Modern Client Management with Julie Andreacola

What do you know about large language models? While at NDC in London, Richard sat down with Dr. Jodie Burchell to discuss how machine learning has reached this new technological milestone. Jodie talks about different types of machine learning and how large language models fit into the landscape. The conversation explores where LLMs come from, what they are good at, and what they should not be used for. They are not intelligent and certainly not a panacea for work - but they can be valuable when used correctly!

Links

• GPT-2
• Microsoft AI Supercomputer
• GPT-NeoX-20B
• Jodie Burchell on .NET Rocks
• Anthropic
• GitHub Copilot
• Retrieval Augmented Generation
• The Busy Persons' Into to LLMs by Anderj Karpathy

Recorded February 1, 2024

Have you upgraded to TLS 1.3? While at NDC in London, Richard chatted with Scott Helme about his work moving companies onto the latest version of TLS. But do you need to? Scott talks about how SSL 2 and 3 were used until they were broken by the black hats, leading to a panic to update quickly. While there is no evidence that TLS 1 and 1.1 are breached, they are already deprecated - and are slower than the later versions. Want a performance boost? Move to TLS 1.3!

Links

• KeybaseAPI Root Certificate Expiry
• Let's Encrypt
• Brownout Notice at GitHub
• When Logging Causes Security Incidents
• Deprecation SHA-1
• Google Post Quantum Encryption

Recorded February 1, 2024

How are we going to manage the use of M365 Copilot? Richard chats with Martina Grom about her experiences helping organizations prepare for M365 Copilot. Martina talks about getting your data estate in shape - and the challenge that represents in terms of identifying what data should be available within an organization. The conversation also digs into the larger picture of the Microsoft Graph - all the information about how people interact on M365, the resources they create and use, and the potential the Graph offers to help with productivity. It's still early days, but it's never too early to work hard on ensuring we have the right governance in place to allow Copilot to help the company succeed!

Links

• SLRProject
• Microsoft Delve
• Microsoft Purview
• GitHub Copilot Policies
• Data, Privacy, and Security for M365 Copilot
• Extend Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365
• Manage Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 with the Copilot page
• Manage access to public web content in Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 responses
• Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 Requirements
• Protect your sensitive data with Microsoft Purview
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Readiness Assessment

Recorded January 5, 2024

What's coming next for Windows Server? Richard chats with Jeff Woolsey about the latest information around Windows Server vNext! Jeff discusses how customer feedback influences Windows Server and the challenges of moving folks to the latest versions. Server vNext is designed to live in a cloud hybrid world and includes improvements for interacting with Azure, but it also has plenty of on-premises features. The conversation turns to Active Directory and its ongoing modernization to make it more secure, robust, and scalable. The same goes for the rest of the Windows Server - coming soon!

Links

• Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition
• Azure Arc
• Storage Spaces Direct
• Windows Server vNext Talk from Ignite

Recorded December 14, 2023

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

• Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Community
• Left Uncharted
• SharePoint
• Microsoft 365 Copilot
• Microsoft 365 Governance Questions
• SharePoint Term Sets
• SharePoint Content Types
• Emily's Blog Post of Building Metadata in SharePoint Online

Recorded January 4, 2024

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!

Links:

• Radius
• Kubernetes
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Resource Manager
• Azure Bicep
• Open Application Model
• dapr
• .NET Aspire

Recorded November 16, 2023

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!

Links:

• Directions on Microsoft
• Dynamics 365
• Copilot for Microsoft 365
• Microsoft Purview
• Microsoft Priva
• Microsoft Security Copilot
• Licensing Boot Camp

Recorded December 14, 2023

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.

Links:

• Atera
• OpenAI
• Azure OpenAI Service

Recorded November 16, 2023

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!

Links:

• Microsoft Power Platform Center of Excellence Starter Kit
• AI Copilot Overview
• Copilot in PowerBI
• Power Automate Copilot
• Responsive Layouts in Canvas Apps
• Building a Multi-Language Power App
• Microsoft Copilot Studio
• Power Apps Connectors
• Microsoft Copilots
• Power Apps Prompts

Recorded December 11, 2023

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.

Links:

• Pass-the-Hash White Paper
• MITRE ATT&CK
• Windows LAPS
• Enable NTLM 2 Authentication
• LDAP Signing
• Forest and Domain Functional Levels
• Credential Guard
• Microsoft Intune
• Security Compliance Toolkit and Baselines

Recorded November 20, 2023