>> Narrator: Live from Orlando, Florida it's theCUBE! Covering Microsoft Ignite. Brought to you by Cohesity. >> Good afternoon everyone and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite, one of Microsoft's biggest shows of the year 26,000 people here in Orlando. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight co-hosting alongside of Stu Miniman. We are joined by Phoummala Schmitt. She is the Senior Cloud Advocate, Microsoft Azure Engineering. Thank you so much for coming on the show. >> Well thank you for having me. >> Rebecca: For coming back on the show. >> Yeah, last year we were here-- Well, actually, we were what, a month earlier last year? It's November. >> Rebecca: We were indeed, we were indeed. >> Hoping the weather was better, but still warm. >> Well we're not getting much fresh air, but, we're going to talk today about cloud governance. So this is something that companies that are moving to the cloud, often as an experiment and then suddenly it's live. How do you make sure that your governance is in order and how do you help companies wrap their brains around getting things buttoned up? >> Part of it is enabling developers, operations. See, governance, typically is a negative, right? Oh my gosh, governance! It's a road blocker. We have to stop thinking in that way and think of it as an enabler and instead of governance, they're guardrails. We put those guardrails in place in the beginning, enable our developers. Now you've got control and speed, because everything is about speed right now, because if you are not, you know, developing at speed you're not at velocity. You're not meeting business and then developers are off doing their own thing and then, often times, when you're off doing things really, really fast, you forget about the little things. Like leaving a port open, or you're doing a POC and you're like oh we'll come back and fix all that stuff later, let's just get this out the door. And then next thing you know it, you're like, oh, wait! What happened here? >> Phoummala, it reminds me of just a lot of things when you talk about when you rollout DevOps. I need to think about things like security, governance and compliances. Part of what I'm doing and if I'm going to be releasing code constantly, it's not something that I can go back to later, 'cause you're never going to catch up, you're always going to be, you know, N minus X behind what you're doing. So, organizationally, what do companies need to do to make sure that governance is taken care of just as part of the ongoing day-to-day activity and development? >> Well, building is checks and balances, right? So we put those guardrails in place. Let's start with infrastructure guardrails. Your ports, do those audits, just making sure that what you have on premises is the same in the cloud. Once you do that, that's like one checkbox you've done. And then there's the app development portion of it. That's where we're going to get developers thinking let's build security into our application. It's going to make life a lot easier, like you said, than going back and trying to build and trying to put, you now, new code in. And then when you're doing DevOps and that's just like a combination of everything, keeping governance in mind helps the flow of all those different transactions. Personally, I think DevOps is probably the hardest, in terms of just maintaining governance, because you do have different teams working together. You know, it's these different principles all coming together, but it comes down to doing things right. You know, doing what's right, ultimately, because at the end of the day if there's something that's missing and then next you know it you're on the front of the page. Nobody wants to be on the front page. And it's those little things. Like, checking permissions, just making sure that we have the right identity access management. And it's just throwing in some audit, just making sure our ports are closed, multifactor, you can audit and check you know, your root accounts, your administrative accounts. Little things like that just making sure that we have like the proper authentication, multifactor all that good stuff and then you just start building upon that once you have a little bit of governance in play. >> Well, Phoummala, I think, you know, identity management's one of the real strengths that Microsoft has, you know? So, maybe give us a little viewpoint as to how that's gone from, you know, identity just about Outlook or Office 365 to, you know, today's environment where, my users can be anywhere, my applications are everywhere and I still need to make sure that, you now, those corporate guidelines and identity go with me wherever I am and whatever I'm doing? >> So from an Azure standpoint identity management we have Azure AD, we've got all that component, but when you're coming into Azure, we like to emphasize using our back, role-based access control. Let's just make sure that the people that we're giving access to, have access to what they really need to. Building those roles out and people can have multiple roles. I mean, it's as simple as that, right? We started off just defining what's your job? Right, Stu, you've got a job, what are your roles? Let's just make sure we give you those roles and then we build upon that. If you need a little bit more, okay. And then you can give external users access, as well and you can give them roles, but just giving anybody full access to everything... Do you really need it? And it's the same thing with, you know Office and E-mail and SharePoint. So we're just taking those concepts from those applications and putting it into access into the Azure infrastructure. And then developers can actually build that into their applications, as well. >> One of the things that we keep talking a lot about, because Satya Nadella was talking a lot about it is trust and that is really the bedrock of good governance and making sure that people have confidence in your systems and that things are going to be done right, as you say. How much does that play into your work with customers and clients in terms of there's just an inherent trust right now that Microsoft is worthy of this and it is sort of the grown up in the room when it comes to big technology? >> Trust is huge. If you have trust in us as a customer that's, you know, that's amazing. We're going to give you the tools, we're going to give you the features, so that you and your customers have trust. You know, Azure policies. I mean that's just one component of governance and it's-- Policies isn't about completely control, but it's about auditing. Just checking, right? Checks and balances, 'cause that's really what governance is. Those checks and balances make sure that your operations is meeting your business needs. So if we can just do those little checks, simple trust like check marks, it goes a long way. And then, then we've got Azure blueprints which is our governance at scale. So we've taken everything that we've learned about governance in general, those different tools that we had and now you're just going to stamp it. Every time you build a new subscription you're just going to rollout governance and it's just-- I don't want to say as easy as a button, but it sort of is, right? You can do it through the portal. And everything that you've built as a team, those roles that you've created, the policies you've been submitted from your audit checks to controlling who creates what, where they can create that from, because, you know, GDPR that's huge. Because we can actually help you control where you resources are being deployed from. I mean that's going to be huge for most organizations right now. So, knowing that we have the right tools in place for you to run your business, that's trust. >> Phoummala, give us a little bit of a walk-around the show in your shoes. You're speaking at the show, you're hosting people on channel 9, you're behind the scenes helping a lot of people. Give us what you're most looking forward to, what you're most looking to share at the event this week. >> Most looking forward to just meeting all my friends that I've made throughout the years, but meeting new friends and, of course, there's puppies with therapy dogs, as well. Thursday I'm doing several channel 9 live interviews and I've got two sessions-- Well diversity sessions, which, typically, I do technical sessions, but diversity sessions I feel are very, very important. We talk about stuff nobody really wants to talk about all the time, right? We actually have a parenting and tech session tomorrow. How do we handle being a parent and working full time? And then I'm talking about the career journey and those two actually kind of go together, in some way, I mean, I'm-- And everyone's been asking me how I'm doing, my son just went off to bootcamp and so as a parent, I felt it was really important to be part of that session and talk about how, how do I handle it? Where I wasn't here yesterday, the first day, I was off sending my son, starting off his life, his new career and my career, you know, has gone on for several years, but it's a new change now for me and balancing that, that FOMO right? Fear of missing out, like everyone's at work and I have to be here with my son. There is an adjustment and a lot of parents have actually reached out to me and said how do you handle that? So there's several of us speaking tomorrow that, we're going to talk to the attendees and then here are some tips to how we do it. Especially with our traveling schedule. >> Well, I'm interested to hear, because we had another guest who was talking about stress, I mean, I think it was your best friend, Teresa Miller. >> Yes! >> Talking about stress as endemic to this high, stressed, fast-paced industry. Where, as you said, there's a lot of demands on your time, a lot of demands on your travel schedule and really a push for excellence add-all time. How is it to be a hard driving professional and also want to make time for your family, because your kids matter, of course? >> It is-- There's a balance. So the tech career includes that balance. We always want more in that career, right? We all do, but sometimes we have to step back. We've got to play the game a little bit, you know? You can't always have everything all at once and I've learned that. So tomorrow's session's about sharing what I've gone through, you know, as a parent, as a woman in tech. It's been a tough journey, but it's been fulfilling. So I work for Microsoft now and here's what I've done. I've made some bad mistakes, I've made some, you know, some good choices, but overall, there's been a balance. There's been a give-and-take I've had to do and I feel like the journey I've been through could be helpful for others. I've had a lot of people ask me, especially about career journeys now with the cloud, it's very, very scary. And a lot of people are worried, will I still have a job? My job transitions, what do I do? And I'm like, let's talk about this. I went through the same thing, I mean, exchange got us, exchange servers. Most people don't deploy exchange anymore. It's Office 365. So I went through that several years ago, that transition, where do I go next? 