The Microsoft Solution Accelerators team is pleased to announce that the System Center Cloud Services Process Pack is now available for download.

• Download the System Center Cloud Services Process Pack.

The System Center Cloud Services Process Pack is Microsoft’s Infrastructure as a Service solution built on the System Center platform. With the System Center Cloud Services Process Pack, enterprises can realize the benefits of Infrastructure as a Service while simultaneously leveraging their existing investments in the Service Manager, Orchestrator, Virtual Machine Manager, and Operations Manager platforms.

Corporate datacenters are in transition. The recent shift from physical to virtual environments is now being replaced by an interest in moving to the cloud—specifically both private and public cloud infrastructures. Private cloud management assets are being delivered with System Center 2012 and a key part of this solution is the self-service experience. This experience is now significantly enhanced by the System Center Cloud Services Process Pack.

The benefits offered by System Center Cloud Services Process Pack for the enterprise include:

• Deep customization and extension of the cloud services experience; natively supported by the System Center suite of products.
• Reduced cost, effort, and time to deploy cloud services to organizations that already leverage the System Center platform.

The benefits offered by System Center Cloud Services Process Pack for consumers of IT within the enterprise include:

• Standardized and well-defined processes for requesting and managing cloud services, including the ability to define Projects, Capacity pools, and Virtual Machines.
• Natively supported request, approval, and notification to enable businesses to effectively manage their own allocated infrastructure capacity pools.

The System Center Cloud Services Process Pack offers a self-service experience to facilitate private cloud capacity requests from your business unit IT application owners and end users, including the flexibility to request additional capacity as business demands increase.

• Download the System Center Cloud Services Process Pack: Download the process pack.
• Learn more. Visit our TechNet Library page to learn more.
• Tell your peers and customers about Solution Accelerators! Please forward this to anyone who wants to learn more about Microsoft Solution Accelerators.
• Already using Solution Accelerators? We’d like to hear about your experiences. Please send comments and suggestions to satfdbk@microsoft.com.

After MMS Veeam made a great announcement for  FREE 10 sockets of Veeam Management Pack

The Veeam Management Pack 10-Pack - a free VMware monitoring solution exclusively for new Veeam MP customers worldwide who are using Microsoft System Center 2012. 

The Veeam Management Pack 10-Pack includes.  A free 10-socket license of the Veeam Management Pack for deep VMware monitoring in System Center 2012  and One full year of maintenance and support

What is Veeam Management Pack for VMware?

The Veeam Management Pack provides scalable, fault-tolerant and agentless VMware infrastructure monitoring and management directly in Microsoft System Center.

Veeam MP enables you to:

• Protect investments in System Center with integrated VMware monitoring
• Manage physical and virtual infrastructure from one console
• Eliminate the cost of additional monitoring frameworks
• More details in Solution Overview

Click here for requirements and details: http://www.veeam.com/sc2012?ad=home

MMS that is.  If you were like me you may not have been able to make MMS, but wanted to see the sessions.  Well guess what you can!  Check out

DIGITAL MMS!

If you missed a session or were you unable to register for MMS before the record-breaking sell out this year? No problem, join us virtually!

Watch Keynotes and Sessions On Demand,  MMS offers over 160 breakout sessions across 5 technical tracks.

Click here to start: http://www.mms-2012.com/digitalmms

The Kinect sensor is a pretty amazing device allowing you to be the controller and has potential even beyond some of our wildest imaginations.  Steve Clayton posted a recent TED Talk from Marco Tempest who used his magic and Xbox Kinect.  It is pretty amazing technolody and even more equally amazing story.  Let me know what you think:

Here is how he did it, pretty amazing:

Magic and Storytelling / A magical tale (with augmented reality) – Documentation from onformative on Vimeo.

So who is with me just got the email today:

    Registration Confirmation for: 
    2013 Walt Disney World Marathon
    Dear Matthew,
    Congratulations! You are now registered for 2013 Walt Disney World Marathon. Please check the event's official website for updates: http://www.runDisney.com
    This is for the 2013 Walt Disney World Marathon on Sunday, January 13, 2013.

See you there!

Make a difference and vote for your favorite today:  VOