by Contributed | May 19, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Welcome back to Reconnect, the biweekly series that catches up with former MVPs and their current activities.
This week we are thrilled to be joined by none other than four-time titleholder Praveen Nair! Hailing from Kochi, India, Praveen is a passionate technology enthusiast who believes in giving back to the community in the form of knowledge.
Praveen currently works as the Program Director for Adfolks LLC, a full-service catalyst for transformation in the cloud. Most recently, Praveen has been working on architect business applications and data management projects, as well as working with pre-sales and marketing teams to provide business and technology solutions, largely in Azure and .NET.
When he’s not working, Praveen remains active with his regional tech community. The tech professional volunteers with the Kerala Microsoft Users Group (K-MUG) as a regular speaker and event organizer. Praveen says his ethos is to “help and get help,” and that he enjoys inspiring and working alongside fellow members of the community.
For newcomers to the MVP program, Praveen advises: “Not to worry or desire for the result but perform one’s karma. Recognitions will flow automatically when you concentrate on the objectives.” Looking forward, Praveen hopes to conduct more technology events, write more articles and help online communities.
For more information on Praveen, check out his Twitter @ninethsense and blog.
by Contributed | May 19, 2021 | Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Did you know that mixed reality business applications like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2 can help reduce waste from a lean management perspective? We invited Six Sigma Black Belt and Kaizen expert Laura Riley, Senior Business Program Manager from the Microsoft Cloud Operations and Innovations team to share her perspective on how using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2 in Microsoft’s datacenters has helped staff avoid unnecessary travel, boost uptime, and save costs all while reducing waste.
Q: Tell us a bit about how Microsoft first started using mixed reality for datacenter management and operations.
Laura Riley: The opportunity to tap into the power of mixed reality solutions in our datacenters really came about because of a combination of factors. These included:
- The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, shift to employees working from home, global lockdowns, and travel restrictions with countries shutting borders. The lockdown essentially forced a turbocharge of plans for the way we work.
- Phenomenal demand for Microsoft cloud offerings as people relied on cloud computing to support remote work, school, and play.
- Landlords, smart hands, and vendor travel restrictions
- Complex New Edge Technologies being deployed to the field at a faster pace
- Engineering teams could not travel onsite to do their routine inspections and checklists of our Critical Environment systems due to the travel lockdowns
- Current methods of developing and delivering does not scale at the pace that we need them to in order to provide the user with a fully immersive learning experience
- Limited human resources for travel, site Selection, commissioning, and final turn over to Operations
- Audits within Microsoft (PCI, SOC, FedRamp, HKMA) required to progress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Auditors were required to perform audits remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and required technology that would allow them to perform their activities to support not only our internal evidence but evidence for our customers to ensure we are operating within the secure guidelines for our datacenters.
Q: What did your team use Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2 for?
Laura: We had several Dynamics 365 Remote Assist use cases within our organization. For starters, our team required an immediate shift as part of our COVID-19 pandemic response to meet the demand of our customers. The COVID-19 pandemic escalated the need to have hands on the ground to meet this demand. We first launched Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2 in our Cloud Operations Supply Chain within the Global Regional areas to assist with performing critical activities that were either halted, stalled, or delayed due to restrictions with travel and having SMEs available to perform the work. Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and HoloLens 2 using Augmented Reality allowed for immediate ROI while improving the outcome.
From then on, we expanded our use case to include zero-waste inspections, and as well as a plethora of other activities including:
- Remote Audits (PCI, FedRamp, SOC, HKMA, others)
- Critical Environment Quality Inspections
- Construction and Turn-Over to Operations Inspections
- NPI New Product Introduction
- Break-Fix
- Deployments
- EHS
- GOLD and Learning & Development
- Edge Sites
- Factory Witness Testing
- IT/CE Smart Hands
Q: So how did Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2 help your team reduce waste from a lean management perspective?
Laura: The mixed reality solution enabled us to achieve a number of quantified benefits, including:
- Increased efficiency, including improved first-time fix rates
- Increased safety for employees
- Reduce machine downtime
- Minimize risk of downtime with proactive remote audits and inspections
- Enhanced training and improved knowledge transfer between employees
- Enable hands-free work especially for employees that need both hands free to work
- Enable real-time, 3D annotation-supported collaboration among team members
- Improve client-facing interactions
- Drive better remote access processes
- Minimize or in some cases even eliminate travel costs
- Offer design-focused employees more tools to boost productivity
- Boost knowledge transfer between seasoned and new employees
- Providing interactive, 3D digital service instructions
- Ability to display critical information, including service details, associated with a machine right in the context of our real-world environment
- “I see what you see” live video-conferencing for effective communication
- Ability to display interface options that are not accessible on the physical machine.
