 This is Christian Baku with another MVP buzz chat. I'm talking today with Elhan, hello. Hi Christian, nice to meet you. It's great having people in other roles. I get too many office apps and services people that I keep talking to. There's so many of us. So it's great to, and actually it was one of the reasons I started this series was to get to know MVPs in other areas. So you are a relatively new Azure MVP. Yeah, that's right. I'm a brand new kind of MVP in 2022. It's, and I'm still trying to kind of consume and understand what's going on because there was such a big, it was such a big event for me. And, you know. We'll get into that and talk about what the summit that just happened. Yeah. For folks that don't know who you are, like who are you, where are you, what do you do? Sure. So I'm Elhan Yusupov and I'm a senior manager for cloud and infrastructure team here at TIRX Solutions LLC. What I do is basically, I manage a number of a cloud engineers and architects in our company. But in terms of day-to-day activities, I contribute in different ways to the success of the company. Part of it is helping the business development, making sure that our stand is Microsoft and partnerships are in place. We call it the Microsoft Parliament Network, as you know, Christian. Then, you know, making sure that our customers are actually happy with the solutions that we provide them, which we are mainly focused on cloud infrastructure and security here at TIRX. And we are a big government. We work basically our big, we work for a big number of government customers. And we pride to, you know, to deliver mission critical service for them. Yeah, you're part of the world. I don't think that you can, in Maryland, you can get away from. Yeah, this is MBA area, right? So you have a number of government projects and you wanna make sure that government is running smoothly and deliver the services to the people. And I think pretty much across the board, it's like every government and military in the US, institution is using Office 365. So every word. Sure, that's very true. And as I believe the good job that Microsoft did is that from the day one, when they started to offer the services to the government agencies, they made sure that security is top notch and plus they segregate from commercial offerings. I think that was a great move on Microsoft's side and it's brought it's, you know, well, so appreciation from the government. And plus, you know, Microsoft is, even before moving to the cloud and having this Microsoft Azure, they were very well-strong position for enterprise type of works. And that's, and I'm not going to talk about Active Directory and you know, Microsoft Active Directory, but they are the products which are on top of the class if you look at, you know, from that perspective. Well, why don't you tell me about your path to becoming an MVP? So what was that journey like for you? Sure. So basically in the beginning, I didn't start this past journey to become an MVP. So it was an, even not an, it was not an afterthought because that was not what I'm trying to do. What I did is it was before pandemic in 2019, I was doing more of a government healthcare things like on HL7 fire and healthcare data standards and APIs. And part of it was that the company where I was working at that time, they were more like startup minded and they wanna actually get this latest development in healthcare from Microsoft team and bring it to the customer. To the, again, it was down for the government customer. Namely HHS. So at that time, so how it began is that there was new developments that were happening on that HL7 fire service that Microsoft was developing but they were in private preview and then of course there's public preview. And when it became public preview, I saw that it's very hard actually to set it up and make it work for, you know, if you wanna just learn about it. Yes, it was open source, it was accessible but it was not that easy kind of install click here, click there kind of stuff you need to do. There was a number of steps involved into that in addition to tying that up with your Microsoft Azure tenant. So I just went ahead and looked about that. And after that, I started to look more about Microsoft Azure infrastructure and about the learning journey that I'm going through. And then, you know, block after block and then, you know, I start to learn about new things that's happening in infrastructure as a code space of Microsoft Azure. And that's probably, you know, it's a bicep language, right? That came up and it was basically evolution toward the Azure ARM templates which was a, I would say established player in Microsoft area if you would try to go and, you know, codify your provisioning of Microsoft Azure resources. And at that point, I saw that, hey, you know, this is bicep language, this is just brand new. It also started, I believe, around pandemic time, you know, when ARM team, Microsoft Azure ARM team started kind of investing time into that. And I started to look more about that, you know, I started to attend the community calls and try to learn about it. And here, and the driver there was, because there was Azure ARM templates is, was something that for newcomers, it was very hard kind of to learn. There was a steep learning curve, but new bicep language was trying to basically make sure that it's much easier to start. If you have a little bit coding experience or even no experience, you can start, you know, building your Microsoft Azure resource and managing some effectively