'Cause I know I really don't have that much of a life anymore. Like the AS/400 engineers, right? >> And diversity is another, of course, hot button issue in the technology industry. There is a dearth of women, there is dearth of underrepresented groups and LGBTQ. How are you as someone who is a woman of color navigating these thorny issues and helping the next generation come up and to create a different technology industry for the future? >> So it's tough. I navigate through with a lot of candles, a lot of wine. (the ladies laugh) With friends, I've got a great support system, but I strongly believe in paying it forward. There's a lot of stuff I do behind the scenes a lot of people do not know. A lot of forwarding of hey, this person is really good, you know, in this space, you might want to speak with them. I, Tech Field Day, I'm sure you all know the great people over there. I've forwarded a lot of names over there. I feel like I'm-- I've come up the ladder or the elevator, it's time to push that button, send it back down to help others and I've been doing it a lot more, I've always felt it, but now I feel I'm in a position that I can really help others and it just feels really good when someone I've helped Tweets about it. Obviously they're not going to mention my name, but when I see them being so happy, it just makes me feel really, really good, like, wow, you know, you just feel-- Like your heart just fills up like okay. This is good. >> Rebecca: Contributing to their success. >> Yeah and it becomes addictive almost. Like, how can I, you know-- If I see an opportunity to help somebody I will, I'll help 'em, anyway I can. >> So you are an avid blogger and you are considered one of the top 50 tech influencers and thought leaders you should follow. So congratulations on that. >> Phoummala: Thank you. >> I'm interested to hear, how do you keep up on the news and what do you read, who do you talk to, what do you pay attention to? And tell our viewers, too, because they want to know. >> Twitter is probably my source of everything now, 'cause it's quick, but pretty much just keeping up on the internet. Honestly, it's a lot, between my travel schedule, my family, it is almost impossible to stay up to date on everything. And I've learned that I can't. I just-- 'Cause I don't want to get burnout. I've been burnout several times and now I just, I take one day at a time. Oh, there was something that was announced, I didn't hear about it and someone said something I'm like oh, okay, oh that's cool. I'll read up on that later. But I don't feel like I need to know everything all at once. I think when you get to a certain place you're just comfortable knowing what you know and, you know, I'll read, I'll read the news when I get home. You know, something like that where you're-- You've got to be at that place where you're comfortable and not always feeling like I have to know everything, 'cause we're humans, we can't know everything all at once. >> And as we've talked about there has been, talking about not being able to keep up with everything, this conference, Microsoft Ignite. So many new product announcements, new buzzwords, new strategies that are all washing over us. What has been most interesting to you, most exciting? Who have you talked to? What sessions have you seen, that have sort of, sparked your interest the most? >> Azure Arc. Now I'm just reading into it, I haven't gotten real deep into it, but from what I know, from what I've seen, I like it. I like it a lot. It's, when we think about the cloud, it's multicloud, you know, it is right? It's every organization, they're dipping in their toes into just about everything and Azure Arc is giving that opportunity to our customers to be able to say, hey, we know you're in the cloud, in different clouds, here's a view into it. And, you know, you're able to manage these environments and see what's going on. Because that is the future and... Its a hybrid, multicloud. I think that's going to be my word, you know. Hybrid-multi, because we're in everything. I expect every organization to be in a little bit of everything, because it's... It's like, you know, your personal lives, right? You're in that little bit of everything. It makes it more dynamic and I just don't think one, one thing is going to be an organization's like, you know, that's all they're doing. I truly believe everyone's meant to dip their toes in a little bit of everything. They'll have one defined set of, here we're just going to use this one cloud, or this one's servers, but for the most part, they are going to dabble. And we're-- Azure Arc is giving customers the opportunity to manage those environments, where they've decided to dabble a little bit or because of business needs. They need to be in different environments. >> Exactly, renaissance organizations. >> Phoummala: Yeah. >> I love it. Phoummala, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. Always a pleasure having you. >> Thank you for having me. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for Stu Miniman stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite. (theCUBE theme song)