The Cloud Architects Podcast The Cloud Architects

In today’s episode we talk to Twan, Neil and Conrad who are the founders of PowerSyncPro, a software vendor solving complex migration problems for customers in a unique way and, in the shadow of some giant competitors. We delve into their interesting story, their technology and the problems they are working to solve.
After more than 5 years heavily investing into developing PowerSyncPro, PSP is now a world class robust identity sync and Windows workstation migration tool that facilitates cross company collaboration with ease. Written and designed by migration experts. PSP is solving directory consolidation, unified GAL and Windows workstation migration issues under a single pane of glass. It is a product that Twan, Neil and Conrad are immensely proud of.
Twan van Beers is a Senior Infrastructure Architect with commercial experience in a variety of development and Infrastructure technologies spanning over 30+ years. Having been a consultant for most of this time, Twan has become accustomed to fitting in with diverse teams, with everyone working towards a common goal.
Neil Langston comes from an IBM Domino background and has worked on some of the world's largest Domino to Exchange migrations. Neil specialises in large migration projects, tenant to tenant and Google to Microsoft. Neil has a wealth of experience migrating workloads including Identity, Exchange Online, Teams, OneDrive for Business and others for a variety of customers. Neil’s passion for all things migration related is reflected in the enhancements of PowerSyncPro.
Conrad Murray has over 25 years’ experience in the IT industry. As a messaging specialist experienced with Microsoft 365 and Azure, Conrad has expertise in all things messaging, Microsoft Exchange, IBM Domino, messaging hygiene as well as enterprise migration tools. Conrad is now using his wealth of experience to improve and innovate PowerSyncPro, to remove end user frustration with mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and consolidations!
This episode is sponsored by PowerSyncPro. PowerSyncPro ultimately makes mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and tenant consolidation a breeze. The product is constantly evolving to incorporate more scope to create a seamless migration process.
Twan, Conrad and Neil had, and have been, working on migration projects for over a decade. They kept running into the same problems each time with Active Directory synchronisation. Issues for user identities across multiple AD’s or companies with multiple email systems.
At the end of 2018 the team ran into some hard technical and commercial limitations with a well-known competitor’s toolset they were using and needed another way. Enter Twan van Beers...
During the 2018 Christmas break, with the support of his family, Twan invested his personal time to develop a comprehensive PowerShell module-based solution that could be used by internal consultants. This was the genesis of PowerSyncPro. A directory synchronisation tool that would simplify the process of syncing multiple directories or tenants to help streamline migration projects – an issue that had come up time and time again - Read more on our blog at https://thearchitects.cloud/ or check out the links below.
Links:
Home page (https://powersyncpro.com)
The Business Benefits of PowerSyncPro (https://powersyncpro.com/the-business-benefits-of-powersyncpro/)
The Business benefits of PowerSyncPro Migration Agent (https://powersyncpro.com/powersyncpro-migration-agent/the-business-benefits-of-powersyncpro-migration-agent/)

"Back by popular demand" - even if they do say so themselves! In this episode we are excited to welcome back to the show Tarek Dawoud and Mark Morowczynski from Microsoft's Identity CXP team. We discuss the current state of Identity and dive into Conditional Access, phish-resistant MFA, the latest threats and why attacks only get better, they never get worse. Tarek and Mark share some great tool tips and we close the episode by talking about Mark's new KQL book and how KQL is fast becoming an essential skill.
Here are the links to content mentioned in the episode:
Microsoft Digital Defense Report (https://aka.ms/mddr)
Road to the cloud - Moving from AD to AAD. (https://aka.ms/AD2AAD)
Video explaining how passkeys are phishing resistant (https://aka.ms/PhishingResistantExplained)
Entra ID assessment for customers to examine their environments (https://aka.ms/ZTAssess)
Hiding in the clouds - app consent and permissions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxOHcqHxpi8)
AzureADToolkit - script to go look at the over permissioned apps (https://github.com/microsoft/AzureADToolkit)
Legacy Protocol Workbook (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sentinel-blog/azure-sentinel-insecure-protocols-workbook-implementation-guide/ba-p/1197564)
Identity workbooks (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/monitoring-health/howto-use-workbooks#access-microsoft-entra-workbooks)
Tarek Dawoud is an expert of 10+ years in Microsoft's Identity division serving on the core directory team and for the past 4 years on the Customer Success Team. He is now the lead of the architect team writing white papers and creating workshops and reference architectures to facilitate customers' Identity journey to the cloud.
Mark Morowczynski is a Program Manager in the Identity CXP team. He works with some of the largest and most complex customers on their deployment of Azure AD. You can find Mark on Twitter (https://twitter.com/markmorow)
Check out Mark's book "The Definitive Guide to KQL" - Coupon code 'KUSTO' (https://www.microsoftpressstore.com/store/definitive-guide-to-kql-using-kusto-query-language-9780138293383)