- Faster Learning curve for trainees, again reducing time spent to onboard new employees
That said, the biggest waste reduction probably stems from time saved on non-value-adding activities via travel avoidance where possible. Using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and HoloLens effectively reduced travel for our IT Program Managers performing Construction Inspections by 90 percent. Our team of Construction PMs now uses Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and HoloLens 2 instead of traveling to the sites, effectively performing remote inspections through the field technicians on the ground.
Below are the key benefits we were able to achieve with mixed reality:
- Improved Collaboration: Field Technicians can now be instructed by Subject Matter Experts with visibility into their work via “see what I can see” and 3D annotation capabilities at the physical location without having to travel. Escalations and support calls become more effective and efficient as Engineering teams can now see what the field technicians are doing in real time, while instructing work activities.
- Improved Work/Life Balance: Dynamics 365 Remote Assist gave the Auditors time back in their day to perform other critical activities time which would otherwise have had to be spent traveling around the globe. Performing compliance audits using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist was a game changer, per Lee Moscal, a Microsoft Auditor. It demonstrates our ability to save costs associated with travel and improve the auditor’s work/life balance. We perform approximately 75 audits per fiscal year with six auditors traveling to various locations across the Regions. The impact helped reduced travel nine times around the globe for six auditors traveling to those locations.
- Sustainability and Carbon Negative Goals: Using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist for our Zero Waste Program helped improve sustainability due to reduced travel thus our carbon footprint. It also helped save time associated with performing those inspections. We were also able to improve the quality and reduce the time it took to obtain evidence reviews all while effectively cutting down on training required to perform these inspections.
- Critical Environments Reduced Costs: There are many exciting opportunities to gain efficiencies in Commissioning using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist.
- Improved Learning: Dynamics 365 Remote Assist enables trainers to provide visual and verbal step-by-step instructions remotely. Trainees can now carry out required tasks hands-free and independently with the support of mixed reality.
Learn more about Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2
Read the full Microsoft Datacenter story, “Microsoft enhances datacenter audits, management with mixed reality using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2”.
Learn more about Dynamics 365 Remote Assist.
Learn more about the overview, features, and specs of Microsoft HoloLens 2.
The post Mixed reality meets lean management: how Dynamics 365 Remote Assist streamlines Microsoft datacenter operations appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.
Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
by Contributed | May 19, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Customers rely on the Microsoft Information Governance and Records Management solutions to help govern the lifecycle of content and manage content to meet compliance regulations. Our goals are to make it easy for customers to address compliance in Microsoft 365 and tailor our solutions to meet unique business needs. We are committed to helping organizations manage risk through appropriate governance and today we are accelerating our investments in these areas.
Today, we are excited to announce the following items:
Announcing multi-stage disposition approval
Many compliance requirements or organizational policies require approval before the deletion of records. Often this review process has multiple phases and involves numerous groups of people. Previously, Microsoft Records Management allowed only one stage of review.
Today, we are announcing the public preview of multi-stage disposition approval. Multi-stage disposition approval is available today worldwide in all commercial tenants. Please try these features and give us your feedback. This release includes several groups of new features, including:
- The ability to specify a multi-stage approval process in retention label settings
- Improvements to the reviewer experience
- Additional features for records management admins
We will cover each of these areas in-depth in the following sections.
Configure a multi-stage approval process
Records management administrators can now configure up to five stages of disposition approval in a retention label’s settings. This ability allows you to customize the disposition process to meet the needs of your organization. For each stage, you can specify users or mail-enabled security groups that should be solicited for their approval.
Figure 1: The multi-stage disposition settings screen, showing three stages and configuration options
If you already have retention labels configured for disposition review, then you can edit it to use multi-stage disposition.
You can learn how to configure a retention label to use multi-stage disposition in our documentation.
Disposition review experience improvements
Firstly, we overhauled the disposition experience for approvers to make it faster and easier to use. When reviewers visit the disposition review area, we trim the file list to show them only the items they need to approve, rather than all files awaiting approval. Reviewers can also sort the list of available files by location, such as a specific SharePoint site or mailbox.
Figure 2: The review disposition screen, showing the list of items requiring approval and a document preview
Next, we improved the view of files for reviewers. Users can click on a file to view its contents in a mini-preview pane directly in the review experience. We also added the ability for reviewers to add other reviewers to approve certain items in addition to the existing actions of approving disposition, retention extension, or relabeling the item.
