Kurt Shintaku's Blog

The Virtual Systems Management Users Group is having their first online user group session June 30th and it’s got some big time guests.

Join us for our inaugural user group session with a stellar line-up is speakers including David James the director of engineering for Configuration Manager at Microsoft and Michael Niehaus.

Tentative Schedule:

Session 1: Cody Mathias, Andrew Jimenez, and Justin Chalfant

• Time: 8 AM PST, 11 PM EDT, 4 PM (GMT + 1)
• Length: 75 Minutes
• Agenda: Introductions and Configuration Items in Configuration Manager

Session 2: David James

• Time: 9:15 AM PST, 12:15 PM EDT, 5:15 PM (GMT + 1)
• Length: 90 Minutes
• Agenda: Q&A with David James

Session 3: Michael Niehaus

• Time: 10:45 AM PST, 1:45 PM EDT, 6:45 PM (GMT + 1)
• Length: 60 Minutes
• Agenda: Autopilot and Intune

Register here:

• Date/Time:
  June 30 session at 8 AM PST, 11 AM EDT, 4 PM (GMT +1)
• Registration:
  https://vsmug.com/2020-06-david-james-and-michael-niehaus

Every organization needs a way to determine success and business impact. However, translating productivity into measurable impact can be challenging. We’ve heard from organizations that they’d like a way to better measure how they are doing—both in regard to:

1. How employees are getting work done more efficiently
2. How technology is enabling them to save time and be more productive

Microsoft Productivity Score focuses on two areas: the Employee experience and the Technology experience. Both provide visibility into how your organization works, insights to identify where you can enable improved experiences, and actions you can take to update skills and systems—so everyone can do their best work.

• The Employee experience shows you how Microsoft 365 is helping to create a productive and engaged workforce. By quantifying how people are collaborating on content, working from anywhere, developing a meeting culture, and communicating with each other, you can see the different ways that work gets done. With advice on how people can work in new ways and training materials to help them learn, you can empower everyone to do their best work.
• The Technology experience provides insights by assessing policies, device settings, and hardware and application performance within the organizational environment and recommends actions taken in Microsoft Endpoint Manager. Users receive the most up-to-date features, persistent security, devices with faster boot times, and increased battery life. You can improve their scores by identifying best practices and ideal configurations to ensure Technology and Employee experiences are mutually supported.

For more on how your endpoints contribute to your Productivity Score, visit:

• BLOG: How endpoints affect productivity with Productivity Score
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/learn-how-business-norms-are-changing-and-how-endpoints-affect/ba-p/1487651

We are very excited to announce a Microsoft Teams ‘Ask Microsoft Anything’ (AMA) specific to Teams Devices!

The AMA will take place on Thursday, July 2, 2020 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. PT in the Microsoft Teams AMA Space. Add the event to your calendar and view in your time zone here.

• Date/Time:
  July 2, 2020 10:00AM-11:00AM PT
• Location:
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-ama/bd-p/MicrosoftTeamsAMA
• Add to Calendar:
  https://www.myeventurl.com/Events/Details/106

Did you know Microsoft Endpoint Manager has a new preview feature called “Endpoint Analytics”?

Endpoint Analytics aims to improve user productivity and reduce IT support costs by providing insights into the user experience. The insights enable IT to optimize the end-user experience with proactive support and to detect regressions to the user experience by assessing user impact of configuration changes.

This initial release, focuses on three things:

• Recommended software: Recommendations for providing the best user experience
• Proactive remediation scripting: Fix common support issues before end-users notice issues
• Start up performance: Help IT get users from power-on to productivity quickly without lengthy boot and sign in delays

Proactive Remediations
Imagine being able to fix problems before users notice them. Proactive Remediations will proactively discover and remediate issues found on your devices. You can use our built-in remediations, or create your own!

For more details behind this magic, here’s a tutorial worth looking at:

• Tutorial: Proactive remediations
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/analytics/proactive-remediations

Microsoft’s Identity Group – Azure Active Directory, Identity Manager, etc. – will be at “Identiverse Virtual 2020”, an industry conference focused on Identity.

Join the brightest minds in identity and experience unparalleled education, collaboration, and insight into the future of Identity. Through our series of information-rich sessions on the latest technologies, best practices, and industry trends, you will gain an edge in the ever-changing identity security landscape. Register for any session below and you will get an All-Access Pass to the rest of the Identiverse content.

