Speaker 1: 0:07

Hello, welcome to Microsoft Community Insights Podcast, where we share insights from community experts to save the state in Microsoft. My name is Nicholas and I'll be your host today In this podcast. We will dive into Agile administration, but before we get started, I want to remind you to follow us on social media so you help us reach more amazing people like yourself. Today we have a special guest called Susheeta Kaldi. Can you please introduce yourself please?

Speaker 2: 0:39

Sure, and thank you so much, nick, for having me. I am delighted to be a part of your Microsoft community forecast and I am thrilled to talk about the significance of Azure administration. So I am Sucheta Goved. I am a Microsoft MVP in Intune and Azure. So in my current day-to-day work I really focus more on Azure and endpoint administration. So leveraging those you know, those tools and technologies basically and that's why you know that gave me the interest that brought interest in me to you know, become an MVP in these technologies.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Okay, yeah. So before we get started, can you just explain how does Azure administration fit into your day-to-day work?

Speaker 2: 1:31

Yes, definitely, and, like I mentioned. So, I manage an endpoint engineering team currently in a healthcare organization in the US. But apart from managing the endpoint and the device aspects, which is my primary responsibility, I also am involved in tasks related to Azure, such as the architecture and planning focused on Azure administration in the environment. So, as an Azure admin, my role would involve a mix of the planning, operational monitoring, maybe problem solving, and everything that comprises of the administrator aspects of Azure.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Okay, so would your role involve like designing aspects or the architect?

Speaker 2: 2:19

Yes, yes, because you know, as an Azure administrator, you know you're involved into ensuring the smooth functioning of the infrastructure, right? So you're supposed to be, or you act, as an infrastructure architect, because a well-architected Azure environment can be better managed. And so, yes, the answer is you know the admin role does do a lot of architecture, as well as the design and engineering for Azure environments.

Speaker 1: 2:51

Okay, so, based on your current role, what kind of what do you think is some of the duties that make a good Azure administration going forward?

Speaker 2: 3:06

some of the duties that make a good Azure administration going forward. Yeah, I think you know it really thinks around, you know, cost and security or even performance resources and you might want to bring up that slide that we have that really talks about yes, yes, that one that really talks about the yes, yes, that one that really talks about the different aspects of Azure administration. So it starts, right, from managing resources, like the core services. Right, because as an Azure administrator, you would be overseeing the deployment, configuration and management of the VMs or storage accounts or databases. So that's mainly about managing resources and core services. Then we have security management, where it's more about, you know, security governance, compliance management and securing the cloud is a top priority, right? So Azure administrators would implement identity and access management policies, enforce compliance standards and monitor for those vulnerabilities that may surface. And, again, they use tools like the Azure Key Vault or Azure Log Analytics policy blueprints. That all comes in handy when it comes to securing your Azure environments. Third up here, we have performance monitoring, which is performance as well as monitoring of your Azure environments. So, as an Azure admin, I would ensure that the performance of the Azure environment is good and healthy, that the performance of the Azure environment is good and healthy. It needs constant monitoring because continuous performance tuning is essential to maintain that operational efficiency Monitoring system, health troubleshooting, bottlenecks, ensuring that workloads run smoothly Again, we can make use of Azure Monitor application insights, things like that.

Speaker 2: 5:07

The fourth one is cost optimization. So basically cost management and cost optimization, because effective cost management is critical and crucial, specifically because in Azure mostly we have the pay-as-you-go model. So Azure administrators they analyze resource utilization, optimize workloads, implement policies to control unnecessary expenditures. Again, we can really leverage the cost management and billing Azure Advisor. You can use budgets and tags so that all comes in very effective for cost management.

Speaker 2: 5:48

The last aspect here, again, these are just the key aspects, but the last aspect I wanted to talk about is automation. Automation and tools, because automation in Azure, it refers to the use of tools and processes to perform those repetitive, time-consuming or complex tasks automatically, reducing the need of manual intervention, right. So, using Azure PowerShell or even IAC, for that matter and I know, nick, you work in platform engineering, so you probably make a lot of use of infrastructure as code and ARM templates, or maybe Bicep and Terraform, that really helps with bringing in that automation in Azure environments. So I think, yes, these are the key factors that Azure admins need to work upon, or this is what they really manage and monitor in their day-to-day work.