Lastly, reviewers now have more context to help with their review decision. The new history and details tabs enable reviewers to see an item’s review history, including who has approved the item before and their comments.
To learn more about the disposition reviewer experience, please see our documentation.
Enhancements for records managers
We enhanced the records manager experience with the multi-stage disposition release. Records managers can now customize the email sent to reviewers letting them know that there are items pending review. Records managers can append text to the standard system message. This feature allows the records manager to highlight specific processes and documentation within their organization. The customization of the message will apply to all labels. Learn more about customizing the disposition reviewer email here.
Next, while reviewers only see items that require their approval, records managers will be able to see all items pending disposition. To configure this view, the records manager will need to complete a one-time setup. Please see our documentation for the setup instructions.
Lastly, the new multi-stage disposition review process fully supports multi-geo environments. If needed, reviewers can review content not located in their geographical location.
Expansion of Microsoft Teams message retention and deletion
With the rise in remote work, organizations want to govern Teams messages using retention and deletion policies. Today we are excited to announce that Teams retention policies are available to all paid Office 365 licenses, including F1, F3, E1, G1, business basic, and business standard. Organizations can use retention policies to keep or delete Teams messages according to their policies.
This update includes managing messages in Teams chats, conversations, private channels (currently in private preview) and connect channels when they launch. It consists of both commercial and government cloud environments. Please note that for users with one of the above licenses, the supported minimum retention or deletion period is 30 days. For more information about the timings for Teams retention policies, see How retention works with Microsoft Teams.
For instructions to set up a retention policy, see Create and configure retention policies.
Sign up for the private preview of adaptive policy scopes
Today, we are also announcing the private preview for adaptive policy scopes. This new functionality allows admins to create attribute-based retention or label policies that can be scoped to geography, department, other user, group, or site attribute. For example, admins can create a policy specifically for users in the UK’s human resources team using an adaptive policy scope.
Adaptive policy scopes are especially useful for retention policies where you want to exclude or include specific users, sites, or groups. Currently, when manually including or excluding locations there are limits per policy. However, adaptive policy scopes are not subject to these per-policy limits and will automatically and dynamically manage policy membership as users change roles without any manual intervention.
This private preview program is open to all qualified organizations who are interested in early access to this feature and help shape the future of it. Completing the form does not guarantee access to the private preview. If you would like to participate in this preview, please complete this form: https://aka.ms/MIPC/AdaptiveScopes-Preview
Our latest SharePoint governance performance improvements
Some solution releases are not evident in the user interface of a product but have an enormous impact on our customers. Throughout the last year, we invested heavily in performance improvements for the service powering Microsoft Information Governance and Records Management for SharePoint and OneDrive.
The specific performance improvements are related to increasing the number of items we can label and delete per tenant in one week. Initial telemetry in SharePoint and OneDrive from this update has shown an increase of approximately 700 times more deletions per week and 10 times more items labeled per week compared to a year ago. For some large organizations this means over 75 million items deleted and well over 200 million files labeled per week.
The improvements released are aimed at exponentially increasing the scalability of the service within each tenant. This helps large organizations when they first begin to use Microsoft Information Governance and Records Management. It is also useful when configuring a new action with a large scope and there is a lot of content to initially label and delete.
Other recent Microsoft Information Governance feature releases
Since September 2020, we have also released several other Microsoft Information Governance and Records Management features, including:
- Yammer retention. Admins can now create retention policies to manage Yammer messages when the Yammer network is in native mode. Yammer retention is rolling out worldwide now
- Ability to delete an unused record label. Previously, admins could not delete retention labels marked as a record. Now, you can delete these labels if they are not applied to content or used in a policy. This feature is now available worldwide
- Target a Microsoft 365 group policy to only SharePoint or Exchange. Previously, when you had a retention or labeling policy targeting Microsoft 365 groups, the policy would always apply to both the SharePoint site and the Exchange group mailbox associated with the group. Now you can target the retention policy to both or just one location through PowerShell. This feature is rolling out worldwide now
- A modernized accessible user experience. As we continue delivering on our promise of accessibility across all Microsoft’s products, the user interfaces for Microsoft Information Governance and Records Management are now WCAG 2.1 compliant
- SharePoint Syntex content processing integration. Continuing our investments integrating compliance scenarios with SharePoint Syntex intelligence, users can now automatically apply a retention label to content that matches a forms processing model. SharePoint Syntex content processing helps you to automate capture, ingestion, and categorization of content and streamline content-centric processes using Power Automate. A common example is using SharePoint Syntex to process invoices
We hope these announcements make it easier for you to govern your content and use the Microsoft Information Governance and Records Management solutions. We cannot wait for you to try these features! Please let us know in the comments if you have any questions. We would also love to hear how you plan to use these features!
by Contributed | May 19, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
When a race that Chris Dinnel had been training for was canceled in 2020, he used the time for a different kind of training and earned the first of three Microsoft Certifications. Not long after, the effort paid off in a new job more closely aligned to his career goals.
