Cloud Solution Architects

#14 - Mithun Shanbag - CEO/Founder of Skewed Ventures - cloudskew.com window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep15MithunShanbag.m4a" }, "title": "#15- Mithun Shanbag – CEO Skewed Ventures - CloudSkew.com", "description": "In this episode I talk to Mithun Shanbag, who is the CEO and founder of Skewed Ventures which created cloudskew.com, which is an online diagram and flowchart editor specifically designed for cloud architecture design diagrams. I talk with Mithun on his journey in the cloud technology space, his enterperuenial venture, his daily routine, his bootup sequence, his favorite books, the importance of sharpening the saw and more good stuff.", "url": "/podcast/mithun/", "chaptermarks": [ {"start": "00:02:07.0", "title": "Journey in the cloud technology space and the birth of CloudSkew.com"}, {"start": "00:07:20.0", "title": "Journey from 9-5 to an enterprenuer"}, {"start": "00:14:23.0", "title": "Game plan on how he keeps with the rapid changing technology space"}, {"start": "00:20:52.0", "title": "A day in the life of Mithun Shanbag and his daily routine and bootup sequence"}, {"start": "00:25:22.0", "title": "The importance of compounding in your life"}, {"start": "00:27:06.0", "title": "The cloud solution that Mithun is proud of"}, {"start": "00:31:05.0", "title": "Advice for anyone starting off on their won"} ], "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode I talk to Mithun Shanbag, who is the CEO and founder of Skewed Ventures which created cloudskew.com, which is an online diagram and flowchart editor specifically designed for cloud architecture design diagrams. I talk with Mithun on his journey in the cloud technology space, his enterperuenial venture, his daily routine, his bootup sequence, his favorite books, the importance of sharpening the saw and more good stuff. Here is the link for the Cloudskew.com web application architecture that is hosted on Azure Mithun's journey in the cloud technology space and the birth of CloudSkew.com (02:07) Mithun's journey from 9-5 to an enterprenuer (07:20) Mithun's game plan on how he keeps with the rapid changing technology space (14:23) A day in the life of Mithun Shanbag and his daily routine/bootup sequence(20:52) The importance of compounding in your life (25:22) The cloud solution that Mithun is proud of (27:06) Advice for anyone starting off on their own (31:05) Mithun's favorite books Deep Work by Cal Newport Never split the difference- Chris Voss How To Fail at Almost Everything And Still Win Big - Scott Adams Malcolm Gladwell's books LinkedIn - Mithun Shanbag Twitter - Mithun Shanbag . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/podcast/mithun/.

#14 - Mark Souza - Corporate Vice President @ Microsoft (Customer Success Unit) window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep14MarkSouza.m4a" }, "title": "#14- Mark Souza – Corporate Vice President @ Microsoft (Customer Success Unit)", "description": "In this episode I talk to Mark Souza the Corporate Vice President of the Customer Success Unit - who is technically my boss's boss's boss's boss :). Mark has been at Microsoft for over 26 years with different roles across the organization. It was a fun expereince talking with Mark on this podcast. Having interacted with Mark in the past I can confidently say he is one of the most down to earth and grounded senior leadership executives I have ever met. In this episode we talk about how Mark starts off his day, his journey in microsoft and explains what the customer success in plain english, his advice for people starting off in their career, how he stays grounded, the one quality which he expects every member of his organzation has, his favorite book and his family.", "url": "/podcast/mark/", "chaptermarks": [ {"start": "00:01:44.0", "title": "How does he start the day"}, {"start": "00:03:01.0", "title": "Journey"}, {"start": "00:03:41.0", "title": "CAT v/s CSU"}, {"start": "00:07:14.0", "title": "CET"}, {"start": "00:09:32.0", "title": "Advice for younger self"}, {"start": "00:13:40.0", "title": "Advice for millenials"}, {"start": "00:11:22.0", "title": "Staying grounded"}, {"start": "00:17:18.0", "title": "Skill for everyone"}, {"start": "00:19:26.0", "title": "Favorite book"}, {"start": "00:22:03.0", "title": "Outside of work"} ], "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode we have a very special guest - Mark Souza, the Corporate Vice President of the Customer Success Unit at Microsoft. Mark has been at Microsoft for over 26 years with different roles across the organization. It was a fun experience talking with Mark on this podcast. Having interacted with Mark in the past, I can confidently say he is one of the most down to earth and grounded senior leadership executives I have ever met. In this episode we talk about how Mark starts off his day, his journey in Microsoft, he explains what the customer success in plain English, his advice for people starting off in their career, how he stays grounded, the one quality which he expects every member of his organization has, his favorite book and his favorite pastime outside of work. How does Mark start his day ? (01:44) He starts his day off by keeping up to date with everything that is happening with his happening across the world and making sure there are no emergencies, followed by coffee Mark’s journey in Microsoft (03:01) All 26 years in Mark’s career have been customer focused. Of the 26 years, 20 of them were in Microsoft engineering. He started his career of in a role which is similar to what is now called the “Cloud Solution Architect” role showing the value of Microsoft technology and ensuring they are utilizing the tech in the best way possible to get the most value and be successful. Customer Success Unit v/s Customer Advisory Team (03:41) In 2000 he started the Customer Advisory Team (CAT) - the idea of engineers talking to customers was brand new. CAT takes learning from the field back to the engineering team to improve the services and quality of the products. Customer Success Unit (CSU) looks a lot like CAT however the difference being this one is completely customer focused v/s the CAT being primarily product focused. In the Customer Success Unit we do #WhatEverItTakes to make sure the customer is successful. Customer Engineering Team (07:14) Customer Engineering Team is an extension of the customer success unit. As a global team -they take best practices and share them across customers across the regions. One advice to his younger self (09:32) If you are not learning something new everyday - you should start looking for a change. He asks to think of the CSU as a college - one year from now you will be much smarter than you are today - at the same time you will be making a difference to customers. How does Mark stay grounded and not let success get to his head (11:22) Insights profile culture test - defines Mark’s color as Yellow and Red. Yellow for team - he loves a healthy happy winning team and people. Red - for execution and getting things done. He regularly visits his local team across the world inspite of his busy schedule. Advice for millennials to stay more engaged and focused (13:40) Millennials having grown up with instant answers to everything all through their lives, he asks to keep up the same level of curiosity and the thirst to know the answers to everything. However with the abundance of information in todays world, everything is important but the key is to focus on what is “most important” If everyone in the organization could have just one skill learnt overnight, what would it be? (17:18) Customer empathy - If the customer has an outage or something goes wrong - we should be able to feel the pain and similarly if the customer succeeded or entered a new market because of our technology we should be celebrating it with them Favorite book of 2019 (19:26) Marching powder - He loves mystery fiction, however this book is a true life fascinating story. Outside of work Mark’s favorite pastime (22:03) His family - his wife, his son, and his 2 daughters. LinkedIn - Mark Souza . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/podcast/mark/.

#13 – Eddie Villalba - Everything Cloud Native/K8s for beginners & Windows folks window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep13EddieVillalba.m4a" }, "title": "#13 – Eddie Villalba - Everything Cloud Native/K8s for beginners & Windows folks", "description": "In this episode we talk to Eddie who works as a Commercial Software Engineer @ Microsoft. He has also co-authored the book [Kubernetes Best practices](https://www.amazon.com/Kubernetes-Best-Practices-Blueprints-Applications/dp/1492056472) along with Brendan Burns and is a contributor for CNCF/K8s. This episode is **jam-packed** with super good K8s content and we talk about the following * Eddie's journey * Learning path for K8s to someone coming from the Windows world(really good analogies to make it sticky) * He breaks down the K8s certification - and what it takes to get certified and who should take which exam * Future of K8s * How to be part of the K8s community * Interesting Talent Management system project using Kubernetes * When **NOT** to use K8s", "url": "/podcast/Eddie", "chaptermarks": [ {"start": "00:01:52.0", "title": "Journey"}, {"start": "00:05:42.0", "title": "Learning Path -K8S"}, {"start": "00:12:55.0", "title": "K8s Certification guidance"}, {"start": "00:19:02.0", "title": "Future of K8s"}, {"start": "00:24:30.0", "title": "K8s Community"}, {"start": "00:31:04.0", "title": "Projects"}, {"start": "00:35:03.0", "title": "When NOT to use K8s"} ], "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode we talk to Eddie who works as a Commercial Software Engineer @ Microsoft. He has also co-authored the book Kubernetes Best practices along with Brendan Burns and is a contributor for CNCF/K8s. This episode is jam-packed with super good K8s content and we talk about the following: Eddie’s journey Learning path for K8s to someone coming from the Windows world(really good analogies to make it sticky) He breaks down the K8s certification - and what it takes to get certified and who should take which exam Future of K8s How to be part of the K8s community Interesting Talent Management system project using Kubernetes When NOT to use K8s Eddie’s journey on how he got to where he is today (01:02) Eddie has been with Microsoft for over 10 years with an open source background all through. When Microsoft moved to the Cloud, he started seeing a lot of the workloads were driven by Open Source projects and he decided to make a career switch by joining as a Global Black belt in the Open Source team. He then moved to the Cloud Native application development black belt team. In his current role as a Commercial Software engineer he does a code-with customers using the open source methodologies. Majority of the code is out there in the open unless proprietary code is requested by the customer. They create reusable code that is resuable across different stacks and different industries. Learning path for Kubernetes to someone coming from the Windows world (05:42) Based on Eddie’s experience teaching and conducting workshops across the world one of the biggest roadblocks he has seen is learning the bash shell and the basic Linux commands. (you don’t have to go super deep). Depending on your background you might want to specialize and prepare the learning plan. If you are a security person - then an understanding of cgroup, namespaces etc are essential. If you are an app developer running your apps in a container - you don’t have to deep experience in those. If an operator you need to go deep dive on topics such as - “run as user” etc. Where things overlap is networking - networking is same in windows and Linux. (for the most part) Once you get the fundamental concepts, move to Kubernetes and he gives a very good analogy of seeing your containers as process in Windows Looks at containers as a process. He compares calc.exe in the windows world as similar to running a container based off an image. Multiple copies of the calc.exe process is similar to running multiple container instances. When we make a functional change example change calc.exe - it is similar to updating image for the container - and rerun the new version of the new calc.exe. Container is just a PID at the end of the day. Only difference is that we can look at the PID tree. Best practices for taking the Kubernetes certification exam (12:55) There are two certification paths for anyone interested in the Kubernetes certification Certified Kubernetes Administrator(CKA) - This one needs very heavy understanding of how the underlying components of Kubernetes work. If you are not an operator and building Kubernetes cluster, this may not be the exam you want to take. In a cloud hosted scenario, most of the the control plane components might be abstracted for you. Kelsey Hightower’s Kubernetes the Hard way is a great starting point. He also recommends Kubernetes up and running. This builds on top of the infrastructure that you built with KTHW. *{: .notice–success} Exam tip : Its all about time management. It’s a 3 hour and you will be using every second of the three hours. Know “kubectl” very well. Certified Kubernetes Application Developer(CKAD) - If the etcd and other control plane components are abstracted for you, and you are someone who is using Kubernetes for application development and deployment then this exam might be the one for you. Future of Kubernetes (19:02) Eventually its going to be like the hypervisor. Eventually the goal of Kubernetes is to be “boring” - it’s a master API to get workloads running. The idea of understanding how the backend components work - should be irrelevant. Customization of the API would be the future where end users extend what it was originally created for. Now that Kubernetes is in the enterprise - understanding the needs and effectively make it useful for large Enterprise customers is in pipeline Be a part of the Kubernetes community (24:30) Be a part of the community and get involved - you don’t necessarily have to be a developer - there are plenty of ways you can help out. How ? Find a Special Interest Group(SIG) under Kubernetes.io website. Interesting projects that Eddie has worked on (31:04) Talent Management system project in a million employee company - Eddie talks about a Data science project which builds real time models using Azure machine learning toolsets. They would then train all of the models them and serve up the model using web services using AKS using a BOT service. Which led to promotion based on data points. And provided a ROI on the talent for the investment that they had made on the talent. When NOT to use Kubernetes (35:04) Even though a lot of progress has been made on the “operators” front - Kubernetes was not made initially for stateful data. Stateful applications as of today still require a lot of work this is constantly being improved on as we speak. But it might be easier to just consume a PaaS service already provided by many of the cloud providers for stateful services Eddie’s advice to keep abreast of all the changes happening in the Open Source world Keeps his ear to the ground and keeps track of all the graduated and incubating project list from the CNCF and understanding all of them work together is something he closely tracks. KubeWeekly newsletter - curated email listing which is sent every week from all over the internet centered around Kubernetes. CNCF meetup groups - he actively participates and is a coach of the Austin CNCF meetups Attend Kube-Con in person or virtually using YouTube. How to get in touch with Eddie Slack - Evill_Genius ( he is on the official Kubernetes slack channel) Twitter - @evill_Genius YouTube channel Book - Kubernetes Best practices Blueprint . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/podcast/Eddie.

