The Cloud Architects Podcast

Nic catches up with Darrell Webster (aka Darrell as a Service) to talk about cloud adoption messes, infrastructure challenges, people challenges, how to change rollout practices towards cloud adoption and so much more. Darrell is an Office 365 productivity and collaboration specialist for Adopt and Embrace. He relishes the opportunity to help individuals, teams and organisations to unlock the valu...

Microsoft Inspire recently wrapped up in Las Vegas and in this episode, Nic catches up with Michael Van Horenbeeck to talk about his experience at Microsoft Inspire. Michael talks about his role as a Microsoft Partner and the value of attending Inspire. Michael Van Horenbeeck specializes in a variety of products and services from the Microsoft 365 product stack, more specifically within Enterprise...

With Microsoft Ignite 2019 fast approaching, the Community Call for Content is now open and closes on August, 4. In this special episode, Anna Chu (a.k.a The Community Khaleesi) takes us through the types of submissions being accepted and walks us through the process. Are you interested in presenting at Ignite 2019? If so, Anna's tips will help you put together the best possible submission, increa...

Ever wondered about the scale of Exchange Online or what it takes to manage a service at that scale while constantly deploying new features? Microsoft's Brent Alinger gave us a tour of Building 31 (a.k.a Exchange Central) on the Microsoft campus and sat down with us to talk about the humble beginnings of the service and how it has grown and matured since then. Brent Alinger is a member of the Micr...

July 1 every year is a big day for the MVP community - Its renewal day for MVPs and we also get to welcome new MVPs into the community. Nicolas, Warren and I are humbled to have been renewed and to be part of this amazing community for another year. In this episode, we had a lot of fun catching up with Anna Chu (a.k.a The Community Khaleesi) to talk about being an MVP, the MVP summit and got a sne...

The Microsoft Office 365 Hybrid Configuration Wizard (HCW) has come a long way since it was first introduced in Exchange 2010 SP2, prior to that configuring a hybrid deployment required ~50 manual steps. We had the pleasure of sitting down with Greg Taylor and Georgia Huggins while in Redmond recently to talk about the evolution of the HCW and what challenges the newly released Hybrid Agent solves...

We often talk about "The long tail of previous best practices" and how in today's ever-evolving cloud landscape it is very important to follow updated guidance, this includes keeping our security policies up to date. Nic sat down with Tarek and Mark from Microsoft to talk about Azure AD security, the evolution of identity management and the need to modernize legacy applications. Here are links to...

If you've ever used the Exchange Server Role Requirements Calculator or consulted The Exchange Preferred Architecture you'll be very familiar with the work of our guest, Ross Smith IV. Nic and Warren caught up Ross to talk about his 19-year tenure at Microsoft and his new role in Intune Engineering, giving us a sneak peak into some of the innovation we can look forward to in Outlook for iOS and An...

There is no denying that the only constant with cloud services is change, the nature and rate of this change often brings about some interesting challenges for organizations. We sat down with Anna Donnelly to talk about organizational change management, driving user adoption and how a sound change management strategy is essential to the success of your cloud adoption project. Anna Donnelly is a Se...

When sitting having our morning breakfast at the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong, we started a conversation with the incredible Phoummala Schmitt about Azure Governance, Nic thought it was great and pulled out the recording devices. So here we are, a super informal interview about Azure Governance. Enjoy!

Governance is a big word and is a concept that is often thrown around. It seems to confuse a lot of organizations, even those who have successfully navigated the cultural and technology changes often brought on by cloud adoption. The 'on by default' nature of many cloud services has made it even more important for organizations to plan their governance strategy before adopting these services, so w...

The Internet of things (IoT) seems to be everywhere these days. Anything from connected light bulbs and door bells to sensors that monitor and report the drying and curing of concrete in real time, there seems to be an IoT solution for every problem but IoT is so much more than just a sensor connected to a Raspberry PI. Microsoft's Anthony Bartolo sat down with us at Ignite to explain what IoT is,...

