Kurt Shintaku's Blog

I would like to invite you to join us in Seattle this June for the second annual Microsoft Data Insights Summit.

We’re welcoming Power BI users from around the world to meet with the BI engineering team, attend sessions and network with fellow data enthusiasts. Find out more now and register on the Microsoft Data Insights Summit site.

• FAQ:
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/datainsightssummit/faq
• DATE/TIME:
  June 12 – 13, 2017
• LOCATION:
  Washington State Convention Center
  705 Pike Street, Seattle, WA 98101
• REGISTRATION:
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/datainsightssummit

Don’t look now, but Microsoft’s Business Intelligence & Analytics solutions just blew past Tableau.

For the second year in a row, Microsoft has been positioned furthest to the right for completeness of vision within the Leaders quadrant of Gartner’s 2017 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms – the 10th consecutive year Microsoft has been positioned as a leader.

For more information, read announcement:

• Microsoft breaks through in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms
  https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2017/02/16/microsoft-breaks-gartner-magic-quadrant-business-intelligence-analytics-platforms/

Imagine having a “bot” that anyone can ask questions of via Skype or any number of communications services, that’s based entirely off of an FAQ that you’ve already created?

QnA MAKER
Check this out: You can now create your own Bot with the new “QnA Maker” – a wizard that simply asks you to name your bot, point to the URL of your FAQ (or a document with your questions & answers), and you’re DONE.

BUT… HOW?
Using a combination of:

• Microsoft Cognitive Services to consume & learn from your FAQ/QnA
• Microsoft Bot Framework for creating the interactive service

For a training video on how to do the above steps, go to:

• VIDEO: Quickstart QnA Maker Tool
  https://qnamaker.ai/Documentation/Quickstart

For a quick tutorial on the proicess go to

• BLOG: Bootstrap your bot with Microsoft Cognitive Services QnA Maker
  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bingdevcenter/2016/12/15/bootstrap-your-bot-with-qna-maker-service/

There are 4 different editions of Microsoft Flow that a lot of folks don’t know about.  They are detailed in this rather hard to find URL:

• Microsoft Flow – Choose a plan that’s right for you
  https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/

Basically, here’s the breakdown:
Flow is free for 750 runs/user/month, with a frequency of once per 15min
Usage of Flow is free however there are limits to it’s usage and there are certain capabilities that require premium payments.

1. More runs per month? Higher frequency?
   If you require more runs per month or a higher frequency of runs, you must get any of the other 3 plans (Office 365, Plan 1, Plan 2).
2. SLA?
   If you require an Service Level Agreement, you must get any of the other 3 plans (Office 365, Plan 1, Plan 2) which will grant you a 99.9% availability SLA.
3. Salesforce? Common Data Service?
   If you require any of these Premium services, you must get either Plan 1 or Plan 2.
4. On-prem Data Gateway?
   If you need to access data on-prem, you will need a data gateway and get any of the other 3 plans (Office 365, Plan 1, Plan 2).
5. Share & Edit Flows?
   If you want to collaborate on Flows, you must get any of the other 3 plans (Office 365, Plan 1, Plan 2).
6. Create environments to deploy your Flow in?  View Flow usage overall? Policy enforcement for Flows?
   These are Enterprise features that require Flow Plan 2 explicitly.

Join us for a free technical training session covering the latest Microsoft tools and services. You’ll learn new skills, tackle challenging puzzles and help complete a mission on Mars. No pressure.

MISSION BRIEF

At 05:14 GMT, the Joint Space Operations Network lost all contact with the Mission Mars: Fourth Horizon team as they were conducting routine sample collections on the Martian surface. The cause of the interruption is still unknown.

Your mission is to join us in reestablishing communications between the Earth and Mars.

In this free hands-on event you’ll learn the full capabilities of the Microsoft Development platform while sharpening your skills in a fun, fast-paced environment. Meet our experts, develop your skills, and a get chance to put your development abilities to the test.

Microsoft experts will be on hand to take you through the following topics during the event:

• Azure IoT Hubs
  Learn how to establish bi-directional communications with billions of IoT devices.

• Azure Functions
  Dive into the event driven, compute-on-demand experience that extends the existing Azure application platform.

• Cognitive Services
  Build multi-platform apps with powerful algorithms using just a few lines of code.

Sound good? Accept the mission with the link to the right, and find details about an event in your city.

