Kurt Shintaku's Blog

No matter how far along your government organization has moved toward adopting cloud technology, it’s helpful for you to be able to measure how far you’ve come—and learn what you can do to move further along the path.

A 2017 report, the IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Cloud in Federal Defense and Intel Agencies in the United States, describes five stages agencies go through before their investments in cloud technology really pay off. You’ll read about:

• The difference between agencies that struggle with cloud adoption and those that have undergone a digital transformation 
• How organizations successfully give their internal customers cloud-based delivery models 
• The gaps in organizations’ cloud management capabilities 

Download the report to read about high-performing agencies’ vision, their technology, how they invested in their employees’ skills and training, and the processes they have in place.

• WHITEPAPER: IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Cloud in Federal Defense and Intel Agencies in the United States
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/idc-benchmark-federal-defense-intel-agencies-2017/?wt.mc_id=AID640058_QSG_SCL_235051

In this comprehensive overview of the Microsoft 365 Security offering, Brad Anderson (CVP, Enterprise Mobility) shares how he talks to customers about the unique and powerful M365 Security story.

Brad offers an in-depth look at identity-driven security, information protection, threat protection, and security management.

Spend more time building great apps and less time managing server infrastructure. Get your solutions to market faster using Azure Functions, a fully managed compute platform for processing data, integrating systems, and building simple APIs and microservices. In this e-book you’ll find use cases, hands-on steps, and tutorials for quickly configuring your own serverless environments. Explore best practices for Functions, and learn how to:

• Develop event-based handlers on a serverless architecture.
• Test, troubleshoot, and monitor Azure functions.
• Automate administrative tasks from development through to deployment and maintenance.
• Integrate Functions with other Azure services.
• Build stateful serverless apps and self-healing jobs using Durable Functions.

Download the 325-page serverless computing e-book and get access to dozens of step-by-step recipes for quickly building serverless apps.

• DOWNLOAD: Free eBook, “Azure Serverless Computing Cookbook”
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/azure-serverless-computing-cookbook/

Building on the cloud helps you tap into massive compute, scalable data storage and advanced tools, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. With the cloud, you can build revolutionary apps that transform your business and improve people’s lives.

Join us at the Azure Developer Tour 2018 and learn how to build incredible cloud apps. This isn’t slideware. It’s live coding demos from our team of cloud developer experts that will teach you the skills you need to take full advantage of the cloud.

What you’ll learn:

• Compute
• Serverless
• Storage
• Big Data
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
• And much more!

COST:
Free + lunch provided!

AGENDA:

• 8:45AM Check-in
• 9:15AM – 12:30PM Keynotes | Two 90 minute Sessions + Breaks
• 12:30PM – 1:30PM Lunch! (provided)
• 1:30PM – 2:45PM Live Coding | Azure Tips & Tricks – AI/ML
• 2:45PM The End

LOS ANGELES EVENT DATE/TIME:
April 9th – 9:00AM-2:45PM

LOS ANGELES EVENT LOCATION:
CTRL Collective
12575 Beatrice St
Los Angeles, California 90066

LOS ANGELES EVENT REGISTRATION:
http://aka.ms/losangelesdevtour

——————

OTHER CITIES:
This event is also being run on different dates in:

• Toronto
• Vancouver
• Washington DC
• San Francisco
• Austin
• Seattle

Register for these cities at this site:
https://www.microsoftevents.com/profile/web/index.cfm?PKwebID=0x752173abcd

Interested in security guidance when it comes to using Azure?  Here’s a page that Azure Security is maintaining to keep people updated on various elements of security that should be considered when using Azure.

• Azure boundary security best practices
• Azure database security best practices
• Azure data security and encryption best practices
• Azure identity management and access control security best practices
• Azure network security best practices
• Azure operational security best practices
• Azure PaaS Best Practices
• Azure Service Fabric security best practices
• Best practices for Azure VM security
• Implementing a secure hybrid network architecture in Azure
• Internet of Things security best practices
• Securing PaaS databases in Azure
• Securing PaaS web and mobile applications using Azure App Service
• Securing PaaS web and mobile applications using Azure Storage
• Security best practices for IaaS workloads in Azure

Original page here:

• INFO: Azure Security Best Practices and Patterns
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/security-best-practices-and-patterns?WT.mc_id=twitter

The 2017 study, The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Azure IaaS, gives insight into both the costs and benefits of large-scale Azure infrastructure as a service (IaaS) implementation.

This commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting analyzes the return on investment and business impact that several enterprises experienced when moving from a primarily on-premises environment to Azure. The companies interviewed come from a variety of industries and locations (global/multinational, North American, and European).

In addition to a 435 percent overall return on an Azure IaaS investment*, the businesses also experienced:

• Reduced data center and outsourcing costs.
• Website scale and performance improvements.
• Ease of experimentation through virtualized environments.
• Developer and tester improvements. 

Download the study to learn about the potential ROI that could be realized by shifting some or all of your management and operations to Azure.

• DOWNLOAD: The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Azure IaaS
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/forrester-economic-impact-azure-iaas/

* Result is over five years for a composite organization based on the interviewed customers

In case you missed it, the Microsoft Planner “Ask Microsoft Anything” online event took place this morning from 9-10AM and the record of all questions asked and answered are available online for folks to review.

Here’s a summary of some of the questions:

• Do you guys have an updated roadmap?
• Is there is anyway (or on Roadmap) to restore a “plan” from specific time like a snapshot?
• Why is there no option to search for tasks?  Priorities for tasks?
• Great to see the Planner web part in SharePoint. What enhancements does the Planner team have lined up?
• Will Planner be implementing a ‘copy plan’, or ‘template plan’ feature soon, as discussed in the boards?
• Is there a way to receive notifications when a task is complete via email if I’m the one who created it?
• …

View the AMA written record here:

• INFO: Microsoft Planner “Ask Microsoft Anything” – March 14, 9-10AM PST (Written record)
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Planner-AMA/bd-p/PlannerAMA

Today, at Enterprise Connect 2018, Microsoft delivered the day’s keynote address. Tune in to hear Bob Davis, Corporate Vice President of Office 365, unveil new announcements advancing our vision for Intelligent Communications.

Hear the latest news, and experience never-seen skills through Microsoft Teams and Teams-powered devices. Learn more about how Intelligent Communications is enabling communications to be more insightful, proactive, and connected.

• Revolutionizing collaboration & communications with Intelligent Communications through Microsoft Teams with Bob Davis, Corporate VP of Office 365
  (Originally broadcast on Wednesday, March 14, 2018 10 AM EST)
  http://teamsatenterpriseconnect.azurewebsites.net/ 

MICROSOFT TEAMS WINS TOP AWARD
Also, check out Microsoft’s latest award for Microsoft Teams, “Best of Enterprise Connect” as written up on Enterprise Connect’s online publication, NoJitter.

• Microsoft Wins Best of Enterprise Connect 2018
  https://www.nojitter.com/post/240173370/microsoft-wins-best-of-enterprise-connect-2018
• Microsoft Teams wins top prize at Enterprise Connect event
  https://blogs.office.com/en-us/2018/03/13/microsoft-teams-wins-top-prize-at-enterprise-connect-event/

Ever wonder what on-prem Client Access License (CAL) rights customers get with Office 365 Subscription Licenses?

Here’s a post that goes over this in a nice table from the Volume Licensing Blog:

• Licensing How To: Using Office 365 user licenses to meet CAL requirements
  https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/volume-licensing/2013/10/10/licensing-how-to-using-office-365-user-licenses-to-meet-cal-requirements/

The good news is that Office 365 Enterprise E3 & E5 provide both the "on-prem Standard CALs & Enterprise CALs" for Exchange, SharePoint, & Lync/Skype for Business – not just the on-prem Standard CALs. (Note: The E5 license replaced & became a superset of the E4 license)

Here’s the table from the site that gives some orientation around what subscription gets what CAL right:

Interested in use an elastic, highly-available SQL Server in the cloud without worrying about making any code changes other than pointing your application to the cloud datasource?

Introducing Azure SQL Database Managed Instance – the first SQL DB service in the cloud that enables SQL Server users to migrate their data to the cloud & connect their applications to the cloud database seamlessly without worrying about previous blockers like SQL CLR, SQL Server Agent, Cross Database Queries, etc.

Description here:

Azure SQL Database Managed Instance combines the best aspects of SQL Server and Azure SQL as a platform service. It enables you to run applications with dependencies on SQL CLR, SQL Server Agent or cross database queries like you would on a physical or virtual server running SQL Server, but as a managed instance you get the as a service benefits so you don’t need to spend time keeping servers patched and up-to-date, plus machine learning powered capabilities like auto-tuning to improve query performance and proactive security recommendations. Lara Rubbelke explains and demonstrates all of this, including how you can set up you own Azure SQL Database Managed Instance in this show.

To learn more about Azure SQL DB Managed Instances, visit:

• Azure SQL Database Managed Instance Overview …
• Pricing – Azure SQL Database Managed Instance …

Here’s a Microsoft Mechanics video brief on the technology: