Technologies explained

AI assistant built into Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams and the rest of Microsoft 365, grounded in your organisation’s emails, files and meetings.

• Copilot Chat with work and web grounding
• Meeting recaps and action items in Teams
• Drafting and rewriting in Word and Outlook
• Analysis and formulas in Excel
• Respects existing Microsoft 365 permissions and sensitivity labels
• Admin controls in the Microsoft 365 admin center

Best for: Everyday productivity for staff who already live in Microsoft 365.

The lightweight way to create an agent inside Microsoft 365 Copilot by describing what you want in plain language.

• Create an agent from a natural-language description
• Add instructions, knowledge from SharePoint and files, and starter prompts
• Share with people or teams
• Copy to Copilot Studio when you need more power

Best for: Quick personal or small-team agents, such as an IT policy Q&A bot.

Low-code platform for building, testing, publishing and governing organisation-wide agents with knowledge, actions and workflows.

• Topics, generative orchestration and multi-step actions
• Knowledge from SharePoint, websites, Dataverse and files
• Connectors, Power Automate flows and APIs as tools
• Publish to Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, websites and more
• Analytics, environments and admin governance

Best for: Service desk agents, onboarding assistants and process automation across the business.

Azure’s platform for building AI apps and agents with a catalogue of models, including Azure OpenAI, plus evaluation and safety tooling.

• Model catalogue with Azure OpenAI and other providers
• Agent service for code-first agents
• Prompt flow, evaluations and tracing
• Content safety filters and private networking
• Enterprise identity, keys and network controls

Best for: Developers building custom AI applications that need Azure security and compliance.

General-purpose AI assistant for writing, research, analysis and coding, available on web, desktop and mobile.

• Projects to keep files and chats together
• Custom GPTs: reusable assistants with your own instructions and files
• Deep research for multi-source reports
• Agent mode for multi-step tasks in a browser
• Codex for coding tasks
• Business and Enterprise plans with admin controls

Best for: Drafting, troubleshooting help, learning new tech and scripting support.

AI assistant from Anthropic for writing, analysis, research and coding, known for long documents and careful reasoning.

• Projects with shared knowledge and custom instructions
• Artifacts and file creation for documents, code and apps
• Connectors to tools and data via the Model Context Protocol (MCP)
• Research across the web and connected sources
• Claude Code for agentic coding in the terminal, desktop or IDE
• Claude in Excel, PowerPoint and Chrome, plus Team and Enterprise plans

Best for: Reviewing long documents, writing runbooks, building scripts and automating repetitive work.

Cloud identity and access management for Microsoft 365, Azure and thousands of SaaS apps.

• Conditional Access policies
• MFA, passkeys and passwordless sign-in
• Identity Protection risk-based policies
• Privileged Identity Management
• Single sign-on for SaaS apps
• Entra Connect / Cloud Sync for hybrid identity

Best for: Securing every sign-in with Zero Trust controls.

On-premises directory running on Windows Server domain controllers: users, computers, Group Policy and Kerberos authentication.

• Domain controllers with multi-master replication
• FSMO roles and AD-integrated DNS
• Group Policy for users and computers
• Sites and services for multi-site replication
• Kerberos and NTLM authentication
• Sync to Entra ID with Entra Connect or Cloud Sync

Best for: File servers, line-of-business apps and environments that still need on-premises identity.

How Windows devices are known to Entra ID: Entra joined, Entra hybrid joined or Entra registered.

• Entra join: cloud-native, managed with Intune, recommended for new devices
• Entra hybrid join: domain joined and registered in Entra for legacy dependencies
• Entra registered: personal and BYOD devices
• Device-based Conditional Access and compliance
• Windows Hello for Business and Cloud Kerberos Trust for on-premises SSO

Best for: Choosing the right join type and moving to cloud-native endpoints.

Cloud MDM and MAM for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and Linux devices.

• Automatic MDM enrolment and Autopilot provisioning
• Compliance policies feeding Conditional Access
• Configuration profiles and security baselines
• App deployment and app protection policies
• Windows Update rings and driver management
• Endpoint analytics and remediations

Best for: Managing and securing every device from the cloud.

Zero-touch provisioning that turns a new or reset Windows device into a ready-to-use, managed work device.

• User-driven and self-deploying modes
• Pre-provisioning for faster first sign-in
• Enrollment Status Page
• Device preparation for cloud-native deployments
• Group tags and dynamic groups

Best for: Shipping laptops straight to staff without imaging.

Unified detection and response across endpoints, identities, email and cloud apps.

• Defender for Endpoint (EDR, attack surface reduction)
• Defender for Office 365 (phishing, Safe Links and Attachments)
• Defender for Identity (on-premises AD threats)
• Defender for Cloud Apps
• Incidents, advanced hunting with KQL and automated investigation

Best for: Stopping attacks that cross email, identity and devices.

Cloud-native SIEM and SOAR for collecting, detecting and responding to security events at scale.

• Data connectors for Microsoft and third-party sources
• Analytics rules and threat intelligence
• KQL hunting and workbooks
• Playbooks for automated response
• Unified operations in the Defender portal

Best for: Central security monitoring for a SOC or MSP.

Data security, governance and compliance: classify, label and protect information wherever it goes.

• Sensitivity labels and encryption
• Data loss prevention
• eDiscovery and audit
• Insider risk management
• Data security posture management for AI

Best for: Protecting sensitive data before and after Copilot rollout.

Microsoft’s cloud platform for virtual machines, networking, storage, databases, apps and AI.

• Virtual machines and Azure Virtual Desktop
• Virtual networks, firewalls and VPN gateways
• Storage accounts and backup
• Azure SQL and App Service
• Azure Policy, Monitor and Defender for Cloud

Best for: Moving servers and apps to the cloud securely.

Disaster recovery as a service that replicates servers to Azure and fails them over when needed.

• Replication for Azure, Hyper-V, VMware and physical servers
• Recovery plans with ordered failover
• Test failovers without impact
• Application-consistent recovery points

Best for: Keeping critical servers recoverable after an outage.

Backup and recovery for virtual, physical and cloud workloads, plus Microsoft 365.

• Image-level backups for VMware and Hyper-V
• Immutable and hardened repositories
• Instant VM recovery
• SureBackup restore verification
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365

Best for: Following the 3-2-1-1-0 rule with tested restores.

Cloud phone system inside Microsoft Teams with calling plans, Operator Connect or Direct Routing.

• Operator Connect and Direct Routing
• Auto attendants and call queues
• Teams Rooms and certified desk phones
• Call analytics and quality dashboard
• Emergency calling

Best for: Replacing on-premises PBX and legacy hosted telephony.

Relational database engine behind many ERP and line-of-business systems, on-premises or in Azure.

• Backups and point-in-time restore
• Always On availability groups
• Security: TDE, row-level security, auditing
• SQL Server Agent jobs and maintenance plans
• Performance monitoring with Query Store

Best for: Running and protecting ERP databases.

Cloud ERP for small and mid-sized businesses, and the successor to Dynamics NAV.

• Finance, sales, purchasing and inventory
• Upgrade path from Dynamics NAV
• Integration with Microsoft 365 and Power Platform
• Role-based permissions
• Copilot features for business users

Best for: Moving from on-premises NAV to a cloud ERP.

PowerShell SDK for managing Microsoft 365, Entra ID and Intune through Microsoft Graph.

• Least-privilege scopes and app-only authentication
• Users, groups, devices and licences
• Reports and audit data
• Works in Azure Automation runbooks

Best for: Automating admin tasks and reporting.

Cloud email, calendars and contacts for Microsoft 365, and the destination for on-premises Exchange migrations.

• Mailboxes, shared mailboxes and resource calendars
• Mail flow (transport) rules and connectors
• Hybrid and cutover migrations from on-premises Exchange
• Retention, litigation hold and archiving
• Anti-spam and anti-malware with Exchange Online Protection

Best for: Running business email and migrating off on-premises Exchange.

Document management, intranets and personal file storage in Microsoft 365.

• Team and communication sites for intranets
• Document libraries with versioning and metadata
• OneDrive Known Folder Move for Desktop and Documents
• External sharing controls and sharing links
• Migration from file servers with SharePoint Migration Tool

Best for: Replacing file shares and building a company intranet.

Chat, meetings, calling and collaboration hub for Microsoft 365.

• Teams and channels with shared files
• Meetings, webinars and town halls
• Guest and external access controls
• Teams policies and app permission policies
• Integration with Teams Phone and Teams Rooms

Best for: Day-to-day collaboration for every team.

Certified meeting room systems that bring one-touch Teams meetings to boardrooms and huddle spaces.

• One-touch join and proximity join
• Resource accounts and room mailboxes
• Content cameras and dual screens
• Teams Rooms Pro management portal

Best for: Equipping meeting rooms for hybrid work.

Enterprise endpoint security: next-generation antivirus, EDR and attack surface reduction.

• Endpoint detection and response with live response
• Attack surface reduction rules
• Vulnerability management
• Automated investigation and remediation
• Device isolation and onboarding through Intune

Best for: Protecting laptops and servers from ransomware and hands-on attackers.

Protection for email and collaboration against phishing, malware and business email compromise.

• Safe Links and Safe Attachments
• Anti-phishing with impersonation protection
• Attack simulation training
• Threat Explorer and automated investigation

Best for: Stopping phishing before it reaches users.

Sensors on domain controllers that detect attacks against on-premises Active Directory.

• Detects reconnaissance, credential theft and lateral movement
• Identity security posture recommendations
• Sensors for DCs, AD FS and AD CS
• Alerts correlated in Defender XDR

Best for: Spotting password spray, Kerberoasting and other AD attacks.

Cloud security posture management and workload protection for Azure, AWS and Google Cloud.

• Secure score and recommendations
• Defender plans for servers, storage and SQL
• Regulatory compliance dashboard
• Multi-cloud connectors

Best for: Hardening cloud workloads across providers.

Cloud-delivered endpoint protection and EDR platform with a lightweight agent.

• Next-generation antivirus and EDR
• Prevention and response policies
• Host groups and sensor update policies
• Threat hunting and real-time response

Best for: Endpoint protection in organisations that standardise on Falcon.

Traditional and next-generation antivirus suites still common in small and mid-sized environments.

• Central management consoles
• Policy-based scanning and exclusions
• Device control and web filtering
• Migration planning to Defender or EDR

Best for: Managing mixed estates and planning AV consolidation.

The query language behind Sentinel, Defender advanced hunting, Log Analytics and Azure Monitor.

• Filter, summarise and join log data
• Time-series charts and visuals
• Hunting queries and analytics rules
• Reusable functions and parsers

Best for: Investigating incidents and building detections.

Australia’s baseline mitigation strategies against cyber threats, assessed across maturity levels one to three.

• Application control and patching applications
• Microsoft Office macro settings and user application hardening
• Restricting admin privileges and patching operating systems
• Multi-factor authentication
• Regular backups

Best for: Government and regulated organisations in Australia.

Zero Trust access that replaces broad VPN access with per-app, device-aware access.

• Per-application access policies
• Device posture checks
• Agent-based secure access
• Integration with identity providers

Best for: Giving staff secure access to internal apps without a full VPN.

Synchronises users, groups and passwords from on-premises Active Directory to Entra ID.

• Password hash sync and pass-through authentication
• Seamless single sign-on
• Filtering by OU and attribute
• Cloud Sync lightweight agents
• Group writeback options

Best for: Running hybrid identity reliably.

On-premises federation for single sign-on to cloud and web apps.

• SAML and WS-Federation trusts
• Claims rules
• Web Application Proxy for external access
• Migration path to Entra ID authentication

Best for: Maintaining legacy SSO and planning its retirement.

Phishing-resistant, passwordless sign-in for Windows using biometrics or PIN backed by the TPM.

• Cloud Kerberos Trust for hybrid environments
• Key trust and certificate trust models
• Policy through Intune or Group Policy
• Counts as MFA for Conditional Access

Best for: Moving staff to passwordless sign-in.

Microsoft’s server operating system, from 2008 R2 to 2025, running on-premises and in Azure.

• Roles: AD DS, DNS, DHCP, file and print, IIS
• Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)
• In-place upgrades and migrations
• Azure Arc for hybrid management
• Hardening with security baselines

Best for: Running and modernising server workloads.

Microsoft’s hypervisor built into Windows Server, with clustering and replication.

• Virtual machines and virtual switches
• Failover clustering and live migration
• Hyper-V Replica
• Checkpoints and integration services

Best for: Virtualising servers on Windows infrastructure.

Enterprise virtualisation platform with ESXi hosts managed by vCenter.

• ESXi hosts and vCenter management
• vMotion and DRS
• High availability clusters
• Datastores on SAN, NAS or vSAN
• Templates and snapshots

Best for: Running large virtual server estates.

Bare-metal hypervisor often used alongside Citrix virtual apps and desktops.

• Resource pools and live migration
• XenCenter management
• Storage repositories
• GPU pass-through for virtual desktops

Best for: Environments built around Citrix delivery.

Open-source server operating systems running web, database and application workloads.

• User, group and permission management
• Package management and patching
• SSH hardening and key-based access
• Services with systemd and logs with journalctl

Best for: Supporting mixed Windows and Linux environments.

On-premises monitoring and backup for Windows server estates.

• Operations Manager (SCOM) monitoring and alerting
• Data Protection Manager (DPM) backups
• Management packs
• Integration with Azure services

Best for: Monitoring and protecting on-premises datacentres.

On-premises device management for operating system deployment, software and updates.

• OS deployment and task sequences
• Application packaging and distribution
• Software update management with WSUS
• Co-management with Intune
• Compliance settings and reporting

Best for: Large estates moving gradually to Intune.

The largest public cloud platform, often used alongside Azure in multi-cloud environments.

• EC2 virtual machines and VPC networking
• S3 object storage
• IAM users, roles and policies
• RDS managed databases

Best for: Supporting workloads that live outside Azure.

Google’s cloud platform for compute, storage, data and AI.

• Compute Engine virtual machines
• Cloud Storage
• IAM and organisation policies
• Google Workspace integration

Best for: Multi-cloud environments and Google Workspace shops.

Backup appliances and SaaS backup for on-premises servers and Microsoft 365.

• Microsoft 365 backup for Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams
• On-premises appliance backup with cloud replication
• Granular item restore
• Retention policies

Best for: Protecting Microsoft 365 data and small server estates.

Affordable backup software for files, servers, databases and virtual machines.

• Image and file backup
• SQL Server and Exchange backups
• Backup to NAS, tape and cloud
• Scheduling and email reports

Best for: Small businesses that need flexible backups on a budget.

S3-compatible cloud object storage commonly used as an off-site backup target.

• S3-compatible API
• Object lock for immutability
• Works with Veeam and other backup tools
• Predictable storage pricing

Best for: Off-site, immutable copies for the 3-2-1-1-0 rule.

Shared storage for servers and virtual machines, from small NAS boxes to Fibre Channel SANs.

• RAID levels and when to use each
• iSCSI and Fibre Channel, zoning and LUN masking
• NAS shares with SMB and NFS
• Capacity and performance planning

Best for: Designing reliable storage for virtualisation and backups.

IP cameras, NVRs and access systems that protect premises and need the same care as any network device.