Los Angeles
Mission: MARS Cloud Developers Event

• Tuesday, February 28, 2017
  3:30PM-9:00PM PST
• CTRL Collective Downtown LA
  833 S. Spring St, Floor 4, Los Angeles, CA, 90014
• Registration: https://www.microsoftevents.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x12199918b18

—————–

For other locations, see the table below:

Microsoft IT is broadcasting on February 15th, (10-11AM PST) a live streaming event: “Driving Skype adoption through service improvements”

Join Dwight Jones, Senior IT Service Manager, as he discusses how Microsoft IT is making the transition to Skype for Business—unified communications in the cloud. He will share how we reconciled Microsoft Lync and other technologies to become Skype for Business, and how we’re listening to our users to drive service improvements, increase call quality, and optimize the user experience.

DATE/TIME:
February 15th, (10-11AM PST)

REGISTER: 
https://www.microsoftevents.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x13512625916

Watch this video to learn about recent Office 365 enhancements and innovations, including a wide array of new capabilities that empower our customers to collaborate more effectively than ever before. In this February update you’ll explore:

• iTunes and RSS Availability
• OneDrive Update
• LinkedIn Learning Office Courses
• Microsoft Staff Hub
• Free Stock Photos
• Office.com Homepage
• Data Loss Prevention

Viewing/listening options:

• YouTube
• iTunes (HD Video) (Audio Only)
• RSS (HD Video) (Audio Only)

Are you attending RSA Conference 2017?

Join Microsoft, February 13–17 in San Francisco, where you will learn about our unique view of threat intelligence, the investments we’re making into a secure platform, and how Microsoft fits into your security portfolio.

Here are some of Microsoft’s speakers at this year’s RSA Conference:

• Protecting and defending against cyber threats in uncertain times
  Brad Smith, President, Microsoft Corporation
  Tuesday, February 14, 8:35 AM–8:55 AM
• Advances in Cloud-scale Machine Learning for Cyber Defense
  Mark Russinovich, CTO Azure, Microsoft Corporation
  Tuesday, February 14, 3:45 PM–4:30 PM
  
  ALSO
  
• How to Go From Responding to Hunting with Sysinternals Sysmon
  Mark Russinovich, CTO Azure, Microsoft Corporation
  Tuesday, February 14, 1:15 PM–2:00 PM
• A Vision for Shared, Central Intelligence to Ebb a Growing Flood of Alerts
  Dan Plastina, Partner Director, Threat Protection, Microsoft Corporation
  Tuesday, February 14, 1:15 PM–2:00 PM
• Learnings from the Cloud: What to Watch When Watching for Breach
  Sara Manning Dawson, Principal Group Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation
  Wednesday, February 15, 2:45 PM–3:30 PM
• Critical Hygiene for Preventing Major Breaches
  Mark Simos, Director Business Development Analysis, Microsoft Corporation
  Tuesday, February 17, 10:15 AM–11:00 AM
• Securing the Making of the Next Hollywood Blockbuster
  Joel Sloss, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation
  Wednesday, February 15, 1:30 PM–2:15 PM

Don’t forget to visit our boot at North Expo #N3501:

• Microsoft Expo Booth – North Expo #N3501
  https://www.rsaconference.com/events/us17/expo-sponsors/exhibitor-list/2966-Microsoft

For more information, visit:

• Microsoft @ RSA Conference 2017
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/rsa

Dow you own a Surface Pro 3/4?  Do you find that you need an extra USB port for your mouse and another device a lot? 

Check out this little $12.99 adapter that connects to the USB 3.0 port of the Surface Pro – and doesn’t block the power port – and provides the following additional ports:

• USB 3.0 port
• USB 2.0 port
• SD card slot
• microSD card slot
• microUSB charging port
  (only for boosting power to the adapter)

Purchase this $12.99 adapter here:

• Surface Pro Hub Adapter/ Card Reader, High Speed USB 3.0 Transport and USB 2.0 port – $12.99
  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MFCZDRQ/

Azure Active Directory & Office 365 as a whole has a massive, globally-distributed model leverage Microsoft’s cloud footprint.

As a result, Microsoft is able to absorb attacks across a very large surface area, mitigating denial-of-service attacks against authentication – keeping customers operational, even during DDoS attacks.

As a global organization with a significant Internet presence and several prominent Internet properties, Microsoft is a large and common target for hackers and other malicious individuals.  In fact, for the last several years, Microsoft has been continuously and persistently under some form of cyber-attack.  At just about any given time, at least one of Microsoft’s Internet properties is experiencing some form of denial of service traffic.  Without reliable and persistent mitigation systems that can defend against these attacks, Microsoft’s services would be offline.

This document talks generally about different types of attacks and how Microsoft defends Office 365 and its network against those attacks. Office 365 uses defense-in-depth security principles to protect against internal and external risks.  The network–the communication layer between clients and Office 365–is one of the biggest targets of malicious attacks.

…

To read more, download the paper below:

• WHITEPAPER: Protecting Office 365 and Azure from DoS attacks
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52667