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Yes, there are some great use cases of where the elasticity of the Cloud is beneficial, and it's not just someone else's computer when it comes with those sorts of benefits.

My pleasure. Hope you find something useful in there. Come back and tell me what you liked in particular.

Orin Thomas did a great session at Microsoft Ignite Australia on the 30 terrible habits of server and Cloud administrators. It was the top ranked session at the event. One of those habits? Trying stuff in production that we found from a google search on some random person's blog! Link: 30 Terrible Habits of Server and…

lol I remember being taught about hidden DOS files and how you have to copy then too to ensure the disk is bootable. Fun times!

The industry is in great hands with mentors like you who are willing to pass on their knowledge. Thanks for sharing your story.

They feel like the tip of the iceberg. I think Cloud SaaS or even PaaS allows for tools like this to be developed more easily. Microsoft knows you're all running the same version of Azure Active Directory because they control it, so tooling is easy because there's no backwards compatibility to factor in.

Can I stretch you a little further and ask Why is it important that the systems are up? What do those systems enable people to do/achieve?

That's exactly why I was accepted onto the bank's IT team with no experience or qualifications - I showed potential and knew how the staff used the systems and what the stress was like having a queue of customers out the door at lunch time. I wonder if employers still look at potential staff with those eyes, or if they are…

I saw that! Interesting times.

Couldn't agree more! The input of a good, practical teacher in the early stages of your career is invaluable. And as our experience grows, let's hope we are that kind of a mentor for those new to the field... and that they are open to being taught past their certification studies.

Reliability, security and certainty require you to hand over trust to the Cloud provider that they would do as good a job (or better) than you would. In smaller orgs, Cloud subscriptions (especially SaaS) are cheaper than building that redundancy in house, including the expertise to maintain it. In the medical field, if…

This week I'll talk about ethics and AI ... not whether what we are doing is the right thing but whether we'll be able to 'code' ethics into the machines.

I really haven't found one that's indispensable to me. On the business side, Xero keeps promising their Facebook bot will give me answers to things like "how much money am I owed" but it was demoed last year and still has no timeframe for going live.

Hey, when I became a Lotus Domino Systems Administrator it was all Yellow manuals for learning & IBM Red Books for best practices. I hear ya!

Any tips on how to find that elusive 'free time'? After some business coaching, I used to set aside Friday mornings for this kind of thing, barring any fire fighting, but it's not easy to stick to when you have a busy workload.

I'm with you!

Eeek. And a lot of people are worried this is where we are heading with devops. Have you looked into any auditing tools or is it not worth it because it will never happen?

That's awesome. I think the Innovation one is my favourite as it doesn't apply to just bots!

Spot on!

I can't see my kids school stopping the spelling lists in homework just yet. But I can already see the kids getting lazy with autocorrect.

I wish more computer store retailers had staff like you! I've shuddered at some of the misinformation being given to the public. And I'm glad you like these posts. I was a little worried they might not be technical enough, but we've had some great discussions so far about topics related to how & why we do the work we do.…

My P.S. statement referred to the fact I'd love to get a Surface Book but can't justify the purchase for myself right now. But if work was buying, I'd love one. Unfortunately I haven't convinced my CFO (me) that I NEED one right now. Because I don't. Sometimes I hate being the boss. This post was intended to highlight…

Have you read The Phoenix Project? That scenario sounds a little familiar to the star of the novel when IT had no idea how many projects or calls it was actually dealing with. The only way you are going to turn that ship around (pardon the pun) is by someone high enough up the food chain enforcing a company-wide stop to…

Thanks. It's a condensed version and the links in it will be more helpful. I was trying hard not to make it War and Peace but still give you an overview of the things that are important to know.

My pleasure. In upcoming posts I'll be looking at Office 2016, Office 365 and some lesser known Microsoft products too. Any plans for Windows 10 in your organization?

Despite the risks, the tech giants are committed to the cause. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

This comment made my day! I'll explain my personal point of view a little. In my day job right now I work with micro and small businesses. For them, there are a massive number of reasons why Cloud services (primarily SaaS) work out better than having their own on-prem server. They often don't have the skills to maintain…

Yes, we get so busy managing systems or managing processes that it's easy to lose sight of why and what the actual risks are.

Ultimately let's hope it's the ethics that value and preserve human life. Anything outside of that gets sketchy.

Absolutely and how frustrating! I've only seen that broken by a strong CIO/CTO who's determined to move the company forward and pushes silo departments like Change Control to break through their 'Nos' and look for ways to turn them into 'Yesssssss'.