Location a little earlier from Abe, he's
out sick today and so it'll just be us.
And also for note taking purposes, if you
would like, I can record this meeting
because I'm going to share my screen and
I'm going to be going over a lot of
visuals with as well. So and I can also
send that to to Abe once he returns. If
that's OK with you, that would be great.
Thank you. So I'll go
ahead and get that started and then I'll
start with giving you a brief overview of
of this program. What I'll be going over
with you today is our evaluations program
that's actually been around for about 5
to 7 years. It predates me being here
at Microsoft. I've only been.
And these are renewable services, what
I mean?
Every year and you can redo
these evaluations, we we partner, we
have Microsoft certified partners for
evaluation. So in and of themselves
they're independent software vendors, but
they've gone through our rigorous process
for data privacy and everything to
be able to. Become one of
our valued partners and we purchased
custom licenses from them for anywhere
between 45 day and 90 day trial
licenses that have all stripped from
them. This is why it's complimentary to
you because the only thing you can
do of the expiration is uninstalling.
My screen will dive
in and. And
I'll get into the greater details, but
before I do, I just wanted to go
over some quick notes that, um, that Abe
gave me. Looks like you guys are looking
for a data loss prevention solution.
You're wanting to look into
implementation for something like that by
the end of January of. Next year
and then let's see. I know
you're working with CDW, correct?
I think CDW is probably our original
partner. Yeah, OK. But you have a
contractor, looks like you're looking to
disable exports of data via USB ports. I
know we did that a long time ago
here, but that's definitely something
that a lot of organizations are doing.
But wanting to, that's something you guys
are looking to implement. Um, before the
end of the year, is that right?
That's right. OK, So it sounds like
all security and so you're in, you're
definitely in the right place. We started
this evaluations program not just for
security, but it is the biggest part
of it. There are a number of
different. Facets of evaluations that's
going to be covered during the course
of the optimization, excuse me,
optimization advisor, which is going to
be that general deep dive that we
taking. It just takes snapshots. It
doesn't alter anything because the driver
of our of the evaluation tool is
remote read only WI. And
so I just wanted to make that clear.
And the next one we have is the
Microsoft 365. They called the Copilot
readiness, but it's dual purpose because
this goes over the entire Microsoft 365
stack. Think security. It's a big part.
Actually the majority of this is also
security. So think security. Licensing
because those two components in and of
themselves are going to let you know
how ready you are for any type
of AI adoption. And I'm in our
case since we have Copilot is I'll
let you know about Copilot readiness as
well. Biggest, the biggest difference
between these two types of evaluations.
Is the Rapid Security Insights, there's
no software deployment involved with this
particular one for Copilot readiness.
It's actually a simple 5 minute four
step process and I've already prepared an
e-mail invitation to send that to you,
which I'll do right now and we'll
I'll go over this with you. As
we go along.
So I'll actually drag it over here, that
way you can see it before I even send it.
All right, send this over here.
And so this this is the link, the red
only one of you will need to do it. So
once you fill out the registration, it
encumbers that license for you.
And. All of your instructions
are in the body of the e-mail, so I put
it there so it'll be no muss, no fuss.
Matthew, I'll I can respond to this and
and get you involved in filling out the
application. Alright, so
I'll just send that out, but
I want to go over some
important housekeeping things for you
here. So again, Block 64, there
are only one of two of
our evaluations partners and on our
website here, um. We have
information on both of our evaluations
partners. So Block 64 handles all of our
small and medium businesses and that's
what this particular program for
valuation services is about is for small
and medium businesses. We have, we don't
offer this particular service to our
enterprise level clients. There's we do
something completely different. And
through Q solutions for them, you'll also
find even on the block C4's own website,
they will, since they're partnered with
us, they will they make it known that
instead of going for like a 14 day
trial, which is the most that they they
offer as a company, we have 90 day
custom trials. Here and so I just wanted
to point that information out to you. So
in the e-mail that I sent you, those two
links for these two websites are
contained in there towards the top.
