Today, April 16th 2013, the Windows Azure team has announced that Windows Azure Infrasructure Services ( Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks ) has been released for General Availability ( GA ) for production workloads!
Over 200,000 customers are actively using Windows Azure as their cloud platform. In this article, I’ll review the step-by-step scenarios with which these customers have experienced great value – so that YOU can easily get started leveraging the low-cost and flexibility of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, too – beginning TODAY!
I’ve recently presented talks at a number of SharePoint-related conferences and events on practical approaches to deploying SharePoint on Windows Server 2012 and our FREE Hyper-V Server 2012 enterprise-grade bare-metal hypervisors ( on–premise ) as well as using Windows Azure VMs ( in the cloud ). In this article, I’m including a copy of each deck along with a set of follow-up resources that can be leveraged as next steps in getting your infrastructure platform ready for your next SharePoint deployment …
I meet lots of IT Pros at my events that are interested learning more about the new and improved capabilities in Service Pack 1 for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. In this article, I’ve compiled a list of video and hands-on lab resources that you can use to learn all about it and prepare for Microsoft Certification on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager ...
To be effective, Private Clouds need to embrace the virtualization technologies that you have currently deployed in your datacenter and permit you to manage them as a single compute fabric, rather than getting locked in to separately managing silos of virtualization technologies.
Don’t get me wrong … Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and our FREE Hyper-V Server 2012 certainly offer tremendous cost-effective enterprise scale benefits when it comes time to expand the virtualization capacity in your datacenter. BUT … System Center 2012 SP1 Virtual Machine Manager allows you to deliver a Private Cloud TODAY by deploying and managing VMs on existing virtualization hosts, whether those hosts are running Hyper-V, VMware 4.1 / 5.1 and/or Citrix XenServer 6.0 / 6.1 - all from a single point of Private Cloud management!
In this video, Yung Chou and I show how to configure a Private Cloud compute fabric in System Center 2012 SP1 VMM. Join us as we step through the process of adding and configuring hosts, clusters, and host resources across Hyper-V, VMware and Citrix XenServer to provide a unified compute fabric that you can consistently scale and manage across your datacenter.
Yung Chou and I are back for another episode in our multi-part series on how to Build Your Private Cloud using System Center 2012 SP1. Tune in today as we show how to configure the network fabric in System Center 2012 SP1 Virtual Machine Manager. We’ll walk through the process of adding datacenter VLANs for our cluster, storage and management traffic as well as client VM networks using Windows Network Virtualization ( aka., NV-GRE ) for isolating client traffic to our VMs in the Private Cloud.
Windows Azure Active Directory ( WAAD ), a cloud-friendly REST-based implementation of Active Directory for identity management of cloud applications, is now generally available for production cloud apps as a FREE service. WAAD provides consistent centralized identity management for Microsoft Office 365, Windows Intune and your own cloud-based applications. In addition, WAAD can be integrated with an on-premise Windows Server Active Directory via DirSync and Active Directory Federation Services ( ADFS ) gateway components.
In this article, I’ll provide a set of resources that you can use to get started exploring and leveraging Windows Azure Active Directory for your applications …
When designing your virtualization host framework for your Private Cloud, it's important to select platforms that use widely supported standards and provide cost-effective solutions for elastically scaling a resilient compute foundation. With this criteria in check, you'll be able to grow your compute foundation to support additional capacity as needed while taking advantage of the latest advancements in hypervisor technologies ... AND without risk of being locked in to a single-vendor solution. Virtualization and private cloud capabilities are expanding rapidly, and you definitely want to be sure that your ability to capitalize on new impactful features isn't being "boxed in".
For these reasons, a ton of IT Pros that I speak with are experiencing great success today by expanding their compute capacity with the FREE Hyper-V Server 2012 product, regardless of their current "incumbent" hypervisor. As an enterprise-grade, bare-metal hypervisor solution, Hyper-V Server 2012 offers the same level of scale, clustering, live migration and DR-replication capabilities as the Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2012, but at an unmatched feature/cost pricepoint in the industry - an enterprise hypervisor feature set for FREE. In terms of widely supported standards, Hyper-V uses the VHD virtual hard disk standard for broad industry compatibility - so there's no risk that your data will be locked inside a proprietary disk format. This provides unprecedented flexibility for growing your Private Cloud compute foundation via a hybrid mix of on-premise hypervisor hosts, public cloud fabric ( Windows Azure VMs also support VHDs ) and/or third-party service providers/hosting partners ... all of which empowers us to select the options which best support each of our individual application workloads.
