Welcome to Episode 374 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast where Ben and Scott break down Azure Trusted launch virtual machines - what they are, how they're different from Gen 1 Azure VMs, and how you can enable them for your new and existing workloads. Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * Trusted launch for Azure virtual machines * Supported SKUs * Enable Trusted launch on existing Azure VMs * Deploy a VM with...

Welcome to Episode 373 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast where Ben and Scott close out their review of Microsoft Intune and its third pillar - Endpoint security. They discuss the core components of Endpoint security, including antivirus, disk encryption, and firewall configuration. Ben also takes Scott on a tour of some more hidden gems in Endpoint security, including managed installers along with endpoint detection and response policies. Like what you hear and want to support the...

Welcome to Episode 372 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, where we'll be discussing more of Microsoft Intune, one of the most powerful tools for managing your organization's devices, apps, and endpoint security. In this episode, we continue our discussion on the three pillars of Intune - Devices, Apps, and Endpoint Security - with Apps. We'll cover App protection policies, touch on the management experience, how MDM and MAM come into play, and how App protection policies protect your...

Welcome to Episode 371 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, where we'll be discussing Microsoft Intune, one of the most powerful tools for managing your organization's devices, apps, and endpoint security. In this episode, we'll start exploring the three pillars of Intune: Devices, Apps, and Endpoint Security. We'll cover what devices you can enroll, how to onboard them, and what configurations are available. Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership...

The restrictions have been lifted for Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing and you can now purchase licenses in tenants with less than 300 users. With the flood gates open, Ben and Scott revisit Microsoft 365 Copilot now that they both have access to it in their own tenants. Is it just a summarization tool? Is it any good for helping out Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Microsoft Teams? Listen in and find out! Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership...

In Episode 369, Ben and Scott explore the new Backup and Archive options for Microsoft 365 and Office 365 workloads - Microsoft 365 Archive and Microsoft 365 Backup. These two features may sound similar, but they have different functionalities. Microsoft 365 Archive provides coverage for SharePoint, while Microsoft 365 Backup provides coverage across SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange. We will be discussing why you should use these features, how to set them up, and their options....

In Episode 368, Ben and Scott talk through the differences between Notion and Microsoft Loop with a sprinkling of Confluence. Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * Microsoft officially launches Loop, its Notion competitor * Loop vs. Notion: Microsoft’s new document app is a promising mess * Is Microsoft Loop A Notion Alternative? * Microsoft Loop - A Smarter Way to OneNote? * Get started with Microsoft Loop *...

In Episode 367, Ben and Scott kick off 2024 with a discussion of Azure Files. They start out reviewing a customer scenario Ben encountered and how they would approach it, breaking down the options available with Azure Files, hosting traditional SMB shares in Azure, and how a hybrid deployment can be the best of both worlds. Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * Planning for an Azure Files deployment * Replace or extend...

In this episode, Ben and Scott touched on some updates on their social media presence due to some recent happenings in the social media services space. As they transition into the Microsoft cloud world, they discuss updates to cloud computing software and user experience design. They also provided some insight into conditional access policies and break-glass accounts and examined strategies for managing these elements for optimal efficiency. They wrapped up their conversation on a...

In Episode 365, Ben and Scott break away from tech news to talk about some of their favorite gadget purchases in the past year. If you (or a geek in your life) are looking for ways to spend those Christmas gift cards or you need some last-minute ideas, give them a listen. It's also the season of giving and we're raising money for Girls Who Code. Donate today at https://give.girlswhocode.com/msclouditpro! Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership...

In Episode 364, Ben and Scott discuss the recently announced Microsoft Designer, cover a handful of updates to Azure including Azure Automation and Azure Container Storage. Then they close out with some updates to the licensing model for Enterprise IoT Security. It's also the season of giving and we're raising money for Girls Who Code. Donate today at https://give.girlswhocode.com/msclouditpro! Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show...

In Episode 363, Ben and Scott talk through some new hibernation capabilities coming to an Azure VM near you and the announced retirement of SharePoint Add-Ins. It's also the season of giving and we're raising money for Girls Who Code. Donate today at https://give.girlswhocode.com/msclouditpro! Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * Hibernating virtual machines * Hibernate a dev box in Microsoft Dev Box * Microsoft adds...

