Hey all, ok so I think its time for a little bit of reflection and stock taking of everything that’s going on in my 100DaysofCloud Challenge! It seems that my options and areas of interest grow by the hour! So…….

What’s Going on at Work?

Easy….. Loads! Still focussed quite heavily on 365 opportunities especially around the Teams Voice element, currently working with some super customers on their Journey to fully utilise Teams, but then we have……

Azure….. Loads! From customers interested in WVD to those looking to start there journey of transition and adoption, every day seems to be an influx of questions, calls, responses and partner engagement activities. Also, really excited to be partaking in an Enterprise Scale Open hack over the next few days with Microsoft which hopefully should put me and a few team member s in a position to conduct training across the wider teams!

What’s Going on with The Welsh Azure User Group?

Its User Group Week! On Thursday 12th November at 6.30pm we will be hosting some superb talks on WVD and also Logic Apps:

AGENDA
6.30pm –   Welcome and Intro
6.45pm –   Admiral BCP and the part WVD played (Paul Connah & Richard Lawson – Admiral Group)
7.30pm – Azure Logic Apps – Integration as a Service and beyond (Dave Phelps & Matt Fortunka – Microsoft)
8.15pm –   Kahoot Quiz (2 x £50 Amazon voucher Prizes!)
8.30pm – Close (Please don’t forget the feedback!)

RSVP here: https://www.meetup.com/MSFT-Stack/events/272699410/

Save the date:

A DevOps Christmas Present – 10th December 2020 (With some super speakers which will be announced soon!!)

Then back to our regularly scheduled Meet Ups on 14th January 2021.

What about Exams?

OK so having just completed the AZ-400 Devops Engineer Expert Exam successfully I am not going to waste any time and am looking to move straight on with the AZ-204 Azure Developer Exam. I have started some prep work but need to focus some time on the skills and learning path:

AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure – Skills measured

• The content of this exam was updated on May 18, 2020. Please download the exam skills outline below to see what changed.
• Develop Azure compute solutions (25-30%)
• Develop for Azure storage (10-15%)
• Implement Azure security (15-20%)
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions (10-15%)
• Connect to and consume Azure services and third-party services (25-30%)

What about the wider Community Activities and Content?

So I am all set up in my new office, PC built, OBS functioning, Internet running fast! Streaming services locked and loaded……. now its just about the time and content creation and I can get motoring with finding my niche!

I have got a couple of colleagues lined up for me to start looking at creating some collaboration videos, I would really like to get to the point of kicking off a Twitch Stream at some point to have a play with that format, hopefully over the next few weeks I might get that opportuinity.

Since launching my little intro video on YouTube, I have been asked to speak on a couple of meetups and shows which I am really humbled to be asked, so really looking forward to those! Keep tabs on my socials, the first one is this Wednesday with Liam, Pete and Jonathan of ‘Azureish Live – After Dark’ (Go and follow them on twitch at: www.twitch.tv/azureishlive), I watched the show last week and it was really good fun, even joined in with their game of ‘Among Us’!!

Also later in the Month and into December, really looking forward to be speaking at DevOpsNotts about the Cloud Adoption Framework, as well as saying hello to the guys at the Northern Azure User Group and having a chat with them around the 100DaysOfCloud Challenge, why and what I am doing it for! So again, keep an eye out on socials and join in to say hello!!

Really looking forward to saying hello to all the guys and gals in those fantastic community groups!!

What about the Flashing LED John, and what else do you need to pick back up?

As I mentioned earlier, it seems that something new lands on my list on a daily or even hourly basis. I have immersed myself with Azure DevOps quite a lot later. Not done as much Terraform as I would like to be doing, so very keen to pick this back up and maybe schedule in the exam for some point soon.

Also, I’ve been having some great fun with my Raspberry Pi and Micro bit lately. Id like to get a few more sensors on the board and I may look to do a quick live stream to run through the set up and why I think its an important thing to try and understand in terms of IoT. I had some great resources sent my way for the purposes of studying for the AZ-220 IoT Specialist exam, so again that is something that I would like to get around to over the coming months as well!

How is the 100DaysofCloud challenge going?

Im really enjoying it, I know it sounds crazy, and yes there is a lot going on, but the learnings are phenomenal, and that’s not just from a tech perspective. I’m speaking to more and more like minded tech pros, Im learning who in the community has what skills. I’m hopefully starting to write a few more meaningful musings! However, for clarity, over this 100 day period I am basically treating this as a learning experience, trying various things out, looking at various tech pathways, learning and passing exams as I go. I do hope by the end of this challenge I will be in a position to really set myself on track to create content and more tech deep dive blogs on maybe a less regular basis!

I am using the challenge as a bit of a catalyst to get myself into the frame of mind of being very much Community focussed. I still have so much to learn and develop from and I am so grateful for all the support I have received so far. I really do hope that I have managed to inspire or help others across the community. I have received a few direct messages on Twitter and LinkedIn from others in the community or relative newcomers into the industry who have found my format helpful which is brilliant and very humbling, I am obviously so glad to receive such positive feedback I really don’t think people realise how much that keeps you going! As well as having some absolutely awesome Community members willing to lift you up at each stage! Thank you to all of those people, you know who you are!

So that’s about it for now, lots of exciting things going on, loads to do, I just thought that I would produce a post like this for today so I can pick up the next task of AZ-204 moving forward!

Like always, thanks for reading my ramblings, and if I can help at all then please do reach out to me and say hello!

100DaysOfCloud Overview

My Main ReadMe Page is all set up with a bit about me!

The guys at 100DaysofCloud have set up the GitHub repo to be cloned and also have a great repo containing ideas and areas to collaborate on: https://github.com/100DaysOfCloud/100DaysOfCloudIdeas

My Github Journey tracker can be found here: https://github.com/jonnychipz/100DaysOfCloud

Please Watch/Star my repo and feel free to comment of contribute to anything I push! I really look forward to hearing from anyone who is going to jump on the journey around the same time as me! Lets see where I get to in 100 days!

I would encourage others to jump on this journey, I’m not sure that I will be able to commit every day for 100 days, but as long as I can complete 100 days that will be great!