CIAOPS

CIAOPS Podcast – Adam Fowler

Posted on by Adam Fowler

I’ve been a bit quiet here this month. One of the reasons was having a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer (PFE) onsite for a week for an Azure Fast Track. It’s a program provided by Microsoft to give you someone that can help you start onboarding to the product of choice. I’ve done a few Fast Tracks now and they’ve always been valuable – having a great tech sent onsite and pretty much doing whatever you want to focus on around the topic.

By sheer luck, that Microsoft PFE was Marc Kean, co-host of the Need To Know Podcast. That meant I had the opportunity to go on the podcast, which went live this week. It was great having Marc over, and we also caught up with Brett Moffett who co-runs the Adelaide Microsoft IT Pro Community with me.

I’d mentioned the podcast and CIAOPS only at the start of the month here, and this was before I knew I’d be spending a week with Marc, and even be on it. Funny how these things happen sometimes. I also said I’d have these links on my site by the time the podcast went live, but I missed that by a few days :)

Hopefully I’ll have some more techy posts up soon, there’s a lot of different things I’ve got happening so I’m sure it won’t be far off.

Also, if you’re ever visiting Adelaide and either want to attend or even present at our user group, please join the Meetup group and come along!

 

CIAOPS Academy

Posted on by Adam Fowler

Today I’m sharing Robert Crane‘s CIAOPS Academy service. He’s an Australian based Microsoft Office Servers and Services MVP, and seems to be rather busy with all his different projects, including the CIAOPS Need To Know podcast.

That podcast I highly recommend as an easy way to keep on on the latest Office 365 and Azure news. Even though I try to keep on top of it myself, they often raise other new features or changes that I hadn’t come across yet.

Beyond that though, the CIAOPS Academy is a service I personally pay for that Robert provides. I am on the lowest tier, but the private Facebook group that Robert runs is an invaluable source of fellow professionals who ask and help all things in the Microsoft tech space.

It’s different to other communities with it’s paywall, as everyone is invested and cares about the topics raised.

There’s also a referral program for signups – sure you can use my affiliate link to CIAOPS Academy or use one that doesn’t help me pay for my own access here. I’m not one to suggest services or products I don’t believe in myself, but I’ve had several questions raised already which has more than paid for the service in my mind.

The bronze level (which is what I use) is enough for me right now, but higher levels give you access to videos and other training materials.

The bonus news I can share here is that there is now a 7 day trial available, which is mentioned at the bottom of the patron page above. If you want to see what it’s about and check it’s worthwhile, you can now do it for free!

In summary, if you’re someone who is either new to, or currently managing Office 365 and Azure, this is a great group of people to be a part of. I’m not the only other Microsoft MVP there, which I think shows the value of this service.