Speaker 1: 6:47

So do you think a typical Azure admin or engineer will need to balance like security and performance before other factors like cost, automation or everything has to split between evenly? You do these.

Speaker 2: 7:06

I think it depends on the environment also, and then again, from organization to organization, the admin role may be different. There may be one admin in smaller environments or there may be more than one tiered admin roles in a larger environment. So it depends. But I think, yes, that balance is definitely needed, and balance is not just between you know, one or two of these, but I think it's all together. Maybe some companies really are focused on ensuring cost optimization and everyone today is focused on security, so perhaps security and cost is the main thing. But I think, you know, overall it's a balance in between all these key parameters.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Yeah. So, going back on, like automation, like infrastructure, as code, what do you normally use to automate your like, your agile, like intunes management?

Speaker 2: 8:06

you use bicep, terraform or arm so I haven't used it for intune specifically, but we have done some deployments in like the azure environment itself and a good example will be, you know, deploying like the azure virtual desktop environment. So for that, you know, the preferred method would be using either Bicep or Terraform. The ARM templates are good, you know those JSON templates but I think Bicep is more preferable for, like the declarative method and, you know, makes it more easy when you want to change your configurations. So, yes, I would lean more on the Bicep part of IAC to do any automation in Azure.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Yeah, because Bicep is more suited for a Microsoft environment, right, because I'm a Terraform house, so we're like a hybrid between AWS and Azure, so we have to use Bicep Terraform because it's more suited for our workload. Okay, so, in terms of what are some of the interesting projects that you've been involved with in your current work that involve all these aspects?

Speaker 2: 9:22

Yeah, I mean any new implementations in Azure. Say, we want to deploy a new application or deploy an application that is built in-house. Those have been projects of interest to me because then it touches so many aspects within the Azure environment. So that is one. The other thing, like I just mentioned, deploying that Azure Virtual Desktop environment that has been another exciting project. Then, over the past few months I think it's mostly been about, you know, ensuring that there's security implemented properly within the environment, as well as keeping an eye on those cost aspect of things. So, yes, it's all interesting and challenging at the same time, I would say.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Do you have any interesting use case or like projects that you've been involved with in Azure or Intuit? Yeah, I feel we were going into details like what are some of the interesting aspects in Azure administration of the project that you like?

Speaker 2: 10:31

Yeah, sure, I really have been heavily involved in the security aspect. So when it comes to security, you know doing the compliance-related automation, you know checking compliance of different things within the environment or setting conditional access policies, because we have, you know, in organizations where there are geographically spread out offices or people working, you know, all over the world, you really need that compliance and conditional access in place so that you can better secure your environment. So the conditional access aspect has been really interesting to me in implementing that, really interesting to me in implementing that. And then MFA as well, you know multifactor authentication. Implementation of that in large and complex environments is, you know, critical. So, yes, those have been the interesting things for me off late.

Speaker 1: 11:28

And that's brilliant. So, in terms of if someone wanted to go into an Azure admin role, how can someone get started?

Speaker 2: 11:38

So that's a very good question and I think if someone is just starting their Azure journey, or maybe even starting on the Azure administration part of it, the best approach really is to build that strong foundation and then gradually explore advanced concepts.

Speaker 2: 11:56

So my advice would be start with the basics, learn the cloud fundamentals, understand cloud computing concepts and understand the Azure code services, because once you understand how they interact with each other and how they work with each other, then it would be easy to delve more into Azure as such. So, yes, doing the AZ-900 certification is a great way to start Azure Fundamentals and then, once that is done, then we have the AZ-104, which is the Azure Administrator Associate certification, and I think if you are studying for that certification learning path from Microsoft, then that will really teach you how to configure and manage various compute, network and storage aspects of Azure, demonstrate key skills to configure, manage and secure those key functions which are important for Azure admins to work through. So, yes, I would say, learn through those learning paths and also do some hands-on experience. You could sign up for a free Azure account and once you do that hands-on practical, once you build certain things within Azure yourself, you'll understand things better. So that's my advice.