with bicep language. Because it was, again, just developing, that there was a lot of questions and a number of things were going wrong, but it was fun kind of to learn in the process share, in the blocks that I was creating over the time. And that was the way how this, the Cloud Marathoner and it was trying to help people to learn about, not just about infrastructure as a code, but also security concepts that are around it. Let me ask you that because one advice that I give to a lot of people that are like, well, how do I kind of get started in the community? And I recommend, I said, just start blogging about writing about the things that you know, things that you're working on, things that you're learning about. And one of the big part of the pushback that I get, I say, well, I'm not an expert. I don't know everything about the topics I'd be writing about. And I just try to communicate. I say, right, that's part of the learning process. I mean, I don't know how it was for you. I certainly it is for me. When I write about something, I said, here's what I know, here's what I did. I'm always so appreciative of when people write back and say, you know, if you'd also tried this, this would work. Or the path you're going down, it actually, it won't work because of X, Y, Z, why this? And so you're able to leverage the learning of others, but you can't do that if you're not communicating at what you're working on. And that's what blogging does. Yes, and I would say when you blog that, you also need to be intentionally clear about know what you're trying to achieve, right? Because there's probably when you're trying to do that, there is some type of business problem or some type of technical test that you are trying to accomplish. So if you put that clearly and then say that, hey, this is the way, you know, I think it's going to work out that that's the number of steps and six that I tried. And this is my result. As you said, you can get like two type of responses. First one would be, okay, great. Thank you very much. I was looking for something similar and you have it there. So you kind of help to the people. Second one might be that, hey, you know, you did it great but there is like easier way to do that because there was a number of new features or there's like certain things that if you incorporate there, now you would get into your result much faster and it would be easier to maintain. So I agree, you know, try to write, but to add to what you're saying, try to add something that you're also passionate about that also very important because the people who you communicate with, they will feel that flow of energy, positive energy from you. And hopefully they'll become as excited as you are to learn and do the things, you know, in a way that helped them to do their work. That's true. That part is always like getting started. Like what is that first pose? How do I go? And it's, you know, I think that we let our fear kind of overcome our ability to go and start something. Yes. It really doesn't matter. I've seen people literally do the, start the paragraph like, hello world, next paragraph. And then just start here's the project that I'm working on. Here's what I'm gonna try and accomplish. This is what I wanna learn about. And then you've started and then you can just the next pose can be, all right, I went and implemented this piece. Here's what I'm thinking about. Here's the business problem. Here's why this, I think this will work. And just to add to that, right? Don't be afraid to fail. I mean, that's the whole purpose. And I will tell you another thing, you know, part of the blogging where you can get a good traction with the people and the community that you are working with is you have to share your failures as well. I did that as well. You know, there were a number of things when, especially when the product is still in beta, you know, there would be a lot of coaches. But in addition to that coaches, because you have been in this field for many years, you may have some workarounds, you know, okay, what needs to be done in order to make it work. And the simple example to that might be that, hey, there was a new version that was just released and it's still in beta or alpha, what do we call it? And when somebody's using certain, when somebody installed that new update, certain things may not work as intended. At that point, what to do, right? So experienced person would say, okay, that's a normal thing, you know, just go uninstall that and, you know, install the previous version that you are sure that it's working and then everything's going to work fine. So there's, you know, wait out. But for the person who never did that or didn't experience that previous, like they would be in kind of shock saying that, hey, you know, I thought this is a new update, it's going to work better, but now I'm stuck, I can't do the previous things. So long story short, sharing the failures and plus your resolution, how your work around actually made it work actually is as much important as the happy past that you are trying to describe in your blogs. Exactly. So what, so we just had the MVP summit behind us and that's one thing I had to say is that I don't know how much you were able to participate in but it's so difficult to participate in something that can be so valuable but in this pure online version, it in the best part of the best, you know, part of the MVP, the rewards of being an MVP is the annual on Microsoft campus, you know, event, the MVP summit where you're able to build new