Episode 408 – Model Context Protocol (MCP) Part 2: Getting the Most Out of MCP Servers

August 14, 2025

Episode Transcript

Welcome to Episode 408 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. Part two of our exploration into Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers continues our hands-on discussion about finding, implementing, and getting the most out of MCP servers in your daily workflows.

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1 00:00:03,359 --> 00:00:05,519 Welcome to episode 408 2 00:00:05,519 --> 00:00:08,639 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro podcast recorded 3 00:00:08,639 --> 00:00:11,380 live on 07/25/2025. 4 00:00:11,439 --> 00:00:13,759 This is a show about Microsoft three sixty 5 00:00:13,759 --> 00:00:16,005 five and Azure from the perspective of IT 6 00:00:16,005 --> 00:00:18,164 pros and end users, where we discuss a 7 00:00:18,164 --> 00:00:20,484 topic or recent news and how it relates 8 00:00:20,484 --> 00:00:22,885 to you. In this episode, we'll move on 9 00:00:22,885 --> 00:00:24,885 to topics around where you can go to 10 00:00:24,885 --> 00:00:26,185 find various MCPs, 11 00:00:26,644 --> 00:00:29,219 what some of our favorite MCPs are, and 12 00:00:29,219 --> 00:00:31,619 how we've used these MCPs and tied them 13 00:00:31,619 --> 00:00:34,259 into various LLMs to help us get our 14 00:00:34,259 --> 00:00:35,159 work done. 15 00:00:37,460 --> 00:00:39,159 We are back. Part two 16 00:00:39,699 --> 00:00:40,439 of MCPs 17 00:00:41,375 --> 00:00:42,755 and the glorious 18 00:00:43,454 --> 00:00:43,954 functionality. 19 00:00:44,575 --> 00:00:46,414 It's just beautiful. Can I turn this into 20 00:00:46,414 --> 00:00:48,094 an Apple event and talk about how beautiful 21 00:00:48,094 --> 00:00:50,414 it is and magical and either that or 22 00:00:50,414 --> 00:00:52,674 Disney? Beautiful, magical, glorious. 23 00:00:53,135 --> 00:00:54,435 One big beautiful MCP? 24 00:00:54,800 --> 00:00:56,640 Sorry. I had to go there. Yes. You 25 00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:59,120 just had to. Can I ask it? Scott, 26 00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:01,940 no politics. We avoid politics on the podcast. 27 00:01:02,079 --> 00:01:04,400 Politics aside, if people are into comedy, the 28 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:07,299 latest episode of South Park is absolutely glorious. 29 00:01:07,834 --> 00:01:10,635 Absolutely, like, pure One big beautiful South Park 30 00:01:10,635 --> 00:01:11,694 episode? Absolutely. 31 00:01:11,995 --> 00:01:14,075 Plex friend that you are. You know where 32 00:01:14,075 --> 00:01:15,834 to find such things if you want them. 33 00:01:15,834 --> 00:01:18,155 Alright. We're not appropriate for kids, but if 34 00:01:18,155 --> 00:01:19,854 you're in a mood and a vibe, oh. 35 00:01:20,234 --> 00:01:22,150 Speaking of TV shows, have you ever gone 36 00:01:22,150 --> 00:01:24,150 back and watched some of the old Silicon 37 00:01:24,150 --> 00:01:26,950 Valley episodes now that AI is becoming more 38 00:01:26,950 --> 00:01:28,709 mainstream and how much funnier some of them 39 00:01:28,709 --> 00:01:30,870 are? I just started revisiting that a couple 40 00:01:30,870 --> 00:01:33,270 months ago, so it's been good to go 41 00:01:33,270 --> 00:01:33,770 through. 42 00:01:34,310 --> 00:01:36,870 Yes. The Guilfoyle bot, like, the Guilfoyle bot 43 00:01:36,870 --> 00:01:39,004 is, like, actually could be a real thing 44 00:01:39,004 --> 00:01:39,504 now. 45 00:01:41,645 --> 00:01:44,045 Absolutely, it could. Alright. Should we build an 46 00:01:44,045 --> 00:01:46,125 m c we should build an MCP server 47 00:01:46,125 --> 00:01:46,625 for 48 00:01:46,924 --> 00:01:49,245 TV shows. Old if you could do that, 49 00:01:49,245 --> 00:01:51,119 like, build an MCP server as that ties 50 00:01:51,119 --> 00:01:53,219 into IMDB or something or 51 00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:55,939 speaking of use cases for MCP servers. 52 00:01:56,239 --> 00:01:57,539 Speaking of? 53 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:01,359 Movie quotes, an MCP server for, like, pulling 54 00:02:01,359 --> 00:02:04,000 out good movie quotes. Write an entire story 55 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:06,765 or an entire book pulling movie quotes from 56 00:02:06,984 --> 00:02:08,664 so many different movies. Yeah. You could probably 57 00:02:08,664 --> 00:02:10,264 do it. Should we talk about more practical 58 00:02:10,264 --> 00:02:12,344 use cases for MCP servers or how you 59 00:02:12,344 --> 00:02:14,584 get started? Like, our last episode, we kinda 60 00:02:14,584 --> 00:02:17,705 talked about what MCP servers are, touched on 61 00:02:17,705 --> 00:02:20,044 different ways you can integrate them, 62 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:22,520 touched on some security stuff a little bit. 63 00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:24,439 We thought now it'd be fun. I know 64 00:02:24,439 --> 00:02:26,759 you use MCP servers. I've been using some 65 00:02:26,759 --> 00:02:28,620 MCP servers here in 66 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:29,500 regular 67 00:02:29,879 --> 00:02:33,180 day to day life business use cases, and 68 00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:35,180 we're starting to see more and more MCP 69 00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:37,925 servers pop up from different companies as well, 70 00:02:37,925 --> 00:02:40,405 different services that allow you to start bringing 71 00:02:40,405 --> 00:02:42,344 that data in and bringing it together is 72 00:02:42,405 --> 00:02:45,205 kinda talking about what MCP servers maybe we 73 00:02:45,205 --> 00:02:47,364 use, how we've played with them, maybe even 74 00:02:47,364 --> 00:02:49,944 a little bit how you get them installed 75 00:02:50,405 --> 00:02:53,500 because different ones vary there and diving into 76 00:02:53,500 --> 00:02:54,639 more of the practical 77 00:02:55,180 --> 00:02:57,980 use of these MCP servers. Absolutely. So I 78 00:02:57,980 --> 00:02:59,439 think this conversation 79 00:02:59,740 --> 00:03:02,319 probably centers on our experimentation 80 00:03:02,860 --> 00:03:05,735 and kinda our experiences here. Like we closed 81 00:03:05,735 --> 00:03:07,814 last episode, I'd be very interested in hearing 82 00:03:07,814 --> 00:03:09,655 what others are doing, what they're finding interesting, 83 00:03:09,655 --> 00:03:12,055 and what they're finding helps, like, augment their 84 00:03:12,055 --> 00:03:14,375 workflows and kinda get going with some of 85 00:03:14,375 --> 00:03:17,610 this stuff because everything's moving very fast. There's 86 00:03:17,610 --> 00:03:18,669 new implementations. 87 00:03:18,969 --> 00:03:21,310 There's new updates, functionality changes 88 00:03:21,689 --> 00:03:23,610 from day to day kinda thing. So I'd 89 00:03:23,610 --> 00:03:26,510 be very keen to hear kinda others' experiences 90 00:03:26,810 --> 00:03:28,909 here and just what they've run into 91 00:03:29,805 --> 00:03:32,044 along the way. So I think step one, 92 00:03:32,044 --> 00:03:33,245 and you've kinda got it up on the 93 00:03:33,245 --> 00:03:34,384 screen here, is 94 00:03:35,164 --> 00:03:37,164 you hear about MCP and you're like, oh, 95 00:03:37,164 --> 00:03:39,004 this all sounds great. Like, how do I 96 00:03:39,004 --> 00:03:41,485 go and find out what servers are out 97 00:03:41,485 --> 00:03:44,540 there? Well, there's no, like, one stop shopping, 98 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:47,479 like, definitive catalog for these things, but there 99 00:03:47,479 --> 00:03:49,879 are a couple catalogs out there that can 100 00:03:49,879 --> 00:03:52,040 help you get going. So the first one 101 00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:53,479 that you've got up on your screen, so 102 00:03:53,479 --> 00:03:55,020 this is from Anthropic. 103 00:03:55,319 --> 00:03:57,819 They kinda maintain a GitHub repo 104 00:03:58,360 --> 00:03:58,860 of 105 00:03:59,415 --> 00:04:02,854 active MCP servers. Funny enough, over time, these 106 00:04:02,854 --> 00:04:04,455 things haven't been around that long, and they're 107 00:04:04,455 --> 00:04:06,135 already hitting the point where they have an 108 00:04:06,135 --> 00:04:08,775 archived directory in there because some have come 109 00:04:08,775 --> 00:04:10,935 and gone already. But if you're looking for 110 00:04:10,935 --> 00:04:13,629 a specific thing, often, like, one of these 111 00:04:13,629 --> 00:04:14,129 directories 112 00:04:14,669 --> 00:04:17,069 is a good place to start. I think 113 00:04:17,069 --> 00:04:19,870 Anthropic's got a good one for that. I 114 00:04:19,870 --> 00:04:21,470 think the other one that's out there that 115 00:04:21,470 --> 00:04:23,089 might be interesting to folks, 116 00:04:23,389 --> 00:04:27,225 especially the more kinda security focused isolated ones, 117 00:04:27,545 --> 00:04:28,365 is Docker's 118 00:04:28,985 --> 00:04:29,485 MCP 119 00:04:29,944 --> 00:04:30,444 catalog. 120 00:04:30,824 --> 00:04:32,745 So Docker has an MCP catalog and they 121 00:04:32,745 --> 00:04:34,745 have an MCP toolkit. We'll kind of ignore 122 00:04:34,745 --> 00:04:37,145 the toolkit for now. But their catalog is 123 00:04:37,145 --> 00:04:39,884 really cool because it's integrated into the Docker 124 00:04:39,944 --> 00:04:41,084 desktop client. 125 00:04:41,464 --> 00:04:44,089 So now you get this whole world of 126 00:04:44,389 --> 00:04:44,889 containerization, 127 00:04:45,430 --> 00:04:47,830 super easy, like, one click install, like, if 128 00:04:47,830 --> 00:04:49,509 you're just, like, a gooey person kind of 129 00:04:49,509 --> 00:04:52,170 thing, but you also get the added benefit 130 00:04:52,389 --> 00:04:55,545 of container isolation for these things. So like 131 00:04:55,545 --> 00:04:57,064 we talked about in the last episode, you 132 00:04:57,064 --> 00:04:59,545 know, the these need to run either on 133 00:04:59,545 --> 00:05:01,725 a service as an HTTP endpoint 134 00:05:02,105 --> 00:05:03,625 or they need to run locally with an 135 00:05:03,625 --> 00:05:05,625 HTTP endpoint. If they're running locally with an 136 00:05:05,625 --> 00:05:08,105 HTTP endpoint, well, that means they're often running 137 00:05:08,105 --> 00:05:10,650 through, like, an NPM server, so you'll see, 138 00:05:10,650 --> 00:05:12,350 like, a lot of, like, the server definitions 139 00:05:12,410 --> 00:05:14,650 or, like, MPX and this thing kind of 140 00:05:14,650 --> 00:05:16,490 thing. So you're running all those web servers 141 00:05:16,490 --> 00:05:17,850 locally, so you do have to kind of 142 00:05:17,850 --> 00:05:19,770 make this call about, like, do I wanna 143 00:05:19,770 --> 00:05:21,370 do that in isolation in something of the 144 00:05:21,370 --> 00:05:23,210 form of a container, or do I want 145 00:05:23,210 --> 00:05:23,710 to 146 00:05:24,084 --> 00:05:26,564 just, like, go and start spinning these things 147 00:05:26,564 --> 00:05:28,104 up all over the place and have 148 00:05:28,805 --> 00:05:32,404 multiple npm instances running with multiple servers, things 149 00:05:32,404 --> 00:05:34,564 like that? That's a, like, you do you 150 00:05:34,564 --> 00:05:36,404 kinda thing, but I think it is a 151 00:05:36,404 --> 00:05:36,904 consideration. 152 00:05:37,365 --> 00:05:37,865 And 153 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:40,660 the Docker folks here, like, to their credit, 154 00:05:40,800 --> 00:05:43,040 they've done an amazing job with just, like, 155 00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:45,279 integrating this into the Docker desktop client, making 156 00:05:45,279 --> 00:05:46,419 it super turnkey, 157 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:49,060 and providing some more of that, like, abstraction 158 00:05:49,439 --> 00:05:50,979 isolation that containers 159 00:05:51,595 --> 00:05:53,514 give you in that world. So if you're 160 00:05:53,514 --> 00:05:57,194 running a local server, specifically a local MCP 161 00:05:57,194 --> 00:05:59,514 server, I really encourage folks to probably look 162 00:05:59,514 --> 00:06:01,995 at the Docker catalog first. And then if 163 00:06:01,995 --> 00:06:04,394 your thing isn't in the Docker catalog or 164 00:06:04,394 --> 00:06:05,675 even if you found it in some other 165 00:06:05,675 --> 00:06:07,230 catalog, go see if it's in Docker. And 166 00:06:07,389 --> 00:06:08,270 then if you really have to and you 167 00:06:08,270 --> 00:06:09,970 really wanna get hands on with it, then 168 00:06:10,270 --> 00:06:11,790 do that in a way that's safe for 169 00:06:11,790 --> 00:06:13,069 you to do. Yeah. And there's a lot 170 00:06:13,069 --> 00:06:14,350 of them here. I don't know how many 171 00:06:14,350 --> 00:06:16,430 there are in Docker. I should someone should 172 00:06:16,430 --> 00:06:18,509 ask AI how many there are here. One, 173 00:06:18,509 --> 00:06:20,204 two, three, four, six pages with, 174 00:06:20,824 --> 00:06:22,504 like, one, two I think there's a couple 175 00:06:22,504 --> 00:06:24,425 100 in there today already. Yeah. And that 176 00:06:24,425 --> 00:06:26,824 list grows over time. Maybe one of the 177 00:06:26,824 --> 00:06:29,324 nice things about the Docker one too is 178 00:06:29,704 --> 00:06:31,625 it's not just like GitHub and a pull 179 00:06:31,625 --> 00:06:33,384 request away. So there's a little bit of 180 00:06:33,384 --> 00:06:36,439 a, hey. I want to submit my MCP 181 00:06:36,660 --> 00:06:39,079 server to your catalog kind of thing. 182 00:06:39,459 --> 00:06:40,819 I don't know, like, on the back end 183 00:06:40,819 --> 00:06:42,599 if that comes with any kind of agreements 184 00:06:42,659 --> 00:06:44,500 or anything of saying, like, hey. You'll maintain 185 00:06:44,500 --> 00:06:45,939 it or you'll let Docker know when it 186 00:06:45,939 --> 00:06:48,099 goes away, blah blah blah. But I imagine 187 00:06:48,099 --> 00:06:50,415 because all these spin up in in containers 188 00:06:50,415 --> 00:06:52,975 and things like that and isolated that you're 189 00:06:52,975 --> 00:06:57,375 kinda also using Docker Hub, and folks can 190 00:06:57,375 --> 00:06:58,995 go out and look at the Docker files 191 00:06:59,134 --> 00:07:00,574 and see what all these are doing. Yeah. 192 00:07:00,574 --> 00:07:02,735 Look at here's a LinkedIn MCP server, Scott. 193 00:07:02,735 --> 00:07:03,935 I might have to go try a new 194 00:07:03,935 --> 00:07:05,610 one. I've not played with this one yet. 195 00:07:05,610 --> 00:07:08,009 But a couple episodes ago, I talked about 196 00:07:08,009 --> 00:07:10,810 how I had used Researcher to go look 197 00:07:10,810 --> 00:07:12,810 up people that I may be meeting with 198 00:07:12,810 --> 00:07:14,490 or connecting with and have it looked at 199 00:07:14,490 --> 00:07:16,569 LinkedIn. It would be interesting to try some 200 00:07:16,569 --> 00:07:18,889 of that with this LinkedIn MCP server, see 201 00:07:18,889 --> 00:07:21,305 what kind of fun details I can pull 202 00:07:21,305 --> 00:07:24,605 out. So, yeah, these are, again, great resources 203 00:07:24,665 --> 00:07:27,064 when you're looking for MCP servers. You can 204 00:07:27,064 --> 00:07:28,904 also just go out and search for them. 205 00:07:28,904 --> 00:07:30,504 Like, when I started playing with them, there 206 00:07:30,504 --> 00:07:32,425 were some certain MCP servers. I was like, 207 00:07:32,425 --> 00:07:34,264 oh, are there some MCP servers for this 208 00:07:34,264 --> 00:07:38,129 and for ClickUp, for Microsoft Sentinel for some 209 00:07:38,129 --> 00:07:39,810 of those? So some of those, I just 210 00:07:39,810 --> 00:07:41,589 did a search for and found GitHub repos. 211 00:07:41,729 --> 00:07:43,329 Obviously, word of caution, if you're just going 212 00:07:43,329 --> 00:07:45,169 out to some random GitHub repo to grab 213 00:07:45,169 --> 00:07:47,970 an MCP server, proceed with caution. Like we 214 00:07:47,970 --> 00:07:49,349 mentioned in the last episode, 215 00:07:49,705 --> 00:07:53,064 MCP servers being the USB ports of AI, 216 00:07:53,064 --> 00:07:55,465 you don't necessarily wanna just plug in a 217 00:07:55,465 --> 00:07:58,685 random GitHub MCP server to your environment. 218 00:07:59,064 --> 00:08:01,545 But there are lots and lots of options 219 00:08:01,545 --> 00:08:03,410 out here. I would say the other thing 220 00:08:03,410 --> 00:08:05,569 I found before we get into some of 221 00:08:05,569 --> 00:08:07,250 those use cases when I was looking for 222 00:08:07,250 --> 00:08:08,709 MCP servers is 223 00:08:09,009 --> 00:08:11,970 I struggled a little bit where and this 224 00:08:11,970 --> 00:08:13,430 was ClickUp in particular. 225 00:08:13,810 --> 00:08:17,105 ClickUp has AI built into ClickUp, and they 226 00:08:17,105 --> 00:08:19,925 are building in support for MCP servers 227 00:08:20,305 --> 00:08:21,285 to be able to 228 00:08:21,745 --> 00:08:22,644 have ClickUp 229 00:08:23,024 --> 00:08:26,625 AI go connect to whatever MCP server. And 230 00:08:26,625 --> 00:08:28,144 I was like, no. I don't want ClickUp 231 00:08:28,144 --> 00:08:29,824 to connect to an MCP server. I want 232 00:08:29,824 --> 00:08:31,659 an MCP server to connect to ClickUp. 233 00:08:32,839 --> 00:08:35,659 And some of the search engine right. Like, 234 00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:37,559 some of the search engines were having problems, 235 00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:39,639 and I kept running into, here's how you 236 00:08:39,639 --> 00:08:42,039 add an MCP server into monday.com. Here's how 237 00:08:42,039 --> 00:08:43,879 you add an MCP server into ClickUp. Here's 238 00:08:43,879 --> 00:08:46,485 how you add an MCP server into Notion. 239 00:08:46,485 --> 00:08:48,485 Here's how you it's like, no. I want 240 00:08:48,485 --> 00:08:51,125 an MCP server for them to pull that 241 00:08:51,125 --> 00:08:53,065 data somewhere else. So, 242 00:08:53,445 --> 00:08:55,924 yeah, that's it's new. Everybody is trying to 243 00:08:55,924 --> 00:08:57,605 figure it out, and everybody wants you in 244 00:08:57,605 --> 00:08:58,585 their AI platform. 245 00:08:59,090 --> 00:09:00,290 So they're trying to get you to go 246 00:09:00,290 --> 00:09:01,889 use theirs. I had the same struggle with 247 00:09:01,889 --> 00:09:03,889 Notion going down that path the first time. 248 00:09:03,889 --> 00:09:05,649 So I was very interested in 249 00:09:06,370 --> 00:09:07,570 I I think I talked about the use 250 00:09:07,570 --> 00:09:09,570 case before. Like, I use, like, chat GPT 251 00:09:09,570 --> 00:09:11,330 and things like that or, like, Claude to 252 00:09:11,330 --> 00:09:12,149 create a recipe. 