Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast

In Episode 350, Ben and Scott talk about some of the ambiguity in features between several types of Teams channels, a new model that includes access to Microsoft Learn for those taking role-based Microsoft certification exams, and a simplified experience for creating and managing CDN endpoints using Azure Front Door for Azure Storage customers.

Overview of teams and channels in Microsoft Teams

Introducing a new resource for all role-based Microsoft Certification exams

Open Book Microsoft Certification Exams | Interview with Microsoft’s Liberty Munson

Quick create Azure Front Door endpoints for Azure Storage accounts

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.

In Episode 349, Ben and Scott talk through considerations for working with Azure Policy to enable diagnostic settings at scale. Along the way they also talk about helpful tools that are available that can help you get your environment configured the way you need even quicker.

Create diagnostic settings at scale using Azure Policies and Initiatives

Microsoft Sentinel content hub catalog

Create-AzDiagPolicy

Documentation for Azure Policy scripts

Microsoft.PolicyInsights RBAC

Remediate non-compliant resources with Azure Policy

Manage access to Log Analytics workspaces

Microsoft Sentinel workspace architecture best practices

Azure Resource Graph sample queries for Azure Policy

Azure Governance Visualizer aka AzGovViz

Community Policy Repo

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.

In Episode 348, Ben and Scott start the discussion focusing on the shifting dynamics of open-source tool access for customers, particularly in light of HashiCorp’s decision to transition to a Business Source License (BSL). This move essentially limits what competitors can do with their code, requiring them to acquire a commercial license from HashiCorp if developing. While the change doesn’t significantly impact customers who primarily use Terraform for deploying and managing resources, it may have significant implications for companies building competitive services based on HashiCorp’s community products.

As the discussion progresses, Ben and Scott transition into an exploration of Azure subscriptions. They suggested that businesses, especially those in their early stages, should create more Azure subscriptions than they think they need. This is due to a paradigm shift from treating resource groups as units of management aligned with business needs to viewing subscriptions in the same way. The conversation emphasized the importance of understanding this concept and planning accordingly when setting up Azure.

HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

How Red Hat’s License Change Is Reinvigorating Enterprise Linux Distros

Enable all paid plans on your subscription

Create Azure subscriptions programmatically

What are Azure management groups?

Subscription considerations and recommendations

Create your initial Azure subscriptions

What is an Azure landing zone?

[Move networking resources to new resource group or subscription](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/ready/landing-zone/implementation-optionsIn Episode 348, Ben and Scott dig into the nuance of managing resources in Azure, including considerations for having multiple subscriptions regardless of your scale.)

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.

Merill is a Principal Product Manager in the Microsoft CAT team with a focus on Microsoft Graph for Identity and brings his experiences working with Microsoft Entra customers to the masses.

In the conversation, we explore Merill’s various contributions to technical tools aimed at simplifying complex processes when working with the Microsoft Cloud. His creations include CMD.Ms, a tool that streamlines access to different Microsoft services; Azure AD Exporter, a tool that exports your entire Microsoft Entra ID configuration and Azure AD B2C into JSON files; and Graph X-ray, a Chrome extension that converts API calls into code in your preferred language. Lastly, He highlighted the ‘Weekly Dose of Microsoft Entra’ newsletter as an ideal resource for keeping up-to-date with relevant news, blog posts and videos. To learn more from Merill and keep up with Microsoft Entra news, sign up for his newsletter at entra.news.

cmd.ms

Neat new feature in public preview for dynamic groups

idPowerToys

https://idpowertoys.com/assets/mindmaps/entra-v1.pdf

microsoft/azureadexporter

Graph X-Ray :Beta

Update-MgUser (Microsoft.Graph.Users)

Update-MgUserExtension (Microsoft.Graph.Users)

New-MgUser (Microsoft.Graph.Users)

Welcome to the Graph PowerShell Samples Community

Entra.News – Your weekly dose of Microsoft Entra

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.

In Episode 346, Ben and Scott discuss how some of the recent attacks on Microsoft 365 customers have led to Microsoft, in partnership with CISA, offering expanded cloud logging capabilities to all customers for no additional charge.

Microsoft is shutting down Cortana, and Apple should do the same with Siri

Types of Power Automate licenses

CISA and Microsoft Partnership Expands Access to Logging Capabilities Broadly

Expanding cloud logging to give customers deeper security visibility

Auditing solutions in Microsoft Purview

Stolen Microsoft Security Key – Potential Breaches Beyond Outlook

Microsoft mitigates China-based threat actor Storm-0558 targeting of customer email

Analysis of Storm-0558 techniques for unauthorized email access

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.

In episode 345, Ben and Scott discuss the upcoming Microsoft 365 Backup and Microsoft 365 Archive services, as well as the pricing and value of Microsoft Co-Pilot. Microsoft 365 backup and Microsoft 365 archive services will provide users with options for backing up data in Microsoft 365, including SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange. They also discuss the benefits this will have on purchasing backup service directly from Microsoft, as well as how third-party backup providers can take advantage of this announcement.

They also discuss how Microsoft 365 Archive, will complement Microsoft 365 Backup by offering cold to cool data storage for inactive data in Microsoft 365. This service aims to provide cost savings for storing older content while maintaining administrative search capabilities and other functionalities.

The conversation then moves on to the pricing and value of Microsoft Co-Pilot. They discuss the potential benefits of using Co-Pilot for tasks like drafting proposals or generating meeting notes. However, they also express concerns about the pricing compared to existing licensing models and whether the value delivered by Co-Pilot justifies the cost. They speculate on how organizations might justify the expense based on time savings and productivity gains. Overall, they express a mix of excitement and skepticism about Copilot and emphasize the need to see it in action before fully evaluating the value.

Share Your Home Assistant Configs on GitHub Automatically

Welcome to Microsoft Inspire 2023: Introducing Microsoft 365 Backup and Microsoft 365 Archive

Manage content at scale with Microsoft Syntex

Licensing for Microsoft Syntex

Find the right Microsoft 365 enterprise plan for your organization

Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot-A whole new way to work

Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot – your copilot for work

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.

In Episode 344, Ben and Scott invite Andrew Connell, SharePoint developer extraordinaire and founder of Voitanos on the show to talk about your options when it comes to developing modern web applications that interact with SharePoint and Teams. There’s a lot to unpack here – when or even should you build a SharePoint app? Is it better to just build and deploy web apps that you can control end-to-end? Listen in to find out.

Real World Example: Build Web Apps – not M365 or Teams Apps

Build Web Apps – not Microsoft 365, Teams, or SPFx Apps

Learn the SharePoint Schedule (SPFx) – All Courses

Creating your first Microsoft 365 Developer tenant

Microsoft 365 Developer Program

SharePoint Add-ins

Overview of the SharePoint Framework

Understand Microsoft Teams apps and their capabilities

SaaS COGS: What To Consider In Your Cost Of Goods Sold

Yo Teams

Meet Your Citizen Developer

Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

Overview of Viva Connections

Andrew is a web developer who loves to learn new in tech and help others learn! Microsoft has recognized me every year since 2005 with its annual MVP Award. I started teaching in 2007 in just about every way I can. During most of that time, I’ve focused on enterprise platforms like Microsoft Azure & Microsoft 365 including, SharePoint, and Microsoft Teams.

Connect with AC

Voitanos

LinkedIn

YouTube

Threads

Twitter

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.

In Episode 343, Ben and Scott start to tackle the great renaming of Azure Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID (or MEID). Except for the places that it didn’t get renamed. It’s not confusing at all.

They discuss the implications of the rename and the potential confusion it could cause, as well as explore new product announcements related to Microsoft’s foray into the security service edge market. They also provide resources for understanding the rename and navigating Microsoft Intra. Overall, they have some frustration with the renaming exercise, but acknowledge that it probably is a good thing and when it comes down to it, is largely a just a rename of the service.

Announcing new innovations in Microsoft Entra

Microsoft Entra Plans & Pricing

Azure AD is being renamed to Microsoft Entra ID

New name for Azure Active Directory

Azure AD Renamed! Enter Microsoft Entra ID

Microsoft Entra External ID? public preview: Developer-centric platform

Planning for customer identity and access management (preview)

Identity PowerToys

https://idpowertoys.com/assets/mindmaps/entra-v1.pdf

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.

In Episode 342, Ben and Scott talk through how they manage access to the internet for the kids in their lives, Microsoft Edge Workspaces, and some of the frustrations with auto-generated documentation for the Microsoft Graph.

Using PiHole for parental control of your home network

[GUIDE] How to Parental Controls – Options

circle

OpenDNS FamilyShield

NextDNS

Episode 341 – Our word of the day is “Notes”

Edge Workspace scenarios

Organize your ideas with Collections in Microsoft Edge

Update-MgUserExtension

Update-MgUser

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.

In Episode 341, Ben and Scott continue to dive into the confusion that is the note taking ecosystem in Microsoft 365 with the potential competition between OneNote and Loop, the formal retirement announcement for InfoPath Forms Services, and some more follow-up on Copilots and where you can use them in your day-to-day work.

Default Notes tab in Microsoft Teams for Enterprise customers

Meeting Details in OneNote

Now in Public preview & Targeted release: Collaborative meeting notes in Teams meetings

Now in public preview: Collaborative notes in Microsoft Teams Meetings

Yammer.com Rebranded to Viva Engage

Support update for InfoPath Forms Services in Microsoft 365

InfoPath Forms Services Assessment

SharePoint Server 2019 Lifecycle

Microsoft Lists: Easier, Better, Faster, Stronger

SharePoint: Microsoft Lists- A new forms experience to collect information

You can now try Windows Copilot and native RAR and 7-Zip support in Windows 11

Meeting recap in Microsoft Teams

https://youtu.be/pOJClKla1f8

Intelligink utilizes their skill and passion for the Microsoft cloud to empower their customers with the freedom to focus on their core business. They partner with them to implement and administer their cloud technology deployments and solutions. Visit Intelligink.com for more info.