[Guest Blog] How to take your company to the next level using Mixed Reality

by Contributed | May 17, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

This guest blog was written by Mario López, Innovation Team Lead in Bravent and a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) as part of the Humans of Mixed Reality series. He shares his passion about Mixed Reality and how the companies can integrate it.

Today’s reality is shifting – now everything is connected to the internet with gadgets for pretty much everything. Our car gives us directions and the weather of our destination, our fridge lets us know when it’s time to do groceries, and a slew of other different devices now help us with many things and help us stay productive. As far as we know, life is easier with the Internet.

This new reality has also made an impact on the way companies work and their productivity. For example, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can be implemented in several processes to automate tasks like customer service or even machinery maintenance.

Nevertheless, although we all know that digital transformation is a must for every kind of business, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a stark contrast in the before and after version of implementation of new technologies. Mixed Reality business applications like Dynamics 365 Remote Assist with HoloLens 2 has helped a lot of businesses improve their productivity and cope with complex challenges that the pandemic brought on. For example, now companies can leverage remote expert support without having to fly anyone across borders, or even conduct remote audits and inspections!

I remember the first time that I tried on the first generation of HoloLens back in 2016. The experience was completely incredible – I was very impressed with how this device was able to interact with the real-world environment and how the user was able to see holograms. But this was only the beginning – in 2019, the HoloLens 2 was released, and everything changed. I was excited to witness the evolution of mixed reality happen, and the dramatic impact it has on our lives.

This new version was completely improved with more comfortable interactions, wider field of vision (FOV), improved hand-tracking, etc. Most importantly, Microsoft decided to focus all of these improvements and features for the need of enterprises and key industries like manufacturing, airspace, military and more.

This new version and updated version is carefully tailored to be used in a business manufacturing environment. Microsoft offers us its new suite of Mixed Reality business applications within Dynamics 365:

• Dynamics 365 Remote Assist: a Mixed Reality tool to gain assistance from remote experts from any part of the world, with instant, real-time collaboration and 3D holographic annotations right within one’s physical work environment.


• Dynamics 365 Guides: a Mixed Reality tool to do guided, step-by-step training for employees with digital overlays.


• Dynamics 365 Product Visualize: a Mixed Reality tool for showcasing and customizing products.

All of these applications are readily available from the Microsoft Store, and you just need to purchase the license to use it. In fact, for Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, you don’t even need to purchase a head-mounted device; you can use it on iOS and Android mobile devices too! Also, its synchronization with Microsoft Teams makes it easier for users to adapt to.

Here in Spain, a few companies like Bravent where I work, have experimented with the use of Mixed Reality and HoloLens for our own clients. In the last year, due to the pandemic, we were able to implement it on a special company.

Gurutzpe is one of the biggest manufacturing companies in the north side of Spain. At the time of the pandemic, they were already an innovative business, however, Mixed Reality was not on their radar. The main part of their business was to provide full-time assistance to their end clients by dispatching engineers to the client facility and helping solve any issue. Due to the traveling restrictions, this became an important- and seemingly impossible- challenge to face.

When we show them all the potential of HoloLens and Mixed Reality, there were no hesitations. Bringing Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens 2 and leveraging Mixed Reality enabled them to assist their clients from their office to a client that is in any place of the world.

The implementation of this helped them not only for their main business use case, but also on the cost optimization (significant reduction) of traveling and its associated expenses. Additionally, now they are able to seamlessly provide remote expert assistance any time and solve problems faster than before, enhancing their customers’ experience.

I am very proud to be part of this kind of projects and very excited about the future that awaits us.

If there’s one message for you to take away, it’s this: Mixed reality is no longer a thing of the future, it is the present.

This technology is more powerful than ever and the value that can brings to a company is immense. Certainly, they will continue to improve day by day and new applications will appear that provide even more value, so betting on this technology will be a guaranteed success for any business. I encourage you to experience this for yourself – you will be amazed!

#MixedReality #CareerJourneys

MidDay Café Episode 10 – Microsoft Teams Large Events and Microsoft Teams for Home

by Contributed | May 17, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Microsoft Teams steals the spotlight in this week’s MidDay Café podcast. First up the panel discusses the release of Microsoft Teams Large Events (Webinars) and what it brings to large organizations. The panel closes out with a discussion of the newly announced Microsoft Teams for Home and its features for bring together friends and family.

