How does artificial intelligence become more sustainable? Richard chats with Darshna Shah about her experiences as Chief AI Officer at Elastic. Darshna discusses the resources required to run large language model experiments, the pressure this has put on the electrical grid, and more. The conversation turns to efficiency - and the idea that there is little incentive in the current land grab around LLMs to be more efficient - that the focus is on growing quickly. But as technologies mature, efficiency becomes a key competitive advantage!

Links

• R
• DeepEval
• Azure AI Evaluation SDK
• GitHub Green Software Foundation

Recorded January 29, 2026

SQL Server 2025 is released - what's in it, and what happens next? Richard chats with Bob Ward about the huge array of announcements coming out of Ignite around SQL Server 2025, including AI-related features, new reliability and performance options, engine improvements, and more! The tooling for SQL Server also continues to evolve, including making Copilot available through SSMS and as part of the SQL extension to Visual Studio Code. And there's more to come - have a listen!

Links

• SQL Server 2025
• SQL Server 2025 Unveiled
• SSMS with Erin Stellato
• SQL Server Management Studio
• JSON Data in SQL Server
• Managed Identity for SQL Server
• SQL Server in Microsoft Fabric
• Mirroring SQL Server in Fabric
• Next-Generation SQL Managed Instance
• MSSQL Extension for Visual Studio Code

Recorded January 5, 2026

How can you hire and get hired in 2026? While at NDC London, Richard chatted with Suzi Edwards-Alexander about her experiences recruiting technology folks into companies. Suzi talks about developing interview practices that actually reflect the job, rather than examining esoteric knowledge or certifications - it's possible to have an interviewing experience that is actually enjoyable! The conversation dives into the power imbalance between employers and employees and how to resist being seen as lesser for not being employed. Work should be a mutually beneficial experience - we have to do better!

Links

• Appartenir

Recorded January 29, 2026

What does it take to get your SaaS offering on multiple cloud providers? Richard chats with Steve Buchanan about his new role at JAMF, which focuses on a mobile device management product for Apple devices. Originally built as a SaaS product on AWS, Steve is helping to build out the JAMF stack on Azure to support a broader range of customers. Steve talks about Kubernetes as the common ground among the major cloud players, but you need to dig into the rest of the tooling to minimize differences across implementations. That means cloud-agnostic tools for deployment, identity, instrumentation, and more! The good news is that there are plenty of tools out there to help you, but it does take time to work out your suite of tools to get consistent results, no matter where the backend resides.

Links

• JAMF
• OpenTofu
• Elastic Kubernetes Service
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Google Kubernetes Engine
• Microsoft Intune
• iOS and Intune
• Okta
• Prometheus
• Grafana
• Steve's Pluralsight Classes
• KAgent
• SOC 2 Type 2

Recorded January 8, 2026

How have large language models impacted hacking? Richard talks to Erica Burgess about her experiences using LLMs for red team hacking, collecting bug bounties, and identifying vulnerabilities in systems. Erica discusses the power of LLMs to generate a variety of viewpoints on a potential exploit and help the hacker think "out of the box." Coordinating multiple agents to attempt a variety of exploits, retrieve information, and otherwise deal with the drudgery parts of hacking means a skilled operator can move faster - what once would be days of work can be minutes. Where does AI in hacking go? Lots of scary places - but also pointing the way to new ways to protect systems!

Links

• Burninator Sec

Recorded January 24, 2026

You're using Active Directory Certificate Services - but is it configured securely? Richard talks to Ron Arestia about his work with organizations implementing their own Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) with ADCS. Ron explains how poorly configured ADCS enables lateral attacks within an organization once an initial breach occurs, allowing black hats to move throughout your network. A well-designed PKI system has tiers of protection, with the top level completely disconnected from the network. Or do you really need your own PKI system? The conversation digs into the various scenarios, including third-party options. Certificates are the top level of security for your organization - you need to get it right!

Links

• Active Directory Certificate Services
• Windows Hello for Business
• Certified Pre-Owned
• Microsoft Defender for Identity
• Secure Privileged Access
• Pass the Hash
• Microsoft Cloud PKI for Microsoft Intune
• Microsoft Entra Conditional Access
• Microsoft Autopilot
• Ron's Blog

Recorded February 6, 2026

Ready to get started with Purview? Richard chats with Erica Toelle about the first steps you can take to harness the power of Purview in your organization. Erica explains that Purview is an umbrella product that covers several infosec technologies, including information rights management, data loss prevention, structured data governance, and more. When preparing for M365 Copilot, you want to start tagging sensitive information in your organization, and Purview can help by using LLMs to identify potentially sensitive content. You can also monitor how data is used, the types of prompts sent to M365 Copilot, and more. This can help you bootstrap M365 Copilot by using Purview to see which data Copilot uses, and then tune the access rules for that data. "Getting your data estate in order" is not a destination; it's a journey, and Purview can give you a map!

Links

• Microsoft Purview
• Data Security Posture Management
• Data Governance with Microsoft Purview
• Conditional Access with Microsoft Purview
• SharePoint Advanced Management
• Microsoft 365 Archive
• Endpoint Data Loss Prevention
• Purview Browser Extension

Recorded January 7, 2026

Business Process Automation has been around a long time - what are the latest approaches? Richard talks to Ian Cooper about his work building BPA workflows in organizations - starting on paper or a whiteboard to make sense of the process before bringing tools into the equation. Ian talks about building repeatable workflows that are well-documented and source-controlled, typically through GitHub. As workflows get more complex, you'll need orchestration engines that can handle failures and provide telemetry to identify when and where things go wrong. And make sure you let users know how things are going - or they will worry!

Links

• Kafka
• Durable Functions
• GitHub Actions
• Temporal
• Pulumi
• OpenTelemetry

Recorded December 5, 2025