We recently spoke with Dinnel, now Dynamics 365 Administrator/IT Technician at SBS CyberSecurity, to find out more about how preparing for and earning certifications helped his career and how he worked with the exam prep content on Microsoft Learn.
“Let’s see what happens!”
As a system administrator with a cybersecurity background, Dinnel was looking for something new. “My interest was shifting more to cloud infrastructure,” he explains. Dynamics 365 caught his eye when he researched it for a possible project at the company where he previously worked. Even though the project didn’t pan out, his interest remained.
Around this time, his summer vacation plans fell through—like so many plans in 2020. Instead of competing in a challenging physical endurance race, he used the time off to challenge himself mentally and began studying for the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate certification, which required that he pass Exam AZ-104.
He studied the course content on Microsoft Learn. “There’s a ton of valuable materials there, and it’s free. I told myself, ‘Let’s see what happens!’”
To stay on track, he used the lure of certification. He spent a few months studying the Azure Administrator coursework before taking—and passing—the exam. When he saw that this material was a prerequisite for Microsoft Certified DevOps Engineer Expert certification (Exam AZ-400), he decided to study that next and see if he could earn another certification.
“I just studied hard and kept asking myself, ‘Is this something I want to get into?’” The exam prep became a way of exploring career paths and assessing his next steps as he looked for a new job. “Along the way, I realized that I didn’t want to go back to the type of programming I used to do,” he notes.
“If there’s an opportunity, I’m open!”
When Microsoft sponsored a free Virtual Training Day event for Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Fundamentals certification (Exam MB-901), Dinnel signed up. These types of events give participants the opportunity to expand their skill sets and to connect with Microsoft experts, which he did.
“Once I got into Dynamics 365 fundamentals, I was really impressed with the quality of the training and how engaging the content was,” he explains. “It sparked this new interest in the whole concept of the ‘dataverse.’”
Dinnel was so impressed with the Virtual Training Day event for Dynamics 365 that he posted about it on LinkedIn, praising the instructor, Microsoft Technical Trainer Chelsea Lee.
Lee noticed the post and replied, as did an old programming friend of his. The friend wondered how interested Dinnel was in Dynamics 365, because it just so happened that his company wanted to add an in-house Dynamics 365 administrator to its workforce.
“I said, ‘That sounds like a great pivot,’” Dinnel remembers. “I said, ‘If there’s an opportunity, I’m open!’” After a round of interviews, he landed the job—just a few months after starting his self-directed learning odyssey.
“A very good way of presenting the content in a concise, down-to-earth way”
Microsoft started Virtual Training Days in 2020 to provide a free resource to people who wanted to know more about Microsoft products, like Dynamics 365. The fundamentals event is two half-days of training that prepare the participants for certification exams.
Dinnel mentioned the convenience of the half-day programs. “The scheduling made it easy to get time off, rather than a whole day where you’re completely unavailable.”
He points out that not only did the format work well, but also the quality of the training was impressive. “Chelsea was very engaging, and she had a very good way of presenting the content in a concise, down-to-earth way that also was easily understandable in real-world terms. That’s what mattered to me.”
Next year, Microsoft plans to roll out more Virtual Training Days to include additional Dynamics 365 technologies.
Virtual Training Days are free to all participants. Microsoft creates the content, and experienced technical trainers like Lee teach the classes.
In addition to the two-day fundamentals trainings, five-day instructor-led programs are available, based on organizational roles, such as administrator, system architect, and developer. These role-based certifications guide participants along a learning path specific to the role they have or aspire to.
In addition, Microsoft Learning Partners can help individuals and organizations meet their training and development goals. Learning Partners are expert consultants that can customize a program uniquely suited to individual and group needs. Many offer hands-on labs, a mix of self-paced and classroom training, custom content, role-based learning paths, exam and certification prep, and more.
