You're listening to the identity at the center podcast.
This is the show that talks about identity and access
management and making sure you know who has access to what
let's get started. Welcome to the identity of the
sender podcast. I'm Jeff and that's gem a gem.
Okay. Jeff.
How are you? Oh not so bad yourself Jeff Jeff
Jeff. No but I do take us off the know
my going to take us off the rails today but I've been
thinking about just kind of canceled please.
No no. Well you have full edit
capability. That's true.
So okay. I've been thinking about one of
the most fundamental concepts of identity and access management
or Digital identity, whatever you want to call it and it's the
word trust. And what does the word trust
mean? I'm going to get back to that
but I also was thinking about I think is the opposite of trust
when it comes to Identity which is anonymity and anonymity.
On the Internet is more than just a minor thing.
I mean I think it's it's kind of like a fundamental concept.
Do you see what's going on with Twitter?
Right? And to me, Twitter exemplified
not only, you know, not solely responsible but kind of the
Cesspool of the internet if you will, right.
And I'm not talking about sis, where are you?
Check out our Twitter Handle by the biggest festivals and Ideas,
he podcast. How's that for commercial but it
is and I think it's the fact I think it's a not anonymity, that
drives a lot of it. I mean, I think your Twitter
like you have a lot of people who will be very bold in their
own name, but a lot of us like you can't be too bold in your
private, you know, in your Communications that are in the
public assigned to your true identity because you can wind up
getting yourself fired. And I would say that maybe Stop
a large percentage of society so people wind up creating these,
an anonymous handles and going on, whatever you know, website,
has a comment section or on Twitter or something like that
and they posted things. Now, my question to you, I'm
going to give one more example before I turn it over to you.
My question to you is going to be, is that anonymity, a good
thing or a bad thing? Should it be eliminated?
Should there just be one? If Steadman or should you also
be able to create a Jeff Steadman, an anonymous account.
So, you know, Joe Steadman, and here's why I asked.
So, yeah, we all know that you, you ran a Chili's, right?
And I was reading an article recently where it was there.
It was about Olive Garden and someone post.
The question, you know is that is the unlimited breadsticks,
truly unlimited, you know, is there A point where you order to
many breadsticks and they say, no.
And I person got on there said, I work at Olive Garden and if
you were I forget what the number was honestly because it
was like so outrageous like who the heck would order 12?
Masses of breadsticks, something like that like that's the cutoff
point. And they're probably not allowed
to say that, right? That might be a fireable
offense, whether it is or not, I don't know, but I'm getting to
the point that in that sense, an enmity would be good that you go
out there and like shared that information and not have to
worry about it, like having a blow back on you.
Well, I think it's a good thing, and for the most part, it sure
it's like anything else. There is downsides to anything
and for in second of all. Well, first of all, the world
was not ready for to just admins can barely handle one.
So, let's just get that clear right now.
Yeah, I got is an, is being anonymous on the internet.
Good holistically. Probably, I tried to die to get
and I try to see the positive where I can.
I think of things like what's happening with governments, may
be that I have, you know, Less than ideal Free Speech rules.
Right being anonymous. There is probably helpful, not
only to get the word out, but maybe even for your own personal
Safety and Security, you know, when it comes to voicing
descent, not every country has the same, you know, free speech
that we do in the u.s. does Free Speech come without
repercussions though. No, I think there are always a,
you know, an action that can result from anything, any other
action. So, some people are brave enough
to Attach your name to it. Some people aren't for any, you
know, reason. It could be safety security or
maybe they just, you know, they are putting on a public Persona
versus what they think, privately.
So I don't, I mean, I don't know how to answer the question then
you were talking about trust and the opposite trust being
anonymous. I immediately went to deceit as
the opposite of trust and thinking of from a negative
standpoint, it's okay. Well, if I trust so-and-so and
we're and we're an identity show.
So let's talk with indication, right?
If You're doing an occasion, you're essentially trying to
establish a trust between people if you're trying to break that
up and ication, then you're trying to deceive the system
which probably means you are not the person that is the intended
recipient of whatever that that's a trust session is about.
So I don't know if they answer your question or not that was a
very existential of you but it's very extensible overall, but I
kind of feel like the Authentication It is kind of the
middle of the chain because the authentication is proving you
are the identity. But if you set up the identity
into seat, then you're authenticating just deceptive
identity. Yeah.
And I also thought about this trust component.
In terms of it's actually in two directions, it's the user
trusting, the organization that there You know, a part of or
they're there, they had an identity in and then just the
organization or trusting the user.
That this is a real identity and the real person is assigned to
this identity and I guess those were things like verifiable
credentials come into play. So to me when I was starting to
think about that is like, well I don't want to go through
verifiable credentials to. I don't want to tie my Twitter
account or my cure. Her account to my driver's
license. Because I might want to say
something that you know, I don't, I don't want my employer
to be like, hey, you know, you can't say something like that.
You can't have that public opinion.
So that was kind of my thought. And then, I thought, you know,
in terms of trust because we, this comeback came up.
I think maybe on our previous episode, where we talked about,
you know, the organization's becoming the identity provider.
And would people trusted organization?
You think about governments or you think about big tack or
corporations, like who trust those entities do people trust
the United States government or some state government to be,
actually, you know, a credential or an identity that they
actually trust. Well, the answer is probably
every answer in between like you know, and I don't even think
that it is a binary decision. I think it's anywhere from 0 to
100 percent, maybe even negative number from a trust perspective,
is you definitely do not trust you, right?
You know, these types of entities or whatever it might
be. So I think it's all over the
place. Yeah, zero trust - trusts, you
know, positive trust, you know, whatever the right terminology
would be, but I don't, you know, only only was only a Sith deals
in black and white. So I think there are tons of
Shades of Gray in between and I think when we start talking
about sort of verifiable credentials and you know, this
idea of really kind of like a self Sovereign identity where I
can only share the parts of my identity that are relevant to
the to the decision that needs to be made, whether it's math,
education decision, or authorization decision, you
know, it's kind of like That, you know the example I've used
in the past of law, I know it to get into this bar.
I need to be 21 to prove that I am of age to drink.
I show them my license and the bouncer whoever is checking ID
validates that I have the correct birth date to coincide
with establishing that I am 21 years old or older at the same
time. They're also saying my home,
address my height, my weight. I call her a whole bunch of
stuff that isn't relevant that decision and I think this is
sort of Where the direction of the industry is heading.
When when we start talking about managing your own Dana data,
from an identity perspective, is all you really needed to tell
the person was, you know, the all they really care about is,
are you 21 or older? If the answer is yes, everything
else is irrelevant. The answer is no.
Again, still all the answers. All the other things are
irrelevant, right? So I think what we're talking
about really her sort of managing, you know, to some
degree, those those Angels whether it's verified or not,
we're starting together until layers of trusts, you know.
Sure. You can go and establish a fake
identity. It is identity theft.
We have a lot of Reliance on. Okay.
Well if I went and got a driver's license and I was able
to fake that, that means, now I can fake something else and then
fake something else. And you sort of like build this,
you know, House of Lies or House to House of Cards that might
collapse, right? If one of those identities gets
gets, you know, found out or whatever it may be.
So I don't know where I was going with that but no that's a
good that's great dialogue and I know we're not going to solve
this here but for anyone listening it but I don't think
so. But anyone listening, you know,
comment on when Joe when Jeff when Joe Hey Joe when Jeff puts
out the LinkedIn post that the episode is out, go out there and
put a comment they'll do here. People's feedback or their
thoughts on trust and identity. Yeah, Beaker is I think plus
it'll be good fodder for, you know, another episode where we
kind of talked through. Like, here's what we heard from
people, you know, industry and kind of what their thoughts
were. So I think I know where you were
going. When you start talking about
verified credentials? I think we what we wanted to
cover today, was Microsoft enter.
Is that right? Absolutely.
All right. So, Microsoft Ventura came out.
Well, I guess was announced a few months ago I thought this is
an episode. That is a long time.
Coming is to sort of explain what it is, what it's about.
And hopefully demystify, some of it, we're not going to solve all
the answers and all the questions and all that stuff
today, but at least hopefully get people kind of an overview
of kind of what it is and give people some information around
that, and there's probably no better person that we could
bring on in his name, is, Eric Woodruff.
He's a product technical specialist at Cypress.
Welcome to the show. Eric, Thanks Jeff.
Glad to be here, thanks. Yeah, thanks so much for joining
us and we've had Gil from Cyprus back on.
I think it was September of last year 2021 episode number 110,
we're recording episode 191. So it's been about a little
while since we had someone on from Cyprus and we're going to
talk about Microsoft entry. Your kind of, hopefully help
clear it up in my mind as to what it is and more, maybe more
broadly, what it's not but we've got tradition around here, you
know, when someone joins us Us first time like to find out what
their identity origin story is, how did you get into identity?
Is that something that you chose, or did it choose you?
That's a good question. And I feel like my career is
almost two parts for the first half.
So actually, when I started my it career, I was a Unix engineer
back in the late 90s during the.com, boom.
And then fast forward a bit as that whole bubble.
Cuffs. The collapsed I started working
with active directory for bit at Time Warner and then, I spent a
good majority of my career at the New York state courts and
working. There, I would say it was a
generalist working within the windows sort of server
ecosystem, but when I started, there was a big eater rectory
groupwise shop and by the time, I left about 15 years later, you
know, as, as your active directory active directory, I'll
be going to the cloud and What not?
And I think just looking over the years at the transformation
there, I definitely had identity, choose me and I guess
I'd say that because as active directory became more and more
important we moved away from edirectory and what not like
someone sort of had, you know, take rains there and you know,
securing identity. When I was there.
I never thought of myself as a security person, but I thought
of myself as Infrastructure a generalist.
What not? So, but then I actually left the
state and spend a bit of time working at Microsoft then.
And when I started there, I'd say that's what the sort of
chapter 2 of my career started. And there, I would say, I chose
identity. So I was a premier field
engineer and we were given sort of a luxury to pick out of like
the Azure Suite of things. As to what you want to focus on
and just as I started to dig into like MFA and conditional
access and other identity Technologies, I really enjoyed
it. And so since then I've worked in
a few other identity roles. And definitely, though, I find
identity interesting and I'm say I think I would say that only
then is that when I would consider that I became and
identity practitioner strong enough to like call myself one.
And now you're with Sampras, I guess.
Those who aren't familiar with, what's a is does, what's the,
you know, 30 seconds, maybe 60 second long, elevator, ride
pitch, so people can kind of be aware of, you know, what it is
that you guys do. Yep.
So, you know, it's time for us, we have a few different
products, mostly revolving around hybrid identity, which
the episode that Gil was on, you know, you guys spoke about that.
But, all right, so talking about active directory, and Azure
active directory, but primarily focused on active directory
there. there's one product we had, that's an ID, D our
platform, and it's really, you know, securing active directory
and also extending that out now to the hybrid identity and Azure
ad, and the other piece of software we have, which I
actually wish I could go back to places, I used to work and I
know this sounds salesy, but we never did Disaster Recovery
testing of active directory at a lot of places because I mean
it's a huge pain and You know, I started here in August and
actually seeing our other product you know do active
directory restores. Yeah.
It's a TFR it's pretty pretty cool piece of text so If it
leaks disaster recovery of a Diaz.
Is where it's at, man, if you're, if you consider yourself
a Microsoft shop, you better be doing it because a ransom,
where's attacks goal in life would be to own your active
directory, they own your active directory, you are in big
trouble. If you truly are a Microsoft
shop? Yeah, no.
I mean, absolutely. And, I mean, I thought it's
interesting and listening to some other podcasts about, you
know, ransomware attacks. I mean, it always goes back to
write like, regardless of how they threat actor.
Initially got in its when they owned active directory, that
everything just completely fell apart.
So, that's true. That's true.
Yeah, I've seen in my own professional experience, so, but
we did not bring you on to talk about Disaster Recovery.
We're trying to learn about this.
Microsoft entra and would love it if you would, you know, kind
of educate us on it. I know.
Enter has really like an umbrella for Tools.
But whatever, you know about it, that would be great to kind of
share with us and the listeners. Yeah, so I mean, I would say
entra depending on what angle you look at it, it may be
marketing but there's also the sort of Suite of Technologies
under it, right? So, I mean that the piece of
Ventura that most folks are familiar with or probably most
familiar. I should say is azure active,
directory. And then So there's a history
about a couple years ago. Microsoft took all their
security stuff and they renamed everything to like Defender 4X
like Defender for cloud forecasts, be solution became
Defender for cloud apps, Etc. And then they did a similar
thing in the spring of 2020, where all their compliance and
data governance became Microsoft purview.
And then it was this June that they you know announce Tantra
and yeah when you saw the announcement it was really You
guys are active directory. And also now bundling in Cloud
Knox, as enter a permissions management, so that's there.
Kim or Keem, you know, see, I am solution there.
And then also entra verified ID, which, when it was in public
preview, was Azure active directory, verifiable
credentials as your AG has been around for a long time.
So is it just that as uad is now bundled under entra or there's
Some new features that make it because I mean, as an
old-school, active directory, persons, like you've got the
active directory users and computers, which is not a end
user facing Administration tool. But, you know, those of us who
used it over the years, grew to love it and hate it.
But it gives you ultimate flexibility that I kind of felt
like a sure As a lot of similarities in terms of its
admin focused rather than kind of an end user Focus.
So, I guess let me put my question, like this is entra
azure ad meant to, you know, replace having something like
cell point or and you know, an IGA or and itsm tool for
managing access. So Given the the classic
Consulting answer there is it depends, right?
So you know, there are components that that existed
even before entra for identity governance and sort of, you
know, the end-user aspect of things with like a my access
portal for entitlement requests. What I think is interesting is
within, that's probably been the past two or three weeks noticing
that when they add a new features too.
Azure active directory identity. Governance, it also is now being
renamed to entra Identity governance.
It's not like out there if you go look at like the nth row,
sort of sweet. But if you go look at the Docks,
it's still refers to as you know, Azure active directory
identity governance. But you know, I try to your
question. I mean, I think they're
definitely making a push, you know, as far as like identity
governance goes, right. And they've certainly come a
long way. At least past few years
especially but you know I'd say the primary focus just seems
targeted at least with getting rid of men, Tim ilm for those
customers. Well that's a certain me.
That's, that's ultimately the most important thing to most
folks who are in our industry with regards to Azure ad is all
right, in the On-prem world. I had those products you just
talked about and what what's my equal and as your world.
So maybe you talk a little bit about for those who don't know
what memphian my LM are, you know, kind of that, you know,
approach that Microsoft hook. And then you know what are the
the analogous platforms or tools in the act.
Our world. Yes, I mean so Nim which was fam
and then ilm right was sort of their their sync engine tool.
And there's also a web interface that most may find a bit clunky.
That's right. Connected to SharePoint.
You need like a PhD to operate ma'am.
I've prayed I, I'm proud that I've never actually dealt with
him and will admit that I'm not super deep with it.
But yeah, you know, ma'am was a lot of like we're bringing in.
No user information from an HCM. It was you know, self-service
password reset. It also had some, you know, Pam
components to it and you know some of that is a bit scattered
through as your active directory and I'd say you know there's
certainly some people out there who are like well where is the
you know Cloud version of ma'am, right?
But if you look at Azure active directory, self-service password
reset has been out there for quite a long while, right?
I think a lot of the functionality of man though with
the, you know, user lifecycle workflows and entitlement
management and all that sort of stuff is what's primarily
getting pushed into, you know, enter up identity governance.
So I kind of feel like it when you think about identity
governance a, the key is answering the question of who
has access to what and it's really like two parts.
It's the provisioning side of, you know, Other words to finding
who should have access that would be your work clothes and
everything where you assign access to people and then
provision to some and point, like active directory, or some
application. But then there is the actual.
What do people actually have, right?
So, we're pushing all those out, too.
And then point now we're pulling it back.
Some funny business may have happened behind the scenes,
right? That we should be able to now
pick up and say, Hey, how do, all these accounts have these
Your privileges, or who created these accounts because we don't
recognize the account QA test, 123 to me, what would MIM always
was able to do is only the first part, you know, give you a
web-based tool to manage giving access to people or taking it
away and then provisioning are so and I kind of always thought
of him doing that via some kind of like directory
synchronization. Is that accurate?
Yeah, I mean I would say now with entra that, I mean they
have access reviews out there, right?
So you can have your certifications or at stations or
however you want to put it on whether it's may be as robust,
isil point, you know. Suppose I won't, I don't know
sale Point enough to sort of make a strong comment there, but
it definitely is primarily targeted still at.
Like the, I'd say, the Microsoft ecosystem, right?
Yeah. And that, I mean, that's, I
think, to me, this is kind of my perspective, right?
Is that there's no way it could be called up with South Point.
South Plains, been doing this for over a decade, right?
And so you can't just catch up overnight like that, but that,
okay, so that's the first tower that we've been talking about.
Is this identity management. If Is the old school term.
The second tower was Keem, or as we've been schooled on recently,
when we had Paul on the show last week, Kim.
And that's the old Cloud knocks tool, right?
So, Microsoft acquired that product, when you're using Cloud
knocks, do you feel like you're in Azure is like the same user
interface and things like that? No, so with the cloud knock,
It's the first round of integration.
I mean, there's definitely done some work on the back end, but
when you go to the entry portal and you click on cloud knocks,
it opens like a new tab that is basically what feels like Cloud
Knox was so okay. Like a totally separate
application, they basically, but that in some ways is a good
thing because I'm to bring over all that functionality, and try
to fit it into You, the existing framework, I'd be a major ordeal
in itself, talk to us a little bit about what cloud knocks
does. So that users who aren't
familiar with with that would have some baseline
understanding. Yes.
So I mean, right? That's your Cloud
infrastructure. Entitlement management and to
the the Kim ver scheme thing. I feel like it's similar where I
always thought it used to be seam.
And then at some point I was told It's now Sim and that's so
we don't confuse it with Siam and you know it goes on and on
but you know, to your question I mean, right, so I think of in
the Azure world but it's not just Azure specific that, you
know, identity would tend to focus on, you know, things that
are I guess closer to other its heart.
Right? And you'd see a lot of
organizations who may have a bunch of subscriptions or if
it's AWS accounts, Server or whatnot out there, right?
And the kind of delegate off the administration of you know who
has access to what out there and to me I mean I think you know
there's more like the I guess I'd say the philosophy
philosophical piece of you know does control over access to that
belong under like the identity umbrella, which I feel like
you're Kim Solutions are kind of bring it back here, but it's
also to help govern that right? To make sure that it's the who
has As to what, you know, there's the just-in-time piece
for, you know, at the right time and also there's you know, what
I'd say is similar to like access reviews out there, right?
Making sure that you know you don't have privileges this
hanging around makes you think of old file servers or
something. Right?
Where you'd go look and everyone has permissions to everything
and nobody can ever make what's, what a what?
So yeah. So okay, so the first piece was
as your Can as Rady second piece was Club knocks, the third piece
is verify credentials, right? And what's the what's the
company line on that product? Right?
What was that all about? So I mean, I would say verified
ideas, the area, I have had the least Focus.
Just, I mean, to me, having worked more with, you know,
customers I guess out in the Old, especially when it's more
in the like delivery Consulting role.
You know, you tend to be more focused on like the issues at
hand where you know, my opinion verified credentials and you
know, decentralized identity and all that feels more like future.
When you've got people who, you know, you still have issues with
basic things like right fishing resistant MFA but it is it is
there, you know, decentralized, I A sort of product out there
and what it was announced and even under public preview,
right? That Microsoft has been, I think
interestingly good at, you know, running sort of hackathons to
try to get people like thinking about, you know, like what can
we do with this, right? But I also know that there's
some folks who sort of look at it as like a solution where the
problem hasn't really been defined yet.
So, yeah, it seems to me that Did making investments in
identity, whether it's going out and purchasing kind of Leading
Edge Products or you know, developing products themselves
and house based on, you know, Azure ad or like the verified
adp's, would you just described? I'm wonder you go to a lot of
the Microsoft partner conference is right.
Talk to us a little bit about where they're heading with these
products. At least what what information
is being shared. Therefore the public.
Yeah I mean so I think if you like a cloud right there's a lot
of times where it's that AWS may you know Trump Microsoft
relative to you know I as or Paz I strongly feel like Microsoft
is trying to position themselves from.
I mean not just an identity but also a security aspect as being
like they're like where you're going.
Go to for multi-class One, Stop Shop.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that's a recurring theme.
We've had a lot of folks on the podcast recently, talking about
this. This idea of converged identity
which is really taking the components, which were these
pillars of identity management and offering at some level all
of them. So, maybe grew up as an access
management vendor Now you're offering life cycle and
privileged access management or maybe you started out privileged
access management. Now you're dipping your toe into
these other areas it definitely feels like Microsoft wants to be
that One Stop Shop. Yeah.
I'm, I mean, an honestly, I
think, to sort of try to pull that off you, you need to be one
of the big sort of players out there.
Whether it's, you know, I mean, there's the big three, right?
And they seem to be positioning themselves.
Ourselves. I guess I'd say well relative to
be in like that, that One Stop Shop.
So who you point to as the big 30.
So the other is B, Google and AWS.
OK, Google Amazon Microsoft in terms of providing cloud
services to Enterprises. Yeah.
And I mean, I used to, when I say that, I mean, big three in
big enough that right. I know I'm one of the I sewed.
So thank you, you know, talked about how you know I rocked a
sort of tried their hand at IGA right and there's this is no
knock on October or anything but just I think Microsoft has the
sheer weight of their services also with Office 365.
I mean you talked to a lot of customers who they want like
that Azure 80 thing, there are 365 shop in your like you
already have it, right? So just just the way it kind of
is Is sort of out there whether you know it or not.
Sometimes and that weight of their, the company doesn't
listen to a podcast with such an Adela actually I had listened to
her yesterday. It's called the tools and
weapons podcast for anyone who's interested, but he was making
the case about, you know, you've got to continue to innovate.
You've got to continue to disrupt or someone's going to
eat your lunch. And so while Microsoft is the
800-pound gorilla, doesn't mean couldn't speak in, you know, you
mentioned OCTA. They didn't try their hands in
lifecycle management. They are actively trying their
hands and lifecycle management. You know they're building their
platform. And so you know I look Microsoft
has been around for like 40 years or something.
Silly like some mind-boggling number, you know, people have
preconceptions of Microsoft. I think they become they What do
you call it reinvented themselves?
I guess if you will with Nadella as a CEO I think he really shook
things up but I think that you know he's right if they're not
going to continue to innovate and disrupt you know even their
their core products people start to question.
Hey can I do this better cheaper?
You know things that companies used to get money for now you
can get for free. Free.
Yep. Right?
So do they fall in love with making money on certain things
so much that they don't adapt to the market?
Where movie something is becoming free.
So, last question for you on this topic is just around, you
know, I meet with a lot of cisos and program, managers security
folks who say, we're a Microsoft shop, right?
So there, They're buying the e3e five licenses to manage
everything. They have very few usually, very
few applications that fall outside of the Microsoft
ecosystem, they might be using Microsoft CRM, Microsoft
Dynamics or Erp, you know? They're they're like all in of
course there they probably have some best-of-breed Cloud
Solutions but you know, these are shops where they are doing,
think Microsoft way. My question for you is from an I
am perspective, do these folks also need.
I am tools Beyond what's available with entra.
You know, I guess I'd say it's back to the classic.
It depends, right. I mean, I've seen some things,
some interesting, you know, I am tools for like Health Care, you
know, also for K-12, but I mean, you see it.
Go go both ways of had customers that have, you know, stuck with
Azure active directory for K-12 and, you know, they're
federating Google workspace back to have no other students were
using it, but You also see some interesting.
I'd say you know, Technologies developed out there for more of
those. I don't know if I'd say they're
Fringe cases, right? There's tons of Health Care out
there but I can't think of the name.
There's a company that sort of is specialized in, you know,
authentication for you know, Healthcare Providers, like, you
know, you're on the floor. Nurses, doctors stuff like that.
So yeah, I mean, I think it may or may not sort of satisfy your
needs and and ultimately write each organization needs I mean I
think take a good look at, you know, how they operate what they
have and also, you know, put put aside maybe their fan, you know,
person this just whether they like or dislike Microsoft or I
guess I wouldn't be fan person Miss.
But hey, that's what I feel like that's a classic Consulting
answer where I didn't actually really answer anything.
So it depends right. Well you know, you If the I
think this is kind of worth the undertones that I'm is.
I'm listening here. Is preconceived notions right
around capabilities and products and vendors and some people are
pro Microsoft. Some people are pro not pro
Microsoft, right, or Apple or Google, or AWS every product has
its fans and its detractors. And I think what we sometimes
get stuck into is we use the product?
15 years ago, 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago and it
is not the same product, you know, things move forward.
I don't think anybody is really in the business of putting out
bad products or we say hope that they are and they're always
trying to improve the challenges is, do you does your business
objective or your technical objective aligned with what the
capabilities of the products? You know, if we talked about,
you know, Microsoft, 20 years ago, or OCTA, or Ping.
Where sale point for that example, write any of these kind
of bigger identity vendors that are out there.
Their products were not as capable 20 years ago, they have
all gotten better, they're not perfect.
And they're still not the answer for everybody.
There are still use cases that they just not good at.
I think what are the chief knocks?
For example, on Microsoft, is that?
It's great when you're in the Microsoft ecosystem and then it
starts to fall apart pretty quickly.
Once you leave the Microsoft ecosystem and so people look for
alternatives. That and they sort of like, you
know, they get this bad taste in their mouth or it's like, oh,
that thing sucked. We hated it, right.
And I'll never use it again. And in the meantime, they're
probably doing themselves a disservice because it could be
the right fit. I mean, you see a lot of
companies who, you know, they, they have Office 365 and they're
using Microsoft but they just like don't want to use Azure for
single sign-on for MFA and it would be so much easier if they
did. You know there, maybe there's
other technical issues where they just can't, or won't do it
or, you know, Whatever it might be, but I always find it
interesting when I run into those clients who are very happy
to Microsoft for example and they use something completely
different. That is totally in The Sweet
Spot of what they should be using Microsoft Word yo man, you
see no I mean I I see I've seen the Spectrum.
I mean I think you're hitting on an interesting point in that
definitely has Technologies evolved.
It's more difficult these days to have Technology Drive.
Decisions than business Drive technology, but I think a lot of
US tech folks still want it. Where technology is driving
business, but no, I mean, I've seen I've done workshops where
like the second. You say hello there.
Like I hate Microsoft especially when you worked for.
Um, it's yeah, it's a difficult conversation to try to be like,
well, you know, I hope you don't personally hate me, right?
I'm just here to try to help you and he's going, Eric, you spent
a ton of money. Any on, you know, Office 365,
right? And you have Azure ad, like,
let's see what we can do with what you've got so far.
And we're talk about Microsoft, you know, I hear the same thing
about Oracle and, you know, we would never wish Oracle identity
management, anybody? Okay, well, you know what, you
know, all things being said, it's still a pretty good
product, especially if you use it where it's supposed to be
used. It's like anything else, right?
If you have one product, you try to make it do more than what
it's designed to do. Of course, it's going to
struggle, it's not designed. In for that, right?
It's like having the, you know, the label on the shampoo bottle,
do not drink this. It's there because somebody
tried to drink it at some point, right there should be like a,
you know, a nutrition label or warning on it products, you
know? Hey just because you've got
memed does that mean that it should be your entire identity
and access management platform? Write something like that, we've
been talking to kind of a lot here about entra.
I guess, if you had to sum up, you know what people need to
think about when they went. When it comes to entra, like
what are what's like, the main takeaway that somebody should
come off with that? You know, I mean, I think it's
really focusing on the, the sort of components of it, right?
So to me in particular, I guess I'd say it's Azure active
directory, piece of that and if you in particular, are a o365 or
em 365, customer right? Looking at how You know, you may
own a lot of stuff. One of the things I would want
to Azure active, directory, environments a lot and what you
would come across again and again and again our customers
who they have, no idea what they own right and some they may have
something else deployed. They want to get rid of some.
It's just they don't even know, it's out there and it is a lot
of stuff, right? It's like trying to boil the
ocean sometimes but you just, you know, leveraging leveraging
what you may already own. So, Yeah, I mean, hey, it's
important part. Like you marry getting a lot of
stuff through your licensing. Why not take advantage of it?
I mean, you know, if you're looking for the right way to do
things, it's I think you have to leverage.
You know, what do you have today that you that you could leverage
versus what are the gaps and potential costs?
If you're already paying for something you might as well try
to get the most out of it. All right, we're going to go
ahead and wrap up this conversation but before we go,
we were kind of talking before we hit the road, the old record
button here, and we started Little bit about video games.
I've got, I got one I want to ask you to share if you don't
mind. You see you mentioned, you had a
tattoo. Yep, which I'm going to guess is
the answer to my question, which is what is your favorite classic
video game? And I guess Jim, you kind of
came up with this question. Before you answer Eric defying
classic? Like what is classic mean in
this context? Hmm.
So what I was thinking was a video game that you went
somewhere and either God got in or stood in front of maybe at
like a pizza shop or something and you put coins into it to
play it. Yeah.
That's that's what I had in mind.
Some people might be like, what the heck is he talking?
A lot of people are like, what are you talking about?
They don't remember arcade machines and pumping it borders
into those things. Yeah.
Well anyway, that's what I had in mind but I look go ahead and
answer it, however, you like, alright, Eric go for it.
Yeah. I mean, I suppose it would be
classic in the sense of the series of Legend of Zelda.
So, but when I mean, the, the first Zelda came out, I was way
too young to understand what was going on, but I watched my, my
dad play a, but my favorite in the series would not be
considered classic, at least at least not breath the wild that
or honestly, Twilight Princess. I also really, really enjoyed so
but during each Game in the series is so unique.
It's hard to sort of compare and while they've done a pretty good
job of really kind of varying, not only like the stories but
also the actual, the artistic style of the series for Legend
of Zelda. I mean, you know, most people
kind of think about it of you know, back in the day link and
the master sword in the Triforce, right?
And sort of like this 2D top-down, you know, scrolling
sort of Adventure type thing. And then you look at something
like a Nintendo switch breath of the wild which is like this
masterpiece of a. Now I can open world and
intricate systems and say, do you see that mountain of
distance? You can go there and you can
climb it if you Got enough, you know, strength or energy like to
go up the hill. I mean, it's it's amazing how
far it's come and in between then you've had things that have
been more stylistic like cartoon versus more like a video game
and like cell-based shading and things.
Well, yeah, I was going, I mean with Wind Waker.
I'd say honestly, you know, I mean, I'm a Nintendo Fanboy, but
there's always been the knock on them that everything is
underpowered. So, you know, sometimes it
seemed like they did that because that's the only way they
can make the game function. Well, you know, it's Though.
I mean, whatever reason it still looks great, by any standards.
I mean, you know, is it full motion video?
And, you know, sort of Cutting Edge, you know Reflections and
raytrace Graphics? Right?
And all this other stuff. No, but it looks really good and
if it is, if it performs really well, right.
That's, you know, probably the most important thing.
All right. So you got what?
What was your choice again, Eric, which selda?
I'll go with Twilight Princess Twilight Princess.
All right, Jim, what's your favorite old man?
