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Russell Smith, the Editorial Director at Petri IT Knowledgebase, has over two decades of hands-on experience in IT, in both small business settings and government IT infrastructure projects.
Russell started writing for Windows IT Pro Magazine in the early 2000s. Since then, he has contributed insights to various IT publications, including Petri and CDW. His authoritative voice has resonated across industry blogs, where he dissects complex topics into an ‘easy read’.
Russell has authored over a thousand articles, each a testament to his depth of knowledge. His expertise doesn’t stop there: he wrote a book on Privilege Management and co-authored another for Microsoft’s MOAC series. Moreover, Russell’s commitment to education shines through in the courses he crafted for Pluralsight.
He is also presenter on his own YouTube channel, This Week in IT, and the current presenter of Petri Dish.

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Azure Project Bicep, or just Bicep as Microsoft sometimes refers to it, is a new domain-specific language (DSL) for deploying cloud resources using infrastructure as code. If this sounds like Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, then you’d be right. ARM templates can now be authored in Bicep or JSON. Infrastructure as code and ARM templates…

Last Update: Nov 19, 2024
This month, a flaw in the Apache Log4j library causes panic, Microsoft patches 67 new CVEs, 7 of which are rated Critical. And Adobe delivers a boat load of patches to finish off the year in style. So, let’s get started! Apache Log4j remote code execution vulnerability Let’s start this month by talking about Log4Shell…

Last Update: Nov 19, 2024
Microsoft announced the availability of hotpatching – aka rebootless patching – in Windows Server Azure Edition earlier this year. At Ignite in November 2021, Microsoft announced that rebootless patching is coming to Windows Server on-premises via Azure Stack HCI. Azure Stack HCI, Microsoft’s hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) operating system, which is delivered as an Azure service,…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Cloud Conversations is a weekly podcast that we’ll be featuring here on Petri. It’s about everything connected to cloud computing, including technologies like Azure, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM), Microsoft Defender, Windows, Intune, and much more! Episode 35 – Lesley Crook on Viva, and a day in the life with Microsoft Teams…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
December 1st, 2021, Microsoft announced the availability of Teams Essentials, a new product built for small businesses. In this article, you’ll learn what is Microsoft Teams Essentials, how it compares to other editions of Teams, and about pricing and availability. What is Microsoft Teams Essentials? Microsoft Teams Essentials provides small businesses with unlimited group calls…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
What with Thanksgiving, and Christmas soon approaching, November has been a quiet month. But Microsoft released the Windows 10 November 2021 Update, a big cumulative update for Windows 11 with a lot of fixes, and Windows 11 SE is now available for education. Windows 10 November 2021 Update (21H2) now generally available November 16th, Microsoft…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Microsoft Lists is getting a series of new features over the coming months. And in this article, learn about the new features and when you can expect them to appear in your Microsoft 365 tenant. New features include offline mode, a new Kanban board view, lookup fields across your lists, and more! Microsoft Lists gets…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Cloud Conversations is a weekly podcast that we’ll be featuring here on Petri. It’s about everything connected to cloud computing, including technologies like Azure, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM), Microsoft Defender, Windows, Intune, and much more! Episode 34 – Sophie Dimelow on Women in Tech and Community In this week’s episode, Sophie…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Microsoft recently made changes to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to mitigate an issue where private key data stored in an Azure AD application or service principal could be read in clear text. Some Azure services were incorrectly storing private key data in Azure AD in the keyCredentials property when creating applications for customers. Microsoft…
Last Update: Jul 28, 2025
The Hybrid Identity Protection (HIP) Conference is the premier educational forum for IT pros tasked with managing identity and securing hybrid cloud environments. As the global health pandemic and move to digitalization change the way enterprises work, the HIP Conference helps IT pros to learn and implement technology that mitigates new business risks. The conference…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
Cloud Conversations is a weekly podcast that we’ll be featuring here on Petri. It’s about everything connected to cloud computing, including technologies like Azure, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM), Microsoft Defender, Windows, Intune, and much more! Episode 33 – Sheryl Netley on Microsoft Power Platform In this week’s episode, Sheryl Netley, who…

Last Update: Sep 04, 2024
16th November 2021, Microsoft made the Windows 10 November 2021 Update (21H2) generally available. In this article, I’m going to tell you about all the new features for IT pros. As with previous Windows 10 feature updates, Microsoft is taking a measured approach to the rollout, throttling availability via Windows Update to make sure users…