Kurt Shintaku's Blog

If you are a .NET developer or architect who wants to get started with Microsoft Azure, this book is for you!

Written by developers for developers in the .NET ecosystem, this guide will show you how to get started with Azure and which services you can use to run your .NET applications and store your data in a more efficient and secure way.

• ANNOUNCEMENT: Get the Azure Quick Start Guide for .NET Developers
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/get-the-azure-quick-start-guide-for-net-developers/
• DOWNLOAD: Free eBook, “Azure Quick Start Guide for .NET Developers”(.PDF, 744K)https://github.com/dotnet-architecture/eShopOnContainers/raw/dev/docs/MicrosoftAzure_StartGuide_Developers.pdf

Back in March 2018, we released the .MSI package for Microsoft Teams. 

If you’ve been interested in a .MSI deployable/configurable Teams client package (32-bit or 64-bit) to use with your SCCM configuration, this is probably what you want to take a look at.

• DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Teams for Windows Installer Package (.MSI)
  32-bit – http://aka.ms/teams32bitmsi
  64-bit – http://aka.ms/teams64bitmsi

• DOCUMENTATION: Install Microsoft Teams using MSI
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/msi-deployment

• DOCUMENTATION: Manage Teams during the transition to the new Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business Admin Center
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/manage-teams-skypeforbusiness-admin-center

Microsoft Forms is finally generally available for Office 365 Commercial subscriptions!  This means Office 365 F1, E1, E3, & E5 subscribers are all eligible to use the service. (Yes, I’m asking about GovCloud availability – but don’t know the answer yet.)

Today, we are excited to announce that Microsoft Forms, a simple app for creating surveys, quizzes, and polls, is generally available to all Office 365 commercial customers. Used by more than 3 million users in education, Forms was brought to commercial preview by customer demand last year. Thanks to more than 50,000 companies participating in the Preview program, Microsoft Forms is now enterprise ready, and, hence, we are removing the “Preview” label.

With Microsoft Forms, your employees can easily solicit client input, measure customer satisfaction, and organize team events, within minutes. The app is simple to use and works on any web browser, so it can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. With real time responses and automatic charts built in, Microsoft Forms makes it easy to understand the data right away. And for companies that want to custom brand their surveys, Forms supports the addition of themes, logo, and images. We also know that many users work in teams, so users can collaborate on a single form. Forms can be used within applications you know and love, such as Excel, SharePoint, Teams, Flow, and Sway.

Most recently, Microsoft Forms added many features that enterprises requested, such as SOC compliance, ability for IT admins to manage user licenses, and controls to enable sharing of Forms outside of their organization. For more complex surveys, we also added support question branching and Likert scales, plus an ability to collect 50,000 survey responses per form.

• SERVICE: Microsoft Forms
  Start your first form, poll, survey, or quiz here.
  http://forms.office.com
• ANNOUNCEMENT: Microsoft Forms is Enterprise Ready now!
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Forms-Blog/Microsoft-Forms-is-Enterprise-Ready-now/ba-p/186748
• TRAINING/DOCUMENTATION:
  https://support.office.com/en-us/forms

Visual Studio Live Share is an exciting new capability which allows developers to collaboratively edit and debug in real-time, from the comfort of their favorite tools.

It enables you to instantly share your entire project and locally running app, directly from Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code. You can then invite others to join your collaboration session, without requiring them to download the codebase, or install additional extensions or SDKs.

Visual Studio Live Share is currently in private preview but will enter public preview at Build on May 7th.

Check It Out Today!

• BETA: Visual Studio Live Share
  https://ptdrv.linkedin.com/oovnnw3

Our Technology Specialist for Voice Communications & Skype for Business, Arshad Shaikh, pointed out to me that there are also really deep courses available online that we host at EdX at no cost to customers. 

Here’s some of them:

1. Skype for Business: Infrastructure Planning and Design
2. Skype for Business: Infrastructure Implementation and Conferencing
3. Skype for Business: Voice Concepts and Planning
4. Skype for Business: Voice Hybrid and Routing
5. Skype for Business: Voice Advanced Workloads

See the entire list here:

• TRAINING: EdX online training for Skype for Business
  https://www.edx.org/course?search_query=Skype+for+business

All courses available for enrollment through Software Assurance Training Vouchers are listed on this database: http://savl-catalog.microsoft.com/:

Doing a search on Skype for Business reveals the following:

• Course20334 : Core Solutions of Skype for Business 2015
  This course teaches IT professionals how to plan, deploy, configure, and administer a Skype for Business 2015 solution.  Students will learn how to deploy a multi-site  and highly available Skype for Business infrastructure that supports instant messaging, conferencing, persistent chat, archiving and monitoring. Students will also learn how to manage, maintain and troubleshoot issues in the infrastructure. This course focuses primarily on the on-premises deployment of Skype for Business, but does include information on how to integrate the on-premises deployment with Skype for Business Online as well as how to migrate from previous versions of Lync Server. This course helps the student prepare for Exam 70-334.
• Course40409 : Deploying Voice Workloads for Skype for Business Online and Server 2015
  This five-day instructor-led course teaches how to design, plan, and deploy the various voice solutions available with Skype for Business Online and Skype for Business Server 2015. This course will provide you with the knowledge and skills to configure and manage Cloud PBX with PSTN Calling, Cloud PBX with On-Premises PSTN Connectivity, Cloud Connector, and on-premises Enterprise Voice. This course will also provide procedures, guidelines, best practices, and other important considerations that will help you implement, optimize and troubleshoot Skype for Business Online and Skype for Business Server 2015 voice solutions. This course helps students prepare for Microsoft Exam 70-333 “Deploying Enterprise Voice with Skype for Business 2015”.

