Help wanted: Refresh articles in Azure Architecture Center (AAC)
I’m the Project Manager for architecture review boards (ARBs) in the Azure Architecture Center (AAC). We’re looking for subject matter experts to help us improve the freshness of the AAC, Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), and Well-Architected Framework (WAF) repos. This opportunity is currently limited to Microsoft employees only. As an ARB member, your main focus is to review, update, and maintain content to meet quarterly freshness targets. Your involvement directly impacts the quality, relevance, and direction of Azure Patterns & Practices content across AAC, CAF, and WAF. The content in these repos reaches almost 900,000 unique readers per month, so your time investment has a big, global impact. The expected commitment is 4-6 hours per month, including attendance at weekly or bi-weekly sync meetings. Become an ARB member to gain: Increased visibility and credibility as a subject‑matter expert by contributing to Microsoft‑authored guidance used by customers and partners worldwide. Broader internal reach and networking without changing roles or teams. Attribution on Microsoft Learn articles that you own. Opportunity to take on expanded roles over time (for example, owning a set of articles, mentoring contributors, or helping shape ARB direction). We’re recruiting new members across several ARBs. Our highest needs are in the Web ARB, Containers ARB, and Data & Analytics ARB: The Web ARB focuses on modern web application architecture on Azure—App Service and PaaS web apps, APIs and API Management, ingress and networking (Application Gateway, Front Door, DNS), security and identity, and designing for reliability, scalability, and disaster recovery. The Containers ARB focuses on containerized and Kubernetes‑based architectures—AKS design and operations, networking and ingress, security and identity, scalability, and reliability for production container platforms. The Data & Analytics ARB focuses on data platform and analytics architectures—data ingestion and integration, analytics and reporting, streaming and real‑time scenarios, data security and governance, and designing scalable, reliable data solutions on Azure. We’re also looking for people to take ownership of other articles across AAC, CAF, and WAF. These articles span many areas, including application and solution architectures, containers and compute, networking and security, governance and observability, data and integration, and reliability and operational best practices. You don’t need to know everything—deep expertise in one or two areas and an interest in keeping Azure architecture guidance accurate and current is what matters most. Please reply to this post if you’re interested in becoming an ARB member, and I’ll follow up with next steps. If you prefer, you can email me at v-jodimartis@microsoft.com. Thanks! 🙂How to Re-Register MFA
Working closely with nonprofits every day, I often come across a common challenge faced by MFA users. Recently, I worked with a nonprofit leader who faced an issue after getting a new phone. She was unable to authenticate into her Microsoft 365 environment because her MFA setup was tied to her old device. This experience highlighted how important it is to have a process in place for MFA re-registration. Without it, even routine changes like upgrading a phone can disrupt access to your everyday tools and technologies, delaying important work such as submitting a grant proposal. Why MFA is Essential for Nonprofits Before we discuss how to reset MFA, let’s take a step back and discuss why MFA is a necessity for nonprofits the way it is important for any organization. In the nonprofit world, protecting sensitive or confidential data—like donor information, financial records, and program details—is a top priority. One of the best ways to step up your security game is by using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). MFA adds an extra layer of protection on top of passwords by requiring something you have (like a mobile app or text message) or something you are (like a fingerprint). This makes it a lot harder for cybercriminals to get unauthorized access. If your nonprofit uses Azure Active Directory (AAD), or Microsoft Entra (as it is now called), with Microsoft 365, MFA can make a big difference in keeping your work safe. Since Microsoft Entra is built to work together with other Microsoft tools, it’s easy to set up and enforce secure sign-in methods across your whole organization. To make sure this added protection stays effective, it’s a good idea to occasionally ask users to update how they verify their identity. What Does MFA Re-Registration Mean for Nonprofits? MFA re-registration is just a fancy way of saying users need to update or reset how they authenticate, or verify, themselves. This might mean setting up MFA on a new phone (like the woman in the scenario above), adding an extra security option (like a hardware token), or simply confirming their existing setup. It’s all about making sure the methods and devices your users rely on for