Foreword

It is my great pleasure to contribute the foreword to this piece of work by Gary and Richard. We are in exciting times! Not only is the technology of Azure Sentinel exciting, the opportunity that it presents is exciting as well.

Having been in the technology and security consulting business for around 25 years, I’ve seen many things that have been called “Next Generation” and “Game Changing” before. But I will say that what is happening right now only happens once in a career. Some would say a statement like this is hyperbole but hear me out. I doubt that we’ll have another opportunity in our careers to witness the coming of age of the public cloud, the coming of age of Microsoft’s security reference architecture, and the coming of age of cyber security in general...all converging at the same time. What I mean by this convergence is that these things have all hit critical mass in a way that each enables the other, so much so that it will be difficult to tell them apart in a few years.

With this convergence will come change, and disruption as well, which can create a certain amount of chaos and uncertainty. Should we be doing so many things so differently than we have been? Can this newly created technology really be as stable and capable as where we came from? Will we even be able to do things in the same way, and if we can’t, who will lead us out of the darkness? To be plain, Microsoft has made the right investments in security. They eat their own dog food in that everything they release is vetted on their own global network. They’ve quit developing security products as separate components and now focus on the full platform. They recognize that a multi-platform, hybrid infrastructure exists in most environments and they’ve attacked those problems head on.

Azure Sentinel is capable of bringing Microsoft’s own products together, but it additionally brings the capability of being a central component of an organization’s security operations center and that is a game changer.

Gary and Richard have embraced the latest tech from Microsoft’s security platform and worked with forward-looking clients that have the same vision to assess, architect, and implement this tech even with the (almost weekly) changing capabilities and consoles as Microsoft aggressively integrates and enhances their platform. Whenever there is something new, it takes some brave hearts to invest the time and effort to explore the landscape, make some assumptions, and make it work...and I’ve watched these guys do just that.

There is a reward for them and for the consumers of this material. For them, they can plant the flag on this hill, congratulate themselves for the discovery thus far, and make preparations for the next leg of the journey. For you, there is a wealth of knowledge compiled here by folks that earned it the old-fashioned way. And knowing what I do about these guys, they are happy to be the Sherpas for you on your Sentinel journey. Enjoy!

Jason S. Rader,

Director of Network and Cloud Security at Insight