#12 – Phil Coachman – Principal Data scientist demystifies “Data Science”, the future of Data Science and a really cool ML project window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep12PhilCoachman.m4a" }, "title": "#12 – Phil Coachman - Principal Cloud Solution Architect(Data Scientist)", "description": "If you are in the data science field or aspiring to be in the data science field you are going to love this episode. In this episode we talk with Phil Coachman who works as a Data Scientist/Principal Cloud Solution Architect in Microsoft. We talk about Phil’s journey starting with the Bing, Xbox and Windows 10 team to his current role. We also demystify “who a data scientist” really is and what it take to be one. We talk about a really interesting and cool Train derailment prevention project using AI, Machine Learning, IoT sensors and IOT edge which is currently in production and has been deployed to 4 continents. Phil also gives you 4 ways on how you can keep up and learn everything you need to know about Machine Learning", "url": "/2020/02/01/ep12/", "chaptermarks": [ {"start": "00:00:00.0", "title": "Intro"}, {"start": "00:10:00.0", "title": "Test"} ], "coverUrl": "" } } If you are in the data science field or aspiring to be in the data science field you are going to love this episode. In this episode we talk with Phil Coachman who works as a Data Scientist/Principal Cloud Solution Architect in Microsoft. We talk about Phil’s journey starting with the Bing, Xbox and Windows 10 team to his current role. We also demystify “who a data scientist” really is and what it take to be one. We talk about a really interesting and cool Train derailment prevention project using AI, Machine Learning, IoT sensors and IOT edge which is currently in production and has been deployed to 4 continents. Phil also gives you 4 ways on how you can keep up and learn everything you need to know about Machine Learning. Enjoy listening ! Phil’s journey on how he got to where he is today (01:52) Phil started off working with a project codenamed “Live search” (now called Bing) 12 years ago- and he had the opportunity to work on tools like Hadoop, Spark and other big data tools and capabilities. Working with big data processing with 100’s of PB for Bing, Xbox and Windows 10 – he understood the relationship between data and insights and naturally progressed into a Cloud Solution Architect specializing in the data science field. Demystify the role “data scientist” (03:59) Most people who have the title of Data Scientist are actually doing Data Analyst roles where they work on Excel. The key is a “scientific method”, creating a null hypothesis and going about to prove it you are not really doing data science. You could be doing data analytics or data engineering or data mining. The future of Data Science as Phil’s perceives it – Data analyst are gradually moving towards data scientists as tools become easier for machine learning and deep learning. Excel, Power BI makes it easier to do data science without even realizing you are doing it. Tools like DataRobot, Julia, and Azure automated Machine Learning makes it even easier to figure out a what is a good model without having to know how the actual algorithms work behind it. Interesting projects that Phil has worked on (07:57) Train Derailment Prevention – Customer who deals a lot with Trains had a lot of trains across the globe with 1000s of sensors across the train like heat, vibration etc. Their goal was to monitor the trains and also be alerted when a train derailed (for trains running in remote location like rainforests it will be harder to find derailed trains). POC was using Raspberrry Pi and a toy train set inside their lab. A model built in R and get into Azure stream analytics and get alerted when a train derails. The POC was a success. Big Edge devices were placed on the train. The production was then deployed across the globe and they used this to sell the solution to other train manufacturers and vendors across the globe. As a phase 2 – they are picking up sound frequencies from the wheels to predict if a bearing is going to fail – so that they can proactively fix it and thereby reducing train delays. The resource constraint also meant that the solution had to work with 2G network connectivity which was overcome using IoT edge to bring AI closer to the source as possible. Phil’s advice to anyone who is starting off in the Cloud Solution and Data Science space (14:26) Holistic understanding of the other pieces involved in a solution is critical to deliver a quality solution – example Networking, Governance, Security, Identity understanding is critical even for a data science project. Collaboration is crucial for a success solution architect to leverage the strengths of the team. Phil’s advice to keep himself abreast of all the changes happening in the cloud world (16:42) Top 4 ways he keeps himself up to date: TowardsDataScience – site he follows this – articles from students, practitioners and professors MachineLearningMastery – similar to the above site ACM – Latest from the university and research papers. Kaggle – ton of data sets and new challenges. It helps you take out the tunnel vision and take a broader picture. For work life balance – Phil blocks time on his calendar for learning and keeping up with the latest updates. When he is travelling he uses hotel hours to keep up with new things. How to get in touch with Phil (21:07) LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/philcoachman/ www.azuremonk.com . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/2020/02/01/ep12/.

