Blog Post

ITOps Talk Blog
7 MIN READ

Periscope up – what's on the horizon for hybrid event

Rick Claus's avatar
Rick Claus
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Jan 18, 2021

Now we let the cat out of the bag that we’re putting on an event on Feb 2nd, 2021 – it’s time to go a little deeper. How about some information about the AWESOME content we have lined up that is being created RIGHT NOW, just for you. In case you missed the previous post where I talked about the concept of what we’re trying to do, make sure you go back and read it before continuing.

 

Our focus for this iteration of IT Ops Talks is “All Things Hybrid”. We took some time to debate this out as a team and vet it with some folks in the community and in our internal networks. We’re challenging folks creating this first round of content with how their technical session will be relevant to a Hybrid world of on-prem and in the cloud – but also with its relevancy for making your on-prem world better. This post is going to cover the top level details of what specific topics will be covered AND who we’ve lined up from the engineering teams to create / deliver them! Think of this as your initial content catalogue of what to expect on the 2nd with even more details to come. 

 

I have to give a shout out and say THANK YOU to the Experts / Engineers and everyday Microsofties who are trusting us to help them share their content in this format on such short notice. This list is our first cut at assembling the bulk of the content being created for YOU in this new format. Have a read through to the end of the post and let us know what you think!
 

 

Securing your Hybrid environment Part 1 - Azure Security Center

Sarah Young (@_sarahyo) - Sr. Program Manager

Now more than ever, organizations are challenged with keeping their employees productive working remotely and interacting with their customers over digital channels. At the same time there has been an increase in evolving digital security threats as bad actors recognize an opportunity to disrupt your business. Moreover, security resources are stretched, and prioritization is important.

 

Securing your Hybrid environment Part 2 - Azure Sentinel

Sarah Young (@_sarahyo) - Sr. Program Manager

Sit down with Azure Sentinel Sr. PM Sarah Young to discuss new features, functionality, and best practices on harnessing the AI enabled security solution.

 

Securing SMB from within and without

Ned Pyle (@nerdPyle) - Principal Program Manager

Learn specific strategies to secure SMB from lateral movement and external interception attacks! Watch interesting demos of the steps you can take to protect your organization! See the often unpredictable Ned Pyle struggle to be professional on camera!

 

Virtualized and Hybrid Backup Deep Dive (to be confirmed)

Ben Armstrong (@vBenArmstrong) - Principal Program Manager

Ben Armstrong does a deep dive on Virtualized and Hybrid Backup

 

How to be an AD Hybrid Health Hero

Mark Morowczynski (@markmorow) - Principal Program Manager

Grace Picking - Program Manager

Once you've connected your identity to Azure AD, how do you ensure it continues to function as expected? In this session, you'll learn how to keep your hybrid identity environment healthy, across different Active Directory and Azure Active Directory scenarios.

 

Windows Server Hybrid Deep Dive (to be confirmed)

Jeff Woolsey (@WSV_GUY)- Principal Program Manager

Jeff goes in-depth with how Windows Server works in hybrid scenarios with Azure integration.

 

Windows Authentication Internals in a Hybrid World

Steve Syfuhs (@SteveSyfuhs) - Senior Software Engineer

Have you ever wondered what happens when you type your password into Windows? With the cloud becoming a major part of our world, we find ourselves having to talk to both on-premises and cloud-native resources, which dramatically affects what happens when you do type your password into Windows. Follow along as Steve Syfuhs gives a guided tour of how Windows handles logons internally and secures your authentication in a hybrid world.

 

Getting started with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) on Azure Stack HCI

Matt McSpirit (@mattmcspirit) - Senior Program Manager

In this session, you’ll learn about the new Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI, how you can use it to run your containerized Windows and Linux apps, how it integrates with Azure, and how it provides the best platform to run additional Azure services, including Arc-enabled Data Services. This will help you to modernize your existing applications on our Azure Stack HCI Hybrid Cloud Platform

 

Windows Virtual Desktop Road Map Deep Dive

Tom Hickling (@tomhickling) - WVD Global Black Belt

Dive into the forthcoming WVD roadmap and how it can help be part of your hybrid cloud strategy.

 

Learn the 5 key areas to consider for your hybrid workloads

David Kurth (@TheDaveKurth) - Senior Product Marketing Manager

In this whiteboard session (after a few slides for context), we will discuss the 5 key areas of any hybrid cloud workload, connectivity, application, data, identity, security & management.

 

Azure Stack HCI Hybrid is built-in: How does it really work?

Kerim Hanif (@kerimhanif) - Senior Program Manager

Ready to deploy Azure Stack HCI, the new hyperconverged infrastructure operating system delivered as an Azure service? Join this session to learn everything you need to know about how Azure Stack HCI’s hybrid connectivity works. Is it hard to register? (Hint: no.) Is there an agent? (Hint: no.) Does Azure see my VMs and their data? (Hint: no.) Do I need to open my firewall to freely allow Internet traffic? (Hint: no.) All these answers and more.

 

From WS2008 to Azure with containers – An Ops view on how to modernize existing applications with Windows Admin Center

Vinicius Apolinario (@vrapolinario) - Senior Program Manager

ITPros around the globe are trying to figure out how to modernize existing applications. End of Support for Windows Server 2008, how to move applications to the cloud, and how to leverage new technologies such as Kubernetes have become a daunting process for Ops teams. In this session we will cover how to containerize existing applications from the perspective of an ITPro. We will use tools that you are used to – such as Windows Admin Center to jumpstart your modernization process and show how to move an application from Windows Server 2008 to Azure Kubernetes Service.

 

Governing baselines such as STIG in hybrid server environments using Azure Policy Guest Configuration

Michael Greene (@migreene) - Principal Program Manager

Learn to use services in Azure to audit the state of servers across private and public clouds and upcoming plans to expand capabilities in this area.

 

Log Analytics workspace design deep dive

Meir Mendelovich (@MMendelovich) - Principal Program Manager

in this session we will cover

  1. Proper Workspace design: resource-centric and RBAC.
  2. Resource-centric alerts.
  3. Enterprise features: Dedicated cluster, high scale, AZ, DE, CMK
  4. OneAgent, Query Packs and infrastructure as code
  5. Workspace data Export and proper data placement
  6. Workspace Optimization

 

Monitoring and Responding to alerts in hybrid environments using Azure Monitor

Erik Namtvedt (@ErikN_MSFT) - Senior Service Engineer

A deep dive of the framework Microsoft Retail has leveraged over the last 3-4 years to monitor all their on-prem system, including in-store Video walls and others. It's based on Azure Public-Offering technologies. It leverages Application Insights, OMS (SCOM too), Log Analytics, Azure Storage (Blob/Tables), Azure Automation, and PowerShell.

 

PowerShell Deep dive

Joey Aiello (@joeyaiello) - Senior Program Manager

We will use this time to take a deep dive on migrating\adapting old PowerShell scripts from previous versions and making them work in PowerShell 7 and PowerShell Core.
We'll also take a serious look at secret management with PowerShell to avoid the ever annoying problem of hardcode creds or use prompts.

 

Deep dive on Onboarding customers into Lighthouse

Archana Balakrishnan (@Archun0505) - Principal Program Manager

In this session we will demystify the intricacies of onboarding customers in Azure Lighthouse from a service provider's perspective

 

Databases are cattle too! Running highly available databases consistently on any infrastructure using Arc data services

Travis Wright (@radtravis) - Principal Group Program Manager

Have you heard people say ‘containers or Kubernetes is not for databases’? Let me show you how that is definitely not the case in 2021. Kubernetes provides an abstraction layer over any infrastructure and an orchestration engine that powers Arc enabled data services so DevOps, DBAs, and developers can provision and manage highly available SQL and PostrgreSQL database instances on any infrastructure – on-prem, AWS, or Google. In this session, I’ll dive deep into the technical weeds with nearly 100% demos that show you exactly how it all works and you can manage it all with GUI, CLI, Azure-native tools, or Kubernetes-native tools.

 

Event Hub on Azure Stack Overview

Manoj Prasad () - Program Manager

Javier Fernandez (@JavierF08160601) - Senior Program Manager

Provide an overview of Event Hub on Azure Stack and highlight why Event Hub is a great offering on Azure Stack for customers.

 

Modernize how you manage hybrid servers with Azure Arc

Ryan Puffer () - Senior Program Manager

Think the cloud is just for things that are…in the cloud? Come learn how you can use Azure Arc to simplify IT operations across your entire fleet, no matter where your servers run. We'll start with a deep dive into the architecture and benefits of Azure Arc followed by a demonstration of how Azure Arc can help you monitor, secure, and simplify management of a multi-tier on-premises application.

 

Like the sound of all that? How do you get to the content?!

 

Part of our content plan is to release a full length detailed blog post for EACH of these sessions that will contain specific “deep links” to all the resources, links to docs, links to Microsoft Learn modules so you can dive in and learn even more about the topics and possibly setup some hands on experiences for yourself. When each session goes live – it will have details on how to interact with the presenters and other experts from the community who are interested in the topic with a special “hallway conversation” area on our teams Discord Server.

 

To find the blog posts for all of these sessions, keep an eye on https://aka.ms/ITOpsTalks on our Feb 2 release date.

 

Want to get started earlier and talk about this event? Join our work friendly IT Ops Talk Discord server today!

Updated Jan 18, 2021
Version 4.0