“One of the most valuable things I’ve learned so far”
The Dynamics 365 fundamentals training gave Dinnel more insight into relational database structures—something he hadn’t studied in the past. “I’m not a database administrator, but technically, that’s been one of the most valuable things I’ve learned so far,” he explains. “Just drawing the lines between tables, getting exposure to different aspects of data structures—I’m really enjoying that.”
“A great way to get exposed to technology and learn new things”
Dinnel may have missed that race last summer, but he came out ahead anyway with three Microsoft Certifications that led to a better paying position as a Dynamics 365 system administrator. He spent about two months studying before he earned his first certification. Within six months, he had a new job that he loves.
“When I started interviewing, I had a gap in my résumé in hands-on experience with different technologies,” he explains. “Ultimately the certifications were the foundation on which I could build practical experience.”
When asked to offer advice to others looking to move in a new direction, Dinnel notes that there’s no substitute for hands-on experience. “But certification is a great way to show people that you can take initiative and communicate that kind of abstract concept, like self-motivation, that is otherwise hard to show on a résumé.”
Want to pursue your own learning journey in Dynamics? Check out other Dynamics 365 certifications. As Dinnel points out, “The majority of employers know that the skills will have to be taught on the job, regardless of the amount of training. But the certifications are a great way to get exposed to technology and learn new things.”
by Contributed | May 19, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Azure Arc and the Azure control plane enables Security Engineers to take care of Cloud Governance and make sure that their hybrid and multi cloud environment are configured in a secure and compliant state.
In this blog post, we are going to have a look at Azure Arc for Security Engineers. Azure Arc allows you to extend Azure management and Azure services to anywhere. Meaning that you can manage and govern resources running across hybrid and multi cloud environments, and bring services such as Azure SQL Database and Azure PostgreSQL Hyperscale to your on-premise datacenter, edge location, or other cloud providers. Since Azure Arc can help in many different scenarios. I wanted to summarize how Security Engineers, IT Administrators, IT Operators can take advantage of Azure Arc.
Azure Arc
Azure Arc simplifies governance and management by delivering a consistent multi-cloud and on-premises management platform. Azure Arc enables you to manage your entire environment, with a single pane of glass, by projecting your existing resources into Azure Resource Manager. You can now manage virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, and databases as if they are running in Azure. Regardless of where they live, you can use familiar Azure services and management capabilities. Azure Arc enables you to continue using traditional ITOps, while introducing DevOps practices to support new cloud-native patterns in your environment.
Azure Arc Management Overview
This provides you with a single control plane for your hybrid and multicloud environment.
Azure Arc for Security Engineers
Let’s have a look at some key Azure Arc scenarios for Security Engineers.
Use the Azure Portal to gain central visibility
In hybrid and multicloud environments, it can be difficult for Security Engineers to get a central view of all the resources they need to manage. Some of these resources are running in Azure, some on-premises, at branch offices, or even at other cloud providers. By connecting resources to the Azure Resource Manager using Azure Arc, Security Engineers can get central visibility of a wide range of resources including Windows and Linux servers, SQL server, Kubernetes clusters, and Azure services running in Azure and outside of Azure.
Azure Arc and Azure resources in the Azure Portal
Organization and Inventory
The single control plane using Azure Resource Manager lets you organize and inventory assets through a variety of Azure scopes, such as management groups, subscriptions, resource groups, and tags.
Azure Arc Tagging
Azure Resource Graph
Establish central visibility in the Azure portal and enable multi-environment search with Azure Resource Graph. This allows you to run queries against the Azure resource graph and provide you with a centralized view of all your resources running in Azure and outside of Azure.
Manage Access
As a Security Engineer, you want to make sure that only people who need to have access can access to these systems. You can delegate access and manage security policies for resources using role-based access control (RBAC) in Azure. With Azure Arc enabled servers, we are seeing customers removing the local access for administrators and only provide them access to the system in the Azure portal using Azure Arc and Azure Management services. If you run in multiple environments and tenants, Azure Arc also integrated perfectly in Azure Lighthouse. Azure Lighthouse is especially interesting for managed services providers.
Role-based Access Control
Update Management
As a Security Engineer, one of your jobs is to make sure that all the systems have the latest updates and patches installed to protect against vulnerabilities. Often customers spend hours orchestrating or deploying patched or building automation for their patch management. With Update Management you can manage operating system updates for your Windows and Linux servers. It allows you to schedule and automate patching for your servers.
Update Management
Monitoring
You do not just want to manage your systems; you also want to monitor them and make sure that you get alerted in case anything is happening which you disrupted your environment and applications. You can monitor your Kubernetes clusters and containers, Linux, and Windows Servers. Azure Monitor provides you with monitoring guest operating system performance and discover application components to monitor their processes and dependencies with other resources the application communicates using VM insights.
