Browse by Tags

In the last post we discussed in great detail the process of carefully planning your Hybrid Cloud . The planning process is vital, and in this post we’ll see the time spent planning really start to pay off. In this post I’ll discuss the 4 Steps that I believe are crucial when Building any Hybrid environment...

This might seem like an overly obvious statement, but it is worth emphasizing: The early planning stages of your Hybrid Cloud strategy are some of the most important discussions that IT leaders and implementers can have. The majority of the CIOs I’ve spoken to over the last year tell me that they are...

In this Hybrid Cloud series a big priority for me is discussing in depth the nature of a Hybrid Cloud, as well as the benefits of using one in a variety of scenarios and industries. But, before we get much deeper into this series and start talking about results, I’m going to spend the next several posts...

For a lot of IT pros, the last two posts ( here and here ) have been a nice overview of the Hybrid Cloud model, but they’ve been waiting to get technical. Starting with this post, I’ll begin a deep look at the specific technology that supports and maximizes Hybrid Clouds, as well as the tools available...

Earlier this week I examined what we at Microsoft mean when we use the term “Hybrid Cloud.” If ever there were a time to get really specific about our vocabulary, this was it! Now that our definition is clear, I want to go one step further and discuss how this strategy is different from what other cloud...

If you haven’t seen it yet, a Gartner report from last month * is really worth checking out. Gartner calls out three key areas (Acquisition costs, Ease of management, and Functionality richness), and I recommend reviewing the entire report in detail. You can read it here , compliments of Microsoft. In...

After nearly 40 years of creating enterprise software, there are few companies who have come to appreciate the importance of infrastructure in the quite the way we have at Microsoft. We recognize that to host great software and great apps, you need an equally great infrastructure for your datacenter...

The IT industry never slows down and IT pros are constantly assessing what’s next and what’s best – not only for their business , but also for their careers . The virtualization world is going through a big inflection point, and this is leading to a lot of noise and conflicting information in the marketplace...

Over the last year, we have made some incredible developments with Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2, and the new release of Windows Intune – and I am incredibly excited for these products to reach general availability today! Leading up to this, our team has worked incredibly hard to share...

Earlier this morning I participated in a panel at GigaOm’s Mobilize conference . Sitting on the panel with me were Alan Dabbiere the Chairman of AirWatch, and JP Finnell the Head of Mobile Strategy and Innovation for SAP. You can watch the panel on demand here , and I shot a short recap of my morning...

Over the past 11 years, the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) has grown from a small user group event focused on systems management and managing PCs, to a large and passionate gathering of the world’s best and brightest IT Pros. Now it’s time to look ahead to the next step for our industry and this community...

Earlier this week I got to deliver a keynote at Oracle OpenWorld 2013.  It was a lot of fun, and pretty exciting to be the first Microsoft exec to talk to this massive and important part of the IT industry. In case you missed it, you can check out the full keynote here , or the highlights below...

For years Microsoft and Oracle have helped customers address enterprise technology needs, and during those years I’ve had the opportunity to personally partner with, compete with, and admire Oracle as an industry leader. Certainly when you think of enterprise scalability and reliability Oracle comes...

A few days ago I got to sit down with the guys from TechNet Radio to talk about the third pillar of our “ What’s New in 2012 R2 ” series – Enable Modern Business Apps . We conclude this three-episode series by discussing why it’s important for IT pros to understand how modern apps function (hint: ...

Earlier today, Microsoft announced that we are making the current RTM bits for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers effective immediately . Visual Studio 2013 Release Candidate is also now available. We heard your feedback that you needed the RTM bits now. ...

Part 9 of a 9-part series .   A major promise underlying all of the 2012 R2 products is really simple: Consistency . Consistency in the user experiences, consistency for IT professionals, consistency for developers and consistency across clouds. A major part of delivering this consistency is the...

As noted in my earlier post about the availability dates for the 2012 R2 wave , we are counting the days until our partners and customers can start using these products. Today I am proud to announce a big milestone: Windows Server 2012 R2 has been released to manufacturing! This means that we are handing...

Part 8 of a 9-part series . Don’t let the title fool you – this post is critically important for Developers and IT pros. The reason I call out this warning up front is that often, when I’m speaking at conferences around the world, as soon as I start to discuss the developer perspective and developer...

Last week I got to sit down with the guys from TechNet Radio and talk about the 2nd big pillar in the What’s New in 2012 R2 series:  Transform the Datacenter . In this episode – which is a follow up to our earlier (and very popular) discussion about PCIT – we get deep on how this R2 wave of products...

Part 7 of a 9-part series . Today’s post is the 2nd of two sections; to read the first half, click here .       As an industry we have worked on disaster recovery (DR) and high availability (HA) solutions for – well, it seems like forever.  There has been a lot of good work...

Part 6 of a 9-part series . Leaders in any industry have one primary responsibility in common: Sifting through the noise to identify the right areas to focus on and invest their organization’s time, money, and people. This was especially true during our planning for the 2012 R2 wave of products ; and...

Part 5 of a 9-part series . Today’s post is the 2nd of two sections; to read the first half, click here . I recently had an opportunity to speak with a number of leaders from the former VMWare User Group (VMUG), and it was an incredibly educational experience. I say “former” because...

  Part 4 of a 9-part series . The Common Engineering Criteria (CEC) that I’ve talked about in previous posts have been instrumental in ensuring that the teams contributing to 2012 R2 met rigorous and specific criteria in areas like Manageability, Virtualization Readiness, Data Center & Enterprise...

Part 3 of a 9-part series . In today’s post, we tackle a common question I get from customers: “Why move to the cloud right now ? ” Recently, however, this question has changed a bit to, “What should I move to the cloud first ? ” An important thing to keep in mind with either of these questions is that...

I am absolutely thrilled to be delivering the Day 1 keynote at TechEd Europe for the third straight year . This is consistently an amazing event with the very best and brightest companies and IT pros across Europe, not to mention some equally amazing products to highlight and demonstrate. There were...