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There are the slides for the second session I delivered at the Bellevue/Civica Technet Present event on Aug 25th….
Private Cloud: What, Why and How
Cheers!
Here are the slides for the first session I delivered at the Bellevue/Civica event on Aug. 25th.
Cloud Computing Essentials for IT Pros
Perfect Timing!
A few days ago I posted about what I believe to be an upcoming boom in Microsoft and Industry Certifications. Then a couple days later I receive an email from friend letting me know about a training event for Microsoft Certified Trainers that is coming up in San Francisco for October 19,20, 21.
Microsoft is assisting MCTs in North America to offer 3 days of training for MCTs on the latest Microsoft products and technologies. The summit will be held at Microsoft’s Northwest District office in San Francisco (835 Market Street, Suite 700 San Francisco, CA 94103), Oct 19-21 (W and Th 9-5, F 9-noon). Presentations for developers, IT Pros, SQL, Office, and Personal Development will be given by fellow MCTs and presenters from Microsoft. This year’s MCT Summit will include sessions to prepare MCTs for teaching Microsoft’s Cloud computing classes. Another feature of this year’s MCT Summit will be half-day hands on labs. We have three fully equipped classrooms for hands-on sessions.
Microsoft is assisting MCTs in North America to offer 3 days of training for MCTs on the latest Microsoft products and technologies.
The summit will be held at Microsoft’s Northwest District office in San Francisco (835 Market Street, Suite 700 San Francisco, CA 94103), Oct 19-21 (W and Th 9-5, F 9-noon).
Presentations for developers, IT Pros, SQL, Office, and Personal Development will be given by fellow MCTs and presenters from Microsoft. This year’s MCT Summit will include sessions to prepare MCTs for teaching Microsoft’s Cloud computing classes. Another feature of this year’s MCT Summit will be half-day hands on labs. We have three fully equipped classrooms for hands-on sessions.
You can find more information and registration information at the MCTSUMMIT.org site.
Kaboom….
When I started at Microsoft back in the mid 1990’s , I went through a boot camp of sorts to obtain my Windows NT 4.0 MCSE Certification. I was new to Microsoft computing and had a lot to learn about the Microsoft products and technologies. The classes I attended and the certifications I obtained were key to me being able to do my job at Microsoft at the time – phone based technical support. Without the training and the certification I received, I don’t know if I would have been able to do my job properly and thus still be at Microsoft some 14 years later.
I wasn’t the only one that got certified back then though. A LOT of people got certified about the same time.
Two of the driving factors for people to get certified in the mid-90’s were: 1) The large number of people purchasing PC’s for both business and personal use and 2) The Internet. Both of these drove a major change in how people used computing technology and this resulted in a very high demand for knowledgeable IT folks to be able to support these technologies. Certification became a way for people to separate themselves from the pack and prove they knew what they were talking about. Particularly when it came to pursuing employment with the large number of new tech companies that arose from the PC/Internet boom.
Of course the Internet bubble eventually popped, many people who became certified in the technologies of the time moved on to non-Microsoft technologies or even to jobs outside of the tech industry. As a result, many of those people let their Microsoft certifications lapse. Also, when you look at the time period between when the Internet bubble popped and a couple of years ago, there really hasn’t been anything new, fresh and exciting for people to get excited about. Sure, there is the whole “consumerization of IT” thing where technologies developed for personal use have crept into the business place and sure, IT Professionals have had to adapt to this. I don’t want to downplay the importance of doing this, but I would be hard pressed to say that the “consumerization of IT” matches the scale and need for people to ramp up on new technologies that the PC/Internet boom of the 90’s thrust upon us.
Clouds in the air….
There is something coming though that could easily be as big and possible be bigger than the PC/Internet explosion of the 90’s – Cloud Computing. Unless you have literally lived under a rock for the past 3-4 years, you certainly have at least heard the term “cloud computing”. understanding exactly what it is though is a whole different matter. It seems that every technology company has a slightly different definition of cloud computing. Add to that the sub-groups of cloud computing (Private, Public, Hybrid, etc) that we are hearing about now, and it is easy to get a little bit overwhelmed and even confused as to exactly what cloud computing is and what it might mean to you.
Cloud Computing is giving us brand new ways to work with technologies to enable us to do some exciting things. One of the promises of the Internet was the massive scale at which we could provide information and services. Cloud computing is now giving us the opportunity to actually meet those expectations on a truly global scale. As a result, the landscape for Developers and IT Pros is changing. New products are being developed to take advantage of this scale and new technologies introduced to enable us to manage it. It is quite possible that we may see another Internet like explosion of technologies and the tech industry will need people that know what they are doing. The industry will want people that are certified in the leading technologies to ensure they have the right people on the job.