No. Just to be
clear, these are evaluations, so it's not
to be confused with an audit. Audits are
more regulatory and those are
involuntary, but these are purely
voluntary. These evaluations help you to
meet a annual IT industry best practice
of assessing your environment and so you
can come back year after year. Like a
lot of our customers do, they come back
and like for you, if you were to do
the optimization advisor this month,
you'll, you'll just come back this time
next year. If you come back a little
month, a month sooner, We've had that
happen last before. It doesn't give
anyone a hard time. We'll just, I'll just
open the ticket. They'll delete the.
Alternate instance so there's no data
flow problems and we just start from
the top. Also really
quickly, I want you to know the
types of credentials that Block 64 as
a company has their stock 2 type
2 certified, which mandates that your
information is not being sold shared with
anyone that we also require them to
be GDP are compliant. So that information
is here. They also have that information
on their own website. Also, if
you have an existing Microsoft partner,
if you would like to, it's purely up
to you because this is going to be
your evaluation data. You can share it
with them and it it actually helps you
to give some important conversation
pieces for them like when you when it
comes time for like Microsoft 365
renewal. Or your licenses, There are
components within the Copilot readiness
tool that is going to show you that I'm
Speaking of which when when it comes to
data insights, you're going to receive
those in two different ways. I'm going to
move this out of the way. So the first
way that you'll receive them and I'll
always present them to you, but you'll
have access. To the cloud portal to pull
them yourself. You'll have a high level
executive summary which is going to be in
PowerPoint format. You'll also receive,
that's going to be all your high level
summary information. You're also going to
receive your more actionable granular
data insights and those are going to be
detailed Excel reports that are going to
have filters. In them that are going to
help you sort your data easily. So I
wanted to just show you these are in PDF
format, but I still want to just show you
the view for that. So the optimization
advisor, the one with the that does the
deep dive, this has three chapters to it.
So I'll just show you security, which is
#1 because it's always of mind.
Optimization and this works for your
hybrid environments, for 100% on Prem
environments and also for your cloud
environments as well.
And then you'll have your modernization
goes over SQL platform as a service
and those type of things.
And then let's see where is it
for the college readiness evaluation that
I mentioned to you?
There aren't many chapters for this, but
there's three major sections that I just
mentioned. Security licensing
optimization has more to do with how
the end users are even making use
of the applications within Microsoft
Office. So if you were considering buying
Copilot licenses, this is going to be
critical. For you, because you don't want
to spend $30 on a license for a
user that's only using Outlook or a
minimal use and I'm going to take you
inside the cloud portal.
Really quickly to show you that
information. By the way, application
patching level is a massive security
situation that we've had as a
blade, the Block 64 DevOps team
to add you guys probably remember
in 2016 that the data breach
at Equifax. That affected everybody
during that investigation when they found
out all the causal factors, it
boiled down to Equifax's IT organization
failing to apply application level
patching. And because of that, and
because we know this, we've had
the DevOps team to add this
information in because. Application level
patches, it has to do with the different
versions that you have throughout all of
the blades. They're they all pretty much
look the same. The layout is the same.
It's very intuitive and they'll all be on
the on the left. Whichever one that
you're navigating into is going to be
highlighted in green. You're going to see
the blade title again here and remember
that your export button will be on the
right hand side that exports in the
detailed Excel spreadsheets and
everything else below your export button.
The data is at a glance, but the more
you Scroll down, the more granular.
So in the case of application patching
level, say for instance you have crowd
strike in your environment, it API calls
are constantly going out through the to
examine your infrastructure. How it's
doing that is through one local instance.
They're always only because it's an
agentless solution. To only do
local install you, whether you're
doing it from Intune or
you're doing it from a
dedicated, nonproductive team we don't
own. Plus it's non
production and we definitely put it on
domain control.
So that's good.
OK. And.