In this article, I'll walk through the resources you'll need to get started with Hyper-V Server 2012, and I'll also include more advanced resources for building a scalable and highly-available clustered compute foundation for FREE!
When planning network infrastructure for a Private Cloud, there’s a number of technologies to consider and leverage in Windows Server 2012. At many of my events, IT Pros have lots of questions on when to use various network technologies in their overall Private Cloud design, such as:
In this article, I’ll walk through a sample architecture for building a Private Cloud network foundation and discuss “when” to leverage each of these components in your overall design. At the end of this article, I’ll also provide additional references for “how” to implement each configuration item.
We're delivering in-person IT Camp events as part of our broader Cloud OS Signature Launch Series on Windows Server 2012 and Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). In addition, we'll also be delivering a series of additional IT Camp events throughout the US Heartland ... be sure to check http://technetevents.com for details on upcoming IT Camps! I've included content links for the sessions I'm presenting at these IT Camps in this article ...
Yung Chou and I are back for another episode in our multi-part series on how to Build Your Private Cloud using System Center 2012 SP1. Tune in today as we show how to configure the storage fabric in System Center 2012 SP1 Virtual Machine Manager. We’ll walk through the process of adding different types of storage into our Private Cloud fabric, including block storage such as iSCSI, Fibre Channel and SAS as well as continuously available file share storage ( SMB 3.0 ).
Yung Chou and I are back for another episode in our multi-part series on how to Build Your Private Cloud using System Center 2012 SP1. Tune in today as we show how to deploy System Center 2012 SP1 Virtual Machine Manager AND upgrade from the VMM RTM release. We’ll walk through some of the key improvements in SP1 for VMM, and we'll demo the deployment and upgrade process together.
A while back, I had written an article on some options for IT Pros wishing to extend Host-attached USB devices into a VM. With the introduction of Windows-To-Go ( WTG ) USB Drives, there’s now a new option to extend USB storage into VMs by leveraging the firmware present on WTG-certified USB devices with Windows Server 2012 hosts running the Hyper-V role.
In this article, I’ll step through the process of using WTG-certified USB Drives with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V hosts to extend USB storage into a VM ...
Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks provides the ability to securely extend the network perimeter of our data center into the Windows Azure cloud platform for many useful scenarios – backup, disaster recovery, accelerated cloud storage, dev/test/pilot, remote access, Internet applications … and MORE! In this article, we'll walk through the process of leveraging Windows Server 2012 Server Core and Windows Azure VMs together to provide a super-efficient and inexpensive method for running VMs in the cloud - for less than $10 USD per month!
Virtual Machine Guest Clustering allows us to extend the high availability afforded to us by Windows Server 2012 Failover Clustering directly to applications running inside a set of virtual machines that are hosted on a Hyper-V Host Cluster. This allows us to support cluster-aware applications running as virtualized workloads. In this article, I’ll walk through the advantages and implementation steps for Virtual Machine Guest Clustering. Along the way, we’ll explore some new features in Windows Server 2012 Failover Clustering that enhance Virtual Machine Guest Clustering: Virtual Fibre Channel SANs, Anti-Affinity and Virtual Machine Monitoring.
There's a handy new tool available from our free CodePlex Open Source community repository that can be leveraged for basic management of Hyper-V Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 Server Core from a local GUI console. In this article, I'll describe the capabilities of this new tool and provide the steps for download and installation ...
Yung Chou and I are back for Episode #2 in our multi-part series on how to Build Your Private Cloud using System Center 2012 SP1. Tune in today as we discuss reference architectures for scale-up and scale-out Private Cloud infrastructure designs that leverage the new Scalability, Storage Spaces, Network Teaming, VLANs, Continuously Available Scale-out Clusters and Hyper-V Virtualization capabilities present in Windows Server 2012 and our FREE Hyper-V Server 2012 enterprise-grade bare-metal hypervisor.
Today, Yung Chou and I are kicking off our multi-part series on how to build a Private Cloud using System Center 2012 SP1. Tune in as we discuss the difference between a Private Cloud and a Highly Virtualized Environment, how System Center 2012 components map to Private Cloud requirements, and how the SP1 release allows for even greater improvements to managing your datacenters and applications ...
Windows Server 2012 and our completely FREE Hyper-V Server 2012 certainly have some really cost effective new storage options, with Storage Spaces and Hyper-V over SMB 3.0. However, many IT Pros have already invested in iSCSI shared storage and, as a result, many Hyper-V deployments also need to be able to leverage these existing storage investments.
iSCSI? No problem! Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V Server 2012 include native support for a software iSCSI initiator as well as MPIO ( Multipath IO ) for resiliency and load balancing of storage IO over multiple network paths.
