that means any files are being tagged with metadata whether you do it intentionally or not. Taking control of your metadata can mean more effective searches and managing surprises with tools like M365 Copilot. Metadata can help you protect sensitive data and make existing data visible to the people needing it. Spending a few hours with it can make a huge difference!

Links

Recorded January 4, 2024

Managing Cloud Native with Brendan Burns Feb 07, 2024

Show notes

How do you manage cloud-native applications? While at Ignite in Seattle, Richard chatted with Brendan Burns about ongoing efforts to develop tools to make building and operating cloud-native applications more manageable. Brendan discusses the challenges around building apps with Kubernetes and how next-generation tools like Radius and Dapr try to address those problems to make it easier to make the right choices. There's a powerful intersection between sysadmins and developers when making manageable applications in the cloud!

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Recorded November 16, 2023

Software Licensing in 2024 with Mary Jo Foley Jan 31, 2024

Show notes

Is there a strategy for buying software licenses? Richard talks with Mary Jo Foley about her new role at Directions on Microsoft, including her experiences around the multi-day workshops on effectively buying software licenses today. Mary Jo talks about understanding the entire landscape of software licenses your organization needs, how they are used, and how you can build a strategy to negotiate a better licensing cost for your organization. You already do much of the work for this, but bringing everything together is a challenge - but worth it!

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Recorded December 14, 2023

AI for IT with Gil Pekelman Jan 24, 2024

Show notes

How can artificial intelligence help sysadmins? While at Ignite in Seattle, Richard talked with Gil Pekelman of Atera about their AI for IT product. Gil talks about developing smart instrumentation for IT and extensively monitoring machines and networks to give you a broad overview of your infrastructure. Then OpenAI expanded its capabilities - allowing users to submit report requests to a large language model that can act as a copilot or an autopilot, able to resolve tickets or prepare them for a sysadmin to act quickly.

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Recorded November 16, 2023

Copilots for Power Platform with April Dunnam Jan 17, 2024

Show notes

How is the Power Platform evolving? Richard chats with April Dunnam about the latest on the Power Platform - especially the emergence of Large Language Models like Copilot. April talks about how it's possible to use Copilots in Power Apps, Power BI, and Power Automate to help you build your automation - and how writing prompts can help you think through what you're trying to make. The conversation also digs into providing Copilots to users so that you spend less time creating UX and more time building features that the users can request. It's a Copilot world - we're just living in it!

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Recorded December 11, 2023

Hardening Active Directory with Jerry Devore Jan 10, 2024

Show notes

Active Directory is still part of our lives - but can we make it more robust? Richard talks to Jerry Devore about his ongoing blog series on hardening Active Directory. Jerry talks about credential drift - decisions made in the past to turn down (or off!) security features in AD that made sense at the time but are no longer relevant. Most of these efforts only consume time - no products are involved, or the products are free. Check out the links in the show notes for Compliance tools that can help you find vulnerabilities in your infrastructure, including AD.

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Recorded November 20, 2023

Doing More with Less in 2024 with Erin Chapple Jan 03, 2024

Show notes

Another year of doing more with less? While at Ignite in Seattle, Richard sat down with Erin Chapple to talk about her work on Azure Infrastructure and the challenges around the cloud - more instances of everything, more to manage, more to pay attention to. And yet, budgets are not increasing! Erin talks about improving utilization within the cloud and broadening monitoring to cover everything you care about on-premises or on any cloud. And then there are the new copilots. Work to set up? Perhaps. But Azure Copilot can help you understand what's happening in your Azure tenant and how to utilize it more effectively. You can do more with less!

Links:

Azure Copilot

Recorded November 16, 2023

The Sysadmin in 2024 Dec 27, 2023

Show notes

For the last show of 2023, let’s look back at the year and speculate about 2024. Richard flies solo to talk about what he’s learned the past year and some thoughts about going forward into the next year. Economic concerns continue to play a significant role in sysadmin life – companies are holding back on spending but still expecting all the services. And new technologies like large language models look to play a significant role in our lives – if we choose to take advantage of them!

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Recorded December 22, 2023

Azure Arc Guest Configuration with Jodi Boone Dec 20, 2023

Show notes

What's an Azure Arc Guest Configuration? Richard talks to Jodi Boone about the freshly renamed Machine Configuration for Azure Arc. It turns out "guest" is a problematic word - but being able to set policy around machine configurations can make your life much easier. Jodi talks about using existing policy templates, along with Desired State Configuration, to customize configurations so that they can be applied to multiple virtual machines on Azure, on-premises, and in other cloud environments.

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Recorded November 3, 2023

SysAdmin Gifts with Joey Snow & Rick Claus Dec 13, 2023

Show notes

The holiday season is upon us! What do you get your favorite sysadmin? Richard brings back his friends Joey Snow & Rick Claus to discuss some of their favorite sysadmin gifts this year. From simple gadgets that flashback to the early days of tech to the newest and latest versions of favorite products, there's an incredible array of goodies here. Please share it with the folks who struggle to find the perfect present for the sysadmins in their lives!

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Recorded November 17, 2023

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