Educational Episodes: Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI)

Microsoft has recently added a new feature, which is the possibility to issue Kubernetes command-line interface (CLI) commands directly from Azure CLI. This is a serious step forward in the direction of further simplification of Azure workload and routine, which can be appreciated by Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS).

VMware Customer Connect is definitely better than its predecessor, My VMware. The new Customer Connect portal is powered by a novel AI and machine learning for elevated user experience. It also allows you to manage user assets, licenses, teams and user rights, monitor infrastructure health, create support tickets and do a host of other things within a sleek new design.

Windows Server 2022 will see various novelties. Among others, it will push its QUIC, TLS 1.3, HTTP/3, and SMB 3.1.1 protocols as new standards. QUIC, specifically, is presented as an alternative to TCP and is often dubbed “TCP/2.” But are these protocols worth being standardized? And what are the challenges?

Having unmanaged remote endpoints, overall, and in remote work specifically, can lead to unauthorized data access, data leakage, or even worse security compromise cases. Mobile Device Management solutions will allow you to tailor security policies, push security policies, settings and software on your employee remote-access devices, and identify potential vulnerabilities.

Cybersecurity threats increase by the day, especially, with the widespread adoption of remote work. To reduce compromise odds, you can add multi-factor authentication to any applications that require logging in. Adding a token-based security layer, for example, to your Linux SSH will boost your chances against threats via the network.

You can increase your Azure Portal Security by configuring Conditional Access, an Azure Active Directory (AD) Premium P1 feature, to enforce multi-factor authentication. The feature collects various signals from user IP location to group membership, allows you to see them in real-time, and decide whether to allow or deny application access to AD or allow limited access.

Microsoft has recently added two new features to help with your daily Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) work. The first feature allows you to schedule maintenance windows every week to minimize workload impact. The second one offers different auto-upgrade variations where you can tweak what’ll happen to your existing version, when, and how.

There are various options to ensure backup safety today. The 3-2-1 backup rule (3 copies of data, on 2 different media, 1 of them being off-site) is a must. But it’s not enough. Keeping your backups in an independent network separate from Windows Active Directory, privilege managing, using backup software, like StarWind VTL — these and other extra steps are necessary to ensure thorough data protection.

Automation in daily IT has become a standardized necessity rather than an advantage. Power Automate Desktop builds on the inherent robotic process automation of Power Automate. The solution allows you to automate all of your repetitive desktop processes. But the best thing is that the application is now free for all Windows 10 users!