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Today marks the conclusion of our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series. Over the past 6 weeks we've walked through the process of assessing our current environment, planning and architecting our new environment with Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Azure, and then migrating existing server workloads to our new Hybrid Cloud infrastructure.
As you continue through your own server migrations, the following additional resources will be helpful to continue your Hybrid Cloud learning on Microsoft Virtual Academy ...
In addition, as technical questions arise during your migrating planning, feel free to reach out to our team of US-based IT Pros if we can assist with additional guidance and resources.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, follow along with Dan Stolts as he provides an overview of the various options and considerations for migrating existing SQL Server databases to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, along with step-by-step examples.
READ DAN'S ARTICLE HERE!
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Blain Barton is back to walk us through using the Microsoft Exchange Server Deployment Assistant tool to define a step-by-step checklist for migrating legacy Exchange Servers to Office 365.
READ BLAIN'S FULL ARTICLE HERE!
Lots of organizations may have web servers running on Windows Server 2003 today. With End-of-Support for Windows Server 2003 quickly approaching on July 14, 2015, your migration plan should include migrating these web servers to either Windows Server 2012 R2 or Microsoft Azure Websites. Migration of existing web applications can involve several considerations, but there's also tools available to help streamline this process. When migrating to Azure Websites, you can also benefit from new capabilities that you may not currently have today, such as improved availability, a financially-backed Service Level Agreement, one-click scalability, and a super-easy way of managing roll-forward and roll-back of web application or web site changes.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Blain Barton walks us through the steps for migrating existing web sites and web applications to Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Azure. Along the way, he also explores tools, such as the Azure Websites Migration Assistant, that can help accelerate your migration steps.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Tommy Patterson is back again to help us with options for easily migrating existing legacy file servers to Windows Server 2012 R2.
Join Tommy as he explains leveraging tools such as Distributed File Servers (DFS) namespaces, Robocopy, and the Server Migration Tools kit to quickly move and modernize Server Message Block (SMB) file server workloads to Windows Server 2012 R2. When considering moving SMB shared folders to the Microsoft Azure public cloud, be sure to also check out this article from Jessica DeVita on our new Azure Files cloud platform feature.
READ TOMMY'S FULL ARTICLE HERE!
Windows Server 2003 End-of-Support is quickly approaching on July 14th, 2015 ... does your organizations still have Windows Server 2003 servers running key infrastructure services, such as Active Directory, DNS and DHCP? The process for migrating these key services to Windows Server 2012 R2 may be easier than you think!
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Tommy Patterson steps through the general process for migrating Active Directory, DNS and DHCP services from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012 R2. Along the way, he also provides links to additional helpful tools and resources.
In today's episode of our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Blain Barton and Tommy Patterson discuss how to get started migrating server workloads to Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Azure. Join us for this great session on server migration from on-premises to the cloud or a combination of both. Learn which option is best for your organization as well as what tools are available to make this process as efficient as possible.
Watch this video online or Download for offline viewing.
WATCH THIS FULL EPISODE HERE!
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Dan Stolts steps through the configuration of System Center 2012 R2 for monitoring workloads cross-premises in the Hybrid Cloud.
From Dan's article: "Hybrid Cloud monitoring tools give us the capability of seeing ALL of our application workloads: on-premises machines, virtual machines and even all of our cloud infrastructure. Not only can we see how they are doing and anticipate failure, but we can audit (track who changed what) and even evaluate performance. By seeing our complete hybrid infrastructure, we can proactively make sure it all stays running to meet our SLAs and we keep our jobs and prosper ..."
READ DAN'S FULL ARTICLE HERE!
Make it so! Traditional configuration management of server and application workloads can be complicated. In the past, configuration management has often required us to build and maintain lots of scripts with complex conditional logic to handle all possible states of a server when deploying a new configuration to it. PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) simplifies configuration management in the Hybrid Cloud by defining a declarative description of the end-state of our servers. DSC automatically determines which components needed to be added, removed or updated based on the current state of servers to which this definition is applied. What's more, DSC can be leveraged across your Hybrid Cloud to provide a consistent approach for managing the configuration of on-premises hosts, virtual machines, application roles and public cloud fabrics!
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Kevin Remde steps through leveraging PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) to define the configuration of a server, apply that configuration, and then periodically verify (and remediate, if necessary) that the configuration is still in-place.
READ KEVIN'S FULL ARTICLE HERE!
When migrating to Hybrid Cloud, developing automated standards for provisioning and managing application workloads is key to accelerating the predictable deployment of new business solutions. As you begin developing scripts and workflows, being able to do so with consistency across on-premises datacenters and public cloud platforms is important to promote reusability and agility when migrating these workloads.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, follow along with Yung Chou and I as we walk through the steps to get started with Windows PowerShell and the Azure PowerShell module for automating both Azure Pack private clouds and Microsoft Azure public clouds via the tenant service management API. We'll provide PowerShell code snippets so that you can easily try this out in your own Hybrid Cloud, too!
READ THIS COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE!
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series,we’ll step through the process of setting up Windows Azure Pack for provisioning and delegating on-demand private clouds. Along the way, we’ll call out specific details that you'll find helpful to successfully build your own private cloud lab environment.
Service Management Portal in Windows Azure Pack
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE!
In today's episode in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Yung Chou and I demonstrate ways in which you can manage and automate your hybrid cloud environment. Join us for this demo-heavy session as we showcase System Center, Microsoft Azure and Azure Pack, as well as PowerShell for Azure, PowerShell DSC for configuration management and Azure Automation for automated runbooks.
WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE!
As you plan your migration to Hybrid Cloud, you may find that your organization has certain specific configuration settings and tools that are required for each new VM being provisioned. Creating your own custom VM images provides an easy way to embed these customized settings into your own library of operating system images so that you aren't spending additional time manually customizing each VM post-provisioning.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Blain Barton walks us through the steps of preparing a custom VM image that we can leverage for quickly building new VMs on Microsoft Azure.
Today’s topic in our series focuses on migrating existing VMware and Amazon AWS server workloads to the Microsoft Azure public cloud platform as a secure extension of your on-premises datacenter. Along the way, we’ll discuss several migration tools that can help to streamline the process, including the recently announced Microsoft Migration Accelerator for Azure, which is currently available in limited preview to customer organizations located in North America.
This article is part 20 in our continuing series on Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud by our US IT Pro team. After reading this article, be sure to catch up on the whole series!
As you begin preparing your network environment for server migrations to Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Azure, there's value in examining your existing server operating system images to make sure that you can use them consistently across your new Hybrid Cloud infrastructure. Earlier this week, Blain and I discussed the ability to leverage existing virtual hard disk OS images using Azure Pack in an on-premises private cloud and also on the Microsoft Azure public cloud platform.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Yung Chou gives us the details on preparing operating system images for use as VM Gallery Items with Azure Pack in an on-premises Private Cloud. Later this week, Blain will be back to help up prepare existing virtual hard disk images for use with Microsoft Azure as well.
From Yung's article: "To publish a gallery item in Windows Azure Pack (WAP), the associated OS image disks, i.e. vhd files, must be set according to what's in the readme file of a gallery resource package. For those who are not familiar with the operations, this can be a frustrating learning experience before finally getting it right. This blog post is to address this concern by presenting a routine with a sample PowerShell script to facilitate the process ..."
READ YUNG'S FULL ARTICLE HERE!
As you begin planning your migration from legacy versions of Windows Server, you may find that you still have some physical servers in your environment. Migrating a copy of these physical servers to virtual machines provides the ability to consolidate these servers on a smaller number of physical hosts to save on hardware costs and potentially improve resiliency. A physical-to-virtual (P2V) migration can also help to expedite the process of migrating these servers to Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Azure by allowing you to safely test your migration steps in advance on staged copies of the original servers.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Blain Barton walks us through the steps for migrating existing physical servers that may still be in our environment to virtual machines. Blain explores the options for performing P2V migrations using the latest version of Disk2VHD, System Center 2012 and the forthcoming release of the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) 3.0 tool.
In today's episode of our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Blain Barton and I kick-off Virtualization Week with a discussion on Compute Virtualization in the Hybrid Cloud. Join us as we discuss how virtualization is no longer constrained to the physical capacity of an on-premises environment. We'll also showcase tools and techniques that are available in Microsoft Azure, Azure Pack and System Center 2012 R2 that can help you with your move to Hybrid Cloud virtualization.
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE!
With Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, organizations can create private, high-throughput network connections between Azure datacenters and existing infrastructure, whether it’s on-premises or in a co-location environment. ExpressRoute connections do not go over the public Internet, and as such they can offer more reliability, faster speeds, lower latencies and higher security than typical connections over the Internet.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, we discuss connection options, scenarios, considerations and steps for leveraging Azure ExpressRoute as part of your Hybrid Cloud cross-premises network architecture.
Hybrid Cloud is all about leveraging the "best of both worlds" by combining the low-latency access of an on-premises datacenter with the elastic, pay-as-you-go nature of a public cloud platform like Microsoft Azure. Cross-premises connectivity enables these two environments to be connected into a single hybrid network, providing the ability to easily leverage Azure as a remote extension of your on-premises network.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Kevin Remde guides us step-by-step through the process of establishing secure cross-premises connectivity over a standard Internet connection using a Site-to-Site VPN. Tomorrow, we'll be discussing an alternative connectivity option over dedicated network paths: Azure ExpressRoute.
