IT Training

Speaking on the Influencer Panel at BITCon 2019

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Recently a new panel session was added to BITCon. This panel is on the first day and is titled “Influencer Level Up”. I am honored to be a part of this all-star panel.

The panel has people in roles ranging from consulting, security experts, automation engineers, entrepreneurs, Salesforce and Microsoft MVP’s, software developers, authors, motivational speakers, tech evangelists, and even a CIO. Additionally, a majority of the panelists are MN-based. Here is the full info for the panel session:

Title:

Influencer Level Up Panel

Description:

Have you ever wondered how an expert leveled up to become a thought leader, industry leader, or influencer in their space? Not every path is the same to becoming an influencer and there can be hurdles and setbacks. If you have a goal to become an influencer joining this session will be a great place to come learn and ask your questions.

In this session, there will be a panel of woman and men influencers in tech, entrepreneurship, community leaders, MVP’s, and media talking about how they built their brands, utilized social media and more to level up in their space.

Date/Time/Duration:

Wednesday, October 9 • 2:30pm – 3:30pm

Check out the panel lineup:

You dont want to miss this panel.

Sign up here:

https://bitcon2019.sched.com/event/Vy3B/influencer-level-up-panel

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Speaking on Azure DevOps at BITCon 2019

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BITCon is back in Minnesota this year. The event is shaping up to be another great one! This year BIT locked in the mayor of Minneapolis to keynote one of the days!

The conference also has a new website. The new website is https://bitcon.tech. It will be held at multple locations again through Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

I have the honor to speak at the event again. I will be giving one session and will potentially sit on a panel.

Here is the information on my session:

When:
Friday, October 11 • 1:45pm – 3:00pm

Title:
Azure DevOps + VS Code + Teams = Perfect Match

Description:
For anyone getting started with or already working with Azure managing your cloud environments through Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with ARM Templates at some point is guaranteed.

There are many extensions available to optimize VS Code for an enhanced ARM Template authoring experience. Discover how to integrate your Azure DevOps CI/CD pipeline with Teams for enhanced collaboration across your DevOps team. Get updates directly in a Teams channel for commits, pull requests, and learn how to work with an Azure DevOps Kanban board directly from Teams.

Come to this session and see why Azure DevOps + VS Code + Teams = Perfect Match.

What you will learn:

  • About the various ARM Template related extensions in VS Code
  • How to integrate Microsoft Teams with Azure DevOps

A few months back I blogged about Azure DevOps and Teams intergration here. It was a popular blog so I decided to turn this into a presentation with demos!

Here is a direct link to my session:

https://bitcon2019.sched.com/event/TCh8/azure-dev-ops-vs-code-teams-perfect-match

If you are attending BITCon 2019 be sure to check out my session!

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8th year as Microsoft MVP!

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Today I received the official email from Microsoft that I was awarded for the 8th year as a Microsoft MVP!

When I was first awarded into the MVP program back in 2012 it was an honor and a surprise to join the ranks with so many talented people from all over the world. I also had no idea I would have an 8 year run in the program.

Time has flown by and it has been a great adventure so far. Even in the 8th year of being awarded as a Microsoft MVP it never gets old. You never know until the day if you made it back in or not and the novelty of it never wears off.

Of course, what makes being an MVP special is the great friends I have made over the years withing in out of Microsoft. Something else different about this award is I am no longer a Cloud and Data Center Management MVP I am now an Azure MVP!

I am looking forward to the 2019-2020 MVP award year with some interesting things already in the works such as a book on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), speaking and several conferences and user groups on Azure, and community projects.

As always I am honored to remain a part of MVP ranks. I will continue to do all that I can in the Azure, Azure Stack, CloudOps/DevOps communities this year.

My Microsoft MVP Profile: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/mvp/Steve%20Buchanan-4039736

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Docker JumpStart Virtual Workshop

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I want to share here about Docker training I will be attending later this month June 24th/25th, 2019. It is a Docker JumpStart Virtual Workshop. I am excited about this training because it will be delivered by a fellow Microsoft MVP’s Dan Wahlin and Mike Pfeiffer. Also Dan Wahlin is a Docker Captain.

For those that don’t know a Docker Captain is like a Microsoft MVP but for Docker. There will even be some Kubernetes covered on day 2. This is shaping up to be some great training.