Visit:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/identiverse

SESSIONS:

Here’s a list of some of the Microsoft-led presentation sessions that we’re delivering – including they keynote from Microsoft Corporate VP Identity, Alex Simons.

• Identity Standards: What’s up, what’s new, what’s next
  Alex Simons – Corporate Vice President of Program Management, Microsoft Identity
  Wednesday, July 01, 2020 – 9:00 AM
  Open standards are essential building blocks for innovation, taking on heavy lifting that frees developers to focus on building unique solutions. In this session, Alex Simons will share the latest news on open identity standards and how innovators are using them to make the digital world safer and more equitable. After showing demos of some awesome FIDO 2 implementations, he’ll delve into the rising importance of Zero Trust and standards that are critical for supporting the new normal of remote work. He’ll then explore the role that decentralized identity systems and related standards will play to help us manage everyday digital interactions in a world forever changed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=2133571
• Customers and partners: Seamless and secure experiences for every relationship
  Robin Goldstein – Principal Group Program Manager, Microsoft Identity
  Tuesday, June 23, 2020 9:00 AM
  Organizations going through a digital transformation need to manage and secure user identities beyond organizational boundaries, including partners, customers, and citizens. They want a single solution that’s user-centric, flexible, secure, and scalable enough to support global users authenticating with any kind of identity. They also want a solution that has rich customization for both consumer- and business-facing use cases. In this session you’ll see real-world examples that show how organizations can create customized, branded experiences. The session will also highlight considerations for managing the lifecycle of all types of users.
  https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=2133462
  
• A balancing act: Identity, privacy, and security in a data-sharing economy
  Pamela Dingle – Director of Identity Standards, Microsoft Identity
  Thursday, July 02, 2020 11:00 AM
  As the value of enterprise data increases so do the risks to the enterprise, the individual, and the industry. Do you know how to recognize those risks and mitigate them as an identity, privacy, or security professional?
  https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=2133623
• Identity kill chain: A hacker’s eye view of how your systems get pwned
  Alex Weinert – Partner Director of Identity Security, Microsoft Identity
  Tuesday, July 14, 2020 – 11:00 AM
  A kill chain is the set of steps an attacker takes to achieve their objective. This nerve-wracking session includes live demos of current attack methods. You’ll walk through the identity kill chain from an attacker’s perspective and see what they see as they’re taking over your domain. We’ll show you the tools they use, how they apply them, and how they move from one guessed password to total takeover. You’ll see where the weakest links are in identity systems and how best to break the kill chain for each step, and you’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of attack mechanics and greater confidence in your ability to defend your organization.
  https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=2133461
• Keynote panel: Identity at scale
  Sue Bohn – Partner Director of Program Management, Microsoft Identity
  Wednesday, July 15, 2020 – 9:00 AM
  The ways and frequency with which we use our identity data are increasing at an almost unimaginable rate. Dealing with Identity at scale is a challenge we will have to face. In this panel, hear how some of the largest providers and users of identity services are addressing those challenges today, and discover approaches and techniques that you will be able to use in the future.
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/identiverse
• The skills and experiences of identity practitioners
  Pamela Dingle – Director of Identity Standards, Microsoft Identity
  Tuesday, July 21, 2020 – 11:00 AM
  Knowing what skills you need to become an identity practitioner isn’t obvious, and hearing from others who’ve been in the same place in their careers can offer a lot of clarity. In this panel, cohosted by ID Pro and Women in Identity, professionals from Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Thomson Reuters will share their journeys toward becoming successful identity practitioners.
  https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=2133094

Today, we are excited to announce the acquisition of ADRM Software, a leading provider of large-scale industry data models, which are used by large companies worldwide as information blueprints. ADRM’s robust industry data models have been built and refined over decades for business-critical analytics.

An industry data model enables organizations to more holistically capture and define business concepts, refine and integrate processes, and build interoperability in their ecosystem. According to Gartner, “Data models are foundational for business. They undergird wide-ranging initiatives and permanent programs, such as data quality, data lineage and data governance.”¹ But companies today are implementing data modeling on a fragmented basis, resulting in a disparate data estate that is incapable of supporting the kinds of digital transformation required today.