Resources:

• Introducing Webinars in Microsoft Teams: Easy, professional webinars to engage customers – Microsoft 365 Blog


• Microsoft Teams Webinar Guide


• Use Teams with Friends and Family | Microsoft Teams

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• The MidDay Café Blog Board 


• Subscribe to the MidDay Café YouTube Playlist  


• Audio Podcast Subscriptions




• Audio Podcast RSS Feed 


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• Subscribe to the Audio Podcast on Radio Public 

Thanks for visiting – Michael Gannotti   LinkedIn | Twitter 

Michael Gannotti

Session Auto Transcript:

00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:24.500
Michael Gannotti
And welcome to mid day Cafe episode 10. This Monday, 5/17/2021. Today we’re going to be discussing Microsoft Teams large meetings as well as Microsoft Teams for home. I want to welcome our panelists to the podcast today, so if we can start with Scott and we’ll kind of do a round Robin Scott, you want to introduce yourself.

00:00:25.890 –> 00:00:30.920
Scott Moore
Sure, I’m Scott warm teams techno technical specialist here with it off and life Sciences.

00:00:31.860 –> 00:00:34.130
Michael Gannotti
Excellent and Sue.

00:00:34.870 –> 00:00:42.100
Sue Vencill
I see wenzel. I am also a teams technical specialist on the team with these crazy cats. Happy to be here.

00:00:43.030 –> 00:00:46.160
Michael Gannotti
And last but never least, Pete.

00:00:47.620 –> 00:00:54.170
Pete Anello
Pete Anello, I’m also a teams technical specialist within the healthcare or on the East, so.

00:00:54.820 –> 00:00:57.390
Pete Anello
Raw Royal peers and in this together.

00:00:58.790 –> 00:01:16.390
Michael Gannotti
And I’m your host Michael Gannotti, and I’m the same as them, so we’re all the same. We’re like the compadres here, so I want to welcome everybody. We have a lot to cover today for mid day Cafe, so why don’t you go ahead? Grab your Cup of techno goodness.

00:01:16.950 –> 00:01:21.800
Michael Gannotti
Caffeinate up and let’s get ready to ride. So for our first topic.

00:01:22.750 –> 00:01:26.150
Michael Gannotti
We’re bringing up this. Why saved you for last, Pete?

00:01:27.000 –> 00:01:37.790
Michael Gannotti
It’s now you go. First we’re going to bring up Mr. Pete and now low to talk about large meetings and what they are and why you want to know.

00:01:29.090 –> 00:01:29.600
Pete Anello
Yeah.

00:01:39.380 –> 00:01:39.620
Pete Anello
Yeah.

00:01:39.770 –> 00:01:40.620
Pete Anello
Thanks, Mike.

00:01:41.910 –> 00:02:12.570
Pete Anello
We announced last week we’ve been talking about it for a long time in our customers have been really anxious, you know, chomping at the bit for large meeting, support for pretty much as long as I can remember. We finally committed to it, and we’ve been waiting patiently, almost day by day, week by week, and ultimately it led to on the 11th. We announced that large meeting support was rolling out within teams within the Web, and R space so.

00:02:12.950 –> 00:02:21.220
Pete Anello
That’s a interactive meeting up to 1000 participants and then it can scale up to 10,000.

00:02:17.400 –> 00:02:17.790
Michael Gannotti
Well, well.

00:02:19.000 –> 00:02:20.470
Michael Gannotti
Woah woah woah.

00:02:21.890 –> 00:02:23.600
Michael Gannotti
Whoa, how many?

00:02:24.200 –> 00:02:25.150
Pete Anello
1000

00:02:26.920 –> 00:02:29.360
Michael Gannotti
I just had to do that ’cause.

00:02:28.810 –> 00:02:32.470
Pete Anello
is that did I? Is that what I said or did I say something else?

00:02:31.400 –> 00:02:36.940
Michael Gannotti
Yes, because but a lot of folks have no idea. We were rolling that out.

00:02:31.760 –> 00:02:32.060
Sue Vencill
He’s

00:02:32.180 –> 00:02:32.720
Sue Vencill
shop.

00:02:38.690 –> 00:02:50.870
Pete Anello
Yeah, a lot of our customers a lot of my customers hound me almost weekly on when this feature is coming out, but many may not know that it is coming out. But yeah, 1000.

00:02:51.500 –> 00:02:55.920
Pete Anello
Active participants and then it has the ability to scale.

00:02:57.490 –> 00:03:28.350
Pete Anello
Additional night an additional 19,000 participants to be view only, so that’s 20,000 users can be within a web web and are the first thousand are interacting just like the four of us are here. You know. Obviously you want presenter attendee controls and policies in place, but it can scale up to 20,000 and those additional people will be able to experience that webinar, but interview only capacity.

00:03:29.940 –> 00:03:35.030
Michael Gannotti
That is awesome. Comments questions from the Gallery here.

00:03:37.890 –> 00:03:38.780
Michael Gannotti
It’s quiet.

00:03:39.260 –> 00:03:46.590
Pete Anello
I want to test one. It’s hard, it’s hard to get a test of those together ’cause not many of us know 1000 people that can.

00:03:47.580 –> 00:03:52.220
Pete Anello
Or 1002 who can help on a call at a specific time?

00:03:52.580 –> 00:03:52.780
Sue Vencill
Yeah.

00:03:52.680 –> 00:03:52.930
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.

00:03:52.830 –> 00:03:53.110
Sue Vencill
Yeah.

00:03:53.970 –> 00:03:54.900
Michael Gannotti
No, you’re right.

00:03:55.630 –> 00:04:21.640
Michael Gannotti
Stand up, but some of the things oh I thought was interesting. Not only the scale but the controls that it brings in some of the features that I actually have a meeting right after this to talk about this with the customer because they want to do like for certain events and stuff they want to have a registration page you want to track and do all that. So anybody want to speak to that piece?

00:04:23.570 –> 00:04:25.070
Michael Gannotti
You may be educate me.

00:04:26.940 –> 00:04:34.550
Pete Anello
I mean, you definitely have the ability to register the Wet Wet web and are now put in specific questions and.

00:04:31.150 –> 00:04:31.350
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.

00:04:35.500 –> 00:04:47.400
Pete Anello
Fields that are required to answer and then when that webinars over there’s there’s a report that you can run to see you know who joined when they joined, how long they joined for.

00:04:48.560 –> 00:05:01.780
Michael Gannotti
Nice so all that tracking capability. How about some of the advanced controls that it kind of brings front and center around the because thousand people can be. That’s a lot of interactive people.

00:05:02.470 –> 00:05:03.140
Pete Anello
Yep.

00:05:02.590 –> 00:05:07.850
Michael Gannotti
Right, So what are some of the things you seen that it does with that?

00:05:09.070 –> 00:05:25.080
Pete Anello
Yeah, so it’s important that you know when you are going to have an event like that to identify who’s gonna be your you know presenters or your you know. And who’s going to be your attendees and identify them out of the gate.

00:05:24.560 –> 00:05:24.580
Scott Moore
Uh.

00:05:25.710 –> 00:05:54.590
Pete Anello
At that point, you know you can do things like hard mute, everyone, hard mute peoples cameras, right? So you know thousand people. You might only want a specific group of people to be able to show their camera because of just the sheer volume. So those controls are there and there is some thought that needs to go into manage in an event that size. And having those sort of pre defined roles ahead of time is important.

00:05:36.550 –> 00:05:36.930
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.

00:05:56.980 –> 00:06:03.930
Michael Gannotti
Yeah, I think for when I looked at it, for me it was the the really cool thing we’ve got. We’ve had meetings.

00:06:04.580 –> 00:06:05.690
Michael Gannotti
Right, forever.

00:06:07.970 –> 00:06:12.810
Michael Gannotti
He’s going to attend to the Weed, Wacker disappeared into the jungle. There he goes.

00:06:08.460 –> 00:06:08.810
Sue Vencill
Yes.

00:06:13.700 –> 00:06:14.590
Pete Anello
Sorry.

00:06:14.160 –> 00:06:29.020
Michael Gannotti
But you know, we’ve had the meetings forever. We have live events, which is a very controlled experience, typically delivered by people with domain expertise around webcast. But this kind of fall squarely in the middle of those two.

00:06:30.360 –> 00:06:50.790
Pete Anello
It brings them together, right? It’s like Reeses peanut buttercup, right? Like 2 great taste it. You just have it all in one right there. So and then it gives you flexibility. You know where before with the smaller meeting limit. You know you might not expect to hit that target and then you do, and you’re kind of like stuck.

00:06:41.120 –> 00:06:41.590
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.

00:06:51.310 –> 00:06:51.860
Michael Gannotti
Uh-huh

00:06:51.480 –> 00:06:56.190
Pete Anello
This allows it to be elastic, so you don’t. You don’t have to worry as much.

00:06:52.780 –> 00:06:52.800
Scott Moore
Uh.

00:06:57.210 –> 00:07:17.510
Michael Gannotti
yeah I I think it’s great. It’s a you got those controls you have the you know the big thing with setting the mute and unmute and we’ve played with it a bit where you know setting up that meeting an you can have them already pre muted so they join the audio video working but then you have the ability.

00:07:18.210 –> 00:07:23.050
Michael Gannotti
To release that so if they you know if they say in chat and you want to have them speak.