As of now there is still room in this class and its less than $300 USD! If you have wanted to get up to speed on Docker this is a good low cost way to do it. Here is a link to sign up: Docker JumpStart Workshop

Here is what will be covered across the 2 days (from the training website):

Day 1:

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Featured on Cloudskills.fm and New Azure course

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FEATURED ON CLOUDSKILLS.FM ~

CloudSkills.fm is a podcast by fellow Microsoft MVP Mike Pfeiffer and veteran in the tech space with 5 books under his belt and numerous courses on Pluralsight. The podcast can be found here: cloudskills.fm. Mike is an all around good guy and I was honored to be a featured guest on one of his podcast episodes. The podcast is weekly with technical tips and career advice for people working in the cloud computing industry. The podcast is geared for developers, IT pros, those making move into cloud.

On this episode Mike and I talked about managing both the technical and non-technical aspects of your career in the cloud computing industry. We also discuss DevOps stuff around Docker, Azure Kubernetes Service, Terraform and cloud stuff around Azure management including my 5 points to success with cloud. You can listen to the podcast here:

https://cloudskills.fm/015

Also on you can listen here: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/cloudskills-fm/id1448194100 and PlayerFM: https://player.fm/series/cloudskillsfm/ep-015-managing-your-cloud-career .

NEW AZURE COURSE ~

I’m very excited Opsgility recently published a new Azure course by me titled: “Deploy and Configure Infrastructure”. This course is part of the AZ 300 certification learning path for Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies. More about the AZ 300 certification can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-az-300.aspx. The course is over 4 hours of Azure content!

Description of the course:

In the course learn how to analyze resource utilization and consumption, create and configure storage accounts, create and configure a VM for Windows and Linux, create connectivity between virtual networks, implement and manage virtual networking, manage Azure Active Directory, and implement and manage hybrid identities.

Objectives of the course:

  • Configure diagnostic settings on resources
  • Create baseline for resources
  • Utilize Log Search query functions
  • Configure network access to the storage account
  • Implement Azure storage replication
  • Configure high availability
  • Deploy and configure scale sets
  • Modify ARM Templates
  • Configure Azure Disk Encryption for VMs
  • Create and configure VNET peering
  • Install and configure Azure AD Connect

It can be watched here:

https://skillmeup.com/courses/player/deploy-and-configure-infrastructure

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Microsoft MVP Summit 2019

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This year’s summit was one of the best MVP summits I have been to since being a Microsoft MVP! I focused on Azure, Azure Stack, containers, and orchestration platforms. That’s about all I can say about the summit. Everything else is NDA!

On top of all the learning at the summit it was great connecting with other MVP’s and the Microsoft teams. This I can share. Here are some highlights from the summit in pictures:

It was full of cool stickers starting off with one for the 2019 MVP Summit.

Here are a some of the core CDM MVPs in front of building 92 including Bob Cornelissen, John Joyner, Janaka Rangama, Jakob Svendsen, Sam Erskine, Cameron Fuller, Robert Hedblom, Dieter Wijckmans, and others.

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2018 Review – Speaking, Blogs, New job, and more…

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2018 is almost over and it was an exciting year jam packed full of adventures! In this post I will recap some of the highlights from 2018.

New job

At the start of 2018 I started a new job with Avanade as a Group Manager: Cloud Transformation/DevOps. Who is Avanade? Avanade 35,000 plus employees and is a global consulting firm focused on the Microsoft platform. Avanade is owned by Accenture and Microsoft. I have been at the firm for exactly a year. It has been a fun ride so far working with really smart people on some exciting and very large projects. After I joined Avanade featured me on a Q&A spotlight blog.

You can check out the Q&A post here: https://www.avanade.com/en/blogs/inside-avanade/employee-stories/q-and-a-with-steve-buchanan

Moved from System Center focus to Azure/Azure Stack and DevOps

I moved away from System Center related work to only working on Azure, Azure Stack, and DevOps project. I had been making this shifting in this direction for a couple of years but the new job helped me transition to the type of work I wanted to do. I am a firm believer in change and through change comes growth. I still have my System Center skills but for me it was time to make a change in my career focus to be challenged and keep growing. Looking back I would make the same choice over again. You can see this change reflected in the blog topics I have posted, topics I have presented on this past year. My new role with Avanade has also helped me move my focus to cloud and DevOps.

Certifications/Training

I focused on and completed some Azure and DevOps certifications including: 70-535: Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions and AZ-400: Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions. However the one I am most proud of is the Microsoft Professional Program: DevOps. It took me 2 months to finish the training and all the labs to obtain the certificate. Here is a blog I posted about the training experience for the MPP: DevOps https://www.buchatech.com/2018/04/microsoft-professional-program-for-devops-finished. Here is a link to the my certificate: https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/certificates/67284e84-8afe-4f13-b477-d7620949fb18.

I highly recommend any of the Microsoft Professional Program tracks. It is excellent training!

Changes in user group involvement

I stepped down from the MN System Center user group board after 6 years. The board is filled with great people and is as strong as ever. I will continue to speak at the UG from time to time when it makes sense and may even attend some of the meetings. I needed to step down to step up my Azure community focus. I have been leading the MN Azure user group for the past few years and now I am able to step up my involvement with this UG. More info about the MN Azure user group can be found here: http://mnazureusergroup.com  Some of the key meetings/topics in my opinion from 2018 are

April Azure User Group Meeting: DevOps Best Practices for Azure and VSTS presented by Abel Wang, a Microsoft Cloud Developer Advocate. – https://www.meetup.com/Minneapolis-Azure-Cloud-Computing-Meetup/events/kdbbdpyxgbhb

May Azure User Group Meeting: Automate & Configure using Azure presented by Jenny Hunter – Program Manager Azure Management & Eamon O’Reilly – Principal Program Manager Azure Management. – https://www.meetup.com/Minneapolis-Azure-Cloud-Computing-Meetup/events/kdbbdpyxhbfb

August Azure User Group: Microsoft APIs presented by Kyle Weeks, an IT professional for the University of Minnesota. – https://www.meetup.com/Minneapolis-Azure-Cloud-Computing-Meetup/events/dtbmtpyxlbdb

September Azure User Group: Azure Bots with Node.js presented by Kamran Ayub, a software engineer for Target corporation & Pluralsight author. – https://www.meetup.com/Minneapolis-Azure-Cloud-Computing-Meetup/events/dtbmtpyxmbjb

October Azure User Group: Azure Resource Manager Concepts – Simplified presented by Brian Moore, a Program Manager on the Azure Resource Manager Team. – https://www.meetup.com/Minneapolis-Azure-Cloud-Computing-Meetup/events/dtbmtpyxnbgb

As you can see we had some really great speakers both from the community and Microsoft. We do our best to collect the slides from presenters and upload them on the UG site. Past meeting info is here: http://mnazureusergroup.com/category/past-meetings

Key blog posts

With everything else going on I did my best to keep up with new blogs over the year. Same theme with my blog topics being focused on Azure and DevOps. Some of my key blogs from 2018 are:

ARCHITECT YOUR CLOUD WITH AZURE BLUEPRINTS

https://www.buchatech.com/2018/09/architect-your-cloud-with-azure-blueprints

SETUP CI/CD PIPELINE WITH VSTS & AZURE STACK

https://www.buchatech.com/2018/02/setup-ci-cd-pipeline-with-vsts-azure-stack

NATIVE CLOUD MANAGEMENT IN AZURE

https://www.buchatech.com/2018/03/native-cloud-management-in-azure

AZURE MANAGEMENT GROUPS

https://www.buchatech.com/2018/03/azure-management-groups

AZURE COST MANAGEMENT (CLOUDYN)

https://www.buchatech.com/2018/03/azure-cost-management-cloudyn

AZURE POLICY

https://www.buchatech.com/2018/03/azure-policy

CLOUD SECURITY VIA SECURITY CENTER

https://www.buchatech.com/2018/09/cloud-security-via-security-center

In 2018 I had a really cool opportunity to write a blog for the official Azure blog on Azure Stack and DevOps. Here is the title and link.

“The importance of Azure Stack for DevOps” on the official Azure blog:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/the-importance-of-azure-stack-for-devops

Speaking

2018 was full of speaking opportunities from speaking at Azure events for Avanade, user groups, conferences and even on another continent. Here are highlights from where I presented in 2018.

MN Azure User Group

I was honored to kick of the MN Azure User group meetings last year with a session on Azure Stack. It was the February Azure User Group where I presented on Azure Stack Unleashed in 45 minutes to 131 attendees. Here is the link to the past meeting:  https://www.meetup.com/Minneapolis-Azure-Cloud-Computing-Meetup/events/245935696

MMS 2018  – https://mmsmoa.com

I was a speaker at MMS again in 2018. This time I delivered “5” sessions. Whoa! That was a whirlwind. Here is my MMS 2018 profile: https://mms2018.sched.com/steve_buchanan.1sw4e0n3. Here is a list of the 5 sessions:

Hybrid Cloud Unleashed with Azure Stack and Azure – With Microsoft MVP’s Steve Buchanan and Florent Appointaire

https://mms2018.sched.com/event/EeQy/hybrid-cloud-unleashed-with-azure-stack-and-azure

Insight into the Micro-Service & Container Technology that Powers Microsoft’s Cloud – With Microsoft MVP’s Steve Buchanan and Lee Berg

https://mms2018.sched.com/event/EeR3/insight-into-the-micro-service-container-technology-that-powers-microsofts-cloud

Monitoring Azure PaaS – With Microsoft MVP’s Steve Buchanan and Cameron Fuller

https://mms2018.sched.com/event/EeTC/monitoring-azure-paas

Soup to Nuts of Azure Site Recovery – With Microsoft MVP’s Steve Buchanan and Robert Hedblom

https://mms2018.sched.com/event/EeR4/soup-to-nuts-of-azure-site-recovery

ITSM Tools and Log Analytics: The Perfect Integration – With Microsoft MVP’s Steve Buchanan and Florent Appointaire

https://mms2018.sched.com/event/EeR1/itsm-tools-and-log-analytics-the-perfect-integration

Note you can download the decks from any of the sessions on the previous links.

BITCon 2018   – https://www.bitcon2018.com

This was the Inaugural conference for Blacks in Technology. BITCon brought together all walks of life in tech such as professionals, entrepreneurs, influencers, subject matter experts, students, and thought leaders.

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Microsoft Professional Program for DevOps Finished!

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I am a firm believer that no matter how old you are, how far along you are in your career, and regardless of the industry you are in it is important to continue educating yourself. This helps you expand your skillset, stay relevant, and sets you up for new opportunities as they come along. My field of information technology has been changing at a rapid pace and so for a while, I wanted a good way to ramp up on DevOps as a whole. A while back I found out that Microsoft added a new track to their Professional Program for DevOps. When I checked it out I found it to be very thorough and it was not just focused on Microsoft’s DevOps tooling but included non-Microsoft as well. I jumped in without hesitation and started learning.

I finally completed the program last week. Here is my certificate https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/certificates/67284e84-8afe-4f13-b477-d7620949fb18. I am planning to dive into the program they have for cloud next. If you have not heard of Microsoft’s Professional Program DevOps before here more information about it:

“DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to end users. This program helps the student learn about continuous integration and deployment, infrastructure as code, testing, databases, containers, and application monitoring: skills necessary for a DevOps culture in today’s workplace. This program focuses on Microsoft DevOps technologies as well as some OSS (Open Source Software) DevOps tools. Some of the Microsoft DevOps technologies covered in this course consist of Azure, Azure Resource Manager, IaaS, PaaS, IIS, Azure App Service, DevTest labs, Desired State Configuration (DSC), Azure Automation, OMS, Application Insights, SQL, Nuget, TFS, VSTS, and Visual Studio. Some of the OSS DevOps tools covered in this course consist of Jenkins, Git, Github, New Relic, Nagios, Chef, Docker, DC/OS, swarm, and Kubernetes.”

Here is a link to it:  https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/tracks/devops

This program consists of 8 required courses. Each course runs for three months and starts at the beginning of a quarter. In the end, there is a capstone that has to be completed. This capstone course is the 8th one. You have four weeks to complete the capstone. The capstone is a bunch of hands-on stuff you have to do. Courses average 16-32 hours per course to complete and are taken via the edX.org platform https://www.edx.org/microsoft-professional-program-devops.

Here is a list of all of the DevOps program courses:

      • Introduction to Dev Ops Practices
      • Infrastructure as Code
      • Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment
      • Configuration Management for Containerized Delivery
      • DevOps Testing
      • DevOps for Databases
      • Application Monitoring and Feedback Loops
      • Microsoft Professional DevOps Capstone Project
      • The DevOps Capstone Project contains:
        • Automation
          • Use ARM templates to deploy and configure Infrastructure in Azure
        • Continuous Integration
          • Implement Continuous Integration solution using Visual Studio Team services (VSTS)
        • Continuous deployment
          • Implement Continuous Deployment solution using Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS)
        • Testing
          • Implement Unit tests
          • Implement Testing in Production
        • Application Monitoring
          • Implement application monitoring solution using Application Insights

As you can see from that list this program is not just all about VSTS. There is a lot of Azure baked in as well as other non-Microsoft DevOps tooling. I highly recommend this course for anyone jumping into DevOps, or CloudOps and especially for folks with an IT pro background. If CloudOps is foreign to you here are a couple of blogs related to this topic: Sys Admin to Cloud Admin…ITSM to CloudOps…On-Prem to Azure Stack/Azure and Native Cloud Management in Azure.