If you follow the latest developments in the Entra space, you have no doubt come across Merill Fernando. In this episode Merill joins us for a great discussion as we geek out about Entra and authentication in general. Why is it called Entra (RIP AAD!)? Merill sheds some light on the name change, we talk about AD FS and its relevance today, discuss the deprecation of AzureAD and MSOnline PowerShell modules and introduce some of the great tools and resources he's developed for the community.
Merill Fernando is a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft and Senior member of the "Customer Success Team" engaging with Microsoft Entra customers and guiding them through deployments, planning, debugging and driving feedback into the feature teams. Merill has a weekly newsletter on all things Microsoft Entra and is the creator of cmd.ms & idPowerToys.com. You can connect with Merill on Twitter (https://twitter.com/merill) or on YouTube (https://youtube.com/@merillx)
Here are some links to Merill's work:
* Entra Newsletter - https://entra.news
* Merill's site - https://merill.net
Here are the links the Identity Architecture Series discussed in the episode:
* Azure Active Directory Core Store: Data centers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8ZPjSxNte0
* Azure Active Directory Core Store: Scale units - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcKO44GtHh8
* Azure Active Directory Core Store: Read and write replicas - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeLDtcpKc-U
Are you interested in learning from others in the community? Give these folks a follow:
* Nathan McNulty - https://twitter.com/NathanMcNulty
* Eric Mannon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emannon
* Dr. Nestori Syynimaa - https://twitter.com/DrAzureAD
* Rod Trent - https://twitter.com/rodtrent

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Nic and I had the great pleasure of talking to John Kindervag. I once read about John that he has "forgotten more about technology than most people learn in their careers" and I'm sure after listening to this episode you'll understand why he is referred to as the Godfather of Zero Trust. In this episode we discuss the origins of Zero Trust and some of the history behind it. John also talks about why trying to control the attack surface is a fool's errand and introduces the concept of a protect surface.
With over 25 years of experience as a practitioner and industry analyst, John Kindervag is one of the world’s foremost cybersecurity experts and is known for creating the transformational Zero Trust Model of cybersecurity. At Illumio, John is responsible for driving the adoption of Zero Trust Segmentation through high-touch advocacy and forward-thinking thought leadership. You can connect with John on LinkedIn

We recently had a great conversation with Joe Flynn about modern endpoint management and how the way we manage our devices has changed over the years - we reminisce about the old ways and talk the future of Active Directory. We also discuss management friction, current hybrid work trends and scenarios where technologies like Windows 365 just make sense.
Joe Flynn is a Director and Distinguished Engineer at Insight. With more than 25+ years in the IT industry, Joe loves that technology is constantly changing and providing new challenges — pushing him to learn and absorb more each day. Joe is passionate about technology and the business outcomes that it can provide. You can connect with Joe on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeflynn2/)

It's Cyber Security Awareness month and in this episode, we talk to Shannon Garcia about the realities of the security industry and have an honest discussion about some of the areas where we could be doing more to raise awareness and educate our organizations, customers and stakeholders. Shannon shares some fundamental guidance, and we discuss how we could and should be learning from highly publicized incidents and breaches that occur far too often these days.
Shannon Garcia is an experienced Senior Leader with a demonstrated history of working in the computer and cybersecurity industry. Skilled in Cybersecurity, Business Management, Program/Project Management, Business Process Improvement, and Building/Leading High Performing Teams. Shannon is a strong and passionate leader focused on helping businesses improve their security posture by maturing their security capabilities and processes.
You can connect with Shannon on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannongarcia/) Be sure to check out Shannon's YouTube channel CyberSec Round Table (https://www.youtube.com/@cybersecroundtable)