Training and Certification…..
Microsoft is getting in front of this now! If you go to the Microsoft Training and Certification site, you will find that we are actually lumping product and technology certifications together to create a foundation for people who want to get certified in Microsoft “cloud computing” technologies. This is a great resource for figuring out what products and technologies we have that are a part of our cloud computing solutions. But that isn’t even the best part! We also have something called the Microsoft Virtual Academy that offers FREE, self-paced training that anyone can utilize to start learning about what will be needed to get certified. There is even training for people that are using non-Microsoft products and want to know more about what Microsoft has to offer.
There are already more that a quarter of a million people that are registered on the site with over 250k self-assessments passed! in addition to the great, free training that is offered, there is a interesting social networking aspect that give you points based upon the courses you take and the assessments you pass.
Check out some of the tracks that are available -
Microsoft Virtualization for VMWare Professionals Planning, Building and Managing a Private Cloud Office 365 for the IT Pro Introduction to Windows Azure
Microsoft Virtualization for VMWare Professionals
Planning, Building and Managing a Private Cloud
Office 365 for the IT Pro
Introduction to Windows Azure
and much more…..
If you want to get a ahead of the curve and get certified to manage the upcoming cloudburst of technologies, Microsoft Virtual Academy is a great place to start.
Microsoft Virtual Academy – Free Self Paced Training
With the advent of Cloud Computing, the role of the IT Professional is changing. IT Pros are doing more in the way of “service management” and lot less in the way of “server management”. This means that IT Professionals need to learn and be comfortable with tools that allow them to deploy and manage services and applications to the cloud. Fortunately, those tools already exist! By leveraging features in the current versions of the System Center family of products, you can deploy, manage and monitor applications that are running within Windows Azure.
Below you will find a link to our Evaluation Center where you can download the Deploying and managing Windows Azure Applications evaluation. This is a step-by-step guide to deploying a Windows Azure application and then monitoring and managing that application.
Here is what you get with the evaluation program:
Download the FREE Deploying and Managing Windows Azure Applications Evaluation here
As a reminder folks, I will be delivering a Free Technet Presents seminar this Thursday in Bellevue, WA. We still have a few spots left if you are interested in attending.
Summary:
Cloud Power! What are the options? Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Private Cloud? Which one is right for your business? Join us as we discuss the basics of cloud infrastructures and the details of how to build your own private cloud. In 4 hours we will build a private cloud with you! We will talk about Hyper-V, Windows Azure, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and the Self Service Portal. We will demonstrate how to use these building blocks to build your own private cloud environment to host your own IT applications and services. We will also show you how to connect Public Cloud components to your Private Cloud in order to maximize the unique competitive benefits of each environment. Before this session is over you will have an understanding of the ins and outs of Microsoft’s Private Cloud Offerings.
August 25th – Bellevue, WA
If you are interested in grabbing all of the software and tools that I will be showing at the seminar, you can do so with the following links:
Windows 2008 R2 with SP1 Evaluation
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 with SP1 Evaluation
System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self Service Portal v2.0 with SP1
In addition to the above items, you might also be interested in getting familiar with some of the other System Center family products which will see some significant updates in their next versions. I highly recommend you familiarize yourself with the current versions so you have a good foundation to work from when the next versions release.
System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Evaluation
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 Evaluation
Finally, there are lots of great new technologies and features being implemented in the next versions of the System Center products. You can learn more and download the current betas below -
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta
System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Beta 2
Good Day Folks!
A few weeks ago I posted about a Technet Event Series coming up called: Building a Private Cloud. The Bellevue, WA event is coming up on Aug 25th and seats are filling fast. You can register for the Bellevue event here.
If you would like to know more about what Microsoft is doing with Private Clouds and how we are leveraging our own technologies for this, Microsoft IT Showcase just released a Technical Case Study on how they developed a Private Cloud in one of our own datacenters.
Microsoft IT Showcase is pleased to announce the publication of How Microsoft IT Developed a Private Cloud Infrastructure, which discusses how MSIT built an energy-efficient, flexible, high-density facility that meets the needs of the research and development community at Microsoft and is able to host private clouds that provide infrastructure as a service. Many thanks to Rocky Ellis, Brandon Hughes, and Byron Blunk for their expertise, knowledge, and dedication in developing this comprehensive technical case study.