Monitoring
One of the great features in Azure Monitor which can help Security Engineers is the Microsoft Dependency agent. This provides you with information about the incoming and outgoing connections to a specific server.
Azure Monitor Map
Log collection and analytics
Log collection and analytics can be very helpful to a Security Engineer in many ways. With Azure Log Analytics you can collect, sort, filter, and analyze your logs centrally. It allows Security Engineers to get a central view of all the security logs of the systems they manage. These logs can also be used for thread hunting using Azure Sentinel.
Microsoft Azure Sentinel is a scalable, cloud-native, security information event management (SIEM) and security orchestration automated response (SOAR) solution. Azure Sentinel delivers intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence across the enterprise, providing a single solution for alert detection, threat visibility, proactive hunting, and threat response.
Change Tracking and Inventory
With change tracking and inventory, you can get an overview of the changes happening in your environment and get an inventory of software installed on your Windows and Linux servers.
Change Tracking and Inventory
Certificate Management
You might have managed certificates on your servers using Active Directory and Group Policies for your local environment. In hybrid cloud or mutlicloud environments, servers are often not even domain joined. That can make managing certificates a challenge. With a combination of the Azure AD Managed Identity assigned by the Azure Arc agent and Azure Key Vault you can easily and securely deploy and manage certificates to your Windows and Linux servers.
Security Center
Making sure that your servers and Kubernetes clusters are secured is often a challenging task, especially in a hybrid or multicloud environment. With Azure Security Center you get threat detection and proactively monitor for potential security threats for your Azure Arc resources. It allows you to deploy Azure Defender for servers and Azure Defender for Kubernetes to your hybrid and multicloud resources.
Security Center
Get compliance state
As an IT Pro you want to know if your servers or Kubernetes clusters are compliant with the company policies. Or you are even in charge to make sure that all your systems are configured correctly and secure. This is where Azure Policy Guest Configuration on your Azure Arc enabled servers can help you to make sure that everything is compliant.
Azure Policy
Next steps
Learn more about Arc enabled servers, see the following overview
Learn more about Arc enabled Kubernetes, see the following overview
Learn more about Arc enabled data services, see the following overview
Experience Arc enabled services from the Jumpstart proof of concept
Also, check out my video on how to manage your hybrid cloud using Azure Arc on Microsoft Channel 9.
https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/IT-Ops-Talk/Manage-your-hybrid-cloud-environment-using-Azure-Arc/player?WT.mc_id=modinfra-23498-thmaure
Conclusion
Azure Arc enables Security Engineers and others with the right tooling to manage and operate hybrid and multicloud resources such as Windows and Linux servers, Kubernetes clusters, and other resources. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.
by Contributed | May 19, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Microsoft 365 Defender automatically expands incidents to tell the full story of an attack.
It does this by leveraging the unique position which enables it to look across workloads and automatically expand the incident story, after all malicious activities are not generated in a void – there is something out there, logged by another workload, which can add insights. And this is exactly what we are doing in Microsoft 365 Defender; generating incidents based on other alerts that are triggered from the different detection sources, like, MDE, MDO, MDI and MCAS.
We are excited to introduce a new alert page for these detections. The new page provides additional, enriched information providing greater context into an attack. Security professionals can now see which other triggered alert caused the current alert and all the affected entities and activities involved in the attack, including files, users and mailboxes.
For example; an alert from Microsoft Defender for Office 365 might imply that a user’s credentials have been stolen. Once the alert is triggered, Microsoft 365 Defender will automatically search for other activities within the organization that are related to this user. This could include a mass data read event within several minutes of the credentials being breached.
Opening or viewing a large number of files may not be an indicator of a breach on its own but with the context of the credential theft alert it becomes a major concern. Microsoft 365 Defender recognizes the related context of these activities and the risk that an attacker is accessing large amounts of user data.
Using these alerts, the security analyst can see which files have been accessed, and in which applications and directories. They can also see the alerts and the relevant context. All of this information is correlated into a single incident that would also include other relevant alerts showing lateral movement, persistence, or further infiltration related to the same attack. With this breadth and depth of visibility the SOC can respond quickly and holistically across the entire attack from a single dashboard.
Microsoft 365 Defender leverages AI to automatically expand an investigation, just like an experienced analyst would. This allows your SOC team to focus on what matters: keeping your organization safe.