When running application workloads on Microsoft Azure, virtual networks deliver the ability for multiple virtual machines and/or cloud services to communicate with one another across a secure, isolated IP network infrastructure. Like physical networks, the IP address space associated with these virtual networks can be subnetted to organize workload components and simplify guest operating system firewall rules. In addition, IP reservations can be defined when an equivalent to static IP addresses are required in the cloud.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Matt Hester walks through building Microsoft Azure virtual networks. In his accompanying video tutorial, he shows how to build a virtual network and define subnets via the Microsoft Azure management portal. In addition, he also steps through the process of testing, assigning and displaying reserved IP addresses on a virtual network.
READ MATT'S FULL ARTICLE HERE!
Some application scenarios may require, or desire, a static public IP address, so that you have predictable IP addresses for handling network traffic and firewall rules. When migrating these applications to a cloud platform, such as Microsoft Azure, reserving public IP addresses for these applications can be an important step in your migration plan.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Brian Lewis shows us step-by-step how to reserve a public IP address for hosting application workloads on Azure.
From Brian's article: "Hopefully by now you have had a chance to use Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines and Websites. One of the things you might want for your server on the internet is an IP address that doesn’t change. You may want this to ensure your outbound traffic from your Azure server uses a predictable IP address. This will enable you to set a DNS record or a firewall rule with your dedicated IP address. Another benefit of reserving an address is that you keep your IP address even when you de-provision your virtual machine. There are some important steps you need to pay attention to ..."
READ BRIAN'S FULL ARTICLE HERE!
Kevin Remde and I kick-off Networking week in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series with discussion and demos on the various options for building cross-premises networks. These options provide the ability for organizations to securely extend enterprise networks to Microsoft Azure. Join us for an in-depth exploration around site-to-site connectivity in a hybrid cloud and learn how to address networking needs around speed, reliability and security.
Watch online or Download for offline viewing.
In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Dan Stolts provides us with step-by-step instructions for leveraging Microsoft Azure Backup to protect servers against data loss and corruption in our Hybrid Cloud by enabling cloud-based offsite backup.
From Dan's article: "Azure Backup encrypts and protects your backups in offsite cloud storage with Microsoft Azure, adding a layer of protection in case data loss or disaster impacts your servers. It can integrate with the backup tools in Windows Server or System Center Data Protection Manager, and you can manage cloud backups from these familiar tools to configure, monitor, and recover backups across local disk and cloud storage with ease. Data stored in Azure Backup is geo-replicated among Microsoft Azure data centers, for additional protection. Your data is encrypted before it leaves your on-premises data center, and it remains encrypted in Microsoft Azure – only you have the key. Incremental backups provide multiple versions of data for point-in-time recovery, and you can recover just what you need with file-level recovery."
In today's article in our continuing blog series on Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud being published by our US IT Pro team, we’ll discuss enabling “cross-premises data mobility” within a Hybrid Cloud by leveraging a new cloud-enabled storage solution: Microsoft StorSimple 8000.
When migrating application workloads to a cloud platform, such as Microsoft Azure, moving the OS and application bits to the cloud is usually pretty manageable. The virtual disks for VM’s containing OS and application binaries are usually somewhat small in size and can be moved rather quickly over common business-grade Internet connections. Moving application data, however, can be a different story – some applications have vast amounts of data, hundreds of gigabytes or several terabytes in size, and it could take days or weeks to move all that data to the cloud over the Internet. By leveraging Microsoft Azure and Microsoft StorSimple 8000, bi-directional mobility of enterprise data between on-premises and cloud locations can be realized to allow organizations to quickly leverage Hybrid Cloud architectures when considering business scenarios that involve large data sets.
Yesterday, Matt Hester discussed the advantages of SMB shared folders in an on-premises datacenter for simplifying storage architectures in his article on Hyper-V over SMB. In today's article in our Modernizing Your Infrastructure with Hybrid Cloud series, Jessica DeVita walks us through building an SMB shared folder solution in the Cloud using Microsoft Azure and the new Azure Files preview feature.
Shared folders play an important role in many existing applications as a simple shared storage location for centralizing application configuration information and business data. With Azure Files, it's now super-easy to move applications that require SMB shared folders to Azure, so that you can capitalize on the cost and agility benefits of a cloud platform for these applications.
READ JESSICA'S FULL ARTICLE HERE!
Be sure to check out these additional resources: