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Top Technical Skills for Modern IT Pros with Sonia Cuff May 25, 2022

Show notes

What are the technical skills that the modern IT Pro needs? Richard chats with Sonia Cuff about a recent blog post that digs into the array of technical skills she sees today. Many are old standbys, like networking and server configuration. And the cloud is undoubtedly an essential part of the current skill set. But there are newer aspects to explore, like source control for scripts and Infrastructure-as-Code. While you don't have to have every skill, it's worth thinking about how you're expanding your skill set and what new things you can add to be more effective!

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Recorded April 21, 2022

SQL Q&A from SQL Server & Azure SQL Conference Spring 2022 May 18, 2022

Show notes

In Las Vegas, once again, this is the Q&A session from the SQL Server & Azure SQL Conference in April 2022. Richard moderated questions and answers from SQL luminaries, including Bob Ward, Buck Woody, Pam Lahoud, Bradley Ball, Des Fitzgerald, Davide Mauri, Rie Merritt, and Kevin Farlee. The conversation ranges over Azure SQL migration, new features in SQL Server 2022, challenges in scaling, reliability, disaster recovery, and more!

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SQL Server and Azure SQL Conference

Recorded April 7, 2022

Backup and Ransomware with Karinne Bessette May 11, 2022

Show notes

How can backups protect you from ransomware? Richard chats with Karinne Bessette about how backup technology has responded to the need for ransomware protection. Whether it's intelligent backup tape systems that automatically pop out tapes so they won't overwrite or other air-gap strategies for backups, you need to have a backup you can rely on to recover from a ransomware attack without paying the ransom. Backups can also be a part of the requirements for ransomware insurance - and if your backups aren't sufficient, they can void the insurance! It is also crucial to know what it takes to restore from backup, how long it takes, and the order of things when recovering, even from the ground up. Backups aren't going away any time soon!

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Recorded March 25, 2022

Moving Away from Active Directory with Travis Roberts May 04, 2022

Show notes

Can we move away from Active Directory? Richard talks to Travis Roberts about the prospect of moving organizations off of Windows Active Directory and solely onto Azure Active Directory with Microsoft Intune. Travis talks about the critical aspects of Windows Active Directory - NTLM and Kerberos. Can your organization live without them? That means file shares and printing for most places. Microsoft has recommended that hybrid AD is the long-term solution, and for most sites, that's probably right. But how can you depend on Windows AD less? Can new machines coming into the organization avoid being AD-joined? Lots of great thinking about moving forward with Active Directory!

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Recorded March 3, 2022

Managing Teams Sprawl with Erica Toelle and John Gruszczyk Apr 27, 2022

Show notes

How do you manage the sprawl of Teams? Richard chats with Erica Toelle and John Gruszczyk about the governance of Teams, starting with allowing a bit of sprawl in the first place - people give up on tools that are too locked down. You have to leave room to explore! But once folks engage with Teams and the sprawl gets a bit out of control, there are tools to help you protect people and information shared there. John talks about controlling access to different parts of Teams, depending on your role in the organization and external guests. Erica dives into labeling data as sensitive and how the Data Loss Prevention tooling can help protect data and indicate where it might be exposed inappropriately. There are many approaches to controlling sprawl. You can choose what is best for your organization!

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Recorded March 3, 2022

Fixing Problem WiFi Devices using Tonic with Ryan Woodings Apr 20, 2022

Show notes

We all have those problem WiFi devices - how do you fix them? Richard chats with Ryan Woodings about Tonic, the latest product from MetaGeek that helps you analyze WiFi traffic by the device to understand its problems. Ryan talks about tracking WiFi-specific information, including what AP a client is connecting to and all the intimate details of WiFi connection negotiating. Tools like Tonic can identify a broken antenna in a device based on that traffic or just poor decision-making by the WiFi chipset - and what you can do about it!

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Recording March 3, 2022

Query Performance Tuning Strategies with Monica Rathbun Apr 13, 2022

Show notes

How do you keep your SQL queries fast? Richard chats with Monica Rathbun about her approaches to SQL Server query tuning. Monica starts with defining the problem - how do we know that the database is the performance bottleneck? The conversation dives into measuring query performance and the power of Query Store, but only on SQL Server 2016 and above, so get upgrading! Entity Framework is a standard tool for developers to automate access to SQL. Still, it can generate some pretty ugly queries, and Monica talks about different ways to improve them, including the old standby of writing a stored procedure. Lots of ideas for folks struggling to make their databases go fast!

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Recorded February 22, 2022

Learning Bicep with John Downs Apr 06, 2022

Show notes

Ready to flex your Bicep? Richard talks to John Downs from Azure Fast Track about configuring Azure resources using Bicep. John talks about Azure Resource Manager (ARM) being the under-the-hood way to create Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service, but folks don't enjoy working directly in the JSON that makes up an ARM template. Enter Bicep, a domain-specific language that generates the JSON for you. Today Bicep is Microsoft's recommended way to build Azure resources, offering access to source control, testing, and automation that makes your Azure site more reliable and easier to maintain!

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Recorded March 3, 2022

PowerShellGet 3 with Sydney Smith Mar 30, 2022

Show notes

What's coming in the next version of PowerShellGet? Richard chats with Sydney Smith about PowerShellGet in general and version 3 specifically. Sydney talks about how PowerShellGet appears like a command in PowerShell but is a separate module installed by default with PowerShell and is getting more features and some breaking changes. But version 3 also includes some compatibility features so that you can use your scripts dependent on PowerShellGet 2 within PowerShellGet 3. While there are some breaking changes, they make it easier to find and install the packages you need from the PowerShell Gallery or any other PowerShell repository you want to access.

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Recorded February 17, 2022

Chocolatey for Business with Gary Ewan Park Mar 23, 2022

Show notes

What can Chocolatey do for you? Richard talks to Gary Ewan Park about the latest version of Chocolatey, including Chocolatey for Business. Originally a free, open-source product for application management primarily targeted at software developers, Chocolatey has evolved into a modern software automation product for managing software deployment on workstations and servers. Gary talks about keeping deployments self-contained and straightforward - use the Internet if you want to, but you can also do all deployments from a local package manager as well. With self-service and central management tools, you should look at the latest version of Chocolatey for Business!

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Recording February 17, 2022

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