MFA are secure and under their control. When and Why Should Nonprofits Require MFA Re-Registration? Outside of getting a new phone, there may be other situations that raise cause for reason to re-register your MFA. A few scenarios include: Lost or Stolen Devices: Similar to the scenario above, if someone loses their phone or it gets stolen, you will have to re-register the new device. Role Changes: If someone’s responsibilities change, their MFA setup can be adjusted to match their new access needs. Security Enhancements: Organizations may require users to re-register for MFA to adopt more secure authentication methods, such as moving from SMS-based MFA to an app-based MFA like Microsoft Authenticator Policy Updates: When an organization updates its security policies, it might require all users to re-register for MFA to comply with new standards Account Compromise: If there is a suspicion that an account has been compromised, re-registering for MFA can help secure the account by ensuring that only the legitimate user has access With Microsoft Entra, managing MFA re-registration is straightforward and can be done with an administrator to the organization’s tenant. How to require re-registration of MFA To reset or require re-registration of MFA in Microsoft Entra, please follow the steps below. Navigate to portal.azure.com with your nonprofit admin account. Select Microsoft Entra ID Select the drop-down for Manage In the left-hand menu bar select Users > Select the user's name that you want to reregister to MFA (not shown). Once in their profile, select Manage MFA authentication methods Select Require re-register multifactor authentication Congratulations! The user will now be required to re-register the account in the Microsoft Authentication app.Intro to Functions in Excel for Nonprofits
Getting Started with Functions Excel provides a wide range of built-in functions that simplify data management. You can find these functions in the Formulas tab under categories like Text, Date & Time, Financial, and more. The Insert Function tool also allows you to search for functions by name and get guided assistance in applying them. When typing a function in a cell, start with = followed by the function name (e.g., =SUM). Excel will suggest matching functions and provide a tooltip to help you understand how to use them. 💡 Copilot for Excel can now assist in automating many of these calculations. Instead of manually writing formulas, you can ask Copilot to "sum all donations in column B" or "find the average grant amount." Copilot intelligently applies the correct functions, making Excel even more powerful for nonprofit teams. However, understanding the behind-the-scenes of how these functions work is still valuable—especially if you need to troubleshoot, customize, or work in environments where AI assistance isn't available. Now, let’s look at some practical examples tailored for nonprofits. Example 1: Calculating Total Donations Nonprofits often track donations in spreadsheets to monitor fundraising performance. If you have a list of donations in column I, you can calculate the total amount received by clicking under the donation entries and entering the SUM function: =SUM(H2:H11) You can also enter =SUM and then highlight the area of data you want summed up. This formula adds up all donation amounts in the range H2 to H11, giving you the total funds raised. Press enter to reveal the SUM. 👉 Use Case: This is useful for monthly or annual donation tracking, allowing you to report on fundraising progress to donors and stakeholders. Example 2: Finding the Average Grant Amount If your nonprofit receives multiple grants, you might want to find the average grant amount to understand typical funding levels. The AVERAGE function makes this easy: =AVERAGE(H2:H11) This formula calculates the mean grant amount from a list of grants stored in column H. Press enter to reveal the AVERAGE. 👉 Use Case: This helps nonprofits set realistic fundraising goals and benchmark funding expectations for future grant applications. Example 3: Finding a Donor’s Most Recent Contribution If you have a donor database and need to find the most recent donation from a specific donor, you can use VLOOKUP. Suppose donor names are in column A and donation amounts are in column B. To find the donation amount from John Doe, use: =VLOOKUP("John Doe", A2:B26, 2, FALSE) Let's break down the formula =VLOOKUP("John Doe", A2:B26, 2, FALSE): "John Doe": This is the value you want to search for in the first column of the specified range. In this case, you are looking for "John Doe". A2:B26: This is the range of cells where you want to perform the search. The function will look for "John Doe" in the first column of this range (column A) and return a value from the second column (column B) in the same row. 2: This is the column index number from which to return the value. Since the range starts from column A and goes to column B, the second column (column B) is where the function will look to find the value to return. FALSE: This specifies that you want an exact match. If "John Doe" is not found exactly in column A, the function will return an error.sxx This searches for "John Doe" in column A and returns the corresponding donation amount from column B. Press enter to find John’s donation. 