#11 – Thomas Maurer – Azure Hybrid using Stack & Arc window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep11ThomasMaurer.m4a" }, "title": "#11 – Thomas Maurer – Azure Hybrid using Stack & Arc", "description": "In this episode we talk with Thomas Maurer who works as a Cloud Advocate in Microsoft. We talk about how Azure Stack helped his customer realize the value of Azure even when there were compliance need for the data not to leave the customer’s datacenters. Tom talks about how he keeps himself up to date with everything that’s happening in the Cloud world and his e-commerce website too.", "url": "/2020/01/14/ep11/", "chaptermarks": [ {"start": "00:00:00.0", "title": "Intro"}, {"start": "00:01:44.0", "title": "Journey"}, {"start": "00:07:09.0", "title": "Projects"}, {"start": "00:15:14.0", "title": "Advice"}, {"start": "00:20:30.0", "title": "Secret to be upto date"} ], "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode we talk with Thomas Maurer who works as a Cloud Advocate in Microsoft. We talk about how Azure Stack helped his customer realize the value of Azure even when there were compliance need for the data not to leave the customer’s datacenters. Tom talks about how he keeps himself up to date with everything that’s happening in the Cloud world and his e-commerce website too. Thomas’s journey on how he got to where he is today (01:44) When he was starting off his career, he bet on Hyper-V v/s Active Directory because it was a niche technology then. He then focused on Hyper-V, System Center suite of products. Hyper-V was great for a while, but he wanted to focus on the next big thing – which is Azure. He started on Azure from when it was called “Windows Azure” We also discuss how cloud is constantly evolving based on customer’s feedback – Tom talks about his role as Cloud Advocate and how he bridges the gap between the engineering teams and the customers. Interesting projects that Thomas has worked on (07:09) Azure stack – A luxury product company wanted to leverage Azure and the global scale. However they had a requirement that pictures of new products couldn’t leave their datacenter – and this policy was just written in stone. Azure Stack (now called Azure Stack Hub) enabled them to run IaaS and PaaS using ARM templates using the same familiar CI/CD tools. We also discuss Azure Arc how it enhances our hybrids story by extending Azure’s data services to on premise. With Microsoft – Hybrid was always in mind when we planned for any new features. We also talk about how Azure management plane – ARM APIs, RBAC and Azure Policies extends to on premise – using Azure ARC. Thomas’s advice to anyone who is starting off in the Cloud Solution space (15:14) MSLearn is the single go to place for anyone starting off in the Azure space. You don’t need an Azure subscription, all you would need is a Microsoft account. This not only provides you with the theory and videos but also provides you with a sandbox Azure account where you can use it as a demo lab. Apart from MSLearn, the Azure certification is a good path to verify your skills. If you are already an architect Azure Architect Center, Cloud Adoption Framework and Migration Center are good places to start. Thomas’s advice to keep himself abreast of all the changes happening in the cloud world (20:30) Acceptance – “that you can’t possibly not know everything about everything. Have a T shaped learning methodology” He spends his morning reading through RSS feeds – on what’s new, what was updated and announcements. He follows Microsoft’s blogs, connects to the PG using twitter. Tom likes to build stuff to learn. Once he builds it he explains it using a blog or presentation. This forces him to know a little more about the topic than what is required. How to get in touch with Thomas Twitter – https://twitter.com/ThomasMaurer Blog – https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasmaurer2/ e-Commerce – all proceeds go to Charity – https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/Shop www.azuremonk.com . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/2020/01/14/ep11/.

#10 – Daren Child (aka Bear) – Modern Data Warehousing window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep10DarenChild.mp4" }, "title": "#10 – Daren Child (aka Bear) – Modern Data Warehousing", "description": "In this episode we talk with Daren Child (or as we like to call him Bear- because he is so warm and helpful). Daren talks about his experiences both with education and engineering world. He talks about a framework for “Modern Data Warehouse” which I personally feel is the single most useful thing any data architect should be implementing. Since he has a lot of amazing slides to go along with the framework explanation – this is going to be a video podcast, so please do check out the link below if you are unable to watch the video", "url": "/2020/01/09/ep10/", "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode we talk with Daren Child (or as we like to call him Bear- because he is so warm and helpful). Daren talks about his experiences both with education and engineering world. He talks about a framework for “Modern Data Warehouse” which I personally feel is the single most useful thing any data architect should be implementing. Since he has a lot of amazing slides to go along with the framework explanation – this is going to be a video podcast, so please do check out the link below if you are unable to watch the video. Daren’s journey on how he got to where he is today (1:30) He started off as an Electronics engineer. He worked himself out of a job since he was really good at what he was supposed to do and completed the tasks on time He then joined as a Dean and was trying to find opportunities for his students. He was part of the first genome mapping project which then later went on to win the Noble Prize He was the dean of a technical college – but time boxed it in order not to lose his touch with technology. He has also worked with First American and Oracle before he joined Microsoft Interesting projects that Daren has worked on (06:15) 20-25 years of Enterprise data warehouse that have been grown – people have violated the original design constraints and caused them to go to maintenance nightmares. Modern Data Warehouse – using “ELT” Daren’s advice to anyone who is starting off in the Cloud Solution space (26:22) Cloud is the starting point for anyone starting off in the data space, like Data Factory but at the same time have respect for the old like SQL and Oracle implementations. Daren’s advice to keep herself abreast of all the changes happening in the cloud world (27:34) He implements piece by piece and focus on a stream lined model and THEN figure where he can add the additional capabilities along the way He DOES NOT go ahead and grab the latest announcement every day, instead he focuses on the core and add capability to the core. Don’t go to AI if you can’t store data correctly How to get in touch with Daren LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daren-child-028a401/ Thank you for listening. Anand Kumar R ( aka Chockalingam R) or Azure Monk www.azuremonk.com . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/2020/01/09/ep10/.

