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Welcome to another main installment of our “ 20 Key Scenarios with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services ”.  For those of you who are just now starting to follow along, make sure to start your FREE TRIAL of Windows Azure , so that you can follow along. Those of you who are familiar with System Center...

Welcome to another installment of our May series of articles – “ 20 Key Scenarios with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services ”.  Today I’m going to describe a scenario, a problem, and then propose a solution.    The Scenario : Single Sign-On support using Active Directory , Windows Azure...

If you can extend your datacenter into the cloud using a secured network path and Windows Azure , it sure should follow that you can take advantage of cloud-based virtual machines to perform some of your more common infrastructure tasks.  For example: File Servers. “Yeah, I get it, Kevin. ...

As many of you may already know, this month my Microsoft US DPE Central Region teammates ( Matt Hester , Brian Lewis , and Keith Mayer ) and I are blogging about “ 20 Key Scenarios with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services ”. Throughout this month I’ll be adding links, making any updates...

This is going to be good!  The folks at the Microsoft Virtual Academy are once again hosting a full-day online training event on May 16, 2013 from 9am to 5pm Pacific Time.  The title: Windows Azure for IT Professionals . Make Windows Azure Your Datacenter! This Jump Start will help you understand...

“Hey Kevin.. How do I get high availability out of my SQL Server?” Cluster. Shared Storage. Windows Failover Clustering supports that. “But… I want my SQL Servers running in Windows Azure. And I don’t have shared storage in “the cloud”. But I still need...

Did you know that virtual machines can also be clustered?  “Really?” Yep.  We call it “guest clustering”, where a cluster of application-hosting computers, sharing storage, are actually virtual machines.  In this way we provide a “whole ‘nuther level of high availability” in the fact that...

You may ask, “How easy is it to set up a cluster of virtualization hosts for Hyper-V virtual machine high availability?” “How easy is it to set up a cluster of virtualization hosts for Hyper-V virtual machine high availability?” I’m glad you asked. Short answer: Very Longer answer: Let’s let my friend...

If you’re a VMware user, you’re probably familiar with the “ vMotion ” capability; moving a live, running virtual machine from one host to another.  Until recently, that move had to take place among and between clustered hosts, but recently Microsoft   Hyper-V (and later VMware in vSphere 5...

I’ve discussed Windows Server 2012 ’s inclusion of NIC teaming on my blog before.  Back in Part 7 of our “ 31 Days of  our Favorite Things ” last October, for example, I blogged about it. In part 10 of our current “ 20+ Days of Server Virtualization ” series, my phriend from Phoenix Harold...

Our FREE “ Microsoft IaaS Virtual Machine Bootcamp ” events are happening around the central part of the U.S. We’re delivering these for IT Professionals and Developers who are interested specifically in learning more about Windows Azure , as a globally scalable application platform...

Here it is!  The complete list of our “20+ Days of Server Virtualization” blog articles.  Through the month of March, I’ll be adding links, making any updates or changes.  So keep checking back for more, or keep watching my blog.  As before, I plan on adding my own blog post every...

We’re in the final stretch of our 31 days , and for today’s article Keith Mayer is going to give you all the details on how you can make DHCP highly available in Windows Server 2012 . “But.. couldn’t you cluster DHCP services before?” Yes, but clustering involves more...

In today’s “ 31 Days of our Favorite Things ” series, Matt Hester is giving away the store. “Huh?” Unlike our main competition in the area of virtualization and all things private cloud , Microsoft believes that virtualization is just a ubiquitous part of the datacenter...

Yessir!  According to the Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform page, And that’s today!  Go to THIS PAGE to set up a reminder that at 8:00AM Pacific (10:00AM Central) time, the launch is happening. “Where will the Windows Server Launch be taking place?” Online.  Go to www.windows-server...

There’s a theory that a Shark needs to keep moving, or else it will die. “Is that really true?” Do I look like Jacques Cousteau ? I don’t know. You look it up. But I think the same can be said for virtual machines. “They’ll die?” Stop interrupting...

As usual, here is the online version of the event resources I’ll be handing out to my central U.S. IT Camp Event attendees for the next several months. It is likely that this online version is even better, because A) it contains even more than what I could fit onto one page, B) items may have...

Y esterday the big news from Microsoft was the announcement of and new details around the new System Center 2012 product, delivered via live Webcast.  I was very happy to be able to watch the webcast with John Weston and 88 of our closest friends in Saint Louis during our TechNet Event . “I wasn...

Today during the “ Private Cloud Day ” live webcast event, Microsoft announced a pretty big change in how we think of and purchase the System Center suite. Bottom-line.. it’s no longer a separate set of products, but it is just one product: System Center 2012 . (Well.. actually two...

In today’s next-to-last installment of our cloud series , we have another guest author representing another great Microsoft partner: NetIQ . And in particular, they discuss a product of theirs called Platespin Migrate . Check out the Part 29 blog post HERE. And if you have missed any of the...

Back in part 23 of our series I wrote about Windows Azure , and some of the tools that IT Pros have at their disposal for the sake of managing and monitoring it. One of those tools of course is PowerShell . And today in part 27, Matt Hester writes about how PowerShell (one of his favorite things) can...

“Hey Kevin – Is the cloud just for big companies?” Absolutely not. Certainly some implementations (private clouds, for instance) make more sense in organizations that A) are able to take advantage of delivering IT as a Service for their business units, and B) can justify the kind...

Are you concerned that the cloud will eat your job ? Perhaps. Every time there is a shift in how things are done based on improvements in technology or new options for efficiency, economics, scale… there is always someone crying foul. Or probably more appropriately, they’re worrying about...

Microsoft has some pretty interesting new direction with regard to what “the cloud” can do. For example – how about an Internet-based service that let’s you monitor, manage, and deploy software to the workstations you’re responsible for? “Yeah.. I’d love to...

You might recall that in April 2011 I introduced you (or perhaps re-introduced you) to Windows Azure in part 6 of my “ Cloudy April ” blog series. Windows Azure , in case you’ve forgotten (or have been living under a rock) is Microsoft’s Platform as a Service ( PaaS ) offering...