RunAs Radio

You're moving to the cloud; how does your application security look? Richard talks with Carroll Moon of CloudFit about moving applications into the cloud with better security and governance using the Azure Landing Zone approach. Carroll talks about the various patterns that allow existing applications to work in the zero-trust environment, with containerization, platform-as-a-service changes, and...

Is Excel damaging your company? Richard talks with Jen Stirrup about how Excel gets used far too much in businesses and for too many things. Jen talks about the lack of data integrity in Excel and how it's easy to make small mistakes that can damage data - and give you little to no methods to detect the damage! While Excel can often be a starting point for a new business opportunity, as soon as it...

What do SysAdmins want for Christmas? Richard chats with Rick Claus and Joey Snow about their favorite gadgets for SysAdmins. From the gadgets that help us at work to the toys that make us happy at home, it's a shopping spree of goodies! Share this episode with your loved ones to give them ideas on what to get you for Christmas, you impossible-to-shop-for SysAdmin! Links: DalStrong Call of Duty Kn...

The pandemic has put a lot of stress on teams - how do we make them stronger? Richard talks to Stephanie Donahue about strengthening teams and communities as we emerge from the pandemic. Steph talks about the water cooler and happy hour conversations lost the past couple of years and the value they once provided and should again. Does that mean going back to the office? What are the alternatives?...

How are Azure and AWS Billing different? Richard chats with Corey Quinn of Screaming in the Cloud about his experiences experimenting with all the other clouds. Corey talks about his concerns around the security issues with Azure this past year - not the problems themselves, but how Microsoft handled them. The conversation also digs into using Cognitive Services and being unsure what things will c...

Why do you need Azure Stack? Richard chats with Sarah Lean about the capabilities Azure Stack HCI brings to your organization. Sarah describes the three flavors of Azure Stack, including Hub, Edge, and HCI - short for Hyper-Converged Infrastructure. While all the options act like a part of Azure, they are optimized for different needs, but primarily focus on putting Azure-style compute closer to w...

What can SQL 2022 do for you? Richard chats with Bob Ward about the upcoming release of SQL Server 2022 and its evolution toward data anywhere. Bob talks about running SQL on edge devices, on-premises, in containers, virtual machines, and, of course, in the cloud. The management tools like Azure Arc make it easy to take care of all the places your SQL data can now live - and let you be the data ad...

What is the state of scripting in your organization? Richard talks to Christina Wheeler about Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and its role in the array of tooling in M365 to take existing scripting and wrap it into modern automated workflows. Christina talks about how Power Automate for Desktop can work with an Excel macro to further automation to make an entire process hands-off or reduce the nu...

The return of Two Grumpy Old Men Complain about Windows! Richard chats with Paul Thurrott about a year of Windows 11 - the good, the bad, and the meh. Paul talks about the bits of Windows 10X that became Windows 11 and how simplifications in Win11 may annoy power users but are beneficial to regular folks. But nobody benefits from the ads on the desktop - except Microsoft. The conversation turns to...

How can Viva Learning improve your team's productivity? Richard chats with Ulrika Hedlund about how the latest generation of tools from Microsoft helps measure productivity and focus on learning opportunities. The M365 platform can show where employees struggle with tools that lead to learning opportunities - and then measure the results! Ulrika talks about the various kinds of learning needed wit...

How do you make manageable Infrastructure-as-Code? Richard talks to Joe Duffy about his open-source project called Pulumi, helping you build Infrastructure-as-Code solutions in almost any language for virtually any cloud platform or service. Joe talks about how infrastructure folks are headed down a similar path to developers from a few years ago, needing better source control, testing, and toolin...

What can GitHub do for your PowerShell scripts? Richard talks to Barbara Forbes about using GitHub and PowerShell together. Barbara first discusses the fundamentals - using GitHub as your source code repository for PowerShell. It takes some time to learn, but you can start just using it for yourself. Things get more complex when multiple people start to work on the scripts, but they also get bette...

What can a sysadmin learn from a developer? Richard chats with Rick Taylor about his experiences learning from developers to write better code - sysadmin code, of course, like PowerShell, Python, and even YAML. Rick talks about how PowerShell code works across all the clouds and how organizations need well-managed PowerShell the same way developers create well-managed compiled code. The conversati...

Can you use artificial intelligence technologies in data analytics? Richard chats with Priscilla Camp about using cognitive services in PowerBI for image recognition, natural language processing, and even sentiment analysis. Priscilla describes her experience doing analysis on data from the Universal Studio theme parks in Orlando, going beyond simple happy/neutral/sad ranking into analyzing the th...

How do you learn PowerShell effectively? Richard chats with Jeff Hicks about his experiences teaching PowerShell from the beginning. Jeff talks about strategies to learn more about PowerShell as you code, not just searching for cut-and-paste examples. The danger of cut-and-paste is that you don't get a chance to understand what you're working on - you need to write some code to get better. This li...

PowerApps are proliferating - how do you keep them under control? Richard talks to April Dunnam about managed environments for PowerApps, providing oversight and governance. April talks about the Microsoft Power Platform Center of Excellence Starter Kit as a way to get started in the governance model with tooling for insights, auditing, compliance, and even helping connect the folks building Power...

On July 8, the Rogers company in Canada had a total network outage for 15 hours - what happened? Richard talks to Dana Epp about what we can learn from an outage like this. Dana talks about having an open root cause analysis to provide detailed discussion without accusation or blame. You understand the potential when you look at how the airline industry has become incredibly safe through open root...

Viva continues to evolve - what's the latest? Richard talks to Sandy Ussia about her work with the various Viva modules and approaches to customizing Teams. Sandy talks about how it's possible to shape a Teams experience to fit your organization, including using third-party components - there are many choices! When your Teams is in good shape, there are plenty of new Viva modules to explore, inclu...

What's the best Windows Server and Azure hybrid configuration? Richard talks to Orin Thomas about the new Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate certification. Orin digs into how the hybrid certifications pick up where regular Windows Server certifications leave off, adding Azure's role as backup, extended storage, telemetry, and security solutions. The conversation explores how different o...

Can you migrate group policy objects to Intune? Richard chats with Katy Nicholson about her work modernizing Windows client machines through Microsoft Endpoint Manager, making on-premises Active Directory optional. Katy discusses using the Group Policy Analyzer to understand what policies will work through Endpoint Manager and Configuration Service Providers. The next question is, what policies ar...

How does Microsoft Loop help you collaborate? Richard talks to Stephen Rose about the recent addition of Loop to Teams. Loop uses the Fluid Framework to provide collaborative spaces to create to-dos and other lists with multiple people working simultaneously, marking up and responding to information. Documents and other assets brought into a workspace can be added to emails and other documents whi...

Your Intranet needs news, and SharePoint can help! Richard chats with Emily Mancini about the power of the News part in SharePoint to keep your Intranet more dynamic with a steady stream of new content. Emily talks about creating an ecosystem of evolving content on your Intranet so that it is more than just a set of links to HR information. The conversation dives into targeting news effectively wi...

Windows Admin Center in Azure? Richard talks to Prasidh Arora about the preview of WAC in Azure - giving admins that familiar Windows Admin Center view of Azure Virtual Machines running Windows Server 2016 or later. Prasidh talks about creating a unified view and admin access to your servers, whether they are running on-premises, in Azure, or even on other cloud infrastructures. Installing Azure A...

How do you keep Windows devices updated? Richard talks to Aria Carley about Microsoft's array of update services, including Windows Update for Business, Windows Server Update Services, Intune, Configuration Manager, and more! The host of products can be intimidating, but Aria lays out their role in your organization in a triangle of cost, time, and risk. The options range from allowing consumer-st...

Does your organization have a data culture? Richard talks with Microsoft CVP Rohan Kumar, and Mars VP Santosh Jamadagni about building organizations focused on data rather than opinion to drive the company forward. Rohan talks about getting data out of silos and into the hands of folks that can act on the information to make better business decisions. Santosh discusses how Mars has empowered worke...