Learning eXchanges - Cancelled

Best Practices to Protect Against Ransomware and Other Cyber Threats

Presenter: Peter Romness
Cybersecurity Principal, CISCO


Ransomware, phishing, data theft… You may have heard these on the news, you may have been asked about them, or you may already be taking steps to protect your organization from them. But how do you know what to do to make sure you are not the next victim? You are not alone.

Protecting assets, privacy and security is such a complex task, many best practices have been developed to make sure we cover all the bases. These include: Zero Trust, CARTA, CSF, RMF, CUI (800-171), and HIPAA. This session provides an overview of these approaches. It highlights the goal and main features of each while comparing them to the others. It goes into more depth on Zero Trust because of the current high interest on this topic. It demonstrates how these best practices are efforts to guide organizations as they protect against modern threats. It shows how a modern information platform can enable Cybersecurity Excellence without busting the budget or throwing out your current investment. “Cybersecurity Excellence” means finding a way to both efficiently and effectively manage cyber risks. It means asking the right questions and focusing investments in the security controls that matter most. It means successfully defending critical systems and sensitive information despite persistent threats, ongoing talent shortages, and ever-present budget constraints. This session shows how networks and security tools can be automated to create bandwidth for security professionals so they can focus on making operational security enhancements to the environment — improving overall cyber posture. Don’t run away from these topics, . come learn how to use them to your advantage to make sure your 0 organization is secure and relieve some of the drudgery of keeping it that way.

Data Virtualization with PolyBase

Presenter: Kevin Feasel
Microsoft Data Platform MVP and
CTO at Envizage


PolyBase is Microsoft's data virtualization technology, allowing you to integrate SQL Server with external systems such as Hadoop and Azure Blob Storage. As of SQL Server 2019, PolyBase also allows you to connect to diverse systems such as Oracle, MongoDB, Cosmos DB, Teradata, Apache Spark, and even other SQL Server instances. In this talk, we will walk through the mechanics of PolyBase, showing how we can write T-SQL queries to access data from heterogeneous sources. We will investigate the Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) and other resources needed to tease out what the PolyBase engine is doing behind the scenes and where to go when things break down. Finally, we will look at several interesting use cases for PolyBase in the modern data environment.

Leading Technology Teams

Alison Brien
Technical Program Manager, Apiture

Leading technology teams has historically been riddled with images of checklists, issue logs, and status reports. Today, leading teams from forming to high-performing involves more than nagging, persuasive efforts. As technology practitioners, if we transition our focus to the human elements and learn to strengthen our own emotional intelligence, our teams will thrive alongside us. In this presentation, we’ll discuss tools and techniques to flex our emotional intelligence in times when it may not feel natural, why this is critical for our teams in the industry, and what it takes to go from Program Managers to Transformation Agents.