CLOUDY MUSINGS

I have been attending Microsoft events in one form or another for a long time, and I have learned that the first wave of conference reactions is usually not where the real story lives. The first wave is always loud. It's the keynote clips, the social posts, the product names, the demos, and the inevitable rush to figure out which announcement is the announcement everyone should be talking about. That's useful to a point, but I usually find the more interesting story a little

You'd be surprised by the kinds of questions I get from customers these days. A lot of them start in places that feel familiar enough. Someone wants to understand Microsoft's decision to deprecate WSUS. Someone else is trying to figure out whether Azure Update Manager makes sense for their environment. Another customer is looking at Linux for the first time after spending most of their career in Windows-centric shops. On the surface, those sound like completely different conv

One of the more interesting things about enterprise AI adoption is how quickly people become comfortable with these tools. We spent years teaching users to be skeptical of links, cautious with downloads, thoughtful about where sensitive data goes, and generally a little suspicious of shiny new software. Then AI assistants showed up, proved useful in about thirty seconds, and a lot of that caution went straight out the window. Suddenly people are pasting customer contracts in

There is a common and risky assumption in Microsoft Security Support belief I hear more often than I probably should, especially in large enterprise environments where a customer may have an Enterprise Agreement (EA): We have an EA and Enterprise Support. Microsoft will take care of us if something bad happens. I understand where that belief comes from. Enterprise Agreement sounds comprehensive...thorough, even. Enterprise Support sounds like you are covered no matter what. O

I was reminded of Conway’s Law the day I watched an episode of The Bear where Carmy tried to redesign the entire kitchen workflow in the middle of lunch service. Onions were flying. Pans were screaming. Richie yelled “cousin” every twelve seconds. Sydney was five seconds away from either fixing everything or throwing a stainless steel pan into the alley. Half the staff looked like one more missed step would send them into a new career that involved silence and scented candles

Picture this: you have built a castle in the cloud, filled with all your Azure workloads. Everything looks amazing, but is it safe, strong, and efficient? Will it handle a sudden rush of traffic or unexpected outages? The Azure Well-Architected Review is Microsoft’s framework to provide "best in class" cloud adoption as you undergo digital transformation. Microsoft also has a corresponding assessment tool that helps you examine and strengthen your castle. They suggest runnin

Cloud security feels a little like alphabet soup sometimes. You hear terms like CSPM , CNAPP , CWPP , CIEM — and it can all start to...

If you're just joining me at this post, I now have 9 previous blogs that cover APIs in hopes of demystifying developer technology a bit....

Hey friends! After I posted my last blog article, I figured folks may want a quick way to change TLS to 1.2 for all Windows servers...