Both are 5 day courses.  In order to enroll, one needs to:

1. Select a Microsoft certified Training facility/”Learning Partner”.  This can be a New Horizons, a 360Training, or any number of other training centers:
   https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/find-partner.aspx
2. Have a Software Assurance Benefits administrator in your company create a Software Assurance Training Voucher for 5-days out of the company’s allocation (This will output a voucher ID):
   https://trainingbenefits.partners.extranet.microsoft.com/en/SATV/Pages/CreateVoucher.aspx
3. Schedule the class directly with the training company and reference your training voucher ID.

More details are available here:

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/software-assurance-benefits.aspx

This is a multipart video series we did on Security with Microsoft CISO, Bret Arsenault, in December of 2017:

• VIDEO: Securing our Enterprise Episode 1: “Balancing security in the midst of a digital transformation”
  https://www.microsoft.com/itshowcase/blog/balancing-security-midst-digital-transformation/
• VIDEO: Securing our Enterprise Episode 2: “The importance of device health”
  https://www.microsoft.com/itshowcase/blog/importance-device-health/
• VIDEO: Securing our Enterprise Episode 3: "How Microsoft protects against identity compromise"
  https://www.microsoft.com/itshowcase/blog/how-microsoft-protects-against-identity-compromise/
• VIDEO: Securing the Enterprise Episode 4: “Sorting through the noise to protect the enterprise”
  https://www.microsoft.com/itshowcase/blog/sorting-noise-protect-enterprise/
• VIDEO: Securing the Enterprise Episode 5: “Fostering a risk-based culture to secure the enterprise”
  https://www.microsoft.com/itshowcase/blog/fostering-risk-based-culture-secure-enterprise/
• VIDEO: Securing the Enterprise Episode 6: “What cultural and digital transformation means to enterprise information security”
  https://www.microsoft.com/itshowcase/blog/cultural-digital-transformation-means-enterprise-information-security/

We at Microsoft are offering DevOps training programs to the public – at no cost – to allow people to up their skill set for working in DevOps-wired environments.

To support companies to be more agile, the lines between development and operations are becoming increasingly blurred. Through continuous integration and deployment, students will learn how to react to changing market conditions. In a world where your audience taste can change on a dime, ensure audience happiness by learning about application monitoring and feedback loops.

DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to end users. Learn about continuous integration and deployment, infrastructure as code, testing, databases, containers, and application monitoring: skills necessary for a DevOps culture in your workplace.

You’ll Learn About

• Infrastructure as Code
• Continuous Integration
• Continuous Deployment
• DevOps Testing
• Databases
• Feedback Loops
• Application Monitoring
• Configuration Management

For more information on how to take advantage of Microsoft’s DevOps courses, read this track description:

• TRAINING: Free “DevOps” Professional Training & Certification (8 courses, 128-256 hours)
  https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/professional-program/tracks/devops/
• BLOG: Microsoft DevOps
  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devops/

We at Microsoft are offering Artificial Intelligence training programs to the public – at no cost – so that all can learn job-ready AI skills.

From the public announcement:

On Monday, the company announced the Microsoft Professional Program in AI, the latest learning track open to the public. The program provides job-ready skills and real-world experience to engineers and others who are looking to improve their skills in AI and data science through a series of online courses that feature hands-on labs and expert instructors.

The program is part of a larger corporate effort that also includes the enterprise developer-focused AI School, which provides online videos and other assets to help developers build AI skills. That program includes both general educational tools for developers looking to expand AI capabilities and specific guidance on how developers can use Microsoft’s tools and services.

For example, AI School covers how to use offerings such as Microsoft Cognitive Services, which allow developers to incorporate intelligent algorithms for computer vision, natural language processing and translation capabilities into their products, and the Azure Bot Service.

…

For more information on how to take advantage of Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence courses, read this announcement:

• NEWS: Aiming to fill skill gaps in AI, Microsoft makes training courses available to the public
  https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/microsoft-professional-program-ai/
• TRAINING: Microsoft Professional Program for Artificial Intelligence (10 courses, 160-320 hours)
  https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/professional-program/tracks/artificial-intelligence/

Maintaining the security of your cloud-based data is a shared responsibility between you and your cloud provider.

You’re invited to join us for a live webinar with Q&A to learn how Microsoft Azure provides a secure foundation to host your infrastructure, applications, and data in the cloud.

You’ll also learn how Azure’s built-in security controls and capabilities further help you protect your cloud resources.

DATE/TIME:
April 12, 2018
10:00AM-11:00AM PST

REGISTRATION:
https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-Security-strategies-for-safe-guarding-your-cloud.html