#9 - Sarah Lean– Cloud Advocate/Glasgow Azure Group founder window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep9SarahLean.m4a" }, "title": "#9 - Sarah Lean– Cloud Advocate/Glasgow Azure Group founder", "description": "In this episode we talk with Sarah Lean aka TechieLass. She is a STEM ambassador, founder of the Glasgow Azure group, she has been a Cloud Solution Architect and now she works as a Cloud Advocate for Microsoft. In this episode we talk about how Sarah influenced Azure Migrate and its features, how she bridges the gap between the customers and the product engineering and how she keeps herself up to date with everything happening in the cloud world.", "url": "/2019/12/28/ep9/", "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode we talk with Sarah Lean aka TechieLass. She is a STEM ambassador, founder of the Glasgow Azure group, she has been a Cloud Solution Architect and now she works as a Cloud Advocate for Microsoft. In this episode we talk about how Sarah influenced Azure Migrate and its features, how she bridges the gap between the customers and the product engineering and how she keeps herself up to date with everything happening in the cloud world. Enjoy listening ! Sarah’s journey on how she got to where she is today (01:41) Sarah joined MSFT in 2017 as a Cloud Solution Architect She transitioned to the Cloud advocate role a couple of months ago. Her role as a cloud advocate is to be an evangelist to Microsoft products ( she focusses on the ITPro audience), collect feedback from customers and bridging the gap between customers feedback and product engineers. Interesting projects that Sarah has worked on (03:37) She talks about how she specializes in data center migration. She also talks about the “Azure Migrate” – how they were using it, how they should be using it and how she influenced the product with the feedback provided. Some of her feedback that was incorporated into the products include the inclusion of importing CSV files and import it into azure migrate – which was announced at MS Ignite. Sarah’s advice to anyone who is starting off in the Cloud Solution space (06:45) MSLearn – Leverage MSLearn – it has free and has different learning paths for varying skill levels. Local Azure Meetup groups – She encourages joining local azure user groups and learning from other people. Examples include – Glasgow user group which she runs. [If you are in the NYC region also check out the following user group that we host – https://www.meetup.com/Microsoft-Azure-Public-Sector-Meet-Up/ ] Sarah’s advice to keep herself abreast of all the changes happening in the cloud world (09:40) She uses twitter to keep herself updated on everything that is happening and everything that people are talking about – she follows customers and Azure Program managers. She listens to the community and understands the latest trends and what is important. She also has started a Youtube channel where she posts regular updates on Azure. Sarah defines what a “good day” and a “bad day” is for her (12:10) Good day – Almost every day, specifically when people find the content she shared or created useful and provide her feedback on it Bad day – when travel schedules get messed up How to get in touch with Sarah (13:50) LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sazlean/ Twitter – https://twitter.com/techielass Glasgow Azure User Group – https://twitter.com/GlasgowAzureUG . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/2019/12/28/ep9/.

#8- Mike Pfeiffer– cloudskills.io – shortening the learning curve for others window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep8MikePfiffer.m4a" }, "title": "#8- Mike Pfeiffer– cloudskills.io – shortening the learning curve for others", "description": "In this episode we talk with Mike Pfiffer who works as a Chief Technologist at Cloudskills.io. We talk about Mike’s journey and how he got to where he is today. We also talk about his work in the education space using deep immersive education. We also talk about how fitness plays a critical role in his focus and attention to learn new technologies.", "url": "/2019/11/18/ep8/", "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode we talk with Mike Pfiffer who works as a Chief Technologist at Cloudskills.io We talk about Mike’s journey and how he got to where he is today. We also talk about his work in the education space using deep immersive education. We also talk about how fitness plays a critical role in his focus and attention to learn new technologies. Enjoy listening ! Mike’s journey on how he got to where he is today (02:02) He talks about his journey from a ski lodge to AOL all the way to getting his MCSE certifications – working with Microsoft, AWS and now running his own learning and consulting company – Cloudskills.io He also talks about how he wet his feet into the development world by working on ASP.NET and other technologies, but decided to come back into the infrastructure space where the application development skills he learnt give him an edge. Interesting projects that Mike has worked on (08:09) Immersive training programs – After doing 25 Pluralsight courses and LinkedIn learning courses – Mike is now designing a course which is more immersive – the content is spread over longer period of time, people get more depth experience and absorb content in better way and they have a community to stay connected to create an impact. He talks about how his students are now the co-authors for his new books (published by Microsoft Press). Mike’s advice to anyone who is starting off in the Cloud Solution space (13:04) Don’t chase the dollar, chase your passion/goal. Get active – use the passion. Consistently have a routine. Be organized As tech people – we always bet on technology and learn and master it. Respect the highs and lows in the process Complaining is not good enough, expressing viewpoints must add value – must not just be venting or shooting down a product or a service. Mike’s advice to keep himself abreast of all the changes happening in the cloud world (16:10) Have a system or routine in place- wake up early at around 4 AM. Prepare for the day, learn and share. Get a focused concentrated time. He is militant about his calendar, if it’s in his calendar – he will do it no matter what. Observe what people are talking about and get into the conversation. Observer what successful people are doing. Mike’s routine outside of tech / his daily routine (22:40) He is intentional about his fitness and diet. His meditation is his workout. He feels its therapeutic. After his work he hits the gym – lifts weight. He feels there is a direct correlation between our physical fitness and the efficiency of the brain. How to get in touch with Mike LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpfeiffer/ Company website – www.cloudskills.io Personal website – https://mikepfeiffer.io/ Twitter – https://twitter.com/mike_pfeiffer Podcast – www.cloudskills.fm Books mentioned in the podcast – Deep Work Pluralsight profile – https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/mike-pfeiffer . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/2019/11/18/ep8/.