Speaker 1: 13:20

Okay, so, based on your experience and the role of Azure admin, do you think it will evolve over time, given the like AIs in the market? Like everything will will be like in terms of Azure admin role. It will involve AI.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Yes, yes, I do feel so, and I mean the role of Azure administrators is definitely evolving with the advancements in AI or even automation and cloud native technologies. So I think you know we already have Copilot in Azure, which helps Azure admins to write scripts to troubleshoot issues or to deploy resources, just with natural language commands. But I think it would be also more helpful where Azure admins will increasingly rely on AI to predict resource needs or identify anomalies or even recommend optimizations automatically, and then we could do AI-driven security. Administrators will leverage AI-powered tools to detect and respond to threats in real time. So I think that's how the AI will come into picture, along with Azure admin role. Perhaps admins may train and integrate AI assistance to support their internal teams with routine tasks or support with queries. So, yes, I do see a lot of AI coming into picture with Azure administration.

Speaker 1: 14:57

Okay, right, yeah, because do you currently use AI in your work, whether it's through your projects or?

Speaker 2: 15:07

just learning. Yeah, I mean we don't fully leverage it, but I just use it for my own use case, you know, in in my lab and I know that it really comes in handy. It gives you good insights into things.

Speaker 1: 15:17

Yeah yeah, sure, so I just want to. So before we end the episode, I just want to speak to ask about your journey to tech or stuff. So how do you, how do you get started? Do you have a pc before?

Speaker 2: 15:34

when you get young like to get into tech, or you switch career, change career so, um, when I was, um, you know, right after school, um, when I had to actually pick a career, I didn't really have a lot of choices. It was either do medicine or do engineering. And then there was good, there was a good influence of educational institutions where I lived. So I did engineering and because I studied engineering, that brought the interest in me for tech. And again, fortunately, where I lived there were, you know, good international tech companies coming in, so I got into tech. That way, you know, I got my first job was in tech, with Dell Technologies, so, you know, and that really interested me to learn and grow further and, you know, try, you know, career in tech. So, yes, that's, that's kind of been my short. Uh, in in a short way.

Speaker 1: 16:37

Yeah, so what was your first, like first role in tech? And then do you have what like encourage you to stay in tech?

Speaker 2: 16:47

in a tech industry that's also a good question, because my first role in tech was working with Microsoft Technologies. I worked on the Windows Installer technology from Microsoft, which is really you know, it's the one you would leverage to create software application packages and then deploy them out using we call it SCCM today, but there was SMS back in the day using we call it SCCM today, but there was SMS back in the day. Again, sccm is not the current name. Anyway, we have MECM and then we have the Intune, the cloud side, but you know those Microsoft technologies that were used for packaging applications, deploying applications in an automated fashion to end user machines. That's where I started with and it was interesting and you know, working on Microsoft technologies with Windows as the OS. That was intriguing. So I never really felt boring to me and I just continued in that. You know, I grew in that domain. I expanded into desktop and endpoint from that packaging niche. So, yes, here I am today working more in endpoint engineering. So, yeah, that's kind of how I'm here today.

Speaker 1: 17:59

Okay, so when did you start your first role? How did you get your first role? Was it through certifications or was it through hands-on labs and projects?

Speaker 2: 18:11

That, I would say, is more through projects, because when I graduated I had certain projects done under my belt, so certifications was probably not a huge thing back then. You know it is today, perhaps not at that time several years ago. So, yes, I, you, I was able to show the projects that I did in computers and then that way I got my first role in tech.

Speaker 1: 18:37

Yeah, so I take it, if someone were to get started now, they will just go to Root with certifications and do projects and combine the both to get a potential job.

Speaker 2: 18:50

And I think you should also have that hands-on learning and be able to showcase some of the things that you build. You could build smaller utilities and tools and then show that to your potential employer, because that shows that you have put in the effort, you are really interested in the technology and you already have that base or that foundation for the technology. I think that's important as well.

Speaker 1: 19:16

Yeah, that's great. So what do you normally do aside from work? So I see you quite being active in the community, so can you just speak about, like, do you have any hobbies, or just be like hands-on in community.

Speaker 2: 19:30

Yeah, and that's a very good question. You know, I obviously spend most of my time outside of work to contribute to the Microsoft tech community, but apart from that, I do like to paint in my free time, you know, be a little creative. And then in some other instances I like to get out of the home when the weather allows Currently it is snowing. Like to get out of the home when the weather allows Currently it is snowing, but whenever I have the chance I do like to go on trails, explore nature and obviously I like to spend time playing with my dog.

Speaker 2: 20:03

So, that's another exciting thing for me.

Speaker 1: 20:06

So you love nature and love hiking and outdoors.

Speaker 2: 20:10

Yes, I do.

