VM Backup Tiering with Azure Automation
Hi folks! My name is Felipe Binotto, Senior Azure Customer Engineer, based in Australia. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how you can have different Backup Tiers for your VMs and how you can automate the backup configuration ... continue reading

What’s new with SQL Tools
Hello community, the June release of Azure Data Studio 1.37 is here! We are also excited to announce the release of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 18.12. In this Azure Data Studio release, backup and restore to URL was introduced ... continue reading
To AAD Join or Not … That is the Question
As we all know, the cloud paradigm shifts in IT continue. When I worked in corporate IT - heck, when I started blogging out here - on-prem was really all there was. Active Directory, GPOs and WINS were all the ... continue reading
Performance of Azure Shared Disk with Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS)
On September 9th, 2021, Microsoft announced the general availability of Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS) for Azure Disk Storage, including Azure Shared Disk. What makes this interesting is that you can now build shared storage based failover cluster instances that span Availability ... continue reading
Azure Backup Monitoring and Alerting
Hello Folks, If you’ve had to manage the backuprestore processes for your environment, you know how important keeping up with the status of said process. No one wants to end up having to recover a VM from an incomplete/failed backup ... continue reading
Azure VMware Solution (AVS) for VMware Admins Primer
It’s funny to think there was such a pushback on virtualization when it first came out versus being the norm for most of us now. As a VMware admin myself, I remember all the discussions with application teams trying to ... continue reading
Destructive malware targeting Ukrainian organizations
Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) has identified evidence of a destructive malware operation targeting multiple organizations in Ukraine. This malware first appeared on victim systems in Ukraine on January 13, 2022. Microsoft is aware of the ongoing geopolitical events in ... continue reading

New macOS vulnerability, “powerdir,” could lead to unauthorized user data access
Following our discovery of the “Shrootless” vulnerability, Microsoft uncovered a new macOS vulnerability, “powerdir,” that could allow an attacker to bypass the operating system’s Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) technology, thereby gaining unauthorized access to a user’s protected data. We ... continue reading
Best practices for AI security risk management
Today, we are releasing an AI security risk assessment framework as a step to empower organizations to reliably audit, track, and improve the security of the AI systems. In addition, we are providing new updates to Counterfit, our open-source tool ... continue reading
Video 6 of the Azure VMware Solution Zero to Hero Series! FINAL VIDEO!
The last video of the Azure VMware Solution (AVS) zero to hero video series releases today! In this video, Shabaz Darr (@ShabazDarr) and I cover third party integrations for Azure VMware Solution, finally taking you to hero in the sixth ... continue reading