If you follow the latest developments in the Entra space, you have no doubt come across Merill Fernando. In this episode Merill joins us for a great discussion as we geek out about Entra and authentication in general. Why is it called Entra (RIP AAD!)? Merill sheds some light on the name change, we talk about AD FS and it’s relevance today, discuss the deprecation of AzureAD and MSOnline PowerShell modules and introduce some of the great tools and resources he’s developed for the community.

Here are some links to Merill’s work:

• Entra Newsletter
• Merill’s site

Here are the links the Identity Architecture Series discussed in the episode:

• Azure Active Directory Core Store: Data centers
• Azure Active Directory Core Store: Scale units
• Azure Active Directory Core Store: Read and write replicas

Are you interested in learning from others in the community? Give these folks a follow:

• Nathan McNulty
• Eric Mannon
• Dr. Nestori Syynimaa
• Rod Trent

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Nic and I had the great pleasure of talking to John Kindervag. I once read about John that he has “forgotten more about technology than most people learn in their careers” and I’m sure after listening to this episode you’ll understand why he is referred to as the Godfather Of Zero Trust. In this episode we discuss the origins of Zero Trust and some of the history behind it. John also talks about why trying to control the attack surface is a fool’s errand and introduces the concept of a protect surface.

Here are the links to some of John’s work discussed in the episode:

• NSTAC Report to the President on Zero Trust and Trusted Identity Management
• Understanding the Two Maturity Models of Zero Trust

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify

We recently had a great conversation with Joe Flynn about modern endpoint management and how the way we manage our devices has changed over the years - we reminisce about the old ways and talk the future of Active Directory. We also discuss management friction, current hybrid work trends and scenarios where technologies like Windows 365 just make sense.

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify

It’s Cyber Security Awareness month and in this episode, we talk to Shannon Garcia about the realities of the security industry and have an honest discussion about some of the areas where we could be doing more to raise awareness and educate our organizations, customers and stakeholders. Shannon shares some fundamental guidance, and we discuss how we could and should be learning from highly publicized incidents and breaches that occur far too often these days.

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify

It’s ALWAYS DNS! We’ve all fallen victim to DNS at some point in our careers. In this episode we are once again joined by Robby Pedrica as we discuss DNS architecture and security - we’ve been deploying DNS the same way for a long time and perhaps it’s time we look at our deployments and consider if they could be more secure. We discuss DNS in large enterprise environments and why monitoring DNS traffic is important, but also look at home use and how DNS can be a valuable privacy tool.

Robby recently put together a great blog post on DNS security which is worth a read, you can find it here

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify

Same product, new name - RIP Azure AD/long live Entra ID! In this episode we’re joined by long-time friend of the show Michael Van Horenbeeck to discuss the recent Entra related announcements and Microsoft’s expansion into Security Service Edge (SSE) with two new products – Microsoft Entra Internet Access and Microsoft Entra Private Access. We’ve all heard the TLAs PIM, PAW, and talk of Tier0 configurations, but what are these and how are these relevant to the modern admin? Should we be evolving the way we manage our environments or is it just a matter of buying new technologies to hopefully keep us ahead of bad actors? Michael shares his thoughts.

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify

In this episode we’re joined by long-time friend Robby Pedrica as we talk about Open-source software. We asked Robby about Open-source technologies in the enterprise and discussed the history, ins and outs of using Open-source projects in your environment.

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify

What is insider risk and how does it differ from an insider threat? Did you know that these are not always bad actors or malicious acts? We were curious about insider risk management, insider threat detection and everything that goes along with it, so we asked Zach Luze to unpack this vast topic for us.

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify

If you were to open your Twitter/LinkedIn/Mastodon feed at the moment, it is undoubtedly filled with AI posts - while some of these might be interesting or even somewhat useful, the majority likely include the words “RIP” and some profession or job function. There is so much AI FUD around right now and we wanted to find out if the hype was worth listening to. Is Skynet going to take over and put us all out of a job? We thought we’d ask an expert and that’s exactly what we did when we recently talked to AI MVP Akanksha Malik.

Be sure to check out some of her projects here:

• Paths Uncovered
• Global AI - The Podcast
• Women Who Code Melbourne

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify

In this episode we geek out about home automation, Azure and training cognitive services to recognize llamas. Wait.. sound weird? Maybe, but we had a blast talking to MVP Lars Klint about life on his farm in the high country of Victoria in Australia and how he uses technology to automate (and amuse)

Be sure to check out the following links:

• Follow the Llama Drama here
• @LarsKlintTech YouTube Channel
• Microsoft Azure in Action

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud

• iTunes
• Spotify