👉 Use Case: Nonprofits can use this to quickly look up donor contributions when sending thank-you emails or preparing personalized reports. Example 4: Counting the Number of Volunteers Registered Many nonprofits rely on volunteers, and tracking engagement is crucial. If you have a list of volunteer sign-ups in column D, you can use COUNTA to count the total number of registered volunteers: =COUNTA(D2:D21) (Imagine this is for a data set of a much larger quantity “D5062”) This function counts all non-empty cells in the given range, giving you the number of registered volunteers. Press enter to get the count. 👉 Use Case: This helps organizations track volunteer engagement for event planning, program management, and reporting to grant funders. Wrapping Up Excel functions can significantly improve efficiency in nonprofit operations, helping teams manage donations, grants, volunteers, and more. By mastering functions like SUM, AVERAGE, VLOOKUP, and COUNTA, nonprofit professionals can streamline their data management and focus more on their mission rather than administrative tasks. 💡 While Copilot for Excel can automate many of these tasks, understanding the "old-school" way of using functions helps you troubleshoot, refine formulas for custom needs, and work in environments where AI may not be available. Next Steps 📌 Try these formulas on your own nonprofit data 📌 Explore additional functions like IF, COUNTIF, and INDEX-MATCH 📌 Consider Power Query for more advanced nonprofit reporting needs For additional insights and tips on mastering Excel Fundamentals, be sure to explore the blog posts below. Master Excel Like a Pro: Must-Know Tutorials & Templates for Nonprofits | Microsoft Community Hub Getting Familiar with Microsoft Excel | Microsoft Community Hub Getting Familiar with Microsoft Excel - How to Build a Data Table | Microsoft Community Hub Excel functions (alphabetical) - Microsoft SupportMigrate or modernize your applications using Azure Migrate
Introduction Moving to cloud is an essential step for enterprises looking to leverage the benefits of security, innovation (AI), scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency. To help unlock these benefits migration or modernization to Azure is critical for reasons such as colocation of IT assets. A crucial part of this transformation is understanding the current state of your IT infrastructure, including workloads, applications, and their interdependencies. Cloud migration is most effective when you can decide, plan and execute it holistically focusing on applications rather than focusing on individual servers or workloads in isolation. In our endeavour to both simplify and enrich your cloud adoption journey, we are evolving Application awareness in Azure Migrate that we introduced last year with features summarized below. Overview “The new design of Azure Migrate is much more intuitive, it allows us to group workloads into applications and track them throughout the migration journey. The Business Case Generator is a true game changer, providing insights that are ready for presentation at Leadership meetings. Azure Migrate continues to improve, making the execution of migration programs more seamless, faster, and secure. It has been an invaluable tool for our customers who are in the path of migrating to Azure” - Karthik Balachandran | Architect | EY Azure Migrate delivers a major evolution in cloud migration capabilities with application awareness. Here are key new features and why they matter: Multi-Server Dependency Mapping – Provides a holistic view of application topology, so you understand all server interactions before migrating. This reduces risk by ensuring no server is left behind and dependencies are respected during cloud transition. Software & Security Insights– Offers built-in intelligence on software inventory and vulnerabilities (e.g. highlighting outdated software and missing patches). This helps improve your environment’s security and stability as part of the migration journey, benefiting IT admins and security teams. Application definition & import– Allows you to treat applications as first-class citizens in Azure Migrate (not just tag groupings). You can create and manage app groupings easily, enabling a shift from managing individual workloads to managing whole applications in your migration project. Application migration or modernization RoI – Allows you to identify investments required in respective migration strategies as well as savings that would accrue as application are moved to Azure. Application Assessments– Delivers holistic migration plans per app, including recommended strategies (Rehost, Replatform, Refactor), target Azure services, sizing, cost estimates, and readiness checks. This empowers cloud architects to make informed decisions with an application-level focus. Code insight integration – GitHub Copilot assessment – Enables a developer-driven assessment loop by incorporating GitHub App Modernization Assessment reports. This tightens collaboration with dev teams and can dynamically adjust migration recommendations (e.g., flagging apps that need refactoring). CAST Highlight– Brings code-level analytics at scale into the migration plan. By importing CAST’s code scan results, you can identify technical debt and required code changes upfront, ensuring the recommended cloud approach truly fits the app’s codebase. Wave Planning with 1P Tool Integration– Provides a planning and execution framework to migrate in phases and launch the appropriate migration tools for each component seamlessly. This ensures end-to-end coverage – from migration scheduling to real-time execution – all within Azure Migrate. Capability deep dive Identify your applications using multi-server dependency mapping and subsequently define them One of the first steps in cloud migration planning is identifying application boundaries and dependencies. Azure Migrate’s new multi-server dependency mapping provides a rich visualization of how servers communicate with each other in your environment. This goes beyond the single-server dependency view of the past – now you can visualize an entire datacenter’s topology in one view. When you discover your on-premises environment, Azure Migrate’s agentless dependency analysis automatically begins mapping connections. It even measures connection strength, helping distinguish steady, critical communication from ephemeral connections. You can subsequently define applications, and assign metadata such as Name, type – Custom or Packaged (Commercial off the shelf), Criticality, Complexity (based on the number of dependencies), etc. Additionally, you can export your discovered inventory, assign application names in a spreadsheet, and import it back to quickly create many application grouping. You are free to refine or correct groupings, too. If during analysis you realize a server or workload was grouped incorrectly, simply update the application to add or remove that member (with no need to re-run discovery). Deleting an application grouping will not delete the underlying servers; it just removes the logical app wrapper, so you can reorganize safely as needed. Now, you can plan migrations by application units rather than individual workloads. This leads to more predictable outcomes (since all interdependent pieces move together), and it eliminates guesswork that used to come from manually correlating server relationships. Proactive Software and Security Insights Migration is not just about moving workloads – it’s an opportunity to remediate and improve what you have. The new Software and Security Insights surface critical information about your IT estate early on, so you can address potential issues before migration. Once your inventory is discovered, Azure Migrate now highlights: Software Insights:The portal flags certain software or OS components that might need attention or have cloud-friendly alternatives. For example, it might detect that some VMs run outdated middleware or unsupported OS versions. The tool provides recommendations for replacement or upgrade – e.g. suggesting you Repurchase a legacy product through Azure Marketplace or move to a SaaS solution for that functionality. This helps you plan modernization (repurchasing or upgrading software) as part of the migration project, rather than carrying technical debt to the cloud. Security Insights:Azure Migrate also integrates with security monitoring to detect vulnerabilities and missing updates in your servers. More importantly, it advises how to fix them: e.g. enabling Microsoft Defender for Cloud to address vulnerabilities, and using Azure Update Manager to apply pending updates. In essence, you get a mini security assessment alongside your inventory. These insights empower IT admins and security teams to tackle risks as part of migration planning. Rather than “lift-and-shift and then fix later,” you can remediate issues in parallel with migration, leading to a more secure and optimized environment on Azure. RoI for modernizing applications We are bringing in updates to Azure Migrate Business case to help ascertain the value you stand to gain by modernizing your applications – Custom or Packaged, as well as providing spend analysis across recommended migration strategies – Rehost, Replatform and Refactor. Holistic application assessments covering Infra-Data-Web tiers Application assessment builds on Azure Migrate’s existing server, database and webapp assessments, to give a migration game-plan for an entire application. It analyzes each component and then recommends An overall migration strategyamong Rehost, Replatform and Refactor, for the application under consideration. Migration readiness, and blockers that need to be addressed for respective strategy Target Azure Services and SKUs for workloads comprising the application Monthly cost estimates to run the application on Azure Migration tooling recommendations per workload comprising the application. Instead of piecemeal workload assessments, Cloud architects get a unified view per application – making it much easier to prioritize and plan. For example, you might discover that one application is an easy rehost (quick win), while another would clearly benefit from refactoring to eliminate costly components. Application assessments surface such insights with data, so stakeholders (including application owners and developers) can agree on a path forward with confidence. Ultimately, this leads to high-confidence migration plans and minimizes surprises during execution. Improve analysis with Code-Level Insights from Github Copilot assessment and CAST Most times, whether an application can be easily Replatformed or needs Refactoring depends on the application’s source code. Hence, we are bridging the gap between infrastructure and application development realities and are offering Integration with code analysis tools – GitHub Copilot assessment and CAST Highlight – to incorporate code-level insights into Azure Migrate’s recommendations. Talking about GitHub copilot – it is an indispensable tool for the application development. Developers can identify changes required in the code bases of their applications to make them ready for modernization to PaaS services such as AKS, App Service, etc. The cloud architect running Azure Migrate application assessment can request the application developers to ingest the code change insights from GitHub copilot assessment into Azure Migrate assessment. Once this report is ingested, you’ll see the Azure Migrate assessment refine its recommendations conclusively – such readiness, effort to make the code changes, migration strategy – depending upon whether the code changes are minimal or significant. Similarly, at-scale/ portfolio level code analysis performed using CAST Highlight, a prominent software intelligence platform, can be imported into Azure Migrate to improve the assessment recommendations. In practice, this means Azure Migrate will know if the code has, say, outdated libraries or many hard-coded dependencies that make cloud migration harder. Overall, the integration of code insights leads to more realistic migration plans and smoother hand-offs between cloud infrastructure teams and dev teams. Wave Planning and Integrated Migration Execution After discovering applications, assessing them, and incorporating any code insights, you’re ready to migrate or modernize – but large migrations often happen in phases. That’s where the new Wave Planning feature comes in. Wave planning in Azure Migrate helps you organize and sequence the actual migration execution in waves or batches, plan the migration activities and execute using integrated first party migration tools and track the end-to-end migrations; thereby providing a single place where different users – Cloud architects, developers, application owners, etc. can collaborate and coordinate through the migration journey. If your strategy for an application (or a particular server in the application) is Rehost (lift-and-shift to Azure VMs), Azure Migrate will use its built-in Server Migration capability. You can start the replication of that server to Azure right from the wave plan. If your strategy is Replatform or Refactor and involves migrating data, the wave plan can redirect you to Azure Database Migration Service (DMS). All these integrations mean you can coordinate multi-step migrations from one place. Wave planning is aware of various target strategies and helps orchestrate them, so cloud administrators don’t have to juggle separate tool interfaces for VMs vs. databases vs. web apps. As each part of a wave completes, Azure Migrate updates the wave status for Rehost scenarios and users can manually update the status’ for Refactor or Replatform scenarios where some steps may take out of band. Interested in trying the new feature set and experience? All the above features are available in Azure Migrate now (in preview as of 7 th November, 2025). Just create a new Azure Migrate project and you’ll be greeted with the new interface. From there, you can start defining applications and exploring these capabilities with your own data. About Azure Migrate Azure Migrate is Microsoft’s free platform for migrating and modernizing to Azure. It provides IT resource discovery, assessment, business case analysis, wave planning, migration, and modernization capabilities in a workload agnostic manner. You can run and monitor your migration/ modernization journey from a single, secure portal. Currently, Azure Migrate's application aware experience supports the discovery of following workloads: Windows Server, Linux Server, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, .NET webapp on IIS, and Java on Tomcat running on various platforms including, VMware, Microsoft, Bare-metal, AWS EC2, GCP CE, and Xen. Further, it supports assessments and wave planning for Azure VM, Azure VMware Solution (AVS), Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure SQL Database, Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server, App Service Code, App Service Containers, and Azure Kubernetes Service. Last, it supports in-line Lift and Shift migration to Azure VM and Azure Local. Note: MySQL discovery and assessment is available in the classic experience only
Unlock cost savings with utilization-based storage recommendations in Azure Migrate
We’re thrilled to announce a game-changing enhancement in Azure Migrate. The storage utilization-based recommendations, a feature designed to help you right-size your storage workloads and maximize savings. By focusing on actual storage usage instead of allocated capacity, you can significantly reduce costs and accelerate their cloud journey. This feature brings a new level of precision to your migration planning and business case. Why This Matters In our analysis across thousands of on-premises environments, we observed a striking trend: nearly 40% of allocated storage is overprovisioned. This means customers are paying for capacity they don’t actually use. Traditional assessments often rely on allocated storage, leading to inflated cost estimates and suboptimal resource planning. What’s New Azure Migrate now honors actual storage utilization rather than allocated capacity when generating: Assessment recommendations for right-sizing your storage workloads. Business case calculations for accurate cost projections. This shift ensures: Lower migration cost projections: Pay for what you use, not what you’ve overprovisioned. Optimized cloud footprint: Reduce unnecessary storage allocation in Azure. Faster ROI: Build a business case that reflects true utilization, accelerating decision-making. Customer Impact By leveraging utilization-based insights, organizations can unlock significant savings and operate with greater efficiency. For example, if 40% of your storage is overprovisioned, this feature could cut your projected Azure storage costs dramatically, freeing up budget for innovation. How to Get Started Deploy an appliance in your on-premises environment. Build the business case or create an Azure Migrate Assessment for your on-premises workloads. Review the utilization-based recommendations in your assessment report or business case. Learn More Visit Azure Migrate documentation for detailed guidance and start optimizing your migration journey today.
Recovering windows 10 password
While attempting to remove antivirus that slow downs my windows., it prompted to restart. It took long to restart but the processing sign was working.. after a while when it restarted windows it was stuck on boot screen for a while and I had to force shutdown. I tried couple of times but same result. Windows recovery was activated and it showed options to recover and it prompted for the password that I had long forgotten as I used to sign-in through pin. And the password was local not associated with Microsoft account. So I'm locked out and I can't loose the data.. please can anyone any genius help me !!!Preparing for Your Organization’s AI Workloads – Student Learning Pathways
This structured plan helps students: Plans | Microsoft Learn Build foundational knowledge of AI in the cloud. Learn how enterprise-level infrastructure supports responsible, scalable AI deployments. Explore governance and monitoring strategies to ensure security and compliance. And the best part? It’s built using Microsoft’s existing training resources plus some brand-new modules to give you an edge. Your AI Readiness Journey on Azure 🎯 Milestone 1: Getting Started with AI on Azure https://learn.microsoft.com/training/paths/introduction-to-ai-on-azure/ Begin with the basics—from machine learning concepts to practical uses of Azure AI services. 🛡️ Milestone 2: Infrastructure Essentials https://learn.microsoft.com/training/paths/manage-iam-for-ai-workloads-on-azure/ https://learn.microsoft.com/training/paths/manage-network-access-ai-workloads/ Learn how enterprises secure access and manage identities—critical for real-world applications. 📊 Milestone 3: Monitoring AI Services https://learn.microsoft.com/training/paths/monitor-ai-workloads-on-azure/ Discover how businesses ensure their models perform safely and consistently at scale. 🏛️ Milestone 4: Advanced Management & Governance https://learn.microsoft.com/training/paths/ai-workloads-governance/ Master how organizations prevent data leaks and enforce responsible AI usage. 🆕 New Training Content Just for You To make this roadmap even more student-friendly, Microsoft has introduced updated and brand-new modules, including: Azure ML Authentication & Authorization Secure Azure AI Services Restrict Workspace Network Traffic Monitor Azure ML Prevent Data Exfiltration Govern AI Services with Azure Policy 🔗 Ready to Dive In? Whether you're exploring a career in AI or just getting started with Azure, these learning paths will level up your skills while helping you understand how real-world teams manage complex AI workloads. Start your journey on Microsoft Learn and become the architect of tomorrow’s intelligent systems. 💡 Would you like a version formatted for your internal newsletter or maybe something more conversational for social media? I can easily tailor it to fit the tone or medium you're aiming for.