00:07:24.000 –> 00:07:28.610
Michael Gannotti
That’s all presenter controlled, and that’s pretty awesome.

00:07:29.840 –> 00:07:40.230
Pete Anello
So one of the things that they put it in the announcement last week was a getting started guide for teams webinars where it covers all these things in details.

00:07:38.180 –> 00:07:38.610
Michael Gannotti
Nice.

00:07:40.480 –> 00:07:40.970
Michael Gannotti
Uh-huh

00:07:42.470 –> 00:07:49.170
Pete Anello
We can share it at the end, but it’s aka Ms slash teams web and R slash guide.

00:07:49.930 –> 00:07:50.930
Michael Gannotti
so what’s that again?

00:07:50.000 –> 00:07:50.350
Pete Anello
Uh.

00:07:51.930 –> 00:07:53.830
Pete Anello
AKA dot Ms.

00:07:54.920 –> 00:07:56.960
Pete Anello
Slash teams web and R.

00:07:58.210 –> 00:07:59.530
Pete Anello
Slash guide.

00:07:59.910 –> 00:08:01.000
Michael Gannotti
Slash guide.

00:08:02.470 –> 00:08:12.130
Michael Gannotti
Cool, yeah, we’ll definitely will share the link in the post afterwards. Anybody else been seeing discussion? People asking for this kind of stuff?

00:08:13.210 –> 00:08:14.520
Michael Gannotti
Some use cases.

00:08:18.490 –> 00:08:29.550
Pete Anello
One of the earliest. An first, an probably one of the more valid use cases I heard of early on, was from one of our provider customers.

00:08:27.090 –> 00:08:27.110
Scott Moore
Uh.

00:08:30.200 –> 00:08:36.310
Pete Anello
Who has clinics over 20,000 clinics in the US and clinics across the globe?

00:08:37.470 –> 00:08:38.310
Pete Anello
They.

00:08:39.120 –> 00:08:44.850
Pete Anello
Cooperate with one another when there are disasters and catastrophes worldwide.

00:08:45.990 –> 00:09:16.770
Pete Anello
You know, so there may be severely plugging in a certain part of the Saphir flooding in certain parts of the country and things like sterilized gloves, equipment like that, some basic fundamental provisions are ruined so they work as a cooperative and they have essentially these very long 1220 hour calls that go on that can sometimes have 100 to 800 people on him.

00:08:59.860 –> 00:09:00.290
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.

00:09:16.940 –> 00:09:27.470
Pete Anello
Where it’s essentially like a freed live auctioneers block, right like hey, we have a design disaster on X. We need XY and Z. Who has it?

00:09:28.310 –> 00:09:28.750
Michael Gannotti
Wow.

00:09:28.390 –> 00:09:42.730
Pete Anello
Uh, so their their main thing was we don’t know when they’re coming in there. We don’t know when their joining, but it can get very large and we’re talking about a disaster situation, right? So we can think about a lot of stuff. We just need to be able to spin it up.

00:09:44.100 –> 00:09:51.190
Pete Anello
And I thought that was a really solid use case, and we brought that back to engineering. Probably like 3, three and a half years ago.

00:09:52.910 –> 00:09:53.540
Sue Vencill
Is the one.

00:09:53.130 –> 00:09:57.360
Michael Gannotti
Very cool that is need anything from anybody else.

00:09:58.240 –> 00:09:58.930
Michael Gannotti
On this.

00:10:01.180 –> 00:10:05.690
Sue Vencill
One day you won’t be able to shut me up one day, alright?

00:10:04.980 –> 00:10:14.880
Michael Gannotti
That’s alright, and I see Scott. He’s been like reading over our next topic intently. ’cause it just released like Scott, are you there?

00:10:10.850 –> 00:10:11.720
Sue Vencill
Yeah he is.

00:10:21.230 –> 00:10:22.530
Scott Moore
They teams for home.

00:10:23.250 –> 00:10:46.190
Scott Moore
So this is now a consumer version of teams that we have out there today where anyone with an email address they can register and they can download teams with that identity. So you can now use teams features you know associated with that identity so you can instant message you can peer to peer call, you can have meetings, well, peer to peer meetings that is.

00:10:47.830 –> 00:10:56.280
Scott Moore
But there’s it. It does definitely extends all these capabilities now and through the consumer space. You know there’s even some use cases out there where you can assign task.

00:10:56.880 –> 00:11:15.390
Scott Moore
In a shared To Do List in teams, you can even do instant polling. So you could you know schedule a pole with the participants in the in that perpetual chat and say hey, what do you guys wanna do this weekend? You guys want to go camping or you know go to the race track or.