To learn more about incident in Microsoft Threat Protection go to the following links:
by Contributed | May 19, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Recording of the Microsoft Teams monthly community call from May 18, 2021.
Call Summary
Latest news from Microsoft engineering on Microsoft Teams updates and community assets.
Register for Microsoft Build. Sign up for May trainings on Sharing-is-caring. Visit the Microsoft Teams samples gallery to get started with Microsoft Teams development. See the new Microsoft 365 Extensibility look book gallery co-developed by Microsoft Teams and Sharepoint engineering. Get the Microsoft Teams Toolkit (Controls) – “Designing your Microsoft Teams app” with layout guidance and reusable assets. Three great demos delivered during this session. The host of this call was Vesa Juvonen (Microsoft) | @vesajuvonen. Q&A takes place in chat throughout the call.
Actions:
- Register for Microsoft Build, May 25 – 27, 2021 – https://build.microsoft.com
- Register for Sharing is Caring Events:
- First Time Contributor Session – May 24th (EMEA, APAC & US friendly times available)
- Community Docs Session – May
- PnP – SPFx Developer Workstation Setup – June
- PnP SPFx Samples – Solving SPFx version differences using Node Version Manager – May 20th
- AMA (Ask Me Anything) – Microsoft Graph & MGT – June 8
- AMA (Ask Me Anything) – Teams Dev – June
- First Time Presenter – May 25th
- More than Code with VSCode – May 27th
- PnP Office Hours – 1:1 session – Register
- Download the recurrent invite for this call – https://aka.ms/microsoftteamscommunitycall
- Call attention to your great work by using the #PnPWeekly on Twitter.
Microsoft Teams Development Samples: (https://aka.ms/teams-samples)
Always a highlight to see you here. Enjoy Microsoft Build. Looking forward to seeing you in person at an event one day.
Demos delivered in this session
Introduction to Microsoft Teams Developer Portal – Meet the new and improved app management console for developers. Access the tools portal from a browser and from within Microsoft Teams client. This is the place to add – register and configure your Teams apps. New safeguards to prevent apps from having same app IDs. Key areas differentiating portal from App Studio called out. Access App Source from portal.
Elevate user experiences with Universal Actions on Teams and Outlook – deck, demo and documentation about consistent message (action) handling across apps (Teams, Outlook and more) using Adaptive Cards with the new Action.Execute action type. User takes action on either Teams or Outlook and action is reflected on the other platform. Vacation approval scenario shows contextual views and sequential workflows on Teams. Excellent documentation, quick start guide and code samples.
Getting started on building Microsoft Teams meeting apps – step through meeting extensions – pre-meeting (tab – a poll), in-meeting (side panel tab, pop-up, extension, and bot) and post-meeting (tab). Understand needed manifest updates. Microsoft Forms is a great meeting extension. Demo – create a meeting, add the Forms app to it and observe how Forms does configuration. Meeting extensions are built on top of tabs, bots and messaging extensions.
Thank you for your work. Samples are often showcased in Demos.
Topics covered in this call
- News and updates – Vesa Juvonen (Microsoft) | @vesajuvonen – 3:35
Demo: Introduction to Microsoft Teams Developer Portal – Karthig Balendran (Microsoft) | @KarthigBalendr1 – 10:20
Demo: Elevate user experiences with Universal Actions on Teams and Outlook – Shiladitya Saha (Microsoft) – 23:30
Demo: Getting started on building Microsoft Teams meeting apps – Rick van Rousselt (Advantive) | @RickVanRousselt – 36:54
Resources:
Additional resources around the covered topics and links from the slides.
General resources:
Upcoming Calls | Recurrent Invites:
Microsoft Teams monthly community calls are targeted at anyone who’s interested in Microsoft Teams development topics. This includes Microsoft Teams, Bots, App templates, Samples, and more. Details on the Microsoft 365 community from http://aka.ms/m365pnp. We also welcome community demos, if you are interested in doing a live demo in these calls!
You can download recurrent invite from https://aka.ms/microsoftteamscommunitycall. Welcome and join in the discussion. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, feel free to provide your input as comments to this post as well. More details on the Microsoft 365 community and options to get involved are available from http://aka.ms/m365pnp.
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Microsoft 365 PnP team, Microsoft – 19th of May 2021
by Contributed | May 19, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
A nice customer success story from Hong Kong.
