Azure Bootcamp Switzerland 2026 edition

Today I attended the Azure Bootcamp Switzerland event in Bern. Here is a summary of what I saw and what I learned in the sessions.

The opening keynote was about Azure Sovereign Architecture where the presenter gave us an update on the current Azure/Microsoft projects. We also had an explanation on how sovereignty works.

Then I joined a session titled “Time Bombs In Entra ID – How Well Are Your Entra ID Apps Managed?”. The speaker explained to us how Azure App registration and service principal really work. He also gave us some advice on best practices when using this kind of Azure/Entra resource.

Before the lunch break I joined a session on how some architects resolved the “multiple teams needed to deploy something” problem. They automated the deployment with CI/CD and Terragrunt. They did a demo on how they use their code and how they make infrastructure changes with it.

After the lunch, I chose to go in a more network oriented presentation. The topic was how to get rid of VPN by using an Azure service called Global Secure Access. Even though I’m not convinced that we can get rid of VPNs, this option could be something for highly Microsoft infrastructure as it uses the Microsoft backbone for all the network routing.

The last two sessions I attended sessions on Azure Policy. The topics were first using code to deploy Azure policies, as it’s a better way to have them identical in multiple environments and as it as also faster than using the Azure interface, which is slow. The second one was about using conditional access as safer alternative for securing Azure tenants with policies. This method is quite interesting but requires a paid version of Entra to be activated.

Finally, for the closing keynote, we had a presentation about an application developed by a Swiss company that helps emergency services coordinate. It’s allowing call centers to locate and contact closest to scene savers and organize their deployment.

Once again, I’m glad that could attend this event. I learned quite a bunch of things and could also refresh my memory on some other topics. The sessions are long enough to detail a topic and the speakers are always performing well.