We take for granted everyday that we can login securely to our Office 365 or Azure accounts, but do we ever wonder how that works or why it works the way it does? Identity is a very large part of every organisation and this is the team that makes Identity possible. From Business 2 Business, Azure AD Connect, Guest access and all the pieces that fit together to make Identity in the Cloud work. In t...

Documentation is something we all rely on, especially in today's rapidly changing cloud world where the only constant seems to be change. Perhaps I'm a little obsessive, but I constantly use Microsoft's documentation to confirm things, even when I already know the answer. Like many people though, I never really considered what goes into making sure I have something to refer to and keeping it up to...

Diversity and inclusion in tech was one of the powerful themes at Microsoft Ignite this year and I'm excited to see if get bigger every year. Nicolas had the distinct privilege of being able to sit down with Phoummala Schmitt, a.k.a Exchange Goddess to talk about diversity in tech, community and her new role at Microsoft. Phoummala Schmitt is a Sr Cloud Advocate at Microsoft and has a broad range...

The Microsoft Tech Community was launched in 2016 and is an evolution of the Office 365 Network, extended to support the Azure; Windows Server, and SQL Server communities. Microsoft Tech Community brings together multiple communities in one central location to support discussions and best practice sharing across a variety of Microsoft products and services. We had a lot of fun catching up with Ann...

In this episode, Nic and Warren have a chat to the Perf Guy himself, Principal Lead Program Manager at Microsoft, Jeff Mealiffe We talk the evolution of Exchange and get Jeff to spill on which version he liked best! We also talk about Office 365 connectivity and the great things Microsoft is pushing internally to make your Office 365 experience better. Jeff Mealiffe is in the Microsoft Exchange Cu...

The word DevOps seems to be everywhere at the moment, I can't open LinkedIn without coming across a bunch of posts and articles talking about DevOps. What does it all mean, and more specifically why should IT Pros care about something that seems at first glance to be very much related to software development? I recently caught up with fellow MVPs Simon Waight and Michel de Rooij in an attempt to u...

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been on everyone's mind recently. GDPR became enforceable today, 25 May 2018 and is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union. It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU and aims primarily to give control to citizens and residents over their personal data and how that data...

In this episode, live from Tech Summit 2018 In Cape Town South Africa, Warren catches up with Bernd Verst, Bernd is an awesome and passionate Microsoft Developer Advocate that works directly out of Seattle, coming from companies like Google and Twitter, Bernd hails from the same team as Donovan Brown and Jessica Deen at Microsoft and makes sure Microsoft Technology always keeps the developer in mi...

In this Episode, Nic and Warren had the privilege of interviewing the legendary Mary-Jo Foley, Mary-Jo has been covering the tech industry and Microsoft for almost 3 decades. Starting off with Berillum Copper Wire, advancing to Unix, then landing in the Microsoft ecosystem. In this episode, we see the human side of Mary-Jo Foley. Mary-Jo’s career has spanned many highlights, including interviewing...

The telecommunications industry has come a long way since the days of manual service telephone exchanges. We caught up with fellow MVP Greig Sheridan late last year to talk about Skype for Business, Teams and the evolution in technology he has experienced in his 30+ years in the industry. Greig has worked in the telecommunications industry in Sydney, Australia, since finishing high school in the 1...

In this incredibly interesting episode, Warren and Nic catch up with Joe Baguley from VMware to talk what it's like speaking live in front of 90 million people and geek out about virtualization, edge computing and the endless possibilities enabled by AI. Joe Baguley is VMware's Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for EMEA, He helps develop and communicate VMware's strategy and vision with...

Mobility has been a hot topic for some time - in fact, IDC forecasts that the U.S. mobile worker population will surpass 105 million by 2020. Organizations often struggle when trying to provide flexibility and a choice of devices on the one hand and retain control of sensitive data and security on the other. We sat down with fellow MVP Steve Goodman at Microsoft Ignite late last year to discuss a...

SharePoint can be intimidating, especially for those of use who don't work with it everyday. In this episode, WonderLaura tells us why SharePoint isn't so scary and we discuss some of the SharePoint announcements at Ignite. Laura Rogers is a SharePoint expert, speaker, author and educator. She is well-versed in helping organizations make the most of their SharePoint environments using out-of-box f...