relationships and meet the product team members, the feature owners, you know, face-to-face and have discussions and go out to dinners and lunches and build friendships and build connections there and it just can't be done in a purely virtual way. And even if we next year, we're in a hybrid way. Anyway, with all of that that just happened, how do you keep up? Like how do you stay on top of all of the changes and what's happening? Yeah, that's a great question. I believe that's kind of a valid question for any professional in our field who are doing IT, right? You need to be up to date, you need to track the change. And I would say the easiest way, not easiest but one way that I experienced is you need to follow the community and be part of the things that going on there. That will make it easier because if you are part of the community, you would know, you know, what are the people working on? What are their struggles and what they tried in terms of, you know, new features or new products and it worked or doesn't work. In my case, for example, to keep up to date phase infrastructure as a code and kind of Azure's, that in addition to that like security part of it, meaning that the policy as code and stuff like that, that's also very big interest to me. And even before becoming an MVP, I went and reached out to the people who are blogging about that who are basically sharing information online and plus on the GitHub. And I made a number of friends, you know, just out of communicating the same kind of working their GitHub repo and just contributing there is what I know. Even though I know a little that's in comparison what they do, but there's always opportunity to get, you know, this communication going on. So what I would say is that don't be afraid just to say, hi, I'm here and I need the help because this community saying, especially the MVPs, cloud community and overall I would say IT community, it's very helpful. There are a number of people who are actually willing to lend their hand and help you. And that's especially valuable when you're just trying to learn something that you don't know but you know that it's important to learn. So just making that baby steps forward and saying hi and explaining, you know, what's your issues are and what you're trying to learn or just if you're interested, just follow up certain people, be open in conversation, you know, interact with them on a Twitter, on a LinkedIn. I think the social media actually is a big blessing in terms of for people to communicate when they have any issues in terms of like technical issues and stuff like that because there is a, you know, very good chance that you'll get help and you'll build friendships and networks that will help you along the way. I think that the only caveat that I would add to that is sensitive that with your, don't look at it as tapping the community as free consulting. But for help, you're trying to solve problems, you're building relationships, you're asking questions, that's all great. But when you start laying out what is like a, you know, three-day to three-week consulting opportunity, don't be surprised if the response is, you know, hey, look, here's my hourly rate, you know, here's the process for that. But, and then also I would say that back to the earlier point about starting to blog and to share the projects, you know, if that seems like a big step, then a smaller step is certainly to reach out to people like Elhan and like, I've got this question, like, what does this mean? What's the differences between us? What should I be thinking about? And start to establish the relationships that way, which will help as you have those conversations will kind of build up your confidence to then go start sharing the projects that you're working on. Yes, and another question I would add that for the community of technical things that you are interested in, there's always some means of forums or discussions. For example, for GitHub bicep, they had discussions place right there on the GitHub of the Azure bicep, where people just put, you know, questions there in terms of what they're trying to do and it doesn't work or they try something but it didn't work. So just to come back to what you've commented there, right, and it might be your daily job that you're trying to do something. You need to show them what you tried and what didn't work for you. And then try to ask for that piece of advice saying that what I did wrong here, right? So you need to do, because once you start doing that, then, you know, you can get the right direction and then you can dig toward the right solution that will help you. Yeah, exactly. And you brought a great point too is that there's a lot of different communities out there. I mean, obviously GitHub for a lot of this there's a lot of activity that's happening around the Patterns and Practices teams. There's conversations, there's a lot of community activity happening in the Microsoft Tech community site. There are tons of Facebook groups and LinkedIn communities around these different topics. And so you need to go and find out where those conversations are happening and then embed yourself within those communities and purchase them. I would say that might be the first easiest thing you can do if you want to, you know, get engaged and then... Work in our list of... Yeah, communities, then talk to people, then start blogging, right? Yes, yes, because you need the first thing that you need to do actually, even for your professional growth is you need to be engaged. Yeah. You