Bit No game. Stand up old man was actually
one I played in a pizza parlor, but it was sit down.
So it was a car game called Spy Hunter Spy Hunter, someone
brought it up, on one of our, our project calls the other day
and you're like, oh, you know, like reminds you to Spy Hunter,
like, oh my goodness I love that game.
You could do like the oil slick. You could do the big cloud of
smoke and then you had to dock yourself into the semi on the My
I mean for my money that game was and then we had to sit down
one to me. It was like you felt like you're
driving a real car. Think about that that that total
2D view but it just yeah. So that plus a super classic you
know, intro sound kind of theme that doo-doo-doo-doo
doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo and just I was going to do.
I was going to do the what you just did but I was afraid we get
a strike. Why did it so porno?
So poorly that know? One would ever be able to
recognize it in the real world so I think we're probably.
Okay. Alright so for myself I guess
technically it is a classic it has been around for 18 years
World of Warcraft. I still play it to this day.
I've been playing it for 18 years.
I am one of those nerds that back-in-the-day stood in line to
get different expansion packs as they came out.
And yeah it is still my one of my main drugs of choice when it
comes to hitting the video game and You know, it's expansion
week. Dragon, dragon Niles just came
out. So of course, I've got to check
that out. When I get time, I don't have as
much time as I used to. So not necessarily into the
whole rating thing. My wife and I used to be in a
rating Guild. So yeah, we were at World of
Warcraft house, you know, for a while there, but what was that
one's for one video game is pretty darn good.
What was that one video? That was on YouTube and they're
on a raid and like the one guy just like goes off.
That's what does more dots? Yeah, they were.
There's a A couple famous Warcraft Clips, there's one
with, they're going into a raid against the dragon called onyxia
and basically the encounter is, as you've got 50 people on your
side and then this Dragon who spawns a bunch of little dragon
whelps. And they, the idea is really is,
they tend to overwhelm your group and you end up dying when
onyxia, takes her deep breath and sort of wipes out the raid
and you have this classic raid leader, you know, kind of
yelling out, more dots damage over time, which basically means
more damage. You know, onto the Things and
handling the whelps and add control.
Something that's the. Now I'm nerding out about World
of Warcraft and the other one is Leroy Jenkins with Steve Reich.
Is also shorter think. Yeah, he charges into a room.
Like they're like preparing for like this thing and I read that
this was more like a stage thing.
It's not actually something that actually happened like just off
the cuff, but they're like, trying to like, figure out how
to tackle this room and the character of Leroy Jenkins just
he comes up on comms on voice. Chase.
Like he just yells his name, we wrought.
Jenkins he just fits right into the rooster whole plan.
Ruined the whole plan, just kind of kills himself and he's become
a very popular culture, you know, cultural icon in the game
and it's also stretched outside of the game.
So when you hear someone who's 20 Jenkins, they're basically
just charging into battle without any really thought?
Yeah, I'm ruining everybody else's like, well, laid out
plan. Anyway, you have to go in to
YouTube and search Leroy Jenkins.
If you don't know, we're talking about watch this video.
It's hilarious. Yeah.
If we don't play video games, Games.
All right, I'm going to before we, I start nerding out, even
more about it. We'll go ahead and wrap up for
this week. Eric, thank you so much for
being part of this will have links to yourself on a LinkedIn
for people to kind of connect Reach Out.
They've got questions. I know you also had a Blog Eric,
and identity, Eric, and I didn't you.com, I guess.
What's the to Second sort of what is that?
That is a my Microsoft identity, nerding out.
So it's mostly technical Content about, you know, various Azure
ad related things. So, yeah, there's a lot of good
stuff in there, so definitely a good read and you have been
posting content, which is great. So I try it's a lot of work to
right. That's why we do a podcast.
So I have a link to that, in our show notes all stuff.
Like this Empress scmp, ER, is.com where you can learn more
about, what Eric, and the fine folks over there are working on
As well as I like to Microsoft enter, if you want to read the
company line and kind of what that is all about, from the
Microsoft perspective, as well as links to Jim.
And I on LinkedIn, definitely looking for always for, you
know, a feedback on what you like about the show topics
things. You want to see us cover in the
future, you know, things like that.
Definitely hang this up on LinkedIn and be happy to take
that under advisement. And yeah I think that's going to
be it for this week. You can find us on the web
identity at the center.com. We're on Twitter so far the
dumpster fire that has And into a tidy AC podcasts.
And without, go ahead and leave it.
Thanks everyone for listening, and we'll talk with everyone.
And next one, thanks for listening to the podcast.
If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe and
visit us on the web and identity at the center.com.