No.
I don't think so.
I just and.
The inputs it will
give you a list
and. So
that you can just export more
specific, you can get the report
everything and can get.
Concealer and this is also going to
be the same for your software
vulnerabilities. So instead of having to
do some Google jujitsu, in my 25
years in IT OPS outside of my
role here at Microsoft, I've had to
do that, do the tango with the
CVE ID trying to. The
tool pulls that in for you. So
essentially the the cloud portal here
becomes a single pane of glass so that
you can check everything from.
From out of support operating systems and
versions of Office. I'll just show you
that to you here if there is.
Software vulnerabilities if there's any
endpoints missing antivirus software.
What I normally see here. Sometimes
it is missing antivirus software, but
the tool is also trained to
detect if it's not working. There
are cases where software works great
until it does it and. You
may need to run repair on that instance
or reinstall it. So it's all going to
still come up here. CVE ID is going
to be here and this particular for all
of your vulnerabilities. This is going to
signify everything in your environment in
terms of endpoints that need security
patches and updates and the most
vulnerable. Software titles we're
actually number one there for because of
the nature of the work that we do. So
as you can see here, this is a demo
tenant, but these are actually.
And real life types of updates that need
to take place.
Any questions here so far?
So how does this work with
our workstations? Like so?
We deploy this.
And then?It
monitors our individual workstations or I
guess I'm not clear about how
this process happens for block 64,
so during the the deployment. So
I'm going to take you here.
This is with the with the
optimization advisor. We just discussed
all of this, the four main
areas, security, Azure cost optimization
and AI. But it's one what
it looks like you'll do one
local install and during the
configuration you will input. IP
subnets that contain your VM's,
your servers, and your workstations
and laptops. That's how it's
finding it. And by
the way, Paul, are you guys 100%
on Prem? No, we're 100% off Prem.
We're Azure. Yeah. OK. So in your
case, so I'm glad that you brought
it up. You will. Are you using
Intune by the way? Well, we're, we're
investigating. We are not managing. Their
workstations right now, OK, so, OK.
And so let me you're 100%
we have SOFOS right now which
we use to monitor workstations and
if they're up to date encrypting
etcetera, can you use that to
push like RMM tool to push
software?On two of the machines,
no. OK, I didn't, I didn't
think so. OK, so you're not
using any type of RM to
to be able to push any
software and approximately how many?
Computers are in your environment right
now. Just an estimate. Yeah, it's about
20. OK, that's that's not too bad. So.
I'll say 20 machines.
So in a case like that, because I've
done, I've dealt with this before.
They would be all you would need to do
is RDP into each machine. It's a silent
install by the way, the agent, I'll give
you the we'll still start off what it
will look like. You'll use your own
laptop because if your Azure it's kind of
a necessary evil to to complete the
configuration process, but there's a way
to. Just get through that. I have
bypasses for that to for to free up
the enrollment token and the the file
needed for you to download the agent and
things about one or two minutes, about
two minutes to be up for the process
for each of those machines to be able
to do that inventory.
Will this work with different OS? I
mean we have Windows and Mac OS.
Yeah. Plus
Max. So yes, for Mac we
have the icon, umm, we typically
schedule with lots of support team
for the because it requires their
collaboration. We have what we call
the block box virtual appliance for
your Mac operating systems. So I
can. I can absolutely schedule that. And
so we'll both be working with you
on that. So I'm glad
that you told me so out of out
of the 20 machines, what percentage do
you think is Mac operating system?
A third, OK, So
I'll say about 33,
Yeah, yeah, could be
1/2. OK,
let me just say half. OK, we'll take the
bigger number.
Yes, we can definitely facilitate that,
which by the way, I don't want you to
take my word for anything. I'm going to
take you here to discovery status.
So here this is device discovery.
So covers Windows, covers Mac operating
systems, covers Linux as well.