In Episode 362, Ben and Scott get sidetracked with some of the announcements coming out of Microsoft Ignite. It's also the season of giving and we're raising money for Girls Who Code. Donate today at https://give.girlswhocode.com/msclouditpro! Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * Microsoft Ignite 2023: AI transformation and the technology driving change * Microsoft Ignite 2023: all the AI news from Microsoft’s IT pro...

In Episode 361, Ben and Scott discuss how Ben solved a data analysis problem with Azure Data Explorer and Scott shares some tips and tricks for Kusto. It's also the season of giving and we're raising money for Girls Who Code. Donate today at https://give.girlswhocode.com/msclouditpro! Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * What is Azure Data Explorer? * Get data from file * Get-MessageTrackingLog * Two The...

In Episode 360, Ben laments about a change in the data processing for Azure Sentinel and Scott contributes some suggestions around Microsoft's data processing policies and how customers can keep up to date on them along with some suggestions for how to manage your personal data in Log Analytics and Application Insights. Then they close out the show talking about how to track resource ownership over time for your Azure resources. It's also the season of giving and we're raising money for...

In Episode 359, Ben and Scott discuss Microsoft Applied Skills - a new skilling platform for Microsoft customers to get hands-on in a live, on-demand lab environment to validate their skills in a specific area and how Applied Skills compares to the existing role-based certification exams. Next up, it's a quick review of an upcoming roadmap item that impacts Microsoft-managed conditional access policies and how to monitor and keep up to date with Message Center messages that are applicable to...

In Episode 358, Ben and Scott talk about Ben's new Teams-certified Poly Sync, a new teleprompter Scott ordered, and Amazon's investment in Microsoft 365. It's also the season of giving and we're raising money for Girls Who Code. Donate today at https://give.girlswhocode.com/msclouditpro! Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * POLY - Sync 20+ USB-A Personal Bluetooth Smart Speakerphone (Plantronics) - Connect to Smartphones...

In Episode 357, Ben and Scott run through the recently announced Community gallery capability that has been added to the Azure Compute Gallery service. They also take a few minutes to discuss the public preview of table-level RBAC read-access controls for your Log Analytics workspaces. Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * Microsoft Ignite * Share images using a community gallery * Create a VM from a generalized image...

In Episode 356, Ben and Scott revisit the ROI of Microsoft 365 Copilot, discuss some methods for bulk restores from the SharePoint Online Recycle bin, and some upcoming changes to default outbound internet access for your Azure VMs. If you have a chance, nominate the show for Best Podcast at the ESPC Inspire Awards! Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * Microsoft 365 Copilot: Release Date, Price, Download & more *...

In Episode 355, Ben and Scott sit down with SharePoint developer extraordinaire Andrew Connell from Voitanos to talk about SharePoint Server Subscription Edition and some changes in SharePoint Framework (SPFX) support. You'll definitely want to listen in to make sure that you're falling into the "Pit of Success" for developing SPFX solutions for your on-premises installations of SharePoint. `Note: We get into the weeds with things like version numbers between SharePoint Server Subscription...

In Episode 354, Ben and Scott catch up on news and the latest announcements starting with Cisco and Splunk merging. Then they discuss the Surface and AI event where we saw the latest Surface hardware and learned about the straight to GA release of Microsoft 365 and Windows Copilot. Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * Cisco to Acquire Splunk, to Help Make Organizations More Secure and Resilient in an AI-Powered World *...

In Episode 353, Scott talks to Ben about how he's using Portainer for container management on his home network and some tips and tricks for managing apps on your Mac (sorry Windows users). Then they pivot to Microsoft's largest conference of the year - Microsoft Ignite - coming Nov 14-17, 2023 for in-person attendees and November 15-16, 2023 for virtual attendees. Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * AppCleaner *...

In Episode 352, Ben and Scott discuss their workflow and approach for "Read it later" services and Scott introduces Ben to a new service he's started using called Omnivore. Then they discuss a new feature coming to a SharePoint site and e-mail inbox near you - newsletter publishing from SharePoint. Like what you hear and want to support the show? Check out our membership options. Show Notes * Raindrop.io * Omnivore.app * Lenny's Newsletter * Introducing new SharePoint news...

In Episode 351, Ben and Scott catch up on some of the latest news around Power Automate, Microsoft Entra, and Microsoft Excel. First, they discuss the Public Preview of Application Insights integration with Power Automate for debugging your cloud flows. Next, they break down the still in Private Preview features of platform SSO for macOS clients. And then they close on some exciting announcements around the addition of Python functions to Microsoft Excel. Like what you hear and want to...