“Azure Lab Services provides more flexibility in classes and allows the faculty to engage better with students. We spoke to students and found they enjoyed their freedom to access hands-on practical experiences more frequently, and they value the time they save by not needing to visit the campus to test or finish their homework. Overall, our students and faculty members are happy with this seamless transition between the physical and virtual learning environments provided by Azure Lab Services.”
https://news.microsoft.com/en-hk/2021/04/13/polyu-cpce-and-microsoft-hong-kong-launch-virtual-labs-for-limitless-learning/
by Contributed | May 18, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Step 1: Retrieve all the internal SharePoint ids of the all Pages in the “Site Pages”
https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites('spotenant.sharepoint.com,df6ba610-0000-0000-0000-ba2733d0182e,e0dbcdc6-0637-0000-0000-49aaa1ce4d37')/lists('190b9516-0000-0000-0000-90fe7360d416')/items?select=sharepointids
Sample Output:
{
“@odata.etag”: “”6967cfed-0000-0000-0000-b480c1764375,3″”,
“sharepointIds”: {
“listItemId”: “1”,
“listItemUniqueId”: “6967cfed-0000-0000-0000-b480c1764375“,
“siteId”: “df6ba610-0000-0000-0000-ba2733d0182e”,
“tenantId”: “d6f932a7-0000-00000-0000-b27004970776”,
“webId”: “e0dbcdc6-0000-0000-0000-49aaa1ce4d37”
}
},
Step 2: Select any Pages “listItemUniqueId” retrieved in Step 1 and make following call:
https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites('spotenant.sharepoint.com,df6ba610-0000-0000-0000-ba2733d0182e,e0dbcdc6-0637-0000-0000-49aaa1ce4d37')/lists('190b9516-0000-0000-0000-90fe7360d416')/items('6967cfed-0000-0000-0000-b480c1764375')/analytics/alltime?$expand=activities
Data returned below:
{
“aggregationInterval”: “None”,
“startDateTime”: “0001-01-01T00:00:00Z”,
“endDateTime”: “0001-01-01T00:00:00Z”,
“isTrending”: false,
“access”: {
“actionCount“: 345,
“actorCount“: 6,
“timeSpentInSeconds”: 0
},
“incompleteData”: {
“missingDataBeforeDateTime”: “2018-09-21T19:20:43Z”,
“wasThrottled”: false,
“resultsPending”: false,
“notSupported”: false
},
“activities”: [
{
“id”: “00000”,
“activityDateTime”: “2021-04-12T17:59:12Z”,
“location”: {
“address”: {
“city”: “”,
“countryOrRegion”: “”,
“postalCode”: “”,
“state”: “”,
“street”: “”
}
},
“access”: {},
“actor”: {
“user”: {
“displayName”: “Admin SPOTenant”,
“email”: “admin@spotenant.onmicrosoft.com”,
“id”: “faaa2e55-0000-0000-0000-c774a83bbbde”,
“userType”: “Internal”
}
}
},
{
“id”: “00001”,
“activityDateTime”: “2020-12-12T01:03:30Z”,
“location”: {
“address”: {
“city”: “”,
“countryOrRegion”: “”,
“postalCode”: “”,
“state”: “”,
“street”: “”
}
},
“access”: {},
“actor”: {
“user”: {
“displayName”: “Alex Darrow”,
“email”: “alexd@spotenant.onmicrosoft.com”,
“id”: “e81cac19-0000-0000-0000-4c938b101a33”,
“userType”: “Internal”
}
}
}
]
}
by Contributed | May 18, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Today we’re posting a known issue in the message center as a follow-up to a service health dashboard post. We will keep this blog post (it’s what’s referred to in the message center post) updated as needed!
Follow-up to IT256796 – Users unable to view passcode setup screen when enrolling devices through ADE
We recently posted IT256796 on your service health dashboard. Customers enrolling devices through Apple Device Enrollment (ADE) discovered that they couldn’t view the passcode screen and therefore setup a passcode during enrollment. Upon investigation with Apple, this is a known issue in the iOS/iPadOS release 14.5 and 14.5.1. There is a workaround, described below.
How this will affect your organization:
This will only affect you if you use ADE and configure an iOS/iPadOS ADE setup assistant profile to use the Show Passcode screen as part of the enrollment process.
What you need to do to prepare:
You can allow/show biometrics such as TouchID (which also enables FaceID) which will then present the passcode prompt. We will post this message to the Intune Customer Success blog (that’s this post!) as well and will keep the blog updated with the latest from Apple or if there’s any additional workaround Intune can implement.
BTW – here’s where you configure TouchID for your setup assistant profile in the Microsoft Endpoint Manager console:
Create an ADE profile and show Touch ID
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