Author Archives

Louis S. Bermanhttps://louisberman.wordpress.comLouis Berman is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded four different technology firms and was employed as a CTO at GiftCertificates.com and Kideo.com. He currently serves as a Cloud Solutions Architect (CSA) at Microsoft. Mr. Berman developed the very first global-scale Content Delivery Network (CDN) deployed on Azure—predating Microsoft’s own offering by some 19 months!—plus three different automated trading platforms, a 3,200-core HPC cluster that delved into crop genomics—the largest RDMA-style cluster ever fielded in the Azure cloud up until that point, in late 2016—and countless other projects both on and off the cloud. Mr. Berman currently serves as CSA for one of the largest Azure customers in the world, as measured by monthly spend and breadth of usage. As a speaker, Mr. Berman has presented on a variety of technical and scientific topics. Recent presentations include “Zero to [Azure] DevOps” for Philly Code Camp, “Lap Around Serverless” for Microsoft’s DataFest, “Batch Processing in Azure” for Microsoft’s TechReady and “ScopeSeeing: A Lifelong Quest to Visit The World’s Greatest Telescopes” for the Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF); the world’s largest astronomy event. An avid astronomer, Mr. Berman led the very first visual observation of Eris—the largest dwarf planet in our solar system—and is the president of the Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers. A happily expatriate New Yorker, Mr. Berman lives on the outskirts of Philadelphia with his lovely and talented wife, set and costume designer Marie Anne Chiment.

Episode 11 – DevOps Rockstar Abel Wang Talks Azure DevOps

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-4bdnv-b200a9

Put the words “Azure DevOps” into any search engine and Abel Wang will certainly show up near the top (see Azure DevOps Updates; Pre-Build 2019 for one recent example).  Listen in as Abel shares his passion for Azure DevOps, delivering pitch-perfect insight into both the current and future state of his favorite Microsoft tech.

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Abel Wang is a Principal Cloud Advocate specializing in DevOps and Azure with a background in application development.  He is currently part of Donovan Brown’s League of Extraordinary Cloud DevOps Advocates. Before joining Microsoft, Abel spent seven years as a Process Consultant and a Certified Scrum Master helping customers globally develop solutions using agile practices and Team Foundation Server.  Prior to that, Abel founded and sold his own software company.  When not working, Abel is either writing code (yes, that’s what he does for fun), playing his guitar or training for The Great Wall Marathon.  Recently diagnosed with cancer, Abel spits in the face of cancer and will never quit. 

The episode also features two PSAs from from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Be sure to give the CDC some love (they do a great job!)

PLEASE VISIT http://azureability.com for show notes and additional episodes. Also, if you like (or even hate!) what we’re doing, please take the time to share your comments and suggestions either by the Podbean App (see links, below), email (lberman@microsoft.com) or Twitter (@azureability). 

CREDITS: Louis Berman (Host); Abel Wang (Guest); Meryl Streep (PSA); CDC Radio (PSA); Vincent Tone / PremiumBeat (Music); Heather Walsh (Intro/Outro); Louis Berman (Engineer); East Coast Studio (Editing)

TRANSCRIPT: https://www.videoindexer.ai/accounts/1c5a0342-11e8-4e1d-b656-d0bf35b80614/videos/dd8dccd6a8/ (be sure to turn “Closed Captioning” to “English”; icon in lower right-hand corner of “video” window)

(BONUS) Episode 10 – Friends of Sky & Telescope: A Testimonial

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-34rhh-adb263

It was recently announced in the NY Times (When Sky & Telescope Had No Limit) that Sky & Telescope’s parent company F+W Media filed for bankruptcy.  F+W will go to the auction block on May 30th, with a winner announced on June 4th.  We can only hope that S&T will land well; either individually or as part of a conglomerate sale.—-more—-

For those of you who have little if any familiarity with the magazine, it’s impending doom may not seem all that portentous, but as both an amateur astronomer and long-time S&T Subscriber I can assure you that the loss would come as a grievous blow.  The irony of it all is that while the magazine, itself, is profitable the auction will ultimately be about preserving F+W as a whole.  As such, S&T’s future is anything but assured. 

