Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Today, we are announcing the general availability of Windows Server 2022. It’s a big step forward for the operating system that is trusted by major corporations and small businesses alike to run their business and mission-critical workloads.

With Windows Server 2022, customers can continue to securely run their workloads, enable new hybrid cloud scenarios, and modernize their applications to meet evolving business requirements. Let’s dive into the new technical capabilities of Windows Server 2022 and how customers can take advantage of these to modernize their server environment.

Why upgrade to Windows Server 2022

…

Read more here:

• Windows Server 2022 now generally available—delivers innovation in security, hybrid, and containers
  https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2021/09/01/windows-server-2022-now-generally-available-delivers-innovation-in-security-hybrid-and-containers/

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, has hosted an employee town hall every month for the past 7 years. His desire to connect and engage with employees started on the first day he took office in 2014.  In 2021, these townhalls look different than they did when they first started, but there are core elements and lessons we’ve learned along the way. 

Many details on how we run this at Microsoft every month are included in the playbook. There are also ideas to give you extra confidence on how to implement this or something similar at your organization, regardless of industry, scope, and scale. You can learn our best practices and detailed information in the Microsoft Virtual Employee Town Hall Playbook.

Read more about the playbook here:

• Microsoft Virtual Employee Town Hall Playbook – A Step-by-Step Guide
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/yammer-blog/microsoft-virtual-employee-town-hall-playbook-a-step-by-step/ba-p/2703522

Not every application that a professional developer builds should be code first. The Powerful Devs Conference will showcase how developers can embrace fusion development teams and leverage the Power Platform to build applications faster and with far less effort. Connect with industry-recognized ProDev influencers, Microsoft Cloud Advocates, trusted and diverse community leaders, and members of the Power Platform Team.

Event Agenda

• 8:00 AM – 8:30 AM PT
  Keynote with Scott Guthrie
• 8:30 AM – 9:00 AM PT
  Custom Pages & PCF with Diana Birkelbach
• 9:00 AM – 9:30 AM PT
  Power Platform ALM for Dummies with Mariano Gomez
• 9:30 AM – 10:00 AM PT
  Code in Power Platform Custom Connectors with Geetha Sivasailam
• 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM PT
  Using Space APIs to Create Out of This World Power Apps with Linda Nichols
• 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM PT
  Getting Started with Azure IOT Central and the Power Platform with Eric Cheng
• 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM PT
  The Economic Opportunity and Future of Fusion Teams with Amanda Silver and Charles Lamanna

Hosted by Dona Sarkar and Greg Hurlman

• Date/Time:
  8:00 – 11:30 AM PT
  September 14. 2021
• Registration:
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/events/learntv/powerful-devs-conference-sept-2021/?branch=powerful-devs-conference-sept-2021?WT.mc_id=power-33604-apdunnam

Join us November 2–4, 2021 for our digital experience, including the latest product demos, Q&A with Microsoft experts, technical deep-dives, and more.

Registration is NOT yet available however, the official dates have been announced and you can add the event to your calendar from the web site below.

• MyIgnite – Your home for Microsoft Ignite
  https://myignite.microsoft.com/home

This is one of the cooler acquisitions I’ve seen us make.

Y’know how 1000s of end users that watch a company meeting/townhall all use the company’s Internet connection to get the audio/video stream?  This obviously creates congestion for company Internet access & can kill the proxy.

Well, Microsoft recently acquired Peer5 to help Microsoft Teams scale the delivery or secure, high-quality, large-scale live video streaming with optimized network performance.  It uses peer-to-peer technology between viewers to minimize proxy bandwidth consumption.

The kicker?  It requires no additional infrastructure for customers:  The peer-to-peer acceleration is all done within your user’s browsers and can offload 95% of the traffic from your company’s Internet connection.

Peer5 offers a WebRTC-based eCDN solution that runs in-browser to optimize bandwidth usage helping mitigate impacts to network and line of business (LOB) applications. Its mesh networks are self-balancing and automatically scale as the number of viewers increase. The technology does not require additional installation on user endpoints or changes to the physical network infrastructure. Additionally, the Peer5 solution will allow Microsoft to provide a first-party offering to help customers streamline purchase process and customer support, improving their enterprise IT management experience.

Read more here:

• Microsoft Acquires Peer5 to Enhance Live Video Streaming in Microsoft Teams
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/microsoft-acquires-peer5-to-enhance-live-video-streaming-in/ba-p/2628950
• Peer5 Joins Microsoft
  https://blog.peer5.com/peer5-joins-microsoft/?ref=ms-banner

Register now for the Windows Server Summit—your first in-depth look at Windows Server 2022. You’ll come away from this free digital event with a thorough understanding of how to use the newest Windows Server innovations to modernize your IT environment and simplify management.

Join us for this free digital event to:

• Get the latest news and announcements about Windows Server 2022.
• See hybrid infrastructure solutions in action with product demos.
• Learn how to maximize your existing investments with Azure—the trusted cloud for Windows Server.
• Get answers to your questions from product experts during the live Q&A.

Date/Time:
September 16, 2021
10:00 AM Pacific Time

Registration:
https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-windows-server-summit.html?wt.mc_id=AID3038907_QSG_PD_SCL_546476

The “decentralized identity” solution we’ve announced (preview) is one of the most fascinating & exciting things I’ve seen in a long time coming from Microsoft.

Imagine being able to:

• identify yourself & verify who you are to multiple organizations & services
• align your benefits, subscriptions, & memberships to your identity across different organizations
• verify your identity to an organization using your phone, an authenticator app, and your camera + a QR code from the services
• create your own identity store & participate in decentralized identity verification, independent from any other organization

Decentralized identity is the restructuring of the currently centralized physical and digital identity ecosystem into a decentralized and democratized architecture.

Leveraging Open Standards, Microsoft’s approach to decentralized identity includes blockchain-connected decentralized system groups that include:

• Identity sources: Identity hubs, resolvers & attestation catalogs
• Identity authenticators: Identity identifiers & authentications

User agents – usually authenticator apps such as Microsoft Authenticator or other agent providers such as Google Authenticator, etc. – provide both enrollment as well as authentication approvals using QR codes.

For more information.

• Decentralized Identity, Blockchain, and Privacy
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/identity-access-management/decentralized-identity-blockchain

I often get asked what to do about end user training when folks are just getting their Microsoft 365 deployments rolled out.

There are two really great resources available from Microsoft to provide Enterprise customers with end user training to help users adopt the products & services in their Microsoft 365 E3/G3 or E5/G5 subscriptions.

MODERN WORKPLACE TRAINING – ON-DEMAND, ONLINE/DOWNLOADABLE
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/training

1. “Per-App Training”
   We have training videos & help content for over 30+ apps & services including all the Microsoft Office apps, Forms, Delve, Lists, Teams, OneDrive, Planner, Project, Publisher, Sharepoint, Stream, Todo, Visio, Whiteboard, etc.
   https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/office-apps-help-and-training-8b9042aa-7507-477b-b294-1b178b47c8e5
2. Quick Start Videos/Walkthroughs
   We have videos and walkthroughs on how to use most products.
   https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/office-quick-starts-25f909da-3e76-443d-94f4-6cdf7dedc51e?wt.mc_id=otc_home
3. Downloadable Guides & Cheat Sheets
   We have downloadable “printable” guides for many of the products – in .PDF format
   https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/office-cheat-sheets-61abfe7b-1c43-483c-b82b-3806d80e027e

CUSTOMER SUCCESS TRAININGS – INSTRUCTOR-LED, VIRTUAL TRAININGS
https://kurtsh.com/2021/03/15/training-microsoft-store-customer-success-training-sessions/
We provide – at no cost to your organization – instructor-led trainings for END USERS on the following products:
(Bold are the most popular)

1. Microsoft Bookings
2. Microsoft OneDrive for Business
3. Microsoft Planner
4. Microsoft SharePoint Online
5. Microsoft To Do
6. Microsoft Lists
7. Microsoft Yammer
8. Microsoft Accessibility
9. Windows 10
10. Power Apps
11. Power BI
12. Power Automate
13. Microsoft Teams – Level 100, 200
14. Microsoft Teams Meetings
15. Microsoft Teams Calling
16. Microsoft Teams as a Platform: Integrating Apps – Level 200
17. Microsoft Teams Live Events (Attendee)
18. Microsoft Teams Live Events (Organizer)
19. Word Level 100 & 200
20. Excel Level 100 & 200
21. Microsoft OneNote – Level 100 & 200
22. Outlook (Desktop & Mobile) – Level 100 & 200
23. Forms
24. Project for the Web
25. Tasks

To take advantage of Customer Success Trainings, you’ll need to talk to your Microsoft Account Team and have them put you in touch with your Customer Success Manager, one of your Account Team’s members.  They can help orchestrate the scheduling of the course for your organization.

Did you know that there are dozens of FREE downloadable applications that you can host in Microsoft Teams to extend the value & utility of your Teams implementation?  This includes the source code as well as instructions on deploying & installing the app for your organization.

Key benefits

• Deploy directly to the cloud: All app templates include deployment scripts that allows you to host all required services in Microsoft Azure or the Power Platform.
• Recommended sample code: The app templates conform to recommended best practices around security and infrastructure. All community submitted changes to the app templates are reviewed to ensure conformance.
• Customizable and extensible: While all app templates are deployed with minimal configuration, the entire code base and deployment scripts are provided, so that you can easily customize or extend them to fit your unique needs.
• Detailed documentation: All app templates are accompanied by end-to-end documentation on solution architecture, deployment, and configuration steps.

Here’s a quick list of some of the applications available, in the form of App Templates:

• Adoption Bot
• Adoption Tool- Champion Management Platform ☆
• Adoption Tool- Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways (Get Started) ☆
• Appointment Manager
• Ask Away
• Associate Insights
• Attendance
• Book-a-room
• Building Access
• Celebrations
• Checklist
• Classroom Drop-in
• Company Communicator
• Contact Group Lookup
• Co-worker Appreciation
• CrowdSourcer
• Custom Stickers
• Employee Ideas
• E-Prescriptions
• Employee Training
• Expert Finder
• FAQ Plus
• Get Support App
• Goal Tracker
• Great Ideas
• Group Activities
• Group Connect ☆
• Grow Your Skills
• HR Support
• Icebreaker
• Incentives
• Incident Reporter
• Inspection
• Issue Reporting
• New Employee Onboarding
• Open Badges
• Poll
• Quick Responses
• Quiz ☆
• Rapid Assist
• Reflect
• Remote Support
• Request-a-team
• Scrums for Channels
• Scrums for Group Chat
• Share Now
• SharePoint List Search
• Staff Check-ins
• Survey
• Time Tally
• Training ☆
• Virtual Rounding
• Visitor Management
• Water Cooler ☆
• Workplace Awards

For more, check out the App Template page on our Docs:

• DOWNLOAD: App Templates for Microsoft Teams
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/samples/app-templates

Black Hat USA 2021 is about understanding the needs of security professionals and meeting you where you are. With last year’s pandemic-related firefighting still fresh in our minds, this year’s event will provide a welcome respite to learn about cutting-edge security solutions, build our skillsets, and network with peers.

Microsoft Security is committed to helping you secure your entire digital estate with integrated, comprehensive protection—bridging the gaps to catch what others miss. We provide the leading AI, automation, and expertise that help you detect threats quickly, respond effectively, and fortify your security posture.​ As the world enters a new normal where seasoned security professionals are more needed than ever, we’re proud to share our experience and learn from you at the virtual Black Hat USA 2021.

Read more at:

• BlackHat 2021: The rapid rise of ransomware, new crisis prevention/ mitigation strategies, & the latest Microsoft Security product news
  https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2021/07/29/microsoft-at-black-hat-2021-sessions-bug-bounty-updates-product-news-and-more/

View Microsoft-sponsored BlackHat 2021 Sessions here:

• The Emerging Cyber Threat Landscape
• Evolving Red Teaming at Microsoft
• Preventing a Hostage Situation: Defusing the Pervasive Threat of Human-Operated Ransomware
• Inside the Most Impactful Nation-State Attack in History