00:11:16.090 –> 00:11:27.140
Scott Moore
Or whatever you know you can do those type of things inside of teams you know in the consumer you know version you can schedule and share meeting invites there. That really opens up a lot of different capabilities.

00:11:27.820 –> 00:11:31.990
Scott Moore
It’s really cool ’cause it you know some of the use cases that are being shown in the public website.

00:11:33.330 –> 00:11:42.670
Scott Moore
Or really around, you know, giving it to your kids, you know and using that as a as a communications. You know mechanism with your kids. Everybody has their own teams identity.

00:11:43.250 –> 00:11:48.770
Scott Moore
Yeah, you can keep track of your kids you know. Assign them to clean their room. Wash the dishes.

00:11:49.580 –> 00:11:54.980
Scott Moore
You know, and they can keep keep track of them there. So it’s really interesting.

00:11:50.380 –> 00:11:51.320
Sue Vencill
Somebody is thinking.

00:11:55.420 –> 00:12:00.900
Sue Vencill
I think it’s a lot of value to. You can have an hour long call with up to 100 people.

00:11:55.550 –> 00:11:56.010
Michael Gannotti
Well.

00:12:01.110 –> 00:12:01.420
Michael Gannotti
Wow.

00:12:02.000 –> 00:12:09.150
Sue Vencill
So, and this is all free. And then if it’s a 101 furry free.

00:12:05.540 –> 00:12:06.390
Michael Gannotti
Wait, how much?

00:12:09.790 –> 00:12:11.210
Scott Moore
Free, free, free free.

00:12:09.870 –> 00:12:10.410
Sue Vencill
Free.

00:12:11.600 –> 00:12:29.480
Sue Vencill
And then if it’s a one on one up to 24 hours, I don’t. There’s not a soul out there. I would want to talk to you for 24 hours, but it’s there. It’s it’s in there and Pete posted the link at 12:15. If you all want to scroll up and take a look that’s a nice public link, send it out to your friends and family and check it out.

00:12:30.240 –> 00:12:45.000
Michael Gannotti
Yeah, will include that in the post as well. One of the other things I thought was interesting so you can register with that email right and download that. And I like the scenario or talking about with you know parents and kids.

00:12:30.250 –> 00:12:30.700
Sue Vencill
It’s fun.

00:12:45.990 –> 00:12:58.410
Michael Gannotti
Especially as kids are returning back to school parents going back to work and they are physically disparate. But for the parent, when they go back to work, they’re probably using teams.

00:12:59.030 –> 00:13:00.950
Michael Gannotti
Do they gotta download two clients?

00:13:03.820 –> 00:13:04.720
Scott Moore
Same client.

00:13:04.000 –> 00:13:04.520
Sue Vencill
Now.

00:13:04.160 –> 00:13:04.700
Michael Gannotti
So how did it?

00:13:05.590 –> 00:13:06.450
Michael Gannotti
What do they do?

00:13:07.810 –> 00:13:10.510
Sue Vencill
Yeah, do you want to cover that, Scott?

00:13:11.530 –> 00:13:17.020
Scott Moore
Well, that would be the mobile client coming out of the out of your mobile device most likely.

00:13:17.740 –> 00:13:18.930
Scott Moore
So Android.

00:13:17.880 –> 00:13:38.930
Sue Vencill
That and and they made it so easy to switch between the two profiles, so I I’m sure all of us probably have a personal account and a work account. You know I’ve had my personal account for awhile, so I don’t have to have the app installed twice. I can just switch in between and. I like that I can keep it separate my personal life and my work like I like that and keep that separate.

00:13:36.220 –> 00:13:36.450
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.

00:13:36.500 –> 00:13:36.820
Michael Gannotti
Yes.

00:13:40.400 –> 00:13:53.310
Michael Gannotti
Yeah, I like that being able to add that personal one and then do that flip and it does. It provides a clear you know switch, but you’ll still see like the little alerts in the numbers popping up.

00:13:53.870 –> 00:13:54.300
Scott Moore
This.

00:13:55.080 –> 00:14:03.050
Michael Gannotti
Yeah, I mean to me that’s like ideal ’cause you get the separation and then you also get the controls from the enterprise space.

00:14:03.770 –> 00:14:17.880
Michael Gannotti
But the ability you know for to flip to your kids and do stuff from there, and I think that’s pretty cool. Anything else that stood out to anybody? Any cool features? I think so you are showing some.

00:14:18.980 –> 00:14:25.140
Sue Vencill
Oh well, I I was playing around with the standout presentation. I can do that real quick.

00:14:24.440 –> 00:14:24.990
Michael Gannotti
What’s that?

