Tag: packt

Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance for Administrators, a Book Review

On By SteveIn Book Authoring/Reviews1 Comment

I was asked to review the following book by the publisher, and I must say that it was a good experience for me. I used the book to help guide me through security on my tenant even though I don’t have all the security bells and whistles that they call out. It was a great learning experience for me!

Book Information

Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance for Administrators

A definitive guide to planning, implementing, and maintaining Microsoft 365 security posture

  • Length: 432 pages

My Thoughts and Review

Sasha and Omar covered the various security and compliance features available in Microsoft 365. The scope of the content is huge because Microsoft covers so much with their security and compliance tools such as Defender and Purview. Overall, this book is a “must have” book for anyone who manages Microsoft 365 for their organization. It gives you a good overview of what you may need to do today or tomorrow even if you don’t do everything immediately. I would treat this like a good knowledge base or quick start guide to security and compliance for Microsoft 365. If you are an administrator of Microsoft 365, you should include this in your library to help do your job and keep your company secure and compliant.

This book is a “must have” book for anyone who manages Microsoft 365 for their organization

My Summary of the Book

Here’s my summary of the book. I think they did a good job of balancing volume and detail. This summary should give you a good idea of what you can learn from this book.

The book provides a comprehensive look at Microsoft 365’s security, compliance, and governance options, covering topics like threat and information protection, data governance, and compliance management. It introduces Microsoft Defender products, Microsoft 365 Security, vulnerability management, eDiscovery, Purview solutions, among others. Recognizing the vast scope of Microsoft 365’s offerings in security, governance, and compliance, the authors aim to cover as much as possible. These elements are critical for any business undergoing digital transformation.

Microsoft 365 delivers an all-encompassing, unified approach to safeguard data, devices, and users, ensuring compliance with legal standards. Leveraging cloud technology, AI, and automation, it simplifies and enhances security and compliance procedures, providing valuable insights into an organization’s security stance. Adopting Microsoft 365 can improve an organization’s resilience and operational efficiency. This book serves as a resource for integrating these tools and strengthening security and compliance strategies.

Announcing a New Book on SQL from 3Cloud Authors

On By SteveIn Book Authoring/Reviews, SQL Server

I am proud to announce the launch of a new book, centered around the importance of SQL, authored by six consultants from 3Cloud. Our new book is called “SQL Query Design Patterns and Best Practices.” This project was brought to us by PACKT and it’s a unique opportunity as we have five brand new authors on the project. Steve Hughes worked with the publisher to create a plan and recruit authors from within the talented data practice at 3Cloud.

The focus of this book is primarily to help those citizen developers who have limited experience in SQL to expand their knowledge to the next level. While the book can be read end to end, it is designed in multiple parts to support different subject areas that meet the needs of these new developers. In the first part of the book, we spend most of our time dealing with best practices on query design. We follow that up with the implementation of some difficult features that have a great use case in report writing and similar types of queries.

The second half of the book guides developers through using query tuning tools and techniques, including indexes. While our focus is not on creating the indexes, it is important to understand how the indexes can impact and improve your queries as you build your queries. We wrap up with some coverage on modern data estate solutions, including working with JSON, querying files, and creating Jupyter notebooks to manage and share SQL solutions.

About the Authors:

This is not the first book that Steve Hughes has worked on, but that is not true for the rest of the authors. Chi Zhang, Leslie Andrews, Dennis Neer, Shabbir Mala, and Ram Babu Singh worked on a few chapters each in this project, which gives them their first opportunity to coauthor a published book. “As lead on this project, I (Steve Hughes) must say I’m very proud that they tackled this project in such a short timeline. I hope this gives them the opportunity to author more books in the future as we look forward to seeing great things from them.”

I am truly excited to have helped 5 new authors get started!

About the Publisher:

We would like to thank PACKT for their support as we worked through this project. They did a marvelous job supporting this group of new authors on their first project! The project leaders and editors were patient and thoughtful throughout the entire project.

About 3Cloud:

We are all grateful to be working for a company who supports our efforts to become the best consultants in the market and look forward to more opportunities to share our expertise.

If you’re interested in reading the book, please feel free to check us out on Amazon.

I Wrote a Book – Hands-On SQL Server 2019 Analysis Services

On By SteveIn Analysis Services, Book Authoring/Reviews, Business Intelligence, Excel, Power BI, SQL Server, Visual Studio1 Comment

While not the first time I have authored, this is the first book that I wrote as the sole author. Analysis Services is the product I built my career in business intelligence on and was happy to take on the project when I was approached by Packt.

I think one of my favorite questions is about how much research time did I put in for this book. The right answer is almost 20 years. I started working with Analysis Services when it was called OLAP Services and that was a long time ago. Until Power Pivot for Excel and tabular model technology was added to the mix, I worked in the multidimensional model. I was one of the few, or so it seems, that enjoyed working in the multidimensional database world including working with MDX (multidimensional expressions). However, I was very aware that tabular models with the Vertipaq engine were the model of the future. Analysis Services has continued to be a significant part of the BI landscape and this book give you the opportunity to try it out for yourself.

This book is designed for those who are most recently involved in business intelligence work but have been working more in the self-service or end user tools. Now you are ready to take your model to the next level and that is where Analysis Services comes into play. As part of Packt’s Hands On series, I focused on getting going with Analysis Services from install to reporting. Microsoft has developer editions of the software which allow you to do a complete walk through of everything in the book in a step by step fashion. You will start the process by getting the tools installed, downloading sample data, and building out a multidimensional model. Once you have that model built out, then we do build a similar model using tabular model technology. We follow that up by building reports and visualizations in both Excel and Power BI. No journey is complete without working through security and administration basics. If you want learn by doing, this is the book for you.

If you are interested in getting the book, you can order it from Amazon or Packt. From November 20, 2020 through December 20, 2020, you can get a 25% discount using the this code – 25STEVEN or by using this link directly.

I want to thank the technical editors that worked with me to make sure the content and the steps worked as expected – Alan Faulkner, Dan English, and Manikandan Kurup. Their attention to detail raised the quality of the book significantly and was greatly appreciated.

I have to also thank Tazeen Shaikh who was a great content editor to work with. When she joined the project, my confidence in the quality of the final product increased as well. She helped me sort out some of the formatting nuances and coordinated the needed changes to the book. Her work on the book with me was greatly appreciated. Finally, many thanks to Kirti Pisat who kept me on track in spite of COVID impacts throughout the writing of the book this year.

I hope you enjoy the book!

Happy Independence Day America and 10 Years Packt Publishing!

On By SteveIn Analysis Services, Book Authoring/Reviews, General, SQL Server

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If you are in the USA, I hope you take some time today to enjoy your family and friends and see some fireworks.

 

Packt Publishing Celebrates 10 Years – $10 eBooks and Videos

This month marks 10 years since Packt Publishing embarked on its mission to deliver effective learning and information services to IT professionals. In that time it’s published over 2000 titles and helped projects become household names, awarding over $400,000 through its Open Source Project Royalty Scheme.

To celebrate this huge milestone, from June 26th Packt is offering all of its eBooks and Videos at just $10 each for 10 days – this promotion covers every title and customers can stock up on as many copies as they like until July 5th.

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Why not grab the book I coauthored?

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