Our meeting for July’2022 took place on July 20th, starting at 6 PM Central Time. It was an online meeting.
Topic: Azure DevOps and Azure with the Power Platform
Azure Cloud is Microsoft’s foundation to all it offers today. Understanding this is critical. While one may not consider the Microsoft 365 family of SKU’s being Azure itself, understanding that it runs on top of Azure is important for context. In fact, Microsoft relies heavily on Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). Within Azure AD is a section for App registrations. The App registrations feature alone is a critical part of what separates Azure AD in the cloud when compared to Active Directory On-Prem. Everything today is Cloud and because Azure AD plays a huge role in Identity Access Management, we must expand our understanding beyond these foundations alone.
Why is this important? With Gartner suggesting that “by 2024, low-code application development will be responsible for over 65% of application development activity”. Software applications are serving those without a technical coding background, such as citizen developers/integrators.
The Power Platform is Microsoft’s low-code application development platform. The Power Platform Sits inside Microsoft 365, which sits on top of Azure Cloud. Power Pages, a product inside the Power Platform, leverage Azure AD App registrations. ALM and DevOps tools, such as Power Platform CLI and Azure DevOps, use Azure AD App Registrations to create what’s called Service Principals.
Today’s presentation will show how to bring together all the Microsoft layers to help you perform these functions yourself or so you can support others you may work with and ultimately your company.
When David first started his journey of learning Azure, Azure DevOps, Microsoft 365, and the Power Platform, it was time-consuming, challenging, and exhausting. There were many videos and blog articles on the subject, but they just told parts of the story, frustrating him even further. Finally, after years of trial and error, reading the right combinations of Microsoft Documentation combined with many YouTube videos, it all finally clicked for him. Since then, he has helped others avoid a similar painful journey by sharing his understanding with them. He has been consulting on this topic alone since 2016. Helped establish several CoE’s around these topics and today he will share with the group a bunch of scripts from his documentation so you the attendee will not have to remember every little detail of today’s Azure Cloud expansive presentation.
Speaker: David Soden
David Soden has 25+ years of experience in both software and digital infrastructure solutions, including hybrid digital cloud infrastructure and software designed to speed up the needs of both Fortune 500 and medium to large-sized companies. He also brings an additional 17 years of software product management and leadership to his role. His chief strengths lie in architecting low-code and traditional software solutions, strategic thinking, execution, delivering results, and leadership across various modern and legacy IT teams. He is passionate about improving operational efficiencies by leveraging modern low-code technologies where applicable, driving increased efficiency, maximizing ROI, and enriching both the internal and external user experience.
Sponsor: Concentrix Catalyst
Concentrix Catalyst is the experience design and engineering team of Concentrix, a leading global solutions company that reimagines everything CX through strategy, talent, and technology. We combine human-centered design, powerful data, and strong tech to accelerate CX transformation at scale. Customer-obsessed and outcome-oriented, Catalyst helps the world’s most innovative brands chart a path to what’s next. Our belief in change for the better drives a commitment to catalyzing human connection across digital and physical touchpoints. By putting people first, we make technology work in service to the experiences that define our lives.
Our sponsor gave away two $50 Amazon gift cards.