And. All of your
devices here, they'll be so anytime you
click on them. It
will. It'll drill down and it'll
give you deeper dive data on
that individual machine. So to show
you all this information here.
Also virtual environments. So if you
have, um, Hyper V Sphere, Nutanix
or Citrix and you want those
inventory as well, you're welcome to
do that as well. It also
covers dynamics Great Plains, so it's
it's pretty robust. In addition to
that, it covers Azure.
AWS. And
it covers single sign on applications,
UM entry ID, Octa, Google Manager
and the rest of the G
Suite. So it covers a
lot of territory there. Yeah, we use
a lot of the Azure services, so
that'll be good. So
in your case, in addition to some
of the, the generalized things will be
going, we'll be going over. This
won't even come out. Your secure scores
will come out with the Microsoft because
it's under the cloud. It's under the
cloud reports. You'll see that and you
can see that in as soon as 24
hours. That falls
under Copilot readiness because it's just
cloud, but the rest of it
for the optimization advisor we're going
to see. Because you can go
in here. And I'll walk you
through this during like deployment. If
you when you get ready to schedule this
to come in here, add that information,
click save. Everything is MFA enabled. So
I won't be I won't need any credentials.
I won't be touching anything in your
environment. You all share your screen
and I walk you through the entire thing.
You'll be driving the bus. Entire time,
OK. And so these will be some of
the things that we go over and area
I'm going to show you a report really
quick that is going to be really
important since you are Azure.
Want to make sure that your
Azure spend is optimized and you're
not overpaying so.
OK. This report, what we're looking
at right now, this is a
cloud assessment report and what you're
seeing on here this and this
is with the recommendations are 95%
accurate. And the reason I say
95% accurate on Paul is because.
Is looking into the 95th percentile of
everything of overall performance. What
you're seeing in the blue columns
represents the current, as is state how
it's current. For
each of your Azure workloads.
Is going to give you the number of cores,
the amount of RAM performance in the 95th
percentile and and it's going to give you
the hardware skew through the use of AI
and machine learning. The tool and column
in is going to recommend where one or
three things that you're either upsize
it, which means it needs more resources,
downsize it because it's over. Failed or
remained equal, which means it's
rightsized. Best case scenario,
everything remains equal but.
If it's saying downsize, you're
definitely overpaying in your Azure
spend, but not to worry.
Two columns J&L these based
again 95% accuracy. These are
the scaling recommendations. In the
case of downsizing it gives
you the proper skew.
The amount of cores and the amount
of RAM to downsize by or downsize
too, correct? Yeah, got it. Also
everything from column R all the way
over. These are different subscriptions
for Azure. So just as an example,
we'll use pay as you go this
dollar figure. It's a monthly figure, so
it's on the monthly basis. So it
represents two different things. This
will represent the amount of money on
Paul that you will save your organization
every month per per workload if you
scale it according to the recommendations
in columns J through L also going.
To represent the amount of money you're
going to continue to overspend by every
month if you do nothing about right
sizing it. Does that make sense?
Yeah, This becomes with our Azure
customers, this is a really important
one. Couple of months, a few months
ago I had a customer, they did
a lift and shift with a contractor
and now their Azure spin was through
the roof and it boiled down to.
Mosquitoes when we looked at it
just as is there were like
25 different skews and then process
of doing a tenant to tenant
migration in Azure and they wanted
to back but once we.
Umm.
Here we were able to
contemplate it.
So we're really happy about that and
it and reduce the consequence.
Those areas. Once they
got once they got every handle on
everything. So that's why
the report like this becomes really,
really important. Yeah, I think this will
be more important over time. We're really
at the big beginning of building up
our capacity and customers. So awesome.
There's one more thing that I wanted
to show you the under Microsoft 365
because right now a lot of my
customers, you know, they're what I'm
seeing trending right now as far as
the optimization advisor.
They're scheduling this for the new year.
You don't have to, but I'm just saying
this is what the honest trend is. People
are looking at doing it in the new year,
but what they are looking at. Is
copilot readiness and it's for
the secure scores.