In this article, we’ll walk through the process of connecting Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V Server 2012 to common iSCSI storage arrays. Because most of my IT Pro friends are running Hyper-V either on Windows Server 2012 Server Core or Hyper-V Server 2012, both options without a local console GUI, I’ll be providing my examples below in PowerShell.
NOTE: In this article, I make the assumption that your iSCSI storage array is already configured and that your Hyper-V host is already physically attached and zoned into your iSCSI storage network.
Overheard at a recent IT Camp event …
I’ve been virtualizing more and more VMs on my Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V hosts lately and I’ve got lots of virtual hard disks ( VHDs ) across all my VMs. It’s been working great, but … Is there an easy way to list all VHDs that I’m using across all hosts and VMs?
I’ve been virtualizing more and more VMs on my Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V hosts lately and I’ve got lots of virtual hard disks ( VHDs ) across all my VMs.
It’s been working great, but … Is there an easy way to list all VHDs that I’m using across all hosts and VMs?
In this article, I’ll show the process for leveraging PowerShell 3.0 and the Hyper-V PowerShell module in Windows Server 2012 and our completely FREE Hyper-V Server 2012 to easily list all VHDs that are in use across all VMs and Hyper-V hosts … in just ONE line of PowerShell code!
As IT Pros, we absolutely love building with new technology! This month, my fellow IT Pro Technical Evangelists and I have been working together on an article series for Migration and Deployment of Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows Azure and System Center 2012 SP1 to help get you started. Many of these articles address common questions that I’ve discussed with IT Pros at a number of events, so I’m sure you’ll find this information valuable.
In this article, I’ll provide a complete index to all articles in the series, just in case you missed any this month …
Among a whole host of new management features, Service Pack 1 for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager adds the ability to now deploy and manage Windows 8 apps for enterprises. These Windows 8 apps could be internal apps that have been created by your corporate developers, or they could simply be published Windows Store apps that you have reviewed and would now like to distribute to your Windows 8 users.
In this article, I’ll step through the process of deploying internal Windows 8 apps and published Windows Store apps to users. If you’re familiar with prior releases of System Center 2012, you’ll note that this process is very similar to deploying traditional desktop apps to Windows clients – with some additional options to support the new Windows 8 app model.
At the end of this article, I’ll also provide some additional resources that I’d encourage you to leverage as part of this Migration and Deployment article series with my fellow IT Pro Technical Evangelists.
NEW HOURS! Based on popular demand, we've updated the hours for "Early Experts" Virtual Study Hall assistance - Fridays each week from 11AM to 1PM Eastern Time.
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There’s so many cool features to explore in the latest Windows infrastructure offerings that it’s hard to find time to explore all of them. Beginning February 8th through June 2013, you can block time on Fridays on a weekly basis between 11AM and 1PM Eastern Time to join a Virtual Study Hall and work through real-world hands-on activities with live Q&A assistance from a field-experienced IT Pro Technical Evangelist!
In this article, I provide the details for getting started with our Virtual Study Halls ...
Over the next several weeks, there’s lots of opportunities for getting hands-on experience with Window Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks – both in-person and online! At the events below, you’ll learn about leveraging the Windows Azure cloud platform to build VMs and Virtual Networks in the cloud, have the opportunity to ask live questions, and be able to step through the tasks for yourself using our Windows Azure Free 90-Day Trial!
Get the details on how to register for these hands-on events ( US and WW ) and potentially win some fabulous prizes ( US Only ) in this article ...
In addition to building Virtual Networks on the Windows Azure cloud fabric for running Virtual Machines in the cloud, we can also securely extend those virtual networks to on-premise devices in a couple ways:
In this article, I’ll step through the configuration of Windows Azure Connect to securely connect one or more cloud-based virtual machines to one or more on-premise client or server endpoints.
Lab Scenario: Windows Azure Connect
Service Pack 1 for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager ( “ConfigMgr 2012 SP1” ) adds the ability to deploy Windows 8 operating system images. As you’ll see in this article, this OS deployment process is very similar to what many IT Pros have used in the past for deploying Windows 7 and prior operating systems with ConfigMgr 2012 RTM. However, there’s several new features to help make OS deployment easier and a couple considerations if you’re planning an upgrade of an existing RTM installation.
In this article, I’ll outline the major tasks involved with Windows 8 OS deployment in ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 and also present the new features and considerations along the way that will make our lives easier when deploying operating systems.