The Cloud Architects Podcast

The word DevOps seems to be everywhere at the moment, I can't open LinkedIn without coming across a bunch of posts and articles talking about DevOps. What does it all mean, and more specifically why should IT Pros care about something that seems at first glance to be very much related to software development? I recently caught up with fellow MVPs Simon Waight and Michel de Rooij in an attempt to understand what it is and why it is something worth paying attention to. Simon Waight is an Azure MVP from Australia who's career focus has been on the building of online software solutions resulting in a deep understanding of the technologies used and challenges faced when working in this space. He has a wide-ranging set of experiences having worked as both a consultant and an FTE and filled varied roles from development, to architecture, to release and team management. You can follow Simon on Twitter https://twitter.com/simonwaight and visit his blog at blog.siliconvalve.com Michel de Rooij is a Dutch Office Servers and Services MVP and Consultant who spends his time helping customers navigate the challenges associated with migrating to Office 365 for Exchange and related technologies. Michel's background as a developer helps him automate processes and develop supporting tools. Michel blogs at eightwone.com and you can follow him on Twitter https://twitter.com/mderooij

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been on everyone's mind recently. GDPR became enforceable today, 25 May 2018 and is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union. It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU and aims primarily to give control to citizens and residents over their personal data and how that data is used. It seems a lot a organizations left their GDPR strategies to the very last minute - I received a lot of GDPR related email this week! What does it all mean and why should we care? We had the pleasure of talking to Tony Redmond about it recently. Tony Redmond has been writing about electronic mail since 1992 and is widely regarded as one of the foremost commentators on Microsoft collaboration technology. Tony has written 15 books and is the lead author of Office 365 for IT Pros which is the most practical and up-to-date guide to everything Office 365 related I've come across - and it is updated weekly. I encourage you to follow Tony on Twitter (https://twitter.com/12Knocksinna) and to check out his weekly posts on petri.com.

In this episode, live from Tech Summit 2018 In Cape Town South Africa, Warren catches up with Bernd Verst, Bernd is an awesome and passionate Microsoft Developer Advocate that works directly out of Seattle, coming from companies like Google and Twitter, Bernd hails from the same team as Donovan Brown and Jessica Deen at Microsoft and makes sure Microsoft Technology always keeps the developer in mind when it comes to products. Warren and Bernd discuss the various Cloud offerings from different Vendors, awesome new technology and early adoption with a couple of Life hacks and believe it or not, they walk about the weather! You can find Bernd on Twitter https://twitter.com/BerndVerst Blog https://readon.ly/ Github https://github.com/berndverst Bernd is also active on the Microsoft Developer Advocates Website and Community here. https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/index.html https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/bernd-verst Bernd is also active on the Microsoft Developer Advocates Website and Community here. https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/index.html https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/bernd-verst This Episode is brought to you by Plantronics ! See the Amazing 8200UC in action. https://youtu.be/mQF8WsNN3jE https://youtu.be/yJ68MMciTYE https://youtu.be/I3wjofTXZoQ https://www.plantronics.com/hk/en/product/voyager-8200-uc

In this Episode, Nic and Warren had the privilege of interviewing the legendary Mary-Jo Foley, Mary-Jo has been covering the tech industry and Microsoft for almost 3 decades. Starting off with Berillum Copper Wire, advancing to Unix, then landing in the Microsoft ecosystem. In this episode, we see the human side of Mary-Jo Foley. Mary-Jo’s career has spanned many highlights, including interviewing all three leaders of Microsoft, being banned by Microsoft as well as shunning for being a journalist. Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 30 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008). She also is the cohost of the "Windows Weekly" podcast on the TWiT network.

The telecommunications industry has come a long way since the days of manual service telephone exchanges. We caught up with fellow MVP Greig Sheridan late last year to talk about Skype for Business, Teams and the evolution in technology he has experienced in his 30+ years in the industry. Greig has worked in the telecommunications industry in Sydney, Australia, since finishing high school in the 1980s. Having entered the industry as an Apprentice Technician with Telecom Australia, he’s today the “Practice Lead - UC” for Generation-e, a leading Microsoft partner with a focus on the modern workplace, UC and Audio-Visual solutions. You can check out Greig's blog at greiginsydney.com or connect with him on Twitter - twitter.com/greiginsydney

In this incredibly interesting episode, Warren and Nic catch up with Joe Baguley from VMware to talk what it's like speaking live in front of 90 million people and geek out about virtualization, edge computing and the endless possibilities enabled by AI. Joe Baguley is VMware's Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for EMEA, He helps develop and communicate VMware's strategy and vision with customers and partners, using his wealth of experience to help organizations reduce costs and better support users and business needs. As part of VMware's Office of the CTO and its representative in EMEA, Joe assists VMware's customers in understanding how to use today's advances in technology to deliver real business impact as well as working with them to inform VMware's R&D processes. You can find Joe on Twitter @JoeBaguley

Mobility has been a hot topic for some time - in fact, IDC forecasts that the U.S. mobile worker population will surpass 105 million by 2020. Organizations often struggle when trying to provide flexibility and a choice of devices on the one hand and retain control of sensitive data and security on the other. We sat down with fellow MVP Steve Goodman at Microsoft Ignite late last year to discuss a simplistic approach to implementing Device Management and why it needn't be so complex. Steve Goodman is a Principal Tech Strategist at Content and Code, a top Microsoft partner. He works with Office 365, Exchange and Skype for Business and you’ll find him either deep into a complex Exchange Hybrid implementation or in front of a crowd extolling the virtues of Office 365 Groups & Microsoft Teams. If you’d like to get in touch with Steve, you can visit his blog at https://www.allabout365.com or find him on Twitter as @stevegoodman

SharePoint can be intimidating, especially for those of use who don't work with it everyday. In this episode, WonderLaura tells us why SharePoint isn't so scary and we discuss some of the SharePoint announcements at Ignite. Laura Rogers is a SharePoint expert, speaker, author and educator. She is well-versed in helping organizations make the most of their SharePoint environments using out-of-box functionalities such as workflows, forms and Web parts. She is the owner of IW Mentor, a SharePoint training company. Laura’s technical expertise also includes over 13 years of experience working with Microsoft’s messaging and collaboration systems. She has been named a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for the past 7 years. Laura runs the Birmingham (AL) SharePoint User Group. She has contributed to several books on SharePoint over the past eight years. You can find Laura on her blog (wonderlaura.com) or on Twitter (twitter.com/wonderlaura). Be sure to check out IW Mentor if you are looking for SharePoint training (www.iwmentor.com).

Change can be difficult for any organization. Changing the working culture of your user population and driving product adoption can seem overwhelming, especially when applying traditional principles and adoption practices to today's cloud world. We sat down with Patience Wootton at Ignite recently to understand what it means to be an Office 365 Product Owner and talk about change, driving user adoption and being an early Microsoft Teams adopter. Patience is the Office 365 Product Owner within Dentsu Aegis Network, the global media group that specializes in Media, Digital and creative Communications services. In this role she is responsible for driving the change, release and adoption of Office 365 applications into the business. The most recent to launch was Microsoft Teams, which saw a surge in productivity through global cross-brand collaboration. Patience is passionate about creating a modern workplace and a culture of empowerment and teamwork across our 50+ brands within the network. Check out Patience's "Collaborate in a chat-based workspace with Microsoft Teams" session from Ignite here: https://myignite.microsoft.com/sessions/53211

OneDrive for Business has come a long way since it was initially launched and has earned it's place as a leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Content Collaboration Platforms. We sat down with Stephen Rose at Ignite recently to talk about some of the exciting new things that will be coming to OneDrive soon. Stephen Rose leads product marketing for OneDrive for Business on the SharePoint/OneDrive team. In addition to speaking at conferences around the globe, he is a regular contributor to the Office and OneDrive blogs. In his previous roles, Stephen spent 8 years on the worldwide and US Windows teams launching Windows 7, 8, and 10, owning IT pro readiness and deployment. Stephen holds over 15 technical certifications and has been a MCT and MCSE since Windows NT. In 2015, he was awarded the Microsoft 2015 Circle of Excellence Platinum Club award. Stephen Rose can be found on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephenlrose