A lot of IT administrators probably wake up each morning, look at the calendar, and sigh. That’s because there’s only three months and change left before January 14, 2020 – the day that Windows 7 is officially end-of-life.

Generally speaking, companies must weigh the pros and cons of upgrading or updating any system.  It is accepted that physical assets such as machinery or equipment must be maintained at specific intervals.  

Furthermore, the projected end of life date is typically established at the time of purchase.  Equipment kept in use past its projected EOL requires additional maintenance and upkeep and often hampers productivity or increases risk and most companies would not dispute this fact. 

Software systems are no less critical. Software applications and operating systems also have a projected EOL, but often the temptation to extend the service life of these assets is greater than for a piece of equipment that you can touch and feel. 

In the crowded space of Systems Monitoring Solutions, Microsoft has released a much-needed series of improvements to its Operations Manager (a.k.a SCOM) platform for 2016. The continued adoption of Hybrid Cloud scenarios which require 24/7 monitoring for both on-premise and cloud workloads using one tool is in high demand. Operations Manager 2016 has delivered a platform that can monitor you on-premise and cloud workloads from one pane of glass.

As a Gold Microsoft Partner for 25 years, we were excited to hear the news that Microsoft is planning to acquire LinkedIn. The results of such an acquisition are yet to be seen. However, the boldness of such a decision cannot be ignored.

Are you a cowboy riding an ostrich?

If your collection of software applications running your business looks like The Island of Misfit Toys, then it’s worth considering some new alternatives.

Have you ever asked yourself one or more of these questions?

• Do I have resources in Azure that are unused?
• Where are my Azure costs coming from which applications or departments should be responsible for those costs?
• Who made what changes to my Azure environment and when did they make them?
• Are my Azure resources configured to meet security policy?
• Are people attacking my Azure services? If so from where and how?
• What should I do to ensure my environment is secure from known and unknown threats and attacks?

If so, you probably know that getting answers out of the Azure portal has been less than easy.

Can your data be more secure in the cloud?

Let’s look at how Microsoft Azure is helping you to ensure your data and services are protected against current and future cyber threats in the cloud.

One of my favorite toys as a kid was Legos. It was that awesome feeling I got from creating something out of nothing. Usually, I would make some monster truck – it was the late ‘70s, early ‘80s, and Big Foot was a big deal. But I digress. So we weren’t building something out of “nothing”. We were starting with some building blocks that the Lego company provided.

No question there is a lot of thought, planning and precision engineering put into manufacturing those pieces so that they all fit together perfectly. As smart as we were, building a plastic Big Foot replica without those building blocks would have been beyond our ability. So we start with a pile of seemingly unrelated plastic blocks, wheels, people (with and without heads), shrubs, chimneys, car parts, etc. and create something entirely new from the seemingly random pieces. Fun!