#7- Kevin Mack – the “welldocumented” nerd window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep7KevinMack.m4a" }, "title": "#7- Kevin Mack – the “welldocumented” nerd", "description": "In this episode we talk with Kevin Mack who works as a Cloud Solution Architect with ISVs. He talks about how his past life as a professor gave him valuable life and tech skills, like explaining and simplify for the audience & also helped him sharpen his debugging skills. We also talk about how his wife made the greatest contribution to his blog, and also helps him run the alpha/beta test before delivering a session on a complex topic. We also talk about how designing for high availability is critical for the customers that he works with and he goes about designing them.", "url": "/2019/11/11/ep7/", "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode we talk with Kevin Mack who works as a Cloud Solution Architect with ISVs. He talks about how his past life as a professor gave him valuable life and tech skills, like explaining and simplify for the audience & also helped him sharpen his debugging skills. We also talk about how his wife made the greatest contribution to his blog, and also helps him run the alpha/beta test before delivering a session on a complex topic. We also talk about how designing for high availability is critical for the customers that he works with and he goes about designing them. Enjoy listening ! Kevin’s journey on how he got to where he is today (02:08) Went to school business information technology and how he wanted to be anything but a programmer – but that’s where life got him

#6 – Abhijeet Jhala – Making a parking system “smart” using Azure window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep6AbhijeetJhala.m4a" }, "title": "#6 – Abhijeet Jhala – Making a parking system “smart” using Azure", "description": "Welcome to the Cloud Solution Architect podcast where we talk to Azure architects from across the globe and discuss interesting and creative Azure solutions. For more podcast episodes, animated azure video lessons and simplified how-to Azure articles please visit www.azuremonk.com. In this episode we talk with Abhijeet Jhala (AJ) who works as a Cloud Solution Architect with ISVs. He talks about how he has the “coolest job” since he has to solve a business problem only once but can be reused many number of times. We talk about how he was instrumental in solving a business problem which was – making a parking gate “smart” using Azure and its IOT capabilities. He also talks about how having a breadth of technical experience and a hip pocket skill helps him be a “problem solver", "url": "/2019/11/01/ep6/", "coverUrl": "" } } Welcome to the “Cloud Solution Architect” podcast where we talk to Azure architects from across the globe and discuss interesting and creative Azure solutions. For more podcast episodes, animated azure video lessons and simplified how-to Azure articles please visit www.azuremonk.com In this episode we talk with Abhijeet Jhala (AJ) who works as a Cloud Solution Architect with ISVs. He talks about how he has the “coolest job” since he has to solve a business problem only once but can be reused many number of times. We talk about how he was instrumental in solving a business problem which was – making a parking gate “smart” using Azure and its IOT capabilities. He also talks about how having a breadth of technical experience and a hip pocket skill helps him be a “problem solver” Enjoy listening ! AJ’s journey on how he got to where he is today AJ talks about how he started off with Oracle and how he started off with a blank state in Azure when he joined Microsoft but quickly mapped & translated the syntax from Oracle and AWS to Azure AJ talks about how he has the coolest job by working with industry solutions in the ISV space. AJ solves a business problem once but the solution he develops can scale – thanks to partners who help amplify his solution to 100-1000s of customers Interesting projects that AJ has worked on – A leader in parking management wanted their Kiosks, gate to be intelligent and dynamic fare based system. The challenges were the parking were 5 levels underground and had no internet connectivity. Azure IoT was used to solve this business problem – including OCR, Azure edge camera for License plate reading. This also gave them additional value added services like – differential pricing based on demands, monitoring the parking spots, categorize the car by frequent customers and more. AJ defined what a “good day” and a “bad day” is for him – Good day: True business impact which tangible results than just a technical solution Seeing his impact in real world Bad day: Unhappy Customers AJ’s advice to anyone who is starting off in the Cloud Solution space – Categorizing oneself as a pillared solution category expert – may not be a good idea. The real world doesn’t work that way – they do not hear solutions or products, what they want is industry problems. In order to solve this he had to stop wearing the hat of a “pillared solution expert” model. He now prefers calling himself a “problem solver” rather than a Data & AI Architect or Apps & Infra architect with a “hip” pocket skill. AJ’s advice to keep himself abreast of all the changes happening in the cloud world – He is more of an audio/visual learner Azure Mechanics, Azure Academy, and Channel 9 video contents are something that he goes back to for an update on the features. For day-to-day updates he prefers following updates blog How to get in touch with AJ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhijeetjhala/ His future blog link will be posted here

#5 – Joe Sarabia – AWS, GCP and Azure Solution Architect window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep4JoeSarabia.m4a" }, "title": "#5 – Joe Sarabia – AWS, GCP and Azure Solution Architect", "description": "Welcome to the “Cloud Solution Architect” podcast where we talk to Azure architects from across the globe and discuss interesting and creative Azure solutions. For more podcast episodes, animated azure video lessons and simplified how-to Azure articles please visit www.azuremonk.com. In this episode we talk with Joe Sarabia who works as a Cloud Solution Architect in Microsoft. We talk about Joe’s variety of experiences working on and with all the major private and public cloud providers out there including VMWare, Google, AWS and now Microsoft. We also talk about the book – Phoenix project, how he bought low-cost discounted machines at his local Fry’s store to learn NT migration, how he likes to “build stuff” to keep up with his “continuous learning” methodology and much more valuable advice to anyone in the tech space. We also talk about two of his interesting projects that he has worked on – one focused around people and other around technology.", "url": "/2019/10/29/ep5/", "coverUrl": "" } } Welcome to the “Cloud Solution Architect” podcast where we talk to Azure architects from across the globe and discuss interesting and creative Azure solutions. For more podcast episodes, animated azure video lessons and simplified how-to Azure articles please visit www.azuremonk.com In this episode we talk with Joe Sarabia who works as a Cloud Solution Architect in Microsoft We talk about Joe’s variety of experiences working on and with all the major private and public cloud providers out there including VMWare, Google, AWS and now Microsoft. We also talk about the book – Phoenix project, how he bought low-cost discounted machines at his local Fry’s store to learn NT migration, how he likes to “build stuff” to keep up with his “continuous learning” methodology and much more valuable advice to anyone in the tech space. We also talk about two of his interesting projects that he has worked on – one focused around people and other around technology. Enjoy listening ! Joe’s journey on how he got to where he is today (02:02) Joe talks about how he started off as an enthusiast by building his “home lab”, then working in weather service and how he worked his way through IT operations. He talks about how an incident where transitioning from a BCDR strategy of “shut down” when a disaster happened to using VMWare solutions, changed the game for him and his business. That’s when he learnt that technology can be a business driver. From there he transitioned over to Amazon and Google in the public cloud arena, and now in Microsoft – one of his main drivers for choosing Microsoft is the relationship and the understanding of enterprise and the flexibility of work to balance work Defines his “good” and “bad” day at work (08:57) Good day: Solving a diverse and complex problem. When things start to click for the organization (especially around DevOps – he references the book “The Phoenix project”) Bad day: When he can’t solve the business problem, when they need or want to – due to certain technological restraint/limitations. The interesting projects Joe has worked on and has made a big impact (12:19) Project #1 – Azure DevOps – He defines DevOps as – People, Process and Product -and the product side being the easiest – like they mention in the Phoenix project. He gives an example of how one of his customers had several silos inside the organization. All the teams at his customer were using different versions of TFS and were looking to migrate TFS to VSTS online and Azure Devops. He had to bring all the dev teams in the same room and talk about current state analysis, future state analysis and gap analysis. Each team had their own pocket of excellence. When the customer realized this and they started learning from the inhouse talent of how the other teams were leveraging technology – it was a moment of dissolving the silos and how he was able to get the people working together. Project #2 – Joe talks about how application insights helped his customer resolve sporadic errors and performance issue patterns. With the power of telemetry from application insights they were able to identify with a click of a button, it as something that coincides with calls back from the database and the RCA was the DBA team was performing maintenance without letting the application team know. Joe’s advice to anyone who is starting off in the Cloud Solution space (23:41) Having a computer science degree helped him out, although he thinks it may not be a mandatory requirement currently. Ability to write lightweight code, and understanding both the infrastructure and app side gives him an advantage. Leverage the free tier (or pay if necessary) to play around with the features. Building your own website to build a blog will teach you a lot. Attend or host user groups local to the place you live in. Leverage the educational benefits or discounts that all the major cloud providers provide. Build stuff – applications ( he gives an example of his friend who built a game not because “he should” but because “he can” Joe’s advice to keep himself abreast of all the changes happening in the cloud world (31:07) He uses feedly or a similar RSS feed aggregator for keeping up with all of the updates as a daily routine He uses “pattern recognition” to keep himself ahead of the curve when it comes to new technologies – example Kubernetes “Continuous learning” is critical – not just gets hands dirty but “keep your hands dirty” ! There is a lot of overlap between all the major cloud providers and identify and having a strategy to learn around it helps. He has broken many things along with many “oops” moments – but this is what makes his experience valuable – Keep at it !! How to get in touch with Joe LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-sarabia/ . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/2019/10/29/ep5/.

#4 – Olivier Martin– Data Scientist and Machine Learning Engineer window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep4OlivierMartin.m4a" }, "title": "#4 – Olivier Martin– Data Scientist and Machine Learning Engineer", "description": "In this episode we go through an interesting and inspiring conversation with Olivier Martin who works as a Machine Learning Expert and Architect in Microsoft. We talk about a wide variety of topics from how “being curious” and being a #LearnitAll helped him to get to where he is today and helping him every single day. He also talks about an interesting Machine learning project where they helped increase the efficiency by identifying “false negatives” ", "url": "/2019/10/21/ep4/", "coverUrl": "" } } This is the fourth episode of the “Cloud Solution Architect” podcast where we talk to Azure architects from across the globe and discuss interesting and creative Azure solutions. For more podcast episodes, animated azure video lessons and simplified how-to Azure articles please visit www.azuremonk.com In this episode we go through an interesting and inspiring conversation with Olivier Martin who works as a Machine Learning Expert and Architect in Microsoft We talk about a wide variety of topics from how “being curious” and being a #LearnitAll helped him to get to where he is today and helping him every single day. He also talks about an interesting Machine learning project where they helped increase the efficiency by identifying “false negatives” Enjoy listening ! Show notes 1:40 : Olivier talks about his journey from a network engineer to his entrepreneurial journey to his different roles in Microsoft – all while maintaining his secret weapon – “Curiosity” and “GrowthMindset“ 10:07 : Olivier talks about how he went about learning Machine Learning and Deep Learning (all this with a new born baby

#3 – Mohamed Faizal – Singapore Airlines KrisPay and Cloud Custodian program window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep3MohammadFaizal.m4a" }, "title": "#3 – Mohamed Faizal – Singapore Airlines KrisPay and Cloud Custodian program", "description": "In this episode we talk to Mohamed Faizal, who was one of the first 100 MVPs of Azure who is currently working as a Cloud Solution Architect in Singapore. In this episode we talk about interesting projects like KrisPay for Singapore Airlines using blockchain as a service to the Cloud custodian program", "url": "/2019/10/14/ep3/", "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode we talk to Mohamed Faizal, who was one of the first 100 MVPs of Azure who is currently working as a Cloud Solution Architect in Singapore. In this episode we talk about interesting projects like KrisPay for Singapore Airlines using blockchain as a service to the Cloud custodian program Show notes 01:37 – Faizal talks about his background on how he started off as a DOS Developer, to Lotus Notes migration to PaaS SQL in Azure and being one of the first 100 Azure MVPs in 2011 06:47 – Faizal talks about the implementation of Loyalty Program (KrisPay) using Blockchain as a Service for Singapore Airlines. 11:00 – Faizal talks about Cloud Adoption Framework and how Cloud Adoption Framework helps with the compliance requirements for customers. 12:27 – How CAF is using cloud agnostic Infrastructure as a Code implementation using Terraform. 15:07 – We discuss the hub and spoke model for both networking as well as an overall subscription purpose. 20:50 – We discuss, how the detect and auto – remediation of subscription policies. 22:07 – Faizal talks about the open source solution – Cloud Custodian and how he leveraged this to solve the business problem. 26:00 – Faizal talks about the waste water management solution. He talks about they used 200000 IoT sensors to monitor water quality, collect data using stream analytics, and leverage Azure ML to predict the chemical usage to treatment. 29:12 – Faizal talks about his advice for new Azure Architects. Understanding customer needs and problem statement first before jumping to technical solutions is great advice. 31:08 – Advice to keep up with the latest updates on Azure – Run user groups. Commit to the user group which makes learning mandatory. Follow Azure Updates, and Product Management team on twitter, listening to podcasts like Azure Friday, Kubernetes podcast by google, AWS podcast. Faizal’s Linkedin in account – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmdfaizal/ Faizal’s Twitter account – @kmdfaizal CAF using Terraform on github – https://github.com/aztfmod/blueprints Singapore airlines story – https://customers.microsoft.com/en-us/story/singapore-airlines-travel-transportation-azure Azure Friday podcast – https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/resources/videos/azure-friday/ Kubernetes podcast – https://kubernetespodcast.com/ AWS podcast – Azure Product Management Team twitter handle – https://twitter.com/AzureApp https://twitter.com/AzureDevOps https://twitter.com/jonfancey . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/2019/10/14/ep3/.

#2 – Julian Soh – smart trash cans using Azure window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/ep2JulianSoh.m4a" }, "title": "#2 – Julian Soh – smart trash cans using Azure", "description": "In this episode we go through an insightful and fun conversation with Julian Soh who works as a Cloud Solution Architect in Microsoft US in the west coast. We talk about a wide variety of topics from how smart trash cans are revolutionizing a city and county by leveraging Azure to how biking helps Julian keep up with the latest and greatest on Azure", "url": "/2019/07/02/ep2/", "coverUrl": "" } } This is the second episode of the “Cloud Solution Architect” podcast where we talk to Azure architects from across the globe and discuss interesting and creative Azure solutions. For more podcast episodes, animated azure video lessons and simplified how-to Azure articles please visit www.azuremonk.com In this episode we go through an insightful and fun conversation with Julian Soh who works as a Cloud Solution Architect in Microsoft US in the west coast. We talk about a wide variety of topics from how smart trash cans are revolutionizing a city and county by leveraging Azure to how biking helps Julian keep up with the latest and greatest on Azure Enjoy listening ! Show notes 01:42 –> Julian talks about his background and how he got into Azure space 04:20 –> We discuss how the CSA (Clous Solution Architects) organization is structured 07:00 –> Julian talks about how Azure was used in modernizing a legacy system 09:24 –>Julian talks about the interesting and creative smart trash cans solution for the city and county using Azure Data and AI, IoT, Machine Learning and Big Data Analysis 12:54 –> Julian talks about how cycling helps him achieve multiple benefits -> focus, fitness goals and learn the latest and greatest on Azure & clearing the head. 20:04 –> Challenges and advice for budding new Azure architects Julian Soh’s LinkedIn -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/julian-soh-307ab24/ . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/2019/07/02/ep2/.

#1 – Stanislav Novoseletskiy -modernizing and transforming one of the largest transportation systems in the world window.playerConfiguration = { "episode": { "media": { "m4a": "https://csapodcast.azureedge.net/episodes/1StanislavNovoseletsky.m4a" }, "title": "#1 – Stanislav Novoseletskiy -modernizing and transforming one of the largest transportation systems in the world", "description": "In this episode we go through an insightful conversation with Stanislav (Stan) who is currently an Azure Solution Specialist working for Microsoft serving the NYC region.He talks about how he used Azure to transform some of the worlds largest transit systems IT infrastructure and reporting. He also shares very useful advice for budding new Azure architects not just from a technical perspective but also from a business and impact perspective.", "url": "/2019/06/27/ep1/", "coverUrl": "" } } In this episode we talk to Mohamed Faizal, who was one of the first 100 MVPs of Azure who is currently working as a Cloud Solution Architect in Singapore. In this episode we talk about interesting projects like KrisPay for Singapore Airlines using blockchain as a service to the Cloud custodian program Show notes 01:37 – Faizal talks about his background on how he started off as a DOS Developer, to Lotus Notes migration to PaaS SQL in Azure and being one of the first 100 Azure MVPs in 2011 06:47 – Faizal talks about the implementation of Loyalty Program (KrisPay) using Blockchain as a Service for Singapore Airlines. 11:00 – Faizal talks about Cloud Adoption Framework and how Cloud Adoption Framework helps with the compliance requirements for customers. 12:27 – How CAF is using cloud agnostic Infrastructure as a Code implementation using Terraform. 15:07 – We discuss the hub and spoke model for both networking as well as an overall subscription purpose. 20:50 – We discuss, how the detect and auto – remediation of subscription policies. 22:07 – Faizal talks about the open source solution – Cloud Custodian and how he leveraged this to solve the business problem. 26:00 – Faizal talks about the waste water management solution. He talks about they used 200000 IoT sensors to monitor water quality, collect data using stream analytics, and leverage Azure ML to predict the chemical usage to treatment. 29:12 – Faizal talks about his advice for new Azure Architects. Understanding customer needs and problem statement first before jumping to technical solutions is great advice. 31:08 – Advice to keep up with the latest updates on Azure – Run user groups. Commit to the user group which makes learning mandatory. Follow Azure Updates, and Product Management team on twitter, listening to podcasts like Azure Friday, Kubernetes podcast by google, AWS podcast. Faizal’s Linkedin in account – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmdfaizal/ Faizal’s Twitter account – @kmdfaizal CAF using Terraform on github – https://github.com/aztfmod/blueprints Singapore airlines story – https://customers.microsoft.com/en-us/story/singapore-airlines-travel-transportation-azure Azure Friday podcast – https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/resources/videos/azure-friday/ Kubernetes podcast – https://kubernetespodcast.com/ AWS podcast – Azure Product Management Team twitter handle – https://twitter.com/AzureApp https://twitter.com/AzureDevOps https://twitter.com/jonfancey . Show Notes Available at https://azuremonk.com/2019/06/27/ep1/.