00:14:26.590 –> 00:14:29.370
Sue Vencill
Let you know what sent you ask. Let me show you.

00:14:34.190 –> 00:14:59.960
Sue Vencill
So here it is. This is being able to, you know, be like the weather person where I can show up. This is the actual page. See I can point to it, click here. This is the link that Pete posted at 12:15, but what Scott didn’t mention is check this out. It’s like a live virtual lounge so you can feel like you’re actually at a bar with your people. Pretty fun.

00:14:48.330 –> 00:14:49.040
Michael Gannotti
Nice.

00:14:59.160 –> 00:14:59.680
Michael Gannotti
So.

00:14:59.400 –> 00:15:00.130
Scott Moore
Together my.

00:15:00.610 –> 00:15:10.080
Michael Gannotti
Yeah, so can you go back to that one Seck for those who are on the audio, it’s actually looking like kind of like a bar like atmosphere.

00:15:03.040 –> 00:15:03.640
Sue Vencill
Sure.

00:15:11.620 –> 00:15:21.700
Michael Gannotti
Looks to me like a more personal homie version of that together mode, but focusing more on the friends and family kind of scenario and social.

00:15:22.170 –> 00:15:41.100
Sue Vencill
I think thanks for spelling it out for listening only people I forgot about that, but yeah, so there’s this one. So again, it looks like a bar and everyone sitting at it an when I was with another company an Microsoft came out with the Together mode. I really made fun of it. I was like.

00:15:42.080 –> 00:15:53.970
Sue Vencill
You know who’s going to deal with that, but then when I came on board and got to actually use the feature, it it doubles my smile. I actually felt like I can’t believe it. I fell for it. I felt like I was in the same room with the team.

00:15:55.250 –> 00:15:57.680
Michael Gannotti
Soccer you fell for it.

00:15:55.640 –> 00:15:55.960
Sue Vencill
This is.

00:15:57.940 –> 00:16:00.100
Sue Vencill
Soccer I know and I loved it.

00:16:01.860 –> 00:16:24.220
Sue Vencill
The next screen here and if you Scroll down everything Scott talked about is all in this web page. This is showing about how you can do it. Instant poll, hike. Do you guys want to hike or barbecue? Which would be my vote. But anyway so. But also the main reason I’m showing you is because this is the standout mode and it allows me to be more interactive with my presentations.

00:16:11.390 –> 00:16:12.230
Michael Gannotti
All right?

00:16:25.480 –> 00:16:33.980
Michael Gannotti
Very cool, now we were down below it says organize your life all in one place and I see like a little Excel file icon where they talking about here.

00:16:25.730 –> 00:16:26.120
Sue Vencill
It’s cool.

00:16:30.860 –> 00:16:31.540
Sue Vencill
Yes.

00:16:34.100 –> 00:16:57.630
Sue Vencill
So there’s a dashboard so you got. You can chat. So right now I’m looking. I’m showing a little mock demo of the teams client. There’s a chat up at the top or you can hit on the dashboard and the dashboard is where it keeps all your your tasks, your ongoing messages, your calendar, you can keep it all in one place to help you stay organized.

00:16:36.610 –> 00:16:36.980
Michael Gannotti
So.

00:17:00.180 –> 00:17:10.230
Scott Moore
Whole thing there is also there says there’s a digital safe, so think of that as a collection area for where you can save content that everybody can share and collaborate on.

00:17:11.500 –> 00:17:13.340
Sue Vencill
Yeah, yeah.

00:17:11.560 –> 00:17:12.260
Michael Gannotti
Nice.

00:17:13.990 –> 00:17:14.640
Sue Vencill
It’s good stuff.

00:17:14.080 –> 00:17:14.700
Michael Gannotti
So.

00:17:15.340 –> 00:17:16.740
Michael Gannotti
Go ahead, I’m sorry.

00:17:17.150 –> 00:17:20.530
Sue Vencill
Yeah, I think. I think we we talked all to it.

00:17:20.080 –> 00:17:28.020
Michael Gannotti
Yeah no, I think that’s cool. So I mean it Monday it seems to be teams day today for Monday Monday.

00:17:28.370 –> 00:17:31.680
Sue Vencill
Teams Day every day. Mike G. Some well now.

00:17:30.090 –> 00:17:49.070
Michael Gannotti
Every day, so we’ve got the large large meetings. If yeah, if you haven’t talked to urithi about him, if you’re not seeing him yet, you want to do that, and then the personal one. I think that’s great because it gives you a lot of flexibility and.

00:17:49.640 –> 00:17:50.080
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.

