I am excited to be a part of another Learn Live series. This study hall is all about Azure core IaaS. In this series, we will walk through how to build infrastructure solutions with Azure IaaS services and products. This twenty two-part weekly series will answer your questions live and walk through how to build infrastructure solutions with Azure IaaS services and products.
In the study hall sessions, together with you live, we will work through Microsoft Learn modules focused on various IaaS scenarios in Azure. You can see all of the sessions in this study hall series here:
The series has a solid lineup of speakers from Microsoft and the community! And I will be co-delivering a session focused on Linux on Azure and the 2nd topic will be on open-source database migration on Azure.
Here is a complete description of my session:
Discover the unique benefits of running Linux on Azure, and how to run Linux-based applications and workloads in the cloud with Azure. Then you’ll learn about the issues and considerations for migrating on-premises open-source databases to Azure, the services Azure provides to help you migrate your databases, and how to plan a migration. In this episode, you will:
Differentiate between Linux on Azure infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) computing, and the value of each
Describe Azure tools and services that bring additional value to Linux workloads
Explain the components of Linux virtual infrastructure in Azure, and the role of Microsoft in supporting different Linux distributions
Describe the features and services available in Azure for hosting an open-source database
Explain the key considerations for implementing a migration project
Describe different approaches that you can take for migrating databases
This event will be on March 30, 2023, at 10:00AM – 11:30AM (Pacific).
This brand new path is Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads (AZ-120). This path also has a course by Tim Warner as well as two more being developed right now! Also, I should mention this path also contains my SAP on Azure: The Big Picture course.
This new path will help you prepare to take the AZ-120 exam to earn your Microsoft Certified: Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty certification and ramp up on SAP on Azure in general.
I hope you find value in this new SAP on Azure learning path on Pluralsight. Again these two new courses bring me to a total of 9 courses now published on the Pluralsight platform! Next up I will start working on some Azure courses. These new courses will cover managing servers and Kubernetes with Azure Arc. I am very excited about my next courses. Be sure to follow my profile on Pluralsight so you will be notified as I release these new courses!
2020 was an extraordinarily tough year with many downs for so many people all over the world. For me losing 3 people in a week and a half (not to COVID) along with all the funerals to follow was rough. Also, the injustice in my home city with the murder of George Floyd and unrest was unbelievable but not a surprise with injustice going un-noticed for so long. It was amazing to see the world wake up and acknowledge what has been happening for so long.
In spite of all of the bad stuff from 2020, there was a tremendous amount of good stuff happening and progress. I believe there is always an opportunity in the middle of chaos. To see the opportunity it is needed to take a step back, slow down, and analyze the board. In this post, I am going to recap the positives from this year as I have done in the past few years.
Let me start off with the fact that I was renewed for my 9th year as a Microsoft MVP! I was re-awarded in the Azure category for the 3rd year. I never take the Microsoft MVP award for granted as it is never guaranteed. I am honored to once again be among such a talented group of people across the globe!
The next thing I want to call out is a message I received from someone from my home city after listening to one of the podcasts I was featured on. In this message this upcoming tech star talked about how he was inspired by the episode and how he can relate to me. This message was inspiring to me as this is a huge part of what I want to do through sharing my story. I hope to see more of it in the future. Here is the message:
Ok, now lets get into the list of activity from 2020!
-Podcasts-
In 2020 I was honored to be featured on 7 podcasts! Some of the podcasts in the US, Europe, and Africa! Here are the podcasts:
Guest on “Lisa at the Edge” Podcast EP13: In the podcast episode Lisa and I talked about: Evolving your career as technology evolves, Transformation of IT dept to Strategic Business Partner, DevOps, Containers 101, Azure Kubernetes Service, Diversity in tech. Episode link here
Was a guest on Tech Talk Wednesday podcast and radio show with Kazeem Adegboyega Topic: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) in 30 minutes. Streamed online via Microsoft Teams and aired in Lagos, Nigeria on Lagos State University (LASU) radio (95.7).
Guest on Headinthecloud Heartinthecommunity a community show by Isidora Katanic and Holly Lehman.
-Pluralsight Courses-
In 2020 I developed 5 new courses for Pluralsight bringing the total to 6! This is an opportunity to continue sharing my knowledge with the world through Pluralsight’s global platform. You can find my Pluralsight Author page here:
One more highlight from my journey with Pluralsight in 2020 is that my AZ-900 course broke into the top 100 courses on Pluralsight! This actually stayed here for multiple months!
I am excited about the potential with Pluralsight for 2021!
-Speaking-
In 2020 I presented at some conferences and user groups. Here is where I presented in 2020:
Inside Azure Management event conference
I was a speaker during the “Inside Azure Management Summit” on 7/23/2020. This was a free community event. It featured Microsoft cloud experts from the authoring team of “Inside Azure Management” book, Microsoft MVP’s, and community experts from around the world. I presented on Azure Policy! My session can be watched here:
I was one of the experts in several Ask the Expert sessions during Microsoft Ignite 2020! Sessions included PowerShell on Azure, Kubernetes on Azure, and Azure Migrations.
I was featured on AzureCrazy.com in an article! In the Interview we discuss being a #Microsoft MVP, getting certified in #Azure, the positive impact #PowerShell can have on your #ITCareer, getting started with #AKS, #AzureStackHub & more. Check it out here:
I also spent time writing blogs, volunteering with some youth tech programs, as well as shared a couple of scripts on GitHub! Here are some posts about some of these:
2020 was a full year. I already have plans and stuff in the works to make 2021 an exciting year continuing with a focus on Azure, Containers, Kubernetes, IaC, Terraform, GitOps, and more! Please check back here often for new blogs, scripts, and more.
Pluralsight has recently published my second course. This course is Monitor and Maintain a Software-Defined Datacenter with SCOM. This one took me back to my System Center roots focusing on Operations Manager.
This course prepares you for the 70-745 exam, while simultaneously showing you how to use SCOM for your datacenter.
In the course you will learn:
How to plan, deploy, and configure Operations Manager.
Then, you will discover how to tune Operations Manager.
Finally, you will learn about monitoring infrastructure and virtual machine workloads.
By the end of this course, you will have a better understanding of how monitoring works using SCOM.