253 00:09:12,475 --> 00:09:13,995 And I was very interested in this, like, 254 00:09:13,995 --> 00:09:16,495 hey. Just pump it into my recipes database 255 00:09:16,794 --> 00:09:18,955 because I knew they had an MCP server 256 00:09:18,955 --> 00:09:20,955 that allowed for the ability to, like, create 257 00:09:20,955 --> 00:09:21,455 databases, 258 00:09:21,835 --> 00:09:24,235 update databases, all these things. And it took 259 00:09:24,235 --> 00:09:25,995 me a while to find the right path 260 00:09:25,995 --> 00:09:27,269 to get there. And then once you find 261 00:09:27,269 --> 00:09:28,709 the right path to get there, you also 262 00:09:28,709 --> 00:09:30,970 sometimes have to find, like, the right incantation 263 00:09:31,750 --> 00:09:33,829 of, hey, this is how I'm going to 264 00:09:33,829 --> 00:09:35,529 make it work kind of thing. 265 00:09:35,909 --> 00:09:38,309 So, like, for Notion, like, it's got an 266 00:09:38,309 --> 00:09:41,075 update database thing. Well, databases have columns, they 267 00:09:41,075 --> 00:09:43,075 have fields, they might have fixed data types, 268 00:09:43,075 --> 00:09:44,995 things like that. So just figuring out even, 269 00:09:44,995 --> 00:09:46,514 like, what's the raw input you need from 270 00:09:46,514 --> 00:09:48,195 the LLM to push the LLM to the 271 00:09:48,195 --> 00:09:50,695 next step of insert into my Notion database 272 00:09:50,915 --> 00:09:52,115 can be a little bit weird. But if 273 00:09:52,115 --> 00:09:53,809 you're a tinkerer, I think these things are, 274 00:09:53,809 --> 00:09:55,169 like, really fun. And then once you figure 275 00:09:55,169 --> 00:09:57,410 them out, like, boom, the light goes off, 276 00:09:57,410 --> 00:09:58,790 and you kinda get to 277 00:09:59,330 --> 00:10:01,250 the next step from there. I I think 278 00:10:01,250 --> 00:10:03,009 they are really fun kind of things. So 279 00:10:03,009 --> 00:10:04,950 there's tons of them on the consumer side. 280 00:10:05,105 --> 00:10:06,165 I've been using 281 00:10:06,865 --> 00:10:07,365 mostly 282 00:10:07,745 --> 00:10:09,665 Azure focused things in my day to day. 283 00:10:09,665 --> 00:10:11,524 Like, I spend a lot of time in 284 00:10:12,144 --> 00:10:15,445 Versus Code, either writing documentation for our platform, 285 00:10:15,745 --> 00:10:17,605 generating sample scripts, running 286 00:10:18,139 --> 00:10:20,460 running through and doing test cases and things 287 00:10:20,460 --> 00:10:23,259 for SDKs, clients, all that. So that's a 288 00:10:23,259 --> 00:10:25,419 place that I was already living. So having 289 00:10:25,419 --> 00:10:26,399 that as a client 290 00:10:26,860 --> 00:10:28,720 Versus code that is 291 00:10:29,340 --> 00:10:31,740 MCP capable and with the ability to integrate 292 00:10:31,740 --> 00:10:33,519 with MCP servers as client, 293 00:10:34,034 --> 00:10:36,434 access to all the chat models that are 294 00:10:36,434 --> 00:10:37,875 out there, things like that. And being that 295 00:10:37,875 --> 00:10:40,454 I work for Microsoft and, I mean, Azure, 296 00:10:40,674 --> 00:10:42,115 I found a couple that are helpful to 297 00:10:42,115 --> 00:10:43,475 me. So the two that I probably use 298 00:10:43,475 --> 00:10:47,714 the most are the Microsoft learn MCP server 299 00:10:47,714 --> 00:10:49,240 and then the Azure 300 00:10:49,779 --> 00:10:50,600 MCP server. And 301 00:10:52,179 --> 00:10:53,779 this is, I I think, two good ones 302 00:10:53,779 --> 00:10:55,860 to talk about because they also bring us 303 00:10:55,860 --> 00:10:57,000 back to that distinction 304 00:10:57,379 --> 00:10:57,879 of 305 00:10:58,419 --> 00:11:01,764 remote server versus local server and some of 306 00:11:01,764 --> 00:11:03,684 the things that go on with setting them 307 00:11:03,684 --> 00:11:05,205 up and kinda how they wire up and 308 00:11:05,205 --> 00:11:07,684 how they come together. So the Microsoft Learn 309 00:11:07,684 --> 00:11:09,464 MCP server is 310 00:11:09,845 --> 00:11:12,904 a remote server. So the folks at Microsoft 311 00:11:12,964 --> 00:11:16,004 Learn actually have an API endpoint that's available 312 00:11:16,004 --> 00:11:18,240 to you as a customer that you can 313 00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:20,340 integrate with your MCP client, 314 00:11:20,879 --> 00:11:23,299 and you it's a very simple definition. 315 00:11:23,759 --> 00:11:25,600 They've made this super turnkey for, like, Versus 316 00:11:25,600 --> 00:11:26,879 Code. Like, if you scroll down a little 317 00:11:26,879 --> 00:11:29,940 bit on this page, like, installing these things, 318 00:11:30,174 --> 00:11:31,535 or maybe it's on this page, maybe it's 319 00:11:31,535 --> 00:11:33,855 on another page for it. Yeah. Maybe get 320 00:11:33,855 --> 00:11:35,774 started or something like that. That's probably it. 321 00:11:35,774 --> 00:11:37,215 Yeah. So, like, right there, they've got configure 322 00:11:37,215 --> 00:11:39,134 Versus Code. It's literally like a button, and 323 00:11:39,134 --> 00:11:41,054 it just opens Versus Code for you automatically, 324 00:11:41,054 --> 00:11:42,539 and it wires it up along the way. 325 00:11:42,779 --> 00:11:43,519 Very similar 326 00:11:44,299 --> 00:11:47,019 to maybe installing extensions and things like that. 327 00:11:47,019 --> 00:11:48,379 Oh, I guess we should have mentioned that, 328 00:11:48,379 --> 00:11:51,259 like, Versus Code. Visual Studio Marketplace, they actually 329 00:11:51,259 --> 00:11:53,740 have an MCP catalog as well that's out 330 00:11:53,740 --> 00:11:56,240 there ready, raring to go, available, all that. 331 00:11:56,539 --> 00:11:59,154 Yeah. So so this is a remote one. 332 00:11:59,455 --> 00:12:01,934 You install it, and you're kinda ready to 333 00:12:01,934 --> 00:12:04,754 go. You do have to start MCP servers, 334 00:12:04,815 --> 00:12:06,735 particularly in Versus code. I found this to 335 00:12:06,735 --> 00:12:09,054 confuse me. Every time I close Versus code 336 00:12:09,054 --> 00:12:10,414 down and then reopen it, and I go 337 00:12:10,414 --> 00:12:11,554 back into my agent 338 00:12:11,899 --> 00:12:13,340 or my chat view, and I turn it 339 00:12:13,340 --> 00:12:15,259 to agent mode, and then it goes, oh, 340 00:12:15,259 --> 00:12:16,620 I don't know what to do because this 341 00:12:16,620 --> 00:12:18,700 thing isn't on. Darn it. I forgot. Maybe 342 00:12:18,700 --> 00:12:20,379 there's a button or something I just haven't 343 00:12:20,379 --> 00:12:22,940 found yet linked to Versus Code configuration to 344 00:12:22,940 --> 00:12:24,704 to do that. But, yeah, once once you 345 00:12:24,704 --> 00:12:25,825 got it up and running, then you just 346 00:12:25,825 --> 00:12:27,504 start chatting with it and ask it, like, 347 00:12:27,504 --> 00:12:29,105 hey. How do I create an Azure VM 348 00:12:29,105 --> 00:12:30,464 based on docs? And then just based on 349 00:12:30,464 --> 00:12:32,544 the context of having Azure and docs in 350 00:12:32,544 --> 00:12:35,024 the prompt, it knows to use that agent 351 00:12:35,024 --> 00:12:37,079 to reach out and do that. You can 352 00:12:37,079 --> 00:12:38,600 even ground it, like I talked a little 353 00:12:38,600 --> 00:12:40,039 bit before, and I think we talked about 354 00:12:40,039 --> 00:12:42,039 this in the previous episode about grounding these 355 00:12:42,039 --> 00:12:43,019 things with instructions 356 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:45,559 and kind of base prompts to start. So 357 00:12:45,559 --> 00:12:47,159 in the case of Versus Code, you go 358 00:12:47,159 --> 00:12:49,419 in and basically you say, here's my instruction 359 00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:51,975 file. And in your instruction file, you can 360 00:12:51,975 --> 00:12:53,815 tell your instruction file. And I think if 361 00:12:53,815 --> 00:12:55,174 you scroll down in here to the bottom 362 00:12:55,174 --> 00:12:56,695 of this page, it's actually got a section 363 00:12:56,695 --> 00:12:57,914 here for set instructions. 364 00:12:58,294 --> 00:12:59,034 Yeah. Perfect. 365 00:12:59,335 --> 00:13:00,695 So you can actually just tell it and 366 00:13:00,695 --> 00:13:02,774 ground it. Like, anytime I ask a question 367 00:13:02,774 --> 00:13:06,029 about a Microsoft product, use this MCP server. 368 00:13:06,110 --> 00:13:07,970 Like like, go out and use me to 369 00:13:08,190 --> 00:13:09,790 to get that information and pull it back. 370 00:13:09,790 --> 00:13:12,430 So that that's one that I use all 371 00:13:12,430 --> 00:13:14,350 the time. Like, it's just there, ready to 372 00:13:14,350 --> 00:13:16,029 go and available. And then the other one 373 00:13:16,029 --> 00:13:17,389 that I use a bunch, which is a 374 00:13:17,389 --> 00:13:18,290 local server, 375 00:13:18,670 --> 00:13:21,009 is the Azure MCP 376 00:13:21,389 --> 00:13:21,889 server. 377 00:13:22,404 --> 00:13:23,945 So this one is 378 00:13:24,565 --> 00:13:27,524 a single MCP server with a whole bunch 379 00:13:27,524 --> 00:13:29,684 of agents inside of it. So when you're 380 00:13:29,684 --> 00:13:32,485 chatting with the Microsoft Learn MCP server, it's 381 00:13:32,485 --> 00:13:34,565 really just one agent that's going across all 382 00:13:34,565 --> 00:13:36,730 the learn docs and figuring things out. The 383 00:13:36,730 --> 00:13:39,450 Azure MCP server has well, as of a 384 00:13:39,450 --> 00:13:41,370 couple days ago, it had, like, 72 or 385 00:13:41,370 --> 00:13:43,370 73 agents in it. They just collapsed it 386 00:13:43,370 --> 00:13:45,230 down to 28 because it was just, like, 387 00:13:45,370 --> 00:13:47,370 so a big list and gnarly to get 388 00:13:47,370 --> 00:13:49,904 a hold of. But this one offers you 389 00:13:49,904 --> 00:13:52,625 a bunch of domain specific functionality around Azure. 390 00:13:52,625 --> 00:13:55,264 So, like, list all my resource groups, list 391 00:13:55,264 --> 00:13:57,605 all my virtual machines, list my storage accounts. 392 00:13:57,825 --> 00:13:59,745 And then it has even more domain specific 393 00:13:59,745 --> 00:14:00,245 functionality 394 00:14:00,865 --> 00:14:03,605 given the resource that you are interacting with. 395 00:14:03,990 --> 00:14:06,389 So I work in Azure storage. That's the 396 00:14:06,389 --> 00:14:07,990 place I've been playing around the most. So 397 00:14:07,990 --> 00:14:10,309 that'll be, like, my example here. They have 398 00:14:10,309 --> 00:14:12,330 the ability to go in and say, like, 399 00:14:12,470 --> 00:14:14,309 list all the containers in my storage account. 400 00:14:14,309 --> 00:14:16,309 Give me the properties of my containers in 401 00:14:16,309 --> 00:14:18,455 my storage account. Things like that. And the 402 00:14:18,455 --> 00:14:19,975 docs for this one are pretty good. Like, 403 00:14:19,975 --> 00:14:21,415 if you click through like, you've got on 404 00:14:21,415 --> 00:14:22,774 the side there, like, if you go into, 405 00:14:22,774 --> 00:14:25,654 like, the Azure storage one or the resource 406 00:14:25,654 --> 00:14:27,894 group one, either one of those, it'll tell 407 00:14:27,894 --> 00:14:30,855 you, like, hey. Here's the types of domain 408 00:14:30,855 --> 00:14:32,235 specific knowledge that 409 00:14:32,639 --> 00:14:36,080 this MCP implementation and this particular agent can 410 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:37,300 offer back to you 411 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:38,740 as a customer. 412 00:14:39,120 --> 00:14:41,840 There's a big distinction here between that whole 413 00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:44,000 local and remote server thing and what it 414 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:46,304 goes to to get these things wired up 415 00:14:46,384 --> 00:14:48,384 and get them installed and get them all 416 00:14:48,384 --> 00:14:51,504 working. So, like, the learn one, super easy. 417 00:14:51,504 --> 00:14:53,585 Right? Because it's a remote MCP server. You're 418 00:14:53,585 --> 00:14:54,945 just pointing it at a resource and you 419 00:14:54,945 --> 00:14:57,504 go. This one's local. So you gotta run 420 00:14:57,504 --> 00:14:58,884 it. It requires 421 00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:00,800 if you're running it locally on your desktop, 422 00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:03,360 it requires Node. If you're, like, a Windows 423 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:04,879 customer and you're just doing Node for the 424 00:15:04,879 --> 00:15:06,160 first time and you just next, next, next 425 00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:07,379 to your way through the installation, 426 00:15:07,759 --> 00:15:09,860 Node does some weird stuff. Like, it'll install 427 00:15:09,920 --> 00:15:12,420 Chocolatey and some other stuff along the way, 428 00:15:12,634 --> 00:15:14,875 but there's definitely like this dependency chain that 429 00:15:14,875 --> 00:15:16,894 isn't always clear until you start using it. 430 00:15:16,955 --> 00:15:19,115 Thankfully, like the agent walks you through it 431 00:15:19,115 --> 00:15:20,955 pretty clearly, so like once you get the 432 00:15:20,955 --> 00:15:22,955 server started and you go run your first 433 00:15:22,955 --> 00:15:25,059 thing, like, hey, list my resource groups, then 434 00:15:25,059 --> 00:15:27,299 it'll say, oh, I wanna list your resource 435 00:15:27,299 --> 00:15:29,059 groups with the Azure CLI. Do you have 436 00:15:29,059 --> 00:15:31,059 the Azure CLI installed? Is it in your 437 00:15:31,059 --> 00:15:32,980 path? Yes. I'll go run that. Oh, I 438 00:15:32,980 --> 00:15:35,059 see Azure CLI is not installed. Let's go 439 00:15:35,059 --> 00:15:36,659 install that kind of thing. So there can 440 00:15:36,659 --> 00:15:38,659 be a little bit more of, like, hurry 441 00:15:38,659 --> 00:15:39,480 up and wait, 442 00:15:39,794 --> 00:15:42,115 particularly when you're installing local servers that have 443 00:15:42,115 --> 00:15:42,615 dependencies 444 00:15:42,995 --> 00:15:45,335 on other tools or other tool chains 445 00:15:45,794 --> 00:15:47,235 that are out there along the way. But 446 00:15:47,235 --> 00:15:49,495 once you get it all going, super turnkey. 447 00:15:49,554 --> 00:15:51,554 Right? Super easy. You just kinda light it 448 00:15:51,554 --> 00:15:52,459 up and go. 449 00:15:56,120 --> 00:15:58,439 Yeah. Do you feel overwhelmed by trying to 450 00:15:58,439 --> 00:16:00,839 manage your Office three sixty five environment? Are 451 00:16:00,839 --> 00:16:03,799 you facing unexpected issues that disrupt your company's 452 00:16:03,799 --> 00:16:06,404 productivity? Intelligink is here to help. Much like 453 00:16:06,404 --> 00:16:08,085 you take your car to the mechanic that 454 00:16:08,085 --> 00:16:10,325 has specialized knowledge on how to best keep 455 00:16:10,325 --> 00:16:13,045 your car running, Intelligink helps you with your 456 00:16:13,045 --> 00:16:16,665 Microsoft cloud environment because that's their expertise. Intelligink 457 00:16:16,884 --> 00:16:18,644 keeps up with the latest updates in the 458 00:16:18,644 --> 00:16:21,019 Microsoft cloud to help keep your business running 459 00:16:21,019 --> 00:16:23,100 smoothly and ahead of the curve. Whether you 460 00:16:23,100 --> 00:16:25,259 are a small organization with just a few 461 00:16:25,259 --> 00:16:27,899 users up to an organization of several thousand 462 00:16:27,899 --> 00:16:28,399 employees, 463 00:16:28,779 --> 00:16:30,779 they want to partner with you to implement 464 00:16:30,779 --> 00:16:33,519 and administer your Microsoft cloud technology. 465 00:16:34,264 --> 00:16:37,804 Visit them at inteliginc.com/podcast. 466 00:16:38,024 --> 00:16:44,764 That's intelligink.com/podcast 467 00:16:45,144 --> 00:16:47,304 for more information or to schedule a thirty 468 00:16:47,304 --> 00:16:49,325 minute call to get started with them today. 469 00:16:50,320 --> 00:16:53,200 Intelligent focuses on the Microsoft cloud so you 470 00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:54,740 can focus on your business. 471 00:16:56,879 --> 00:16:58,320 And I've been playing with this one too. 472 00:16:58,320 --> 00:17:00,399 The other thing I would say is, well, 473 00:17:00,399 --> 00:17:01,539 the difference between 474 00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:04,559 Learn and Azure is, like, Learn is all 475 00:17:04,559 --> 00:17:06,964 just open to the public documentation. Right? Like, 476 00:17:06,964 --> 00:17:08,644 you don't need to authenticate to Learn to 477 00:17:08,644 --> 00:17:10,404 go pull stuff from it, so MCP server's 478 00:17:10,404 --> 00:17:12,644 there. With the Azure one, you are connecting 479 00:17:12,644 --> 00:17:14,664 to your subscription, so there are dependencies 480 00:17:15,044 --> 00:17:18,080 there on you actually have access to your 481 00:17:18,080 --> 00:17:20,480 Azure subscription and your permissions to Azure and 482 00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:22,019 setting up that authentication 483 00:17:22,320 --> 00:17:23,299 piece between 484 00:17:23,759 --> 00:17:26,080 your local instance and Azure. I've started playing 485 00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:27,600 with the learn one. I've not used the 486 00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:30,015 learn one as much yet, but I do 487 00:17:30,075 --> 00:17:32,714 like it, and I have actually been using 488 00:17:32,714 --> 00:17:34,714 Claude for all my MCPs. I went out 489 00:17:34,714 --> 00:17:36,875 and set up Claude locally. I've been setting 490 00:17:36,875 --> 00:17:38,815 up a bunch of my MCPs in Claude. 491 00:17:39,275 --> 00:17:41,275 I do not have the problem of having 492 00:17:41,275 --> 00:17:42,474 to start it. I just go in and 493 00:17:42,474 --> 00:17:44,075 start chatting with Claude, and it pulls it 494 00:17:44,075 --> 00:17:45,809 all back. But I like Have you been 495 00:17:45,809 --> 00:17:47,809 able to get the Azure MCP server going 496 00:17:47,809 --> 00:17:49,089 in, Claude? I had a bunch of fits 497 00:17:49,089 --> 00:17:51,089 and starts there, particularly on my Mac. Like, 498 00:17:51,089 --> 00:17:53,250 there was something so the Azure MCP server 499 00:17:53,250 --> 00:17:56,049 relies heavily on default Azure credential, which is, 500 00:17:56,049 --> 00:17:58,734 like, this internal class within things, and I've 501 00:17:58,734 --> 00:17:59,934 just had, like, a bear of a time 502 00:17:59,934 --> 00:18:01,214 get it going. I could only get it 503 00:18:01,214 --> 00:18:03,134 going in Versus Code. I could never get 504 00:18:03,134 --> 00:18:04,815 it going in I think it is. Let 505 00:18:04,815 --> 00:18:07,054 me go ask in a minute. Let's see 506 00:18:07,054 --> 00:18:08,654 if it can fix my spell check. We'll 507 00:18:08,654 --> 00:18:11,454 let that go while we keep talking, but 508 00:18:11,454 --> 00:18:12,515 it wants a CLI. 509 00:18:12,829 --> 00:18:14,829 Always allow. But I like the fact, like, 510 00:18:14,829 --> 00:18:15,569 with learn, 511 00:18:15,950 --> 00:18:18,210 before if you would go out and 512 00:18:18,509 --> 00:18:20,509 do a if you're gonna go out and 513 00:18:20,509 --> 00:18:21,950 do a search, right, or if you're just 514 00:18:21,950 --> 00:18:24,750 using Claude or OpenAI or something to ask 515 00:18:24,750 --> 00:18:26,450 about certain Microsoft documentation, 516 00:18:27,150 --> 00:18:28,210 you do tend 517 00:18:29,335 --> 00:18:30,855 to I think I would say it can 518 00:18:31,095 --> 00:18:32,454 you don't always know that it's gonna pull 519 00:18:32,454 --> 00:18:34,134 it straight from learn. Right? It may pull 520 00:18:34,134 --> 00:18:35,974 up from some forums where people are giving 521 00:18:35,974 --> 00:18:37,034 incorrect answers. 