Because it's it's quiet right now, people
are taking PTO and this is one of the,
this is a major report and this will be
ready in 24 hours. Like if you did the
Copilot readiness evaluation today,
probably by close of business or
definitely first thing in the morning,
these reports are going to be ready and
we have a 72 hour. Turn around
in terms of report delivery and getting
the reports in your hands immediately.
What we need we're we're sock 2 type
2 certified right now, but.
That we have to go through the
process with a new customer that we
have, we have to go through another
audit. And so that's why we're the
the contract specifies that we have to
have a DLP solution in place.
And so that's, you know that that's
why we came here in the 1st
place. And this is going to be
the report that you need. And I
will just show this, this report I
color code 3 different colors, green,
orange and yellow. Green always record
represents 100% completion that way. You
know which one, which tasks you've
completed so that you don't duplicate
your efforts, especially since you're
about to undergo another audit. Also,
column I as a courtesy API calls. This
is information from our Microsoft Learn
website. So these are all the
instructions on how to perform these
actions here. Next up, yellow and orange.
Anything that is low or unknown in
both of these areas of user impact
and implementation costs, I color yellow
because you can complete those actions to
increase your score and what I 8
times out of 10 it's the yellow
colored task that will make comprise
significant scores for you. Anything. If
it's that is moderate, medium or
high, any of these areas, it'll
get colored orange. These are the
things that require licenses or some
form of change management to be
put around it before you perform
an action. But usually these yellow
areas here make. Up a significant,
I'm going to say you could on
average you can increase your secure
score by at least 50% and which
is a lot of points just by
doing these different areas and the
reason why. Low, low
to no user impact or implementation cost.
That's why it's not going to affect the
users if you do it. It's not going to
affect your budget if you do it. So This
is why that everyone's taking this this
time during the holidays, while it's slow
to knock these out. And so
we go through this entire report together
and usually there's stuff on here for
DLP. It'll it will definitely come up.
Data loss prevention, it'll absolutely
come up on here.
And so we'll go over this line by line
and then I calculate all of these points
here. And then we'll also take a look at,
I'll put it in bold, anything that comes
up for DLP. What
you've got is you can even show this
report to your auditors if you need to.
Great. So yeah, we we have our audit is
for HIPAA. And so
because the nature of the work that you
do, so the sooner that you come, you
can complete this report if you do it
today, I recommend you do it today. I
can send these reports to you first thing
Monday morning or I'll check in between
now and 5:00 PM Eastern Time where I
am. And as reports come through,
especially if this one comes through, I
will password protected with the sign up
e-mail address and e-mail it to you right
away. That way you have it and you can
begin working on it. And I'll do the
color coding on this portal. So this is
the sign up link, the M65 CRE
registration, that's what we need. If
you would like, if you have a couple of
moments, if you'd like to walk through,
you can share your screen and I can walk
you through it. I'm
sure.
And Matthew will say how much.
I need you for us. Here we go.
Enter after you
input your company
name, type_M365.
Under this.
365 just and this
will identify the tenant
instance OK for Block
64 company region.
OK. All right. And this is informational
by the way, and you can click
next.
And it'll send you an hmm, let's
see, something went wrong, refreshed the
page. I will look into that. I'll
look into that and.
OK.
So you don't let me before you don't try
to redo it. I'm going to check my. I'm
going to check on my end.
So our men's therapy.
OK, so it showed up. I'm going to open
a support ticket for this and I will have
them manually send it. But other than
that I will, I'm going to include both of
you on the support ticket and then the
support team will be getting with you.
But other than that, I'm going to be
sending you the slide decks. And
everything that we went over today and I
will be reaching back out to you after
I open the ticket. Great. All right. Have
a great rest of your day and happy
holidays to you both. Thanks you too.
Bye. Welcome. Bye. Bye. Thanks. Bye.