• Camera placement and retention planning
• NVR setup and remote viewing
• Network segmentation for cameras
• Firmware updates and password hygiene

Best for: Securing offices, stores and warehouses.

The LAN, WAN and security devices every other system depends on.

• VLANs, routing and switching
• Site-to-site and remote access VPNs
• Firewall rules and NAT
• DNS, DHCP, BGP and core protocols
• Wireless access points

Best for: Designing and troubleshooting networks.

Software-based PBX that runs on-premises or in the cloud with SIP trunks.

• Extensions, ring groups and IVRs
• SIP trunk configuration
• Desk phone provisioning
• Mobile and web clients

Best for: Small and mid-sized phone systems outside Microsoft Teams.

Desk phones and conference devices for Teams Phone, 3CX and other platforms.

• Auto-provisioning
• Teams-certified devices
• Firmware management
• VLAN and PoE setup

Best for: Rolling out and supporting phones at scale.

Popular open-source relational database behind many web applications.

• Users, privileges and secure connections
• mysqldump and binary log backups
• Replication
• Performance tuning basics

Best for: Supporting websites and open-source apps.

Enterprise relational database used by large ERP and line-of-business systems.

• Instances, tablespaces and users
• RMAN backup and recovery
• Patching and upgrades
• Monitoring and performance

Best for: Supporting enterprise applications built on Oracle.

Cloud ERP for finance, inventory, order management and CRM.

• Roles and permissions
• Saved searches and reports
• Integrations and SuiteScript
• Multi-subsidiary accounting

Best for: Supporting fast-growing businesses on cloud ERP.

Accounting software for small businesses, often running on a local server or workstation.

• Company file hosting and backups
• User access and permissions
• Upgrades between versions
• Network and performance troubleshooting

Best for: Keeping small-business accounting systems running.

Open-source suite of business apps covering ERP, CRM, inventory, accounting and more.

• Modular apps
• Self-hosted or cloud
• PostgreSQL database backups
• Users, groups and access rights

Best for: Flexible ERP for smaller organisations.

Accounting and inventory software widely used across South Asia and the Middle East.

• Company data backup and restore
• Multi-user access over the network
• Licensing and upgrades
• Data migration

Best for: Supporting accounting teams in businesses that use Tally.

Cross-platform shell and scripting language for automating Windows, Microsoft 365 and Azure.

• Cmdlets, pipelines and objects
• Modules for Exchange, Teams, Graph and Az
• Error handling and logging
• WPF interfaces for admin tools

Best for: Automating anything you do more than twice.

Run PowerShell and Python runbooks on a schedule in Azure, with managed identities.

• Scheduled and webhook-triggered runbooks
• Managed identity authentication
• Hybrid runbook workers for on-premises tasks
• Variables and credentials

Best for: Monthly tenant reports and scheduled maintenance.

Low-code workflow automation across Microsoft 365 and hundreds of connectors.

• Cloud flows with triggers and approvals
• Connectors to Microsoft 365 and SaaS apps
• Desktop flows (RPA)
• Tools for Copilot Studio agents

Best for: Approvals, notifications and business process automation.

Agentless configuration management and automation using YAML playbooks.

• Playbooks and roles
• Inventory management
• Windows and Linux modules
• Idempotent configuration

Best for: Keeping servers configured consistently.

Ticketing, SLA management and remote support tools used by managed service providers.

• Tickets, boards and SLAs
• Time entry and project tracking
• Remote control sessions
• Client and configuration records

Best for: Running a service desk or MSP.

Network and server monitoring with alerting and dashboards.

• Node and interface monitoring
• Alerting and reporting
• Network performance and bandwidth
• Application monitoring

Best for: Seeing problems before users report them.

Tools for supporting users and devices from anywhere.

• Unattended access with MFA
• Session logging and permissions
• File transfer
• Securing remote tools against misuse

Best for: Supporting remote staff and branch offices safely.