522 00:18:37,494 --> 00:18:40,375 It may pull it from all kinds of 523 00:18:40,375 --> 00:18:43,390 different places, blogs, YouTube. You never really know 524 00:18:43,390 --> 00:18:45,549 where when you start doing the MCP, you're 525 00:18:45,549 --> 00:18:47,950 like, okay. It's probably gonna tend to pull 526 00:18:47,950 --> 00:18:50,349 at least a little bit more accurate information 527 00:18:50,349 --> 00:18:52,269 from learn. We could argue that learn always 528 00:18:52,269 --> 00:18:54,589 isn't accurate, but that's a whole another discussion. 529 00:18:54,589 --> 00:18:55,089 Absolutely. 530 00:18:56,455 --> 00:18:58,695 Discussion for another time. In regard to that, 531 00:18:58,695 --> 00:18:59,195 so 532 00:18:59,575 --> 00:19:01,174 Claude presents it a little bit differently in 533 00:19:01,174 --> 00:19:03,335 the UI. I think I'm, like, more immersed 534 00:19:03,335 --> 00:19:05,035 in that Versus Code world 535 00:19:05,335 --> 00:19:06,855 today for this stuff, at least for, like, 536 00:19:06,855 --> 00:19:08,875 my day to day job and role. 537 00:19:09,200 --> 00:19:10,500 You can actually tell 538 00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:12,960 when it's reaching out to an agent, at 539 00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:14,980 least in, like, the internal, like, GitHub Copilot 540 00:19:15,039 --> 00:19:16,640 chat window. So you do have that, like, 541 00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:19,519 that grounding that like, hey, this response is 542 00:19:19,519 --> 00:19:21,460 coming back from this MCP agent. 543 00:19:21,759 --> 00:19:24,319 It's not coming back from, like you said, 544 00:19:24,319 --> 00:19:26,534 just the base LLM and what that's been 545 00:19:26,534 --> 00:19:28,934 trained on or anything like that along the 546 00:19:28,934 --> 00:19:31,015 way. I'm gonna have to go revisit this. 547 00:19:31,015 --> 00:19:33,654 Maybe they updated something in Claude because I 548 00:19:33,654 --> 00:19:34,474 just had a 549 00:19:34,775 --> 00:19:36,634 weird time getting it going 550 00:19:37,015 --> 00:19:39,034 last time. But So this is fascinating 551 00:19:39,335 --> 00:19:40,875 too. I don't know. 552 00:19:41,309 --> 00:19:43,169 This is not pulling it 553 00:19:43,470 --> 00:19:43,970 from 554 00:19:44,589 --> 00:19:47,889 my subscription. This is using another client's 555 00:19:48,509 --> 00:19:50,990 Azure account that I'm signed into somewhere. So 556 00:19:50,990 --> 00:19:54,210 I don't know how it picked which credentials 557 00:19:54,509 --> 00:19:55,970 it was going to use 558 00:19:56,275 --> 00:19:58,115 when it went out and connected to Azure. 559 00:19:58,115 --> 00:19:59,875 If it's the latest one that I've connected 560 00:19:59,875 --> 00:20:01,174 to with Azure CLI 561 00:20:01,714 --> 00:20:02,214 or 562 00:20:02,755 --> 00:20:05,315 how it shows which credentials it was gonna 563 00:20:05,315 --> 00:20:07,654 authenticate, but it did not use my my 564 00:20:07,875 --> 00:20:10,194 internal company credentials. It used some credentials I'm 565 00:20:10,194 --> 00:20:12,169 signed into with the client subscription. But it 566 00:20:12,169 --> 00:20:14,410 was at least able to connect and go 567 00:20:14,410 --> 00:20:16,650 pull all the resource groups across all the 568 00:20:16,650 --> 00:20:17,150 subscriptions 569 00:20:17,690 --> 00:20:20,490 that I'm currently signed into somewhere. Oh, there 570 00:20:20,490 --> 00:20:22,349 you go. Yeah. That's 571 00:20:22,809 --> 00:20:25,984 another interesting thing too, like, Claude and Microsoft 572 00:20:25,984 --> 00:20:28,404 documentation for both Learn and the Azure MCP. 573 00:20:28,625 --> 00:20:31,105 PurePoint gets a global just a click to 574 00:20:31,105 --> 00:20:32,565 install from the Visual Studio 575 00:20:33,505 --> 00:20:36,065 directory. If you go use Claude, they do 576 00:20:36,065 --> 00:20:38,005 have guides for the directory install 577 00:20:38,460 --> 00:20:40,640 wherein opening a configuration policy, 578 00:20:41,099 --> 00:20:43,099 pasting in some JSON, you need to ensure 579 00:20:43,099 --> 00:20:46,059 you keep your JSON formatted because what I 580 00:20:46,059 --> 00:20:47,599 have found all this documentation 581 00:20:48,299 --> 00:20:50,700 assumes this is the only MCP you're installing 582 00:20:50,700 --> 00:20:53,154 in your configuration file. If you take the 583 00:20:53,154 --> 00:20:55,075 raw JSON from all of these, you end 584 00:20:55,075 --> 00:20:57,234 up with malformed JSONs. You have to figure 585 00:20:57,234 --> 00:20:59,555 out these all go inside of the servers 586 00:20:59,555 --> 00:21:01,974 with the commas in the right places and 587 00:21:02,195 --> 00:21:04,595 squiggly brackets and all of that. Claude for 588 00:21:04,595 --> 00:21:06,769 me was a little bit trickier, and every 589 00:21:06,769 --> 00:21:08,390 once in a while, I'll see weird 590 00:21:08,769 --> 00:21:11,089 errors pop up in Claude with formatting issues. 591 00:21:11,089 --> 00:21:12,309 It seems to work. 592 00:21:12,609 --> 00:21:14,769 We talked about it last episode. MCPs are 593 00:21:14,769 --> 00:21:16,529 new. There's still some WIMM every once in 594 00:21:16,529 --> 00:21:19,169 a while, but I've got both Learn and 595 00:21:19,169 --> 00:21:21,585 the Azure one working well in my instance 596 00:21:21,585 --> 00:21:24,144 of Claude locally. Claude's been a bit of 597 00:21:24,144 --> 00:21:25,765 a weird one. You kinda get into 598 00:21:26,384 --> 00:21:27,125 that world 599 00:21:28,144 --> 00:21:31,265 of editing JSON and all that stuff locally. 600 00:21:31,265 --> 00:21:31,765 So, 601 00:21:32,144 --> 00:21:34,464 yeah, it's kinda hit or miss. And it 602 00:21:34,464 --> 00:21:36,464 depends on your level of, I think, like, 603 00:21:36,464 --> 00:21:40,339 just not, like, technical acumen, like your ability 604 00:21:40,339 --> 00:21:41,539 to, I think, deal with some of the 605 00:21:41,539 --> 00:21:43,320 friction that Yes. 606 00:21:43,700 --> 00:21:45,000 That comes with these things. So 607 00:21:45,299 --> 00:21:47,299 Versus Code, I like I said, like, they've 608 00:21:47,299 --> 00:21:49,000 made it super turnkey. 609 00:21:50,065 --> 00:21:51,585 Like, I I would have to guess the 610 00:21:51,585 --> 00:21:54,465 folks at Anthropic aren't really happy. Like, Microsoft's 611 00:21:54,465 --> 00:21:56,545 out here with, like, this whole ecosystem as 612 00:21:56,545 --> 00:21:58,965 well that's disintegrating and doing these things, but 613 00:21:59,105 --> 00:22:01,184 I will say, like, the folks at GitHub 614 00:22:01,184 --> 00:22:03,230 have done a very good job with that. 615 00:22:03,230 --> 00:22:05,149 So for the learn one, does that still 616 00:22:05,149 --> 00:22:07,230 require you to have GitHub Copilot as well 617 00:22:07,230 --> 00:22:09,389 in Visual Studio Code or because it's using 618 00:22:09,389 --> 00:22:10,210 the web version? 619 00:22:10,589 --> 00:22:12,109 I didn't look at that. I don't believe 620 00:22:12,109 --> 00:22:13,950 so. I I haven't tried to integrate that 621 00:22:13,950 --> 00:22:15,549 one with Cloud yet, but it should have 622 00:22:15,549 --> 00:22:17,089 to stay a local 623 00:22:17,625 --> 00:22:19,384 definition as well. Do you wanna talk about 624 00:22:19,384 --> 00:22:21,565 learn or Azure anymore? Let's get into 625 00:22:21,945 --> 00:22:23,464 some of your list. This is the one 626 00:22:23,464 --> 00:22:25,644 I've been playing with a lot lately is 627 00:22:26,025 --> 00:22:29,644 Loca, and this is from our good friend, 628 00:22:29,785 --> 00:22:32,125 Merrill, who we've had on the podcast before. 