00:17:50.780 –> 00:18:03.580
Sue Vencill
And I would just want to want to the whole single. You know, if we’re already using teams, it just makes my life easier that I can now use teams in my personal life as well. We don’t. We don’t need zoom.

00:18:00.690 –> 00:18:01.020
Michael Gannotti
Right?

00:18:04.730 –> 00:18:12.500
Sue Vencill
We can just use Microsoft. Yeah yeah, so you know that’s out and when I know I I confused you guys, there’s no excuse.

00:18:04.980 –> 00:18:06.440
Michael Gannotti
See what no?

00:18:11.480 –> 00:18:11.980
Michael Gannotti
But

00:18:13.170 –> 00:18:26.440
Michael Gannotti
yeah, and it’s again, you’re on a common platform now, right with your family. So all these folks working with teams during the day, now you can have an easy to use common experience for everybody.

00:18:13.460 –> 00:18:13.770
Sue Vencill
To.

00:18:17.870 –> 00:18:18.350
Sue Vencill
Yep.

00:18:26.720 –> 00:18:27.150
Sue Vencill
Yeah.

00:18:28.140 –> 00:18:33.440
Michael Gannotti
So any last thoughts call outs by anybody? Anything else going on?

00:18:28.340 –> 00:18:28.870
Sue Vencill
That’s my.

00:18:33.810 –> 00:18:40.150
Scott Moore
I think the the big play here really is around, you know, extending these capabilities into the consumer space you know.

00:18:40.850 –> 00:18:41.270
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.

00:18:42.080 –> 00:18:44.410
Scott Moore
That’s the biggest thing is really, really cool.

00:18:42.220 –> 00:18:42.580
Sue Vencill
Yep.

00:18:44.920 –> 00:19:01.850
Sue Vencill
I think just to put a shout out there just for topics from our listeners, you know if there’s anything you guys want us to cover, we try to share what we’ve learned in the past five days at work. You know, somehow Mike finds a way to pull it out of us, but what do you all want to hear? Let us know.

00:19:01.360 –> 00:19:01.750
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.

00:19:03.320 –> 00:19:23.730
Michael Gannotti
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is only our second episode. I mean episode 10. But really, the 2nd of this new format, so we’re just finding our way. And as you know, there are topics that are hot buttons for you. Please come to the post at you know. And this is where you’ll find the video version an all the resources. So if you’re listening.

00:19:24.300 –> 00:19:54.150
Michael Gannotti
Video you know video and resource links you go to AKA dot Ms Slash HLS blog that’s AKA dot Ms Slash HLS blog and there you’ll be able to find the post. You can make comments. You can leave suggestions. We monitor all that you can also reach out to us on LinkedIn were all on LinkedIn, so feel free to harass all of us, Scott said. He specially appreciates that.

00:19:54.360 –> 00:19:58.620
Michael Gannotti
When people get him on LinkedIn and you know.

00:19:59.220 –> 00:20:03.100
Michael Gannotti
Find this there and then. Also. Lastly take.

00:20:03.690 –> 00:20:28.930
Michael Gannotti
As you start to find some value and things that we’re talking about, you can take us on the go. You can find us on Apple, iPod, iTunes. I’m sorry, Apple, iTunes podcasts. Google podcast. An on Spotify. So ran all three of the biggies and you can take mid day cafe on the go with you and we encourage that and let us know what we can do for you. What we can talk about.

00:20:29.720 –> 00:20:31.630
Michael Gannotti
So at that this is Mike.

00:20:32.450 –> 00:20:33.390
Sue Vencill
Sue Ansel

00:20:34.660 –> 00:20:35.510
Scott Moore
Scott Moore

00:20:36.220 –> 00:20:37.640
Pete Anello
And Pete anello

00:20:38.930 –> 00:20:49.350
Michael Gannotti
Pete Anello were reading it. We all bid you good day. Have a great day and great rest of the week and will be back this next Monday with mid day Cafe by everyone.

00:20:49.800 –> 00:20:50.550
Pete Anello
see you guys.

00:20:50.890 –> 00:20:51.460
Sue Vencill
bye.

00:20:51.030 –> 00:20:51.430
Scott Moore
yeah.

Migration of HDInsight HBase Cluster with Custom Ambari Database

by Contributed | May 17, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

This article explain Migration of HBase 1.1 (HDI 3.6) Accelerated Write Cluster with Default Ambari Meta DB to HBase 2.1 (HDI 4.0) Accelerate write Cluster with custom Ambari Meta DB. In normal cluster creation, as described in other articles such as Set up clusters in HDInsight, Ambari is deployed in an S0 Azure SQL Database that is managed by HDInsight and is not accessible to users.

