As organizations embrace the transformative power of AI, securing and governing its use becomes mission-critical. Join us for deep dive into how Microsoft empowers IT decision-makers, security leaders, and CISOs to confidently deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agents within their organizations.

In this session, we’ll explore:

  • Microsoft’s commitments to data privacy, security, and compliance—including encryption, tenant isolation, and regulatory certifications like ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA.
  • The Copilot Control System: a comprehensive framework for managing data security, agent lifecycle, and measuring business impact.
  • How to address top concerns such as data oversharing, insider risk, and AI misuse using Microsoft Purview and built-in governance tools.
  • Real-world customer scenarios and outcomes, including how companies are achieving measurable ROI with Copilot.
  • Strategies to mitigate Shadow AI risks and enforce lifecycle policies, legal holds, and ethical AI use.

Whether you’re just starting your Copilot journey or scaling enterprise-wide adoption, this session will equip you with the tools and insights to secure your data, govern AI usage, and drive responsible innovation.

Datacenters are the critical backbone behind modern computing – that help make cloud, AI, gaming, more accessible than ever before.

Microsoft operates secure datacenter facilities spread across the world, creating a distributed infrastructure that supports thousands of online services. This globally distributed infrastructure is designed with sustainability in mind to bring applications closer to users, preserve data residency, offer comprehensive compliance, and resiliency options for customers. In this event:

  • Go behind the scenes on how Microsoft designs, builds, plans and operates these datacenter facilities around the world
  • Learn about Microsoft’s approach to ensuring the cloud infrastructure for Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, and new AI workloads help meet the varied needs of businesses, while increasing focus on sustainability.
  • Understand what it takes for Microsoft to constantly improve the performance, efficiency, power consumption, in order to reduce cost of your cloud workloads.

We will also share some of the most promising R&D areas that we are pursuing that will help shape the future of cloud computing, AI and business technology in the years ahead.

If you know of developers, they may want to register for our developer, data, platform & AI webinars at the Microsoft Reactor: 

Here’s a short list of what’s coming up in October, going into December 2025:

  • 6 October, 2025 – Empowering AI Driven App Development with Fabric Databases
  • 7 October, 2025 -Python + AI: Large Language Models
  • 7 October, 2025 – Series – Python + AI: Level Up
  • 8 October, 2025 – Python + AI: Vector embeddings
  • 9 October, 2025 – Turning Data into Insights with Copilot and Data Agents in Microsoft Fabric
  • 9 October, 2025 – Python + AI: Vision models
  • 14 October, 2025 – Python + AI: Retrieval Augmented Generation
  • 15 October, 2025 – Python + AI: Structured outputs
  • 16 October, 2025 – Python + AI: Quality and safety
  • 21 October, 2025 – Python + AI: Tool calling
  • 22 October, 2025 – Python + AI: AI agents
  • 23 October, 2025 – Python + AI: Model Context Protocol
  • 28 October, 2025 – Reimagining Business Process Automation with Agent Loop in Azure Logic Apps
  • 28 October, 2025 – Series – Reimagining Enterprise Integration with Azure Integration Services
  • 29 October, 2025 – Ask Me Anything: Data Engineering in Microsoft Fabric
  • 30 October, 2025 – Securing and Scaling AI Workloads with AI Gateway in Azure API Management
  • 30 October, 2025 – Azure Logic Apps Community Day 2026
  • 4 November, 2025 – Building and Governing AI Agents with MCP and Azure Integration Services
  • 5 November, 2025 – Agents of Change: How AI Agents Enhance Security
  • 5 November, 2025 – From PL-300 to DP-600: Level Up Your Analytics Skills (option 1)
  • 6 November, 2025 – Dataviz Design with World Champs
  • 11 November, 2025 – Get Certified: From Azure Data Engineer (DP-203) to Fabric Data Engineer (DP-700)
  • 11 November, 2025 -So you want to be an Analytics Engineer
  • 11 November, 2025 – .NET Conf 2025: Day 1
  • 12 November, 2025 – .NET Conf 2025: Day 2
  • 12 November, 2025 – From PL-300 to DP-600: Level Up Your Analytics Skills (option 2)
  • 13 November, 2025 – .NET Conf 2025: Day 3
  • 13 November, 2025 – So you want to know how Databases & Fabric fit together
  • 13 November, 2025 – So you want to be a Data Engineer
  • 18 November, 2025 – Getting started with Microsoft data certifications
  • 19 November, 2025 – Prepare for Exam Day (option 1)
  • 1 December, 2025 – Model Mondays – Model Router
  • 1 December, 2025 – Series – Model Mondays

Microsoft is converging Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence (MDTI) directly into Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel, which will provide world-class, real-time TI within a unified SecOps experience at no additional cost.

This convergence of MDTI value into Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR will take place over the course of several months and be completed by the first half of next year. It will grant customers access to Microsoft’s extensive repository of both raw and finished threat intelligence, developed from 84 trillion daily signals and backed by over 10,000 security professionals, eliminating the need for additional licensing and costly third-party solutions.

The following MDTI features will converge into Defender XDR and Sentinel:

Read the announcement post here:

We’re evolving our industry-leading Security Incidents and Event Management solution (SIEM), Microsoft Sentinel, to include a modern, cost-effective data lake. By unifying all your security data, Microsoft Sentinel data lake, now in public preview, accelerates agentic AI adoption and drives unparalleled visibility, empowering teams to detect and respond faster. With Sentinel data lake, you’re no longer forced to choose between retaining critical data and staying within budget.

Microsoft Sentinel Data Lake has a dramatically lower cost of storage, natively integrates with Sentinel querying & works with all existing Sentinel data connectors, including:

  • All Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Sentinel data sources
  • Microsoft 365
  • Microsoft Entra ID
  • Microsoft Resource Graph
  • Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platforms
  • Firewall and network logs
  • Cloud infrastructure and workload telemetry
  • Identity and access logs (Microsoft Entra, Okta, etc.)
  • DNS, proxy, and email telemetry

GET STARTED
Join us as we redefine what’s possible in security operations:

Read the announcement blog post here:

Unify your security for the AI era

Explore the latest solutions that can help you protect your data, cloud, and AI investments with an AI-first, end-to-end platform at Microsoft Secure. Learn how to recruit the right Security Copilot agents to harden defenses and boost your team’s efficiency, and how intelligent tools from Microsoft Security enables you to adapt to today’s threat landscape with limited resources.

At Microsoft Secure you’ll learn to:

  • Stop attacks across clouds and platforms, harden your defenses in a cost-effective way, and secure AI with Microsoft Security Copilot agents, Microsoft Entra, and Microsoft Purview.
  • Manage the total cost of your security toolset by consolidating with a platform approach.
  • Understand how a unified SecOps toolset—powered by Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender—gives you comprehensive, proactive threat protection.

Featuring:

  • Vasu Jakkal – Corporate Vice President – Microsoft Security Business
  • Dorothy Li – Corporate Vice President, Security Copilot – Ecosystem and Marketplace, Microsoft
  • Krishna Kumar Parthasarathy – Corporate Vice President – Sentinel Platform, Microsoft
  • Herain Oberoi– Vice President – Data and AI – Security Marketing, Microsoft
  • Scott Woodgate – General Manager – Threat Protection, Microsoft
  • Jeremy Dallman – Senior Director – Microsoft Threat Intelligence

This event will be broadcasted in multiple time zones, offering opportunities to join engaging conversations with leaders, get questions answered by subject matter experts, and connect at a time that suits you best when you register below.

A common misconception is that you can administer & manage Azure Government using Entra ID Public/Commercial tenants/directories. You can’t. Only Entra ID Government tenants can administer & manage Azure Government cloud instances.

However, administering & managing Azure Government is a privileged role, usually isolated to a few administrator accounts:
Did you know end users with identities from Entra ID Public/Commercial (M365 GCC) can be authenticated & use applications hosted in Azure Government?

This is how your Microsoft 365 Commercial or GCC users can access applications in Azure Government using their Entra ID Public/Commercial user accounts, if the applications use (Entra ID-based) Modern Authentication.

Applications using modern authentication in Azure Government

Register an application with the Microsoft identity platform shows how you can use Microsoft Entra ID to provide secure sign-in and authorization to your applications. This process is the same for Azure Public and Azure Government once you choose your identity authority.