…

For more information, visit:

• Microsoft acquires ADRM Software, leader in large-scale, industry-specific data models
  https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/06/18/microsoft-acquires-adrm-software-leader-in-large-scale-industry-specific-data-models/
• ADRM Software CEO Kevin Schofield’s announcement of the Acqusition 
  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/datamodels_at-adrm-software-weve-spent-decades-building-activity-6679394962439847936-8pij/

We are excited to announce the public preview of our mobile threat defense capabilities with Microsoft Defender ATP for Android.

Features include:

• Web protection
• Malware scanning
• Blocking access to sensitive data
• Unified SecOps experience

Announcement post here:

• Announcing Microsoft Defender ATP for Android
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-defender-atp/announcing-microsoft-defender-atp-for-android/ba-p/1480787

Those customers that have preview features turned on can start trying out Microsoft Defender ATP for Android today. If you haven’t yet opted in, we encourage you to turn on preview features in the Microsoft Defender Security Center today.

• DOCS: Microsoft Defender ATP preview features
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/microsoft-defender-atp/preview

Join us as we advance in our journey across platforms. For more information, including detailed system requirements, prerequisites, deployment and configuration steps, and a list of improvements and new features, check out the documentation.

• DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection for Android
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/microsoft-defender-atp/microsoft-defender-atp-android

Today we’re also excited to announce general availability of Microsoft Defender ATP for #Linux! Customers now get a truly unified security experience for the full spectrum of mobile, desktop, and server platforms.

Adding Linux into the existing selection of natively supported platforms by Microsoft Defender ATP marks an important moment for all our customers. It makes Microsoft Defender Security Center a truly unified surface for monitoring and managing security of the full spectrum of desktop and server platforms that are common across enterprise environments (Windows, Windows Server, macOS, and Linux).

Microsoft Defender ATP for Linux supports recent versions of the six most common Linux Server distributions:

• RHEL 7.2+
• CentOS Linux 7.2+
• Ubuntu 16 LTS, or higher LTS
• SLES 12+
• Debian 9+
• Oracle Linux 7.2

It can be deployed and configured using Puppet, Ansible, or using your existing Linux configuration management tool.

For more details, visit the announcement page at:

• Microsoft Defender ATP for Linux is now generally available!
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-defender-atp/microsoft-defender-atp-for-linux-is-now-generally-available/ba-p/1482344

Safely sharing and accessing content is becoming increasingly important as the business world shifts to remote work. Join the OneDrive team on June 30, at 9:00-10:00 AM PT for a free webinar that demonstrates how Microsoft 365, OneDrive and SharePoint help users stay productive, keep your data secure and private, reduce the stress on IT during compliance or litigation issues while giving admins the tools to manage and monitor content.

• Date/Time:
  June 30, 2020 – 9-10AM PT
• Registration link:
  https://resources.techcommunity.microsoft.com/webinar/empower-your-remote-workforce-with-data-security-in-onedrive/

This session is followed by an “Ask Microsoft Anything” session (10:00-11:00 AM PT), where you can bring your questions and feedback to: https://aka.ms/OneDriveAMA

Find all event details here.

• Date/Time:
  June 30, 2020 – 10-11AM PT
• Registration link:
  https://aka.ms/OneDriveAMA

Want to learn more about Microsoft’s quantum developer resources?

Join our team on July 16 for a virtual Azure Quantum Developer Workshop where we’ll dive deeper into building applications on Azure Quantum.

This event is designed to help developers become quantum-ready and use the Azure Quantum service, including quantum hardware, software, and solutions, as it becomes broadly available. By attending this event, you can expect to gain a holistic understanding of the Microsoft Quantum developer ecosystem and the tools and resources available to kick start your journey to developing quantum apps.

This workshop will cover a variety of topics including introductions to the principles of quantum computing and quantum-inspired optimization, overviews of Q# and the QDK, and a virtual lab focused on creating quantum algorithms.

Stay tuned for more announcements on the event’s agenda and speakers over the coming weeks and be sure to enter our Q# quantum coding contest for a chance to win some great prizes. We hope to see you soon!

Date/Time:
July 16, 2020 9:00 AM (America/Los_Angeles)

Duration:
6 hours

Registration:
https://microsoftevent.eventbuilder.com/event/22621

More info:

• Contact Organizer
• Learn quantum computing with Microsoft Learn
• Get started with the QDK
• Q# coding contest