629 00:22:32,419 --> 00:22:34,900 He went out and created a Loca agent 630 00:22:34,900 --> 00:22:36,980 tool. And did you read? He posted the 631 00:22:36,980 --> 00:22:38,980 story because everybody asked him why he named 632 00:22:38,980 --> 00:22:41,299 this MCP Loca. I did not. Yeah. I 633 00:22:41,299 --> 00:22:43,299 don't know the background there. It was because 634 00:22:43,299 --> 00:22:46,419 he was in front of a food truck 635 00:22:46,419 --> 00:22:48,775 or a coffee truck, and the name of 636 00:22:48,775 --> 00:22:50,775 the food truck was named Loca when he 637 00:22:50,775 --> 00:22:52,615 came up with the idea. So he named 638 00:22:52,615 --> 00:22:55,414 the MCP after that. He has a little 639 00:22:55,414 --> 00:22:57,674 bit of that backstory out on LinkedIn. But 640 00:22:57,734 --> 00:22:59,195 this is an MCP 641 00:22:59,575 --> 00:23:00,890 that runs locally 642 00:23:01,190 --> 00:23:02,410 using Node, so 643 00:23:02,789 --> 00:23:04,710 you need to have and he guides you 644 00:23:04,710 --> 00:23:07,190 through the Cloud desktop. He also has instructions 645 00:23:07,190 --> 00:23:08,950 on here for doing it with Visual Studio 646 00:23:08,950 --> 00:23:10,650 Code, but MCP 647 00:23:11,109 --> 00:23:13,109 that runs in Node, so Node is also 648 00:23:13,109 --> 00:23:14,835 a prerequisite there, to connect 649 00:23:15,394 --> 00:23:16,294 to the Microsoft 650 00:23:16,595 --> 00:23:17,974 three sixty five 651 00:23:18,434 --> 00:23:21,414 graph. So this will go in in query 652 00:23:22,034 --> 00:23:22,534 whatever 653 00:23:23,474 --> 00:23:24,694 graph access 654 00:23:25,315 --> 00:23:26,534 you care to 655 00:23:26,929 --> 00:23:28,789 give it. So part of the configuration 656 00:23:29,089 --> 00:23:31,250 here, going into a little bit more of 657 00:23:31,250 --> 00:23:32,789 the JSON and development 658 00:23:33,250 --> 00:23:35,250 aspect of it, is not only do you 659 00:23:35,250 --> 00:23:36,690 have to put the JSON in there to 660 00:23:36,690 --> 00:23:38,849 configure the MCP, but you need to make 661 00:23:38,849 --> 00:23:39,829 sure you authenticate 662 00:23:41,115 --> 00:23:44,335 to Microsoft three sixty five Graph with an 663 00:23:44,634 --> 00:23:45,134 originally, 664 00:23:45,595 --> 00:23:47,835 this again, these are all new. It was 665 00:23:47,835 --> 00:23:49,755 by putting your client ID and your app 666 00:23:49,755 --> 00:23:51,674 ID and your app secret in the JSON 667 00:23:51,674 --> 00:23:53,730 file, like, in plain text so anybody could 668 00:23:53,730 --> 00:23:55,970 have seen it. It has since been updated, 669 00:23:55,970 --> 00:23:57,970 so there's a few different methods now that 670 00:23:57,970 --> 00:23:59,970 you can use to connect to Microsoft three 671 00:23:59,970 --> 00:24:02,130 sixty five graph. But then with those app 672 00:24:02,130 --> 00:24:04,549 permissions, you do have to go in and, 673 00:24:05,329 --> 00:24:06,950 grant that app the 674 00:24:07,329 --> 00:24:07,829 appropriate 675 00:24:08,184 --> 00:24:10,265 access to the Microsoft three sixty five graph. 676 00:24:10,265 --> 00:24:11,224 If you want it to be able to 677 00:24:11,224 --> 00:24:13,724 go look at SharePoint sites, files, 678 00:24:14,585 --> 00:24:16,205 audit logs, Purview, 679 00:24:16,825 --> 00:24:19,065 there's not a specific Purview endpoint, but all 680 00:24:19,065 --> 00:24:20,125 those graph endpoints, 681 00:24:20,569 --> 00:24:23,049 you can kinda control the access. You give 682 00:24:23,049 --> 00:24:25,369 this MCP to the graph by going in 683 00:24:25,369 --> 00:24:26,829 and configuring those endpoints. 684 00:24:27,130 --> 00:24:29,529 This one for me, Scott, has been it's 685 00:24:29,529 --> 00:24:32,329 been really interesting, and I think one aspect 686 00:24:32,329 --> 00:24:34,650 of it that's been fascinating for me is 687 00:24:34,650 --> 00:24:37,414 comparing it with the the Security Copilot. 688 00:24:37,715 --> 00:24:40,595 So, like, Security Copilot, we've talked about before, 689 00:24:40,595 --> 00:24:42,755 Copilot for security. If you give it the 690 00:24:42,755 --> 00:24:45,154 wrong name, Microsoft gets mad at you. We've 691 00:24:45,154 --> 00:24:47,235 talked about it. The base entry point for 692 00:24:47,235 --> 00:24:48,535 that is, like, $3 693 00:24:48,595 --> 00:24:50,740 a month, $30 a year. I can go 694 00:24:50,740 --> 00:24:53,059 out and pay for Claude for, like, $20 695 00:24:53,059 --> 00:24:55,319 a month, connect this MCP server, 696 00:24:55,619 --> 00:24:57,380 and get to a lot of the same 697 00:24:57,380 --> 00:24:59,940 stuff. There's differences, and I'm actually working on 698 00:24:59,940 --> 00:25:02,505 some sessions for some conferences this fall where 699 00:25:02,585 --> 00:25:04,984 I might highlight some of those differences and 700 00:25:04,984 --> 00:25:05,484 where, 701 00:25:05,785 --> 00:25:09,164 Copilot for security excels or security Copilot excels 702 00:25:09,224 --> 00:25:09,724 versus 703 00:25:10,184 --> 00:25:10,924 this MCP. 704 00:25:11,305 --> 00:25:13,144 But once you connect it to the graph, 705 00:25:13,144 --> 00:25:16,505 I've done things like go pull I've gone 706 00:25:16,505 --> 00:25:19,029 in, asked it to go pull sign in 707 00:25:19,029 --> 00:25:21,669 logs, analyze the sign in logs for a 708 00:25:21,669 --> 00:25:24,389 particular user, or give me all the users 709 00:25:24,389 --> 00:25:26,569 and what licenses they have in my tenant 710 00:25:26,630 --> 00:25:28,490 and pull back reports on 711 00:25:28,869 --> 00:25:30,169 users and 712 00:25:30,470 --> 00:25:30,970 licenses 713 00:25:31,509 --> 00:25:32,009 or 714 00:25:32,355 --> 00:25:34,134 sign in logs. Are there any anomalies 715 00:25:34,755 --> 00:25:37,015 in the sign in logs? Go look at 716 00:25:37,154 --> 00:25:39,794 the this UPN and look at where they've 717 00:25:39,794 --> 00:25:41,954 signed in from and what IP addresses they've 718 00:25:41,954 --> 00:25:43,875 signed in from. As long as you open 719 00:25:43,875 --> 00:25:46,035 it up to that data for the Graph 720 00:25:46,035 --> 00:25:48,640 API, it's able to go pull all of 721 00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:50,640 that. I was playing with one where I 722 00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:52,079 asked it to, like, go look at my 723 00:25:52,079 --> 00:25:53,460 conditional access policies, 724 00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:58,180 go analyze conditional access policies in Entra and 725 00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:00,400 how those are configured or who those are 726 00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:03,494 applied to. Another use case was the Defender. 727 00:26:03,554 --> 00:26:05,794 Like, you get your incidents in Defender. You 728 00:26:05,794 --> 00:26:08,115 get incidents and alerts. I actually went in 729 00:26:08,115 --> 00:26:10,855 and found looked at my security dashboard, 730 00:26:11,234 --> 00:26:13,974 grabbed the incident ID, and asked 731 00:26:14,674 --> 00:26:17,234 Claude to go in and look at that 732 00:26:17,234 --> 00:26:18,294 particular incident 733 00:26:18,630 --> 00:26:20,470 and analyze that incident and give me a 734 00:26:20,470 --> 00:26:21,450 full incident 735 00:26:21,990 --> 00:26:24,150 response. You were showing me this report earlier. 736 00:26:24,150 --> 00:26:25,670 Like, it was actually pretty cool. Like, you 737 00:26:25,670 --> 00:26:28,089 need some formatting help and, like, less 738 00:26:28,470 --> 00:26:30,490 AI driven emoji happiness 739 00:26:31,029 --> 00:26:32,674 BS that they tend to 740 00:26:32,974 --> 00:26:35,315 spin up. But outside of that, yeah, like, 741 00:26:35,534 --> 00:26:37,375 pretty cool. Yeah. It wrote, like, an entire 742 00:26:37,375 --> 00:26:39,615 document with the incident details. It gave me 743 00:26:39,615 --> 00:26:41,875 a a table with the attack timeline 744 00:26:42,335 --> 00:26:44,575 of in this particular one, it was an 745 00:26:44,575 --> 00:26:46,755 email delivered to two different email addresses. 746 00:26:47,299 --> 00:26:50,419 Then Defender created an incident. Then alerts were 747 00:26:50,419 --> 00:26:50,919 generated 748 00:26:51,299 --> 00:26:52,759 for unremoved messages. 749 00:26:53,140 --> 00:26:56,119 Then some emails were automatically removed to quarantine. 750 00:26:56,579 --> 00:26:59,059 Then it found alerts for malicious URL detection. 751 00:26:59,059 --> 00:27:01,035 And then there was the last incident update. 752 00:27:01,035 --> 00:27:02,734 And it gave me that whole timeline, 753 00:27:03,275 --> 00:27:05,595 gave me a technical analysis of it, what 754 00:27:05,595 --> 00:27:07,934 the URLs were that were in the email, 755 00:27:08,474 --> 00:27:09,775 different risk factors, 756 00:27:10,715 --> 00:27:13,615 gave me an highlight of investigation 757 00:27:13,994 --> 00:27:17,390 findings and what those containment and eradication steps 758 00:27:17,390 --> 00:27:19,630 should be. It, yeah, it wrote up the 759 00:27:19,630 --> 00:27:21,710 whole thing and then recommendations for the next 760 00:27:21,710 --> 00:27:23,710 twenty four hours, the next seven days, the 761 00:27:23,710 --> 00:27:25,789 next thirty days based on this incident. You 762 00:27:25,789 --> 00:27:27,390 should show it on your screen over here. 763 00:27:27,390 --> 00:27:28,830 Yeah. I can throw it up here. I 764 00:27:28,830 --> 00:27:30,384 was trying to avoid some of the user 765 00:27:30,384 --> 00:27:32,144 details in there. I saw you, like, eye 766 00:27:32,144 --> 00:27:32,644 scrolling. 767 00:27:33,345 --> 00:27:34,884 So, yeah, it has 768 00:27:35,265 --> 00:27:36,884 I can get up partway here, 769 00:27:37,184 --> 00:27:39,045 like, up in here, but it has, 770 00:27:39,664 --> 00:27:41,365 frankly, a lot more details 771 00:27:41,825 --> 00:27:44,599 than what Security Copilot gave me when I 772 00:27:44,599 --> 00:27:46,299 asked it about the same incident. 773 00:27:46,679 --> 00:27:48,759 Where I found some of the niceties with 774 00:27:48,759 --> 00:27:51,079 Security Copilot is some of the integrations. But, 775 00:27:51,079 --> 00:27:53,500 again, you're looking for, like, a poor man's, 776 00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:55,275 not even a poor man's, a whole lot 777 00:27:55,434 --> 00:27:57,994 cheaper version of AI to be able to 778 00:27:57,994 --> 00:27:59,615 ask about some of these things 779 00:27:59,914 --> 00:28:02,154 as long as you're okay giving those graph 780 00:28:02,154 --> 00:28:02,654 permissions 781 00:28:03,115 --> 00:28:03,615 to 782 00:28:03,994 --> 00:28:05,455 Claude or to 783 00:28:05,835 --> 00:28:07,535 if you wanna use GitHub Copilot 784 00:28:07,950 --> 00:28:09,549 still using Claude or one of the other 785 00:28:09,549 --> 00:28:11,309 AI engines on the background or one of 786 00:28:11,309 --> 00:28:13,549 the other LLMs on the background, you can 787 00:28:13,549 --> 00:28:15,009 get a lot of information, 788 00:28:16,109 --> 00:28:17,470 and get really close to a lot of 789 00:28:17,470 --> 00:28:20,429 the Security Copilot stuff just using this particular 790 00:28:20,429 --> 00:28:21,970 MCP from Merrill. Super 791 00:28:22,269 --> 00:28:22,769 nifty. 792 00:28:23,085 --> 00:28:25,164 Like, I think this stuff is just, like, 793 00:28:25,164 --> 00:28:26,065 so turnkey. 794 00:28:26,924 --> 00:28:28,204 I don't know. I feel like it's gonna 795 00:28:28,204 --> 00:28:29,484 drive me down a path of trying to 796 00:28:29,484 --> 00:28:30,845 build one of these things on my own, 797 00:28:30,845 --> 00:28:32,444 and I'm just gonna turn into, like, one 798 00:28:32,444 --> 00:28:32,944 of 799 00:28:33,325 --> 00:28:35,484 the Vibe coders or something. We should create 800 00:28:35,484 --> 00:28:37,184 an MCP for the podcast. 801 00:28:37,639 --> 00:28:38,779 Should we, though? 802 00:28:40,359 --> 00:28:41,980 Ben and Scott's podcast 803 00:28:42,359 --> 00:28:44,700 brain MCP or something like that. 804 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:47,559 I did tie an agent to it. Not 805 00:28:47,559 --> 00:28:49,339 an MCP, but I did tie a Copilot 806 00:28:49,399 --> 00:28:51,000 agent in the tenant. If you wanna go 807 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:52,355 play with it in our tenant. I did 808 00:28:52,355 --> 00:28:53,795 create one that I pointed it at the 809 00:28:53,795 --> 00:28:56,595 podcast website for a podcast agent. Yeah. So 810 00:28:56,595 --> 00:28:58,115 I've been playing around with the Claude Azure 811 00:28:58,115 --> 00:28:59,474 thing because it was annoying me that it 812 00:28:59,474 --> 00:29:00,835 was working for you and not for me. 813 00:29:00,835 --> 00:29:03,015 Yep. Where I had given up is 814 00:29:03,474 --> 00:29:05,715 when you're in Versus Code, the first time 815 00:29:05,715 --> 00:29:07,409 you install this and you start it, it 816 00:29:07,409 --> 00:29:08,710 will authenticate you. 817 00:29:09,089 --> 00:29:11,009 So it'll actually drive you through, like, the 818 00:29:11,009 --> 00:29:13,569 device login flow, like pop up a web 819 00:29:13,569 --> 00:29:15,730 browser, things like that. Cloud doesn't do that 820 00:29:15,730 --> 00:29:18,049 by default, so you have to go and 821 00:29:18,049 --> 00:29:19,589 you have to actually 822 00:29:20,450 --> 00:29:22,445 log in to, to, like, Azure CLI, which 823 00:29:22,445 --> 00:29:24,125 is what it's using under the hood. And 824 00:29:24,125 --> 00:29:26,465 then once you've pre authenticated to Azure CLI, 825 00:29:26,605 --> 00:29:28,045 then you go back, run your prompt, and 826 00:29:28,045 --> 00:29:29,565 it works just perfectly. So that must be 827 00:29:29,565 --> 00:29:30,924 what it was picking up as I must 828 00:29:30,924 --> 00:29:32,684 have logged into a client's tenant with Azure 829 00:29:32,684 --> 00:29:34,365 CLI, or I wonder if it would even 830 00:29:34,365 --> 00:29:35,424 pick up Azure 831 00:29:35,725 --> 00:29:36,865 Graph or 832 00:29:37,380 --> 00:29:37,880 PowerShell 833 00:29:38,259 --> 00:29:38,759 connections. 834 00:29:39,220 --> 00:29:41,140 Yeah. Re reuse any of those things. That 835 00:29:41,140 --> 00:29:42,900 was my issue. So if anybody else using 836 00:29:42,900 --> 00:29:44,820 Claude on the desktop and you're like, oh, 837 00:29:44,820 --> 00:29:46,500 I can't use an Azure thing. Yeah. You 838 00:29:46,500 --> 00:29:49,460 can. Alright. Any other MCPs you wanna talk 839 00:29:49,460 --> 00:29:51,480 about? I know we kinda hinted at some. 840 00:29:51,539 --> 00:29:52,984 There's a bunch out there. 841 00:29:53,285 --> 00:29:55,285 There's a whole bunch out there. So, like, 842 00:29:55,285 --> 00:29:57,464 I would encourage folks, I think, to 843 00:29:57,924 --> 00:29:59,545 and I've been thinking about this more, 844 00:30:00,005 --> 00:30:00,984 how you combine 845 00:30:01,285 --> 00:30:03,605 the local tools you use day to day 846 00:30:03,605 --> 00:30:04,884 or the parts of the stack that you 847 00:30:04,884 --> 00:30:06,884 use day to day along with your other 848 00:30:06,884 --> 00:30:10,539 tasks. So these things, like, go and list 849 00:30:10,539 --> 00:30:13,819 my resource groups, list my configuration for these 850 00:30:13,819 --> 00:30:15,819 resources, things like that. Like, it doesn't have 851 00:30:15,819 --> 00:30:18,059 to be a stop there kinda thing. It 852 00:30:18,059 --> 00:30:20,059 could also be a, hey. Take that and 853 00:30:20,059 --> 00:30:21,660 then pump it out here over to this 854 00:30:21,660 --> 00:30:23,259 other thing or format it in this way. 855 00:30:23,259 --> 00:30:25,554 Right? Like, you have to create a report 856 00:30:25,554 --> 00:30:28,275 for your boss that says, here's the current 857 00:30:28,275 --> 00:30:28,775 configuration 858 00:30:29,714 --> 00:30:32,275 of all our VMs and which ones are 859 00:30:32,275 --> 00:30:32,775 using 860 00:30:33,234 --> 00:30:35,315 straight public IPs, which ones are behind bash 861 00:30:35,315 --> 00:30:37,519 and things like that. Like, you could totally 862 00:30:37,519 --> 00:30:40,319 output that report, have it formatted, and put 863 00:30:40,319 --> 00:30:42,400 into a great format for, like, an email 864 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,039 for you. Right? Or go save it as 865 00:30:45,039 --> 00:30:47,220 a CSV because maybe you install 866 00:30:47,759 --> 00:30:49,599 an MCP agent that 867 00:30:50,095 --> 00:30:51,775 or an MCP server that allows you for, 868 00:30:51,775 --> 00:30:54,914 like, local file system access, things like that. 869 00:30:55,295 --> 00:30:57,715 There there's a whole ton, I think, of 870 00:30:58,414 --> 00:31:00,414 chained interactions that you can do. Like, if 871 00:31:00,414 --> 00:31:02,335 you start to think about having multiple of 872 00:31:02,335 --> 00:31:03,855 these things and being able to tie them 873 00:31:03,855 --> 00:31:06,210 together and then integrate them back because they're 874 00:31:06,210 --> 00:31:07,750 all integrated in that, like, overarching 875 00:31:08,450 --> 00:31:09,509 LLM ecosystem. 876 00:31:09,890 --> 00:31:12,849 So I think that's, like, the next step 877 00:31:12,849 --> 00:31:15,009 or next thing to think about or kinda 878 00:31:15,009 --> 00:31:16,769 where I'm going with it. Yeah. And this 879 00:31:16,769 --> 00:31:18,904 is where it would be interesting too. Like, 880 00:31:18,904 --> 00:31:21,305 I would love to see MCPs tied into 881 00:31:21,305 --> 00:31:22,744 Copilot. And I think I mentioned that on 882 00:31:22,744 --> 00:31:25,224 the last episode because when I'm maybe when 883 00:31:25,224 --> 00:31:27,464 I'm querying all my graph data, if I 884 00:31:27,464 --> 00:31:30,105 give this MCP access to a whole bunch 885 00:31:30,105 --> 00:31:32,505 of Microsoft three sixty five graph data where 886 00:31:32,505 --> 00:31:35,259 it's looking at users and conditional access policies 887 00:31:35,259 --> 00:31:36,400 and IP addresses 888 00:31:37,340 --> 00:31:40,059 and incident reports. If I'm being honest, I 889 00:31:40,059 --> 00:31:42,000 would prefer all of that to stay 890 00:31:42,299 --> 00:31:45,180 inside the Microsoft three sixty five tenant, not 891 00:31:45,180 --> 00:31:47,595 necessarily come all the way out into my 892 00:31:47,835 --> 00:31:48,575 local machine 893 00:31:49,034 --> 00:31:51,934 and come out to MCP servers that 894 00:31:52,394 --> 00:31:52,554 I'm 895 00:31:53,275 --> 00:31:56,075 again, we know Merrill. I trust Merrill, but 896 00:31:56,075 --> 00:31:58,394 it's his code that he wrote for this 897 00:31:58,394 --> 00:32:01,029 local MCP server. Having it live in my 898 00:32:01,029 --> 00:32:02,710 Microsoft three sixty five bubble would make me 899 00:32:02,710 --> 00:32:04,390 a little bit more comfortable with it. Then 900 00:32:04,390 --> 00:32:05,990 I could also do things like take this 901 00:32:05,990 --> 00:32:08,549 incident report and create a PowerPoint presentation from 902 00:32:08,549 --> 00:32:10,150 it a little bit easier or a Word 903 00:32:10,150 --> 00:32:13,445 document because of some of those other Microsoft 904 00:32:13,445 --> 00:32:15,924 three sixty five integrations with the Office tools 905 00:32:15,924 --> 00:32:17,525 and some of that. So I am. I'm 906 00:32:17,525 --> 00:32:20,404 really hoping that even if it's inside and 907 00:32:20,404 --> 00:32:22,164 I know you can do it in Visual 908 00:32:22,164 --> 00:32:24,805 Studio Code today or not Visual Studio Code. 909 00:32:24,805 --> 00:32:28,779 Sorry. Copilot Studio, it's not nearly as simple 910 00:32:28,779 --> 00:32:29,599 and straightforward 911 00:32:30,139 --> 00:32:32,539 as it is integrating it into Code or 912 00:32:32,539 --> 00:32:33,039 Visuals 913 00:32:33,339 --> 00:32:35,099 Claude or Visual Studio Code or some of 914 00:32:35,099 --> 00:32:36,779 those. I wanna see this a whole lot 915 00:32:36,779 --> 00:32:38,460 simpler in Copilot. I think that would be 916 00:32:38,460 --> 00:32:40,445 really cool from my perspective. Yeah. I think 917 00:32:40,445 --> 00:32:42,305 over time, it probably gets there. 918 00:32:43,565 --> 00:32:45,724 I can also see a world where you 919 00:32:45,724 --> 00:32:46,785 might end up with 920 00:32:47,325 --> 00:32:47,825 either 921 00:32:48,285 --> 00:32:50,144 specific forks of these tools, 922 00:32:50,845 --> 00:32:53,164 or things that bring those integrations together. So, 923 00:32:53,164 --> 00:32:55,299 like, if you think about like Cursor and 924 00:32:55,299 --> 00:32:57,619 all the popularity of Cursor and using it 925 00:32:57,619 --> 00:32:59,960 for like AI coding with LLMs 926 00:33:00,259 --> 00:33:03,139 and all that, Cursor's just a fork of 927 00:33:03,139 --> 00:33:05,539 Versus Code, right? And I mean, at the 928 00:33:05,539 --> 00:33:07,184 end of the day, like, it's got a 929 00:33:07,184 --> 00:33:09,125 bunch of, like, domain specific functionality, 930 00:33:09,505 --> 00:33:11,265 but ultimately, it's built on that base of 931 00:33:11,265 --> 00:33:13,345 Versus Code. So there's this world where somebody 932 00:33:13,345 --> 00:33:15,904 could just totally take, like, a prepackaged Versus 933 00:33:15,904 --> 00:33:18,784 Code with a bunch of MCPs already installed 934 00:33:18,784 --> 00:33:20,865 in it, already ready to go, think things 935 00:33:20,865 --> 00:33:23,079 like that. Over time, you might see people, 936 00:33:23,079 --> 00:33:24,839 like, spin up, like, super do do do. 937 00:33:24,839 --> 00:33:26,519 Like, we've got these one clicks for these 938 00:33:26,519 --> 00:33:27,019 installs. 939 00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:29,720 I over time, those probably turned into, like, 940 00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:30,700 bundled installers 941 00:33:31,079 --> 00:33:32,940 and other kinds of things. So 942 00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,955 it's all moving rapidly. Like I said, I 943 00:33:35,955 --> 00:33:38,394 I kinda like it because at least I 944 00:33:38,394 --> 00:33:40,075 don't know about you, but, like, for my 945 00:33:40,075 --> 00:33:41,674 day to day job, like, sometimes some of 946 00:33:41,674 --> 00:33:43,994 the things I work on take, like, years 947 00:33:43,994 --> 00:33:46,075 to manifest and come to fruition. And this 948 00:33:46,075 --> 00:33:47,355 is one of those places where I can 949 00:33:47,355 --> 00:33:49,500 just, like, oh, kid in a candy shop, 950 00:33:49,500 --> 00:33:51,599 go be super inquisitive, play around, 951 00:33:52,140 --> 00:33:53,980 stuff breaks all the time, and you're like, 952 00:33:53,980 --> 00:33:55,980 oh, yep. That that that broke. I'm okay 953 00:33:55,980 --> 00:33:57,500 with it. Move on to the next step 954 00:33:57,500 --> 00:33:59,740 kind of thing. Awesome. Well, thanks, Scott. Excited 955 00:33:59,740 --> 00:34:01,759 to see where these MCP servers go. 956 00:34:02,214 --> 00:34:04,054 Fun to talk about how you're using them. 957 00:34:04,054 --> 00:34:06,315 Would love to hear about other MCPs, 958 00:34:06,774 --> 00:34:08,934 again, that all the listeners have used, that 959 00:34:08,934 --> 00:34:11,755 you all have installed, how you're using MCPs, 960 00:34:12,534 --> 00:34:14,855 concerns you have about MCPs from some of 961 00:34:14,855 --> 00:34:17,400 that security standpoint. So feel free to reach 962 00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:19,260 out. Let us know your thoughts on MCPs, 963 00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:21,400 how you're using them. If you wanna come 964 00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,239 talk on the podcast about how you're using 965 00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:25,400 MCPs. We'd love to have you. Yeah. Contact 966 00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:26,460 us through the website. 967 00:34:27,079 --> 00:34:28,460 Reach out via 968 00:34:29,355 --> 00:34:29,855 LinkedIn, 969 00:34:30,315 --> 00:34:31,755 come find me at a conference, Scott. I 970 00:34:31,755 --> 00:34:33,434 got a bunch of conferences. I was looking 971 00:34:33,434 --> 00:34:35,675 down. I'm, like, at a conference a month 972 00:34:35,675 --> 00:34:37,614 now through the end of the year. So 973 00:34:37,914 --> 00:34:40,155 if you're gonna be Atlanta, I'm gonna be 974 00:34:40,155 --> 00:34:42,715 at TechCon three sixty five in Atlanta here 975 00:34:42,715 --> 00:34:45,469 in a couple weeks. That'll actually probably be 976 00:34:45,469 --> 00:34:48,109 before this podcast episode even airs. Going out 977 00:34:48,109 --> 00:34:50,849 to Branson again to the North American collaboration 978 00:34:50,989 --> 00:34:52,130 summit out in Branson. 979 00:34:52,750 --> 00:34:53,250 That's 980 00:34:53,630 --> 00:34:54,130 September. 981 00:34:54,510 --> 00:34:55,010 October 982 00:34:55,309 --> 00:34:56,130 might be 983 00:34:56,510 --> 00:34:57,010 dev 984 00:34:58,175 --> 00:34:58,675 intersections, 985 00:34:59,135 --> 00:34:59,635 cybersecurity 986 00:34:59,934 --> 00:35:01,234 intersections in Orlando. 987 00:35:01,775 --> 00:35:02,275 November, 988 00:35:03,054 --> 00:35:03,554 hopefully, 989 00:35:03,855 --> 00:35:05,074 we'll both be out 990 00:35:05,695 --> 00:35:06,355 at Ignite. 991 00:35:06,894 --> 00:35:09,155 And then December, I'm doing Workplace 992 00:35:09,614 --> 00:35:11,715 Ninjas, which is a security conference 993 00:35:12,179 --> 00:35:14,659 in Dallas, Texas. You've got, like, quite the 994 00:35:14,659 --> 00:35:17,300 list. Yeah. I might be at storage developer 995 00:35:17,300 --> 00:35:19,699 conference in September. That's about it for me. 996 00:35:19,699 --> 00:35:21,539 And then like you said Hopefully, night. Hopefully, 997 00:35:21,539 --> 00:35:23,539 podcast stuff out at Ignite again this year 998 00:35:23,539 --> 00:35:24,359 in San Francisco. 999 00:35:24,900 --> 00:35:26,739 Could be fun. Could be fun. Will be 1000 00:35:26,739 --> 00:35:29,585 fun. Assuming we get to go. Yes. Absolutely. 1001 00:35:29,804 --> 00:35:31,485 Alright. So, yes, if you're gonna be at 1002 00:35:31,485 --> 00:35:33,324 a conference, reach out. Love to chat with 1003 00:35:33,324 --> 00:35:34,684 you. If you wanna be on the podcast, 1004 00:35:34,684 --> 00:35:36,765 talk about MCP servers, let us know. But 1005 00:35:36,765 --> 00:35:39,210 for now, enjoy your weekend, Scott. Enjoy the 1006 00:35:39,369 --> 00:35:41,849 100 and whatever degree weather we're gonna be 1007 00:35:41,849 --> 00:35:43,449 having these next few days. As I said, 1008 00:35:43,449 --> 00:35:45,289 it's only a 106 now. It it it 1009 00:35:45,289 --> 00:35:46,889 can only get hotter is what it feels 1010 00:35:46,889 --> 00:35:49,530 like. And it's 5PM. A 106 at 5PM 1011 00:35:49,530 --> 00:35:50,589 is just not right. 1012 00:35:52,554 --> 00:35:53,994 It's got me all ready to go back 1013 00:35:53,994 --> 00:35:55,215 to the Pacific Northwest. 1014 00:35:55,835 --> 00:35:57,755 70 degrees, like I said, it just it 1015 00:35:57,755 --> 00:35:59,355 it hit a little bit different without the 1016 00:35:59,355 --> 00:36:01,275 humidity too. That was the key part in 1017 00:36:01,275 --> 00:36:03,755 there. Alright. Well, as always, Ben, thanks for 1018 00:36:03,755 --> 00:36:06,000 the conversation. Much appreciated, it, and we'll see 1019 00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:07,980 you for the next one. Alright. Thank you. 1020 00:36:10,039 --> 00:36:12,279 If you enjoyed the podcast, go leave us 1021 00:36:12,279 --> 00:36:14,519 a five star rating in iTunes. It helps 1022 00:36:14,519 --> 00:36:16,199 to get the word out so more IT 1023 00:36:16,199 --> 00:36:18,344 pros can learn about Office three sixty five 1024 00:36:18,344 --> 00:36:19,085 and Azure. 1025 00:36:19,545 --> 00:36:21,224 If you have any questions you want us 1026 00:36:21,224 --> 00:36:23,385 to address on the show, or feedback about 1027 00:36:23,385 --> 00:36:25,784 the show, feel free to reach out via 1028 00:36:25,784 --> 00:36:28,984 our website, Twitter, or Facebook. Thanks again for 1029 00:36:28,984 --> 00:36:30,605 listening, and have a great day.

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Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast

Ben Stegink, Scott Hoag

On the MS Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Scott and Ben discuss the Microsoft Cloud with a focus on IT Pros. They'll discuss the latest in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 News, Azure news and talk about their experiences with managing the Microsoft Cloud as well as interview industry experts on various cloud technology. They'll cover things such as SharePoint, Exchange, Microsoft Teams, PowerShell, Azure, Azure AD, Security, Networking, Storage, and the many other technologies and products that have made their way into the Microsoft 365 suite and Azure. To stay up-to-date on the latest in Microsoft Cloud news and gain some valuable knowledge as you deploy it within your own organization, make sure to tune in every week! Find out more at msclouditpropodcast.com.

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