Choosing your identity authority

Azure Government applications can use Microsoft Entra Government identities, but can you use Microsoft Entra Public identities to authenticate to an application hosted in Azure Government? Yes! Since you can use either identity authority, you need to choose which to use:

  • Microsoft Entra Public – Commonly used if your organization already has a Microsoft Entra Public tenant to support Office 365 (Public or GCC) or another application.
  • Microsoft Entra Government – Commonly used if your organization already has a Microsoft Entra Government tenant to support Office 365 (GCC High or DoD) or are creating a new tenant in Microsoft Entra Government.

Once decided, the special consideration is where you perform your app registration. If you choose Microsoft Entra Public identities for your Azure Government application, you must register the application in your Microsoft Entra Public tenant. Otherwise, if you perform the app registration in the directory the subscription trusts (Azure Government) the intended set of users can’t authenticate.

Note:
Applications registered with Microsoft Entra-only allow sign-in from users in the Microsoft Entra tenant the application was registered in. If you have multiple Microsoft Entra Public tenants, it’s important to know which is intended to allow sign-ins from. If you intend to allow users to authenticate to the application from multiple Microsoft Entra tenants the application must be registered in each tenant.

The other consideration is the identity authority URL. You need the correct URL based on your chosen authority:

Identity authorityURL
Microsoft Entra Publiclogin.microsoftonline.com
Microsoft Entra Governmentlogin.microsoftonline.us

Read more here:

Posted by: kurtsh | September 23, 2025

TRAINING: Microsoft Planner & Project

With the retirement of Project Online coming September 30, 2026, I’ve recently gotten a number of questions about Microsoft Planner, the lightweight planning & project management solution that integrates with Microsoft Project, included with Microsoft 365.

Here’s an index of resources to use when investigating the use of Microsoft Planner for your users:

  1. INTRODUCTION: Planner has several introductory resources for it.
  2. ADOPTION: Microsoft has an adoption site for Planner that contains videos and other guidance around the usage of Planner & it’s integration with Project. https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-planner/?culture=en-us&country=us
  3. ONLINE TRAINING:
  4. NEWS:
  5. DOCUMENTATION:
  6. SUPPORT:
  7. DEVELOPMENT:
  8. SPECIALISTS: Microsoft discussions about Project/Planner are done through “Virtual Specialists”, 3rd parties designated by Microsoft as representatives for specific products. “Projility” & “OnePlan” are Virtual Specialist Partners for Project/Planner in the State & Local Government space.
    (They are dedicated to Project/Planner & also provide both Project/Planner professional services & training)
  9. TRAINING PARTNERS: Additionally, there are many Microsoft Learning Partners, companies that deliver Planner training for end users and IT.  Some examples include:
  10. UNIFIED: There are Unified Services “Cloud Solutions Architects” that deliver Project & Planner “workshops” that use Proactive Credits on your Microsoft Unified Services agreement, however customers need to talk to their Unified Services representative (Customer Success Account Managers or CSAMs) for what is available because this would likely be a custom engagement.

Microsoft’s Attack Simulation ‘training’ service is a Premium Defender security service customers subscribe to as part of the licensing for one of the following:

  • Microsoft 365 E5
  • Microsoft 365 E3 + Microsoft 365 E5 Security
  • Defender for O365 Plan 2

Phishing attacks for government customers are on the rise & organizations with one of the above should prioritize leveraging this service to help prevent phishing compromises. It’s essentially a service that among other things, creates & manages “fake phishing Exchange emails & Teams messages” in campaigns that get sent out to users that test their propensity to ‘click’ on attachments & links likely from bad actors & catalog the individuals the “click” on them – not to embarrass people, but rather to help educate people safely about the dangers of phishing.

Here’s a training video: 

Here’s the documentation:

If you’re interested in freely available webinars, trainings & workshops from Microsoft, here’s a list of references I use to identify events relevant to my audiences:

Also, for those managed Enterprise & Government customers enrolled in the following:

  • Microsoft Enterprise Skills Initiative – For Enterprise Agreement customers that meet proper qualifications & have been nominated by their Account team for Microsoft’s professional “skilling” program:
  • Unified WorkshopPLUS – For customers with Unified Enterprise services contracts with Microsoft:
    • Available as Open Workshops (enroll in classes with other customers participating) pr Closed Workshops (private
    • Review the proactive workshops available at https://serviceshub.microsoft.com or see your Unified Customer Success Account Manager for details

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