The Irish IT Professional

Windows Azure BootCamp : Belfast

Dave Northey — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:24:00 GMT

FREE training on Windows Azure

This one day deep dive class will get you up to speed on developing for Windows Azure. The class includes a trainer with deep real world experience with Windows Azure, as well as a series of labs so you can practice what you just learned.

Awesome. How much does it cost?

This event is FREE to the attendees. Gratis! Gratuite! Libero!

What do I need to bring?

You will need an Azure account. You can Sign Up for a free 90 day account here.
You will need to provide a credit card to sign up, but both the Trial and new MSDN benefit Azure Subscription have a default spending cap of $0.00, so unless you remove the cap you will not be charged. You’ll use this subscription while working on the hands on labs.

Also, if you feeling more adventurous and really want to get more hands on, we will be looking at to do more hands on labs in the afternoon.

Is this for beginners?

Yes, Vikas Sahni will start from the concepts, so even those with no previous knowledge of Cloud Computing will be able to follow the morning session

Is this for advanced users?

Yes and no. With Windows Azure evolving rapidly, there is plenty that will be new for you in the overview session and you may just learn a few new things in the other sessions. Plus you can help others during the lab sessions!

Registration is at 9:30 and the event will start in full at 10am.

See you there?

From Good to Great: Productivity and Influence Skills for the IT Professional

Dave Northey — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:51:42 GMT

Win a free place at Kevin Kline’s “From Good to Great: Productivity and Influence Skills for the IT Professional” at the SQL Saturday Dublin pre-conference

How would you like to win a free place at Kevin Kline’s “From Good to Great: Productivity and Influence Skills for the IT Professional” at the SQL Saturday Dublin (#229) pre-conference?

The SQL Saturday Dublin committee has completed the session schedule for SQL Saturday 229 (http://www.sqlsaturday.com/229/). In addition, we have extended the early bird on the pre-conferences until the end of May.

So what more could we do? We decided to hold a competition to win a free place at the SQL Saturday 229 pre-conference – Kevin Kline’s “From Good to Great: Productivity and Influence Skills for the IT Professional”.

Kevin has been an awesome ambassador to Ireland in the SQL community and we wanted to celebrate that fact.

So the question is “How many times has Kevin Kline visited Ireland as a SQL speaker prior to this?”

All you have to do is email ssiug@live.ie with “Competition” in the subject and let us know the answer.

We will complete the draw on the last day of May.

These details can also be found at http://ndflanagan.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/irelands-kevin-kline/

If you wish to attend this or any other pre-conference, the details for these can be found at:

Kevin Kline’s “From Good to Great: Productivity and Influence Skills for the IT Professional” http://www.prodata.ie/Events/SqlSat229/Precon1.aspx
Chris Webb’s “Self-Service BI and Office 2013” http://www.prodata.ie/Events/SqlSat229/Precon2.aspx
Matt Masson’s “A Day of Enterprise Information Management - SSIS, MDS and DQS” http://www.prodata.ie/Events/SqlSat229/Precon3.aspx

Good luck.

Surface Pro availability in Ireland

Dave Northey — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:07:20 GMT

Surface Pro will be available in Northern Ireland on May 23rd and in the Republic on May 30th

The Surface Pro goes on sale on May 30th in Ireland and will sell for €879 for the 64GB device, and €979 for the 128GB version. No UK prices (yet).

Windows Server 2012 Deep Dive – Two Days of free training

Dave Northey — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:29:04 GMT

Is now all available online

I will tidy this up (one day), but just to get the content out there, here it is:

Day 1

(1) Dave Northey - Introduction and Fundamentals - 25 mins

(2) Dave Northey – Manage and Maintain Availability - 25 mins

(3) Dave Northey - Deploy and Manage Your Applications - 3 mins

(4) Dave Northey - Build and Scale Your Infrastructure -10 mins

(5) Dave Northey - Deliver Services to Devices -18 mins

(6) Aidan Finn – Storage (Introduction & VHDX) - 28 mins

(7) Aidan Finn - Storage (Storage Spaces) - 19 mins

(8) Aidan Finn – Storage (iSCSI Target) – 14 mins

(9) Aidan Finn – Storage (Deduplication) – 20 mins

(10) Aidan Finn – Storage (SMB 3.0) - 12 mins

(11) Aidan Finn – Storage (Scale-Out File Server) - 14 mins

(12) John McCabe – Networking (Introduction & SMB 3.0) - 17 mins

(13) John McCabe - Networking (DHCP) - 19 mins

(14) John McCabe – Networking (IPAM) - 20 mins

(15) John McCabe – Networking (Direct Access) - 26mins

(16) Andrew Lomakin – Active Directory (Introduction & Administration) - 19 mins

(17) Andrew Lomakin – Active Directory (Virtual Domain Controllers) - 6 mins

(18) Andrew Lomakin – Active Directory (Group Managed Service Accounts) - 10mins

(19) Andrew Lomakin – Active Directory (Dynamic Access Control -1) - 13mins

(20) Andrew Lomakin – Active Directory (Dynamic Access Control -2) - 25 mins

Day 2

(21) Aidan Finn – Hyper-V (Introduction & Converged Fabrics) - 26 mins...

(22) Aidan Finn – Hyper-V (VM Settings & Features) - 12 mins...

(23) Aidan Finn – Hyper-V (Hyper-V Replica) - 25 mins....

(24) Aidan Finn – Hyper-V (Live Migration) – 37 mins...

(24) John McCabe – Virtual Networks (Introduction) – 6 mins

(25) John McCabe – Virtual Networks (Software Defined Networking) – 17 mins

(26) John McCabe – Virtual Networks (Network Virtualisation) - 52 mins

(27) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Introduction) – 5 mins

(28) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Keynote Highlights) – 14 mins

(29) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Enabling Modern Apps) – 11 mins

(30) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Reveals) – 9 mins

(31) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Most Popular Sessions - Provisioning) – 6 mins

(32) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Most Popular Sessions – Network Monitoring) – 6 mins

(33) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Most Popular Sessions - DevOps) – 4 mins

(34) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Most Popular Sessions – SCOM Reporting) – 4 mins

(35) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Most Popular Sessions – Capacity Planning) – 3 mins

(36) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Most Popular Sessions - Orchestrator) – 4 mins

(37) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Most Popular Sessions – IaaS for Service Providers) – 4 mins

(38) Kevin Greene - Mini-MMS 2013 (Most Popular Sessions – Lionbridge Case Study) – 4 mins

(39) John McCabe - Mini-MMS 2013 (Introduction & Private Cloud Strategy) – 29 mins

(40) John McCabe - Mini-MMS 2013 (Unified Device Management) – 14 mins

(41) John McCabe - Mini-MMS 2013 (Automation & Integration) – 9 mins

(42) John McCabe - Mini-MMS 2013 (Orchestration) – 9 mins

Enjoy..

Microsoft’s Surface Pro arriving in UK and Ireland next month

Dave Northey — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:58:25 GMT

Microsoft has confirmed the Surface Pro Windows 8 tablet PC will arrive in the UK and Irish markets before the end of May

The Surface Pro is a 64-bit tablet PC that combines beauty, power and mobility.

Available with up to 128 GB of storage and powered by an Intel Core i5 processor, Surface Pro is a powerful machine.

Weighing under 2 lbs and only 13.5 mm thin, it’s the perfect way to do more.

I have no idea how much they are going to cost us I’m afraid – they come in just under $999 – so not cheap..

I can’t wait

Windows Server 2012 training in Dublin

Dave Northey — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:41:13 GMT

Last few spaces available for our Windows Server 2012 Deep Dive event

We are running a two-day deep dive training session next Monday 22nd & Tuesday 23rd in Microsoft’s offices in Dublin.

We have some great speakers with some great content.

Registration is still open – but there really is only a few spaces available.

See you on Monday?

And if you can’t attend in person, I’m getting the whole event recorded and edited down into bite-sized chunks, which I’ll post here on a later date.

Dave

Everything you ever wanted to know about Installing and Configuring Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012

Dave Northey — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:57:26 GMT

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation and Configuration Guide

Occasionally I’m asked if there are books that I’d recommend to help you learn Hyper-V

Well, Aidan Finn gave me a copy of his one the other day. It is currently being used as a paper weight I’m afraid (sorry Aidan)! But I did have a quick skim and it does appear to be the business (it also comes extremely highly recommended).

So, if you’re interested in what Aidan Finn, Patrick Lownds, Michel Luescher and Damian Flynn have written, here it is:

Windows Server 2012 Deep Dive

Dave Northey — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:55:13 GMT

FREE Training on Windows Server 2012 in Dublin – April 22nd & 23rd

A two day session (not for the feint hearted) – in Microsoft Ireland, Dublin (22nd & 23rd April).

More details and registration here.

See you next week?

Upcoming Webinar: Jump Start Your Project Management Success

Dave Northey — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:38:17 GMT

FREE Project Management Webinar – Tuesday 16th April @ 12:00 – 12:45

Presenter: Dux Raymond Sy, - PMP, MVP and World Class Project Management Expert

www.linkedin.com/in/meetdux

Date: Tuesday 16 April 2013
Time: 12.00 – 12.45pm
Register: rturley@storm.ie

Sponsors: Storm Technology and Microsoft

What You Will Learn:

In today’s project-centric work environment it is critical to be able to coordinate multiple projects with distributed teams and make key decisions based upon on complete and accurate information about consolidated project progress, risk and resource usage information.
The good news is that today the barriers to being able to do this have been lowered – significantly lowered. New approaches and new technology – namely Microsoft’ new online project management solution – have been designed to fast track your project management success.

Join us to find out how to and see how today you can:
- Quickly deploy a Project & Portfolio Management solution with Project Online
- Effectively collaborate with geographically distributed project team members
- Create a portfolio of projects using new and existing project plans
- Manage and optimize project resources across the enterprise
- Integrate existing tools such as email, Microsoft Office, mobile devices and other technology platforms
- Visualize business intelligence with rich dashboards and relevant reports

Register at rturley@storm.ie

Enjoy

New Microsoft Online Support Site for Small Businesses in Ireland

Dave Northey — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:10:21 GMT

The small business online support experience addresses the top 20 Microsoft products and services for Small Businesses in Ireland

Solve a problem

Learn how

We are excited to announce that in partnership with Customer Service and Support (CSS), we are launching a new online support experience catered to small businesses. The Support for Small Business (SSB) site is now live in our market, as well as 28 other markets around the world in 12 languages, and is integrated into our existing Small & Medium Business (SMB) websites.

The site provides small businesses with a seamless online support experience, making it even easier for these customers to get the support they need to resolve issues quickly, run their businesses better and connect with more customers. Throughout the launch and future expansion, the CSS team will continue to gain knowledge and gather feedback from small business customers to refine and enhance the online support experience.

Support for Small Business Site Key Messages

Microsoft understands the challenges small businesses face, and we’re here to help. The Microsoft Support for Small Business site makes it easier than ever for small businesses to get the support they need to resolve issues quickly, run their business better, and connect with more customers.

Benefits of the Support for Small Business include a clean look and feel, simplified navigation and more targeted content for small business needs.
We make it fast and easy for small businesses to find the answers they need from the Microsoft Partner Network, the Microsoft Community, the Support for Small Business website, or through live chat with Microsoft.
Microsoft Support for Small Business site is available in 12 languages and 29 markets globally; and integrated with 20 Microsoft products and services.

Enjoy,