To be clear, I have every hope that S&T will be purchased.  What I’m concerned about is it’s ongoing relevance and viability; something at this point that’s anybody’s guess. 

As I say in the podcast “…we haven’t figured out what…” we, the self-styled Friends of Sky & Telescope (FOST) can do to be of service, but there are plans in the works.  Listen in and if you’re interested in joining our rag-tag group of S&T enthusiasts, do reach out (louis@squideyess.com).

Episode 9 – Cognitive Services: My Next Superpower

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-yg95w-b0cec7

Infusing intelligence into apps, bots and websites used to be neigh on impossible but with Azure’s Cognitive Services it’s become dead simple; a revolution in the making that TechBash co-founder Andy Schwam and MTC Techology Architect Rich Ross explain.—-more—-

Andy_Schwam_Headshot.jpgAndy Schwam is a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP (since 2010) and ASP Insider. He is an experienced speaker, trainer, blogger, and conference organizer. As AVP Enterprise Architecture, he is responsible for moving the IT department forward through the use of new technology, best practices, DevOps and the Cloud. Additionally, Andy is a founding board member and organizer of TechBash, an annual conference for developers. He has been creating software applications since 1999. 

Rich_Ross_Headshot.jpgRich Ross is Technology Architect at the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in Philadelphia. He spends much of his time talking to customers about their challenges, architecting Azure solutions and building innovative applications to showcase technologies. Rich has more than 25 years of business and IT experience in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. He is a contributor to many local user groups including Philly.net and TriState SharePoint. Rich also helps to organize and run Philly .net Code Camp, a bi-annual event for developers and businesses in the Mid-Atlantic area.

Once you’re done listening to the episode be sure to check out the following links, too:

The episode also features PSAs from three of our favorite kid-focused technology organizations MakeCode, Kodable and Code.org. Be sure to give ’em some love (they do a great job!)

PLEASE VISIT http://azureability.com for show notes and additional episodes. Also, if you like (or even hate!) what we’re doing, please take the time to share your comments and suggestions either by the Podbean App (see links, below), email (lberman@microsoft.com) or Twitter (@azureability). 

CREDITS: Louis Berman (Host); Andy Schwam and Rich Ross (Guests); Gretchen Huebner (Kodable PSA), Simon Hillvo (MakeCode PSA); Megan Hochstatter (Code.org PSA); Vincent Tone / PremiumBeat (Music); Heather Walsh (Intro/Outro); Louis Berman (Engineer); East Coast Studio (Editing)

TRANSCRIPT: https://www.videoindexer.ai/accounts/1c5a0342-11e8-4e1d-b656-d0bf35b80614/videos/8d33c86f45/ (be sure to turn “Closed Captioning” to “English”; icon in lower right-hand corner of “video” window)

Episode 6 – AI Forensics and Pharaoh Hounds

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-t73d8-ac0f38

AI / Machine Learning pioneer Andre Magni visits the pod to talk computer intelligence; from Microsoft’s AI mission (to amplify human ingenuity with intelligent technology) to data-curation gotchas and modelling pitfalls to identifying dead bodies using AI.  We even talks about our “AI Moms” and Andre’s world-champion lure-coursing Pharaoh dogs. Continue reading →

Episode 4 – Azure Enthusiast: Kevin Boland

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-dh33z-aac044

AzureABILITY host Louis Berman talks Azure with Bentley Systems‘ Kevin Boland—an Enterprise Cloud Architect who manages one of the largest and most complex set of Azure deployments on the planet.  The pair of friends talk a good deal of tech, but along the way they also ruminate on the joys of raising Boxers (no, not the underwear!) as well as the pleasures and perils of being a robotics dweeb. Continue reading →

Episode 3 – ExpressRoute and Networking and Cloud Security, Oh My!

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-kiz8q-aa6623

AzureABILITY host Louis Berman discusses ExpressRoute, networking and hybridity with Microsoft’s Bryan Woodworth—a Global Black Belt who can toss off words like “hybridity” with louche confidence.  Along the way Brian and Louis also explore such pithy topics as the effect of mullets on the college dating scene. Continue reading →