Information Technology Navigator

In today’s cloud-driven world, controlling cloud costs without sacrificing performance is a key challenge. Microsoft Azure FinOps (Financial Operations) is a framework that brings a strategic approach to managing cloud expenditures, transforming it from a guessing game into a structured process. For businesses utilizing Azure, learning FinOps fundamentals can unlock new cost-saving opportunities and enhance collaboration across finance, IT, and business teams.

Daymark Solutions’ comprehensive Azure FinOps workshop offers hands-on labs, expert-led discussions, and interactive exercises designed to teach critical cost management skills. Participants dive into rightsizing Azure resources, managing orphaned resources, and leveraging Azure’s unique cost-saving options like Azure Hybrid Benefit, Reserved Instances, and Azure Savings Plans. Each session balances theory with practical exercises to build a solid foundation for financial governance within Azure environments.

Read More

Read More

The ever-increasing impact of AI is everywhere you look. We at Daymark are excited by the prospect of leveraging AI to help us and our clients optimize their businesses. One technology we are particularly enthusiastic about is Copilot for Microsoft 365. We are very excited to announce that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available to organizations of all sizes. This will enable all customers to purchase Copilot for Microsoft 365 and leverage the AI advancements Microsoft has integrated into the world’s most popular productivity suite, Office 365.

Microsoft is making significant investments in AI, and we believe they are ahead of the curve on many fronts, so there is a lot to unpack. In fact, we plan to write several blogs on Copilot for Microsoft 365 and the many other Copilot features coming to all Microsoft platforms as the technology continues to mature. This blog is intended to provide an introduction to Copilot for Microsoft 365 with basic knowledge on what Copilot for Microsoft 365 is, how it works, and how you can get started.

Read More

Microsoft has recently issued some retirement notices that impact VM default internet access on Azure and Basic Public SKUs. While there is runway on both of these notices, Microsoft recommends planning all new deployments with these changes in mind. We at Daymark agree. Here’s a quick summary of the announcements:

Default Internet Access Retirement

Read More

Government organizations today face an unprecedented need for innovation and efficiency. From delivering public services to safeguarding national security, the challenges are immense, and the stakes are high. This is where Microsoft's Azure for US government (Azure Government), a proven and trusted cloud for US government agencies, in conjunction with Azure OpenAI, can step in as a transformative force. In this blog post, I’ll explore why government agencies and organizations that support the government should be taking note of the capabilities and benefits of Azure Government with Azure OpenAI.

Read More

There’s no doubt that Generative AI is an extremely disruptive technology, shaking up nearly all industries and rapidly being deployed in businesses today. For anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention to what’s happening in Generative AI, the recent hype surrounding OpenAI is impossible to ignore. GPTs (Generative Pre-Trained Transformers) are multimodal large language learning models that are essentially machine learning algorithms that respond to input with human-like text.

The enhancements in GPT-4 over the previous 3.5 version, such as image recognition, advanced reasoning, increased accuracy, and multilingual support, to name a few, are remarkable. The ability to handle increased complexity and understand nuanced instructions delivers dramatic results. OpenAI reports being able to create a functional website from a drawing on a piece of paper in minutes and scoring in or near the top 90^th percentile on standardized tests like the SAT, LSAT and GRE.

How to Leverage OpenAI, Including ChatGPT-4, Safely and with Scale:

Read More

Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Machine (Classic) is approaching its full retirement date of September 1, 2023. "Classic" in IaaS VMs refers to VMs managed by Azure Service Manager (ASM). While ASM has full IaaS capabilities and many enhancements over the years, the management of IaaS VMs through Azure Service Manager was deprecated by Microsoft in February 2020. ASM is the old control plane of Azure, responsible for creating, managing, and deleting VMs as well as performing other control plane operations. It’s estimated that 10% of IaaS VMs are still using Azure ASM. Those organizations need to start planning their migration today, given that full retirement is less than three months away.

Impact of this Retirement Notice

Read More

The popularity and wide adoption of Microsoft Azure public cloud has transformed the way millions of businesses operate. It provides a wide range of services where customers can choose to develop and scale applications in a “pay for what you use” model. Getting the most out of Azure in a cost-effective way requires technical acumen, attention to detail and strong organizational skills.

Read More

 

Adoption of Microsoft’s 365 Government Community Cloud (GCC) High sovereign cloud solution is on the rise as organizations in the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) work to ensure compliance with the stringent regulations related to the Cyber Security Maturity Model (CMMC) v2.0 and current NIST 800-171 framework. GCC High is an excellent option for DIB contractors who handle Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) data in their cloud or hybrid environments.

Microsoft continuously improves and enhances features and capabilities to the GCC High platform. Just like updates to Microsoft 365, it can be hard to keep up with them all. Daymark’s Government Community Services Team has carefully selected updates we believe are worth paying attention to with our own GCC High Roadmap.

Read More

Impossible travel. Is it sending a human to Saturn or Venus? Well maybe, but in the context of Microsoft Office 365, Impossible Travel is a security feature that is a great indicator of potential hacking attempts. The concept is straightforward. If you login to Office 365 from your office in Boston and then 20 minutes later you try to login from Dallas, or you login from home in Chicago and five hours later from Beijing, Office 365 basically says “wait a minute, that’s impossible” and it denies login from Dallas and immediately sends an IT security alert. Get tips to optimize Impossible Travel here.

Read More