Speaker 1: 20:12

That's brilliant. So, in terms of community, how do you get started with community, because I saw you being quite active.

Speaker 2: 20:23

Yes, so it's very interesting. Right before this call, we talked about the Festive Tech Calendar, right? So Festive Tech Calendar has been the first platform where I submitted a session. It got accepted and, thanks to Gregor, I made that video for the Tech Calendar and that, I think, was my breakthrough into the community. I also did a podcast with Gregor Sati and then from there, I started doing more as part of my contributions to the community. I speak at conferences, I speak at user groups, local meetups, I do blogging, you know, create content. So that's how I gradually just you know expanded my footprint into the community and I really love being a part of the community today.

Speaker 1: 21:15

That's wonderful, and I really loved being a part of the community today. That's wonderful. Is there any particular advice you give someone, in terms of whether it's public speaking or just if they're like quite shy towards the community and they might not know what it is?

Speaker 2: 21:28

Yeah, I think, you know, for anyone who is not a part of the community as of now, they should really, you know, start to talk to people in the community, make friends because, like you know, you know everyone is so helpful, everyone is so friendly, it is great to be with, you know, these amazing, talented people, um.

Speaker 2: 21:48

So, yeah, my advice would be, you know, get into the community, talk to people, um, and start talking at the local user groups, local meetups, where there's a smaller audience and the audience which you probably are already well-versed with, you know them, they're probably your friends. So, if you're a shy speaker, you probably will not have that hesitation and you can freely talk and from there you can expand into, you know, speaking at larger conferences. But at the same time, on the side, you want to keep uplifting your technical aspects as well. Right, you want to learn and grow and that can align with your career, with what you're currently doing in your role, because if you already are working in a specific technology and if you go speak about it, then you probably are, you know, more confident because you already work in that field, you know what that is and you can be more, uh, effective and impactful in your um, in your presentations and speaking engagements yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:51

So I just want to say one thing, like in terms of speaking, it's okay to be nervous, and if you're nervous, like talking to a lot of people, the audience is. If you ask a hard question, the audience is always there to help you. Whether it's if you don't know something, just say you don't know. So I just want to point that out.

Speaker 2: 23:15

Yeah, that's great advice so.

Speaker 1: 23:18

I just want to point out yeah, that's great advice. Okay, so, before we finish this episode, so is there anything you like to, any advice you like to give to people when going to start their first Azure admin role or in terms of Azure admin?

Speaker 2: 23:35

Yeah, I would just say, you know, technology is ever evolving. So even if you learn something today, tomorrow it may be transformed into something different. So never stop exploring. You know, keep an eye on advancements in technology. And that's why the tech community is here, because everyone talks about what's new, everyone talks about what's interesting. So once you're a part of the community, you'll have more, better insights into things. So never stop learning, never stop exploring. Be a part of the community and hands-on learning is key. So that's my advice to anyone. Yeah, thanks. So before you, my advice to anyone, thanks.

Speaker 1: 24:17

So before you get us started, before we finish with the episode, are you going to any tech events? Because I know, before we join the episode, we're both going to go to MVP Summit.

Speaker 2: 24:31

So are you?

Speaker 1: 24:31

going to anything aside from the summit next year.

Speaker 2: 24:35

So the summit is definitely exciting to me. This month I am looking forward to speaking at the FestivTech calendar. In January I'll be presenting at the Canada and United States MVP monthly spotlight meeting, which is hosted by Betsy Weber and Rochelle Sonnenberg, so I'll be presenting a session there, and then also in January, I will be speaking at a local user group here in person. But then, yeah, apart from that, really early next year, I'm excited about the summit in March. It's going to be my first in-person summit, so I look forward to meeting you. I look forward to meeting others and getting to interact with Azure and Intune product groups at Microsoft. So I look forward to meeting you. I look forward to meeting others and, you know, getting to interact with Azure and Intune product groups at Microsoft. I think that's also very interesting and that's exciting for me.

Speaker 1: 25:26

Yeah, I think the aim is this year there's going to be a lot more people than last year, because they still they ran to capacity, so they'll still have people that join late who's on the waiting list. So it should be interesting now what happens yes, I'm definitely excited so thanks for joining this episode, shishetta. Uh, it's a pleasure to have you and see you next time. Bye, bye, everyone.

Speaker 2: 25:55

All right, thank you all. Bye.