Also Starting July 1st 2021 , Microsoft will offer only Basic support plan for certain HDInsight 3.6 cluster types. This plan will be available till April 3rd 2022. So it is recommended to migrate to HDInsight4.0 at the earliest.

Understanding the Use Case:

HDInsight allows you to take control of your data and metadata with external data stores. This feature is available for Apache Hive metastore, Apache Oozie metastore, and Apache Ambari database. Here we will focus on Apache Ambari database. Ambari is used to monitor HDInsight clusters, make configuration changes and store cluster management information as well as job history. HDInsight provides a default SQL Database for each cluster which is good for test work load. For Production usage it is recommended to use Custom SQL Database to handle the load of cluster according to the business growth requirements. It is also possible to start with a basic database and upgrade later.
In this example We will create a Custom Meta DB and configure it to HDI4.0 HBase cluster and migrate the Data from HDI3.6 to HDI4.0 followed by validation.

Below are the steps for Migration.

Source and Destination Cluster setup

Step 1 : Create a source HBase HDI 3.6 with Default meta DB

 HDInsight Cluster Setup

Step 2: Create a Destination HBase HDI 4.0 clusters with a custom Ambari DB

   Step 2.1: From Azure Portal Create an External SQL Database.

   HDInsight Custom Ambari DB Setup

   Step 2.2: Choose the right DTU based on the Nodes.

    Step 2.3: Choose the above Database while Creating HDInsight Cluster as Ambari Meta DB.

Once the cluster is ready follow the below steps to Migrate:

Steps to be followed on Source Cluster HDInsight 3.6

Step 1: Login to Source Cluster and Create Sample Table using HBase perf.

Step 2: Flush the Table Data

Step 3: Stop the HBase from Ambari.

Step 4: Backup WAL folder

Steps to be followed on Destination Cluster HDInsight 4.0

Step 1: Stop the HBase from Ambari

Step 2: Under Services > HDFS > Configs > Advanced > Advanced core-site, change the fs.defaultFS HDFS setting to point to the source cluster’s container name, for example cluster1testhbase-2021-05-12t07-23-50-453z

Step 3: Under Services > HBASE > Configs > Advanced > Advanced hbase-site change the hbase.rootdir path to point to the container of the source cluster.

Step 4: Clean the Zookeeper data on the destination cluster by running the following commands in any of the Zookeeper nodes or worker nodes:

Step 5: Restart all the component required restart from Ambari.

Step 6: Clean the WAL FS data for the destination cluster, and copy the WAL directory from the source cluster into the destination cluster’s HDFS. Copy the directory by running the following commands in any of the Zookeeper nodes or worker nodes:

Step 7: Copy apps folder from destination container to source container

Step 8: Restart all the component required restart from Ambari.

Step 9: Validation

Validation of the table and count of record in source cluster

Count:

Validation of the table and count of record in destination cluster

Count:

Control & Management of Microsoft Viva Topics

by Contributed | May 17, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Take a deep dive on Microsoft Viva Topics, which uses AI to organize information into accessible knowledge within the apps and services you use every day. Walk through the admin experience for setup, as well as the controls available to publish and curate topic pages and ensure content accuracy. CJ Tan, Lead Program Manager, joins host Jeremy Chapman to cover the overall experience for users, knowledge managers, and admins.

If you’re new to Microsoft Viva, it comprises four modules that deliver new employee experiences across knowledge, communications, resources, learning and insights. These leverage the foundational technologies of Microsoft 365, Microsoft Graph, and AI to deliver a modern employee experience platform.

Viva Topics builds a system that transforms information into knowledge and actively delivers it to you in the context of your work. As many of us are working remotely or in more hybrid office environments, it can be harder to stay informed. With Topics, we connect you to the knowledge and the people closest to it.

Work Item Integration v2 is now GA

by Contributed | May 17, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Work item integration functionality allows you to easily create work items in GitHub or Azure DevOps that have relevant Application Insights data embedded in them. Passing on the contextual information allows the troubleshooter to minimize the time it takes them to understand why an issue may have occurred. 

The GA version of Work Item Integration has added:

• Dedicated repo icons based on repo provider 

• The ability to set advanced properties like the assignee, iteration path, projects, & more depending on your version control provider.

v2 in general also adds:

• Multiple configurations for any number of repositories or work items


• Deployment through ARM templates


• Pre-Built & Customizable Keyword Query Language (KQL) queries to add App Insights data to your work items


• Customizable workbook templates


• Integration without the need to share repository credentials

If you’re still using v1 of Work Item Integration please delete the access credentials in your App Insights resource & create new work item templates. 

Next steps:

Work Item Integration