My personal opinion is that Microsoft should move away from the certifications as they are and to this format. This format combines training and testing. When Microsoft first started the Professional Program for they only had a track for data scientists. They have added more and more tracks over time. Today there are tracks also for Big Data, Web Development, Software Development, AI, IT Support, and Cloud Administration.

Here is a link for all the tracks so you can check them out: https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/professional-program/tracks. These programs are a great way to expand your learning. Check them out!

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Speaking at OSCON and MMS May 2017

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May is a busy month for me with the opportunity to speak at both OSCON – Open Source Convention (https://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/oscon-tx) and MMS – Midwest Management Summit (https://mmsmoa.com)! OSCON is May 8th through the 11th in Austin Texas. MMS is May 15th through the 18th in Minnesota.

At OSCON I will be presenting on “How to Motivate Technical Employees” with friend and fellow Microsoft MVP Samuel Erskine – @samerskine. This will be on Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 4:15pm–4:55pm. This session is for CIOs, CTOs, IT directors, and IT managers and will cover how to retain your top talent and give you five ways to motivate technical employees. Come to this session to learn the secret sauce for keeping employee’s engaged!  Here is a link to the session: https://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/oscon-tx/public/schedule/detail/57374

At MMS I will be presenting three sessions! These sessions are:

“Awesomize your Azure Stack Deployments with Azure Stack Tools” with fellow MVP Mikael Nystrom -@mikael_nystrom.

Link: https://mms2017.sched.com/event/AUae/awesomize-your-azure-stack-deployments-with-azure-stack-tools

“Azure Operationalized” with fellow MVP Natascia Heil – @NatasciaHeil.

Link: https://mms2017.sched.com/event/AUbn/azure-operationalized

“Backup is Dead! Restore is Born in the Cloud!” with fellow MVP Robert Hedblom -@RobertandDPM.

Link: https://mms2017.sched.com/event/AUaR/backup-is-dead-restore-is-born-in-the-cloud

These conferences will be lots of great community fun! Hope to see you there.

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Free Cloud Resources for IT Pro’s

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A couple of years ago Microsoft ended TechNet. A lot of IT Pro’s were unhappy with that decision. IT Pro’s used TechNet to practice in their own labs and get up to speed on new technologies. Well on April 20th, 2016 Microsoft has an answer for this (NOTE: this is my opinion not any official statement from Microsoft).

2016-04-21 01_58_40-Microsoft IT Pro Cloud Essentials

Microsoft has launched the “Microsoft IT Pro Career Center” and the the free “Microsoft IT Pro Cloud Essentials“.

The Microsoft IT Pro Career Center is a free online resource to help map your cloud career path. Learn what industry experts suggest for your cloud role and the skills to get you there. Follow a learning curriculum at your own pace to build the skills you need most to stay relevant.
Microsoft IT Pro Cloud Essentials is a free annual subscription for IT Pro’s that basically gives you Azure, EMS, O365 resources to practice and learn with. It even comes with a Pluralsight account. It includes:

Free Azure credits to try cloud scenarios like backup, disaster recovery, security & dev/test.
Free Pluralsight subscription for on-line training.
Free Priority support in the TechNet forums.
A free phone support incident for Azure or on-premises products.
A free certification exam voucher. [2]
Extended trials of Enterprise Mobility Suite and Office 365.

This is huge. Many of my IT buddies have said they want to jump in on cloud but could not afford to pay for the accounts out of pocket. Well this is no longer an excuse.

Recently Dice published a report that Azure was #2 on the list of the fastest-growing tech skills. Here is the link:

http://insights.dice.com/2016/04/12/dice-report-fastest-growing-tech-skills-2 . I would bet that with the pace Microsoft is moving with Azure this will become the #1 tech skill in the near future. As an IT Pro Azure is something you definitely want to be looking into.

If you are an IT Pro and you want to get started with cloud jump out there and get started today.

Microsoft IT Pro Career Center:

https://www.itprocloudessentials.com

Microsoft IT Pro Cloud Essentials:

https://www.itprocareercenter.com

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