need to be engaged with the technical people, group of people who are trying to do the similar things that you are trying to achieve in terms of, you know, professional work that opens the opportunities for networking, as you said. And then you need to strive and not just consume something that you learn but also contribute. I believe that contributions will open even more doors and plus it will advance your... Advance you as a, you know, in your professional career. You know, there was some good intentions behind some of the early social networking tools. So 20 years ago, where you could only reach out and connect with people when you had already contributed something. So basically like you earn points, contribution points by sharing information and then it gives you the ability to reach out to three more people that are not direct connections. And so it was, it kind of forced you to give... I just wanted to know that, so, problems. And while that model was largely kind of fallen off, I mean, there's something to be said about that. I think people... I mean, I generally, I look in, if somebody reaches out to me, the first thing I was like, who is this person? Is this legitimate? Is this a vendor that's just trying to sell me, you know, user lists or India-based development services which nothing against those teams. They're like leverage a lot of India-based engineering teams over my career. But I don't need the three or four, you know, LinkedIn connection requests a day that I receive. But when I look and I see that, hey, I see this person has contributed in a bunch of different areas and then they suddenly reach out and connect with me. That is, it's a great, like warm connection that's already made. I see that they're already active. And even if I don't have a direct connection with the person, like I know you via the community, I'm more likely than to connect with you and then want to help you when you have your legitimate questions. Yes, and just to add what you mentioned, right? Especially for the people who are trying to get connected. When you even send like this connection on the LinkedIn, try to put that a message, you know, what your intention was a little bit about, you don't have to put data in tons of information boxes. No, you just need to say who you are, you know, what you're interested in, what's your purpose of connecting? And that's actually makes the other person kind of interested to look at your profile and get connected. As you said, like on my case, I usually accept everyone, but I also looked at their profile and know, are they sharing the living things that, you know, so that when we get connected, we are going to be helpful to each other. That's always important there. I always recommend adding a note, unless it's obvious, unless there's a coworker that just joined in, obviously a new employee in the company, that's really easy. I don't attach a note to that. When I get connections that don't have a note attached to it, I'll very quickly look at the profile. If they're in the community, accept. If they're in a role that's clearly something that is, you know, within my field or if there's SharePoint or Microsoft 365, they're like over on my side, I think it's something that's Office Apps that's been related, they're in. But if I can't make a connection and there's no note, I'll then, the last tier, I'll look at who are they already connected to, like our shared connections. And if there are not strong shared connections, I will not accept that. And there's a reason why. There could be a valid reason why, but that's why you need to attach a note. And say, hey, here's why I'm reaching out to you. Don't worry. Well, Alhann, I really appreciate you taking the time to get to know you today. For folks that want to find out more about you and reach it, what are the best ways to contact you? Sure. I would encourage them to come and visit my blog called thecloudmonathoner.com. That's everything you need to learn, mostly about Microsoft infrastructure as a code, bicycle language and security things that's happening. In addition to that, I would welcome them to get connected with me on Twitter and LinkedIn. Just type my name, you would be able to find them and please share what you're working on. I would be happy to know more about you and plus share about my work and make sure that we get connected and we can see helpful results out of our connection. Well, Alhann, but of course, for those that are following along, you can find his contact information in the Buckley Planet blog, as well as on my YouTube page, as well as in the podcast. So, Alhann, I really appreciate it. And before the end, Christian, I wanna say thank you for you because you have been doing in this community great work by connecting these MVPs and trying to make this YouTube series of interviews. I think that's very helpful for the people kind of to learn, not just about myself, but overall about other MVPs in the area and kind of get close about that warranties and plus if they are interested in that, how they can get started. So I think they are doing great contributions and thank you for keeping up this work. Well, I appreciate it. I enjoy doing these and that is exactly the reason why I do the series and to get that cross-pollination across areas as well. But well, Alhann, really have a great rest of your day and we'll connect with you soon. And hopefully next year, see you at the next MVP Summit. Yeah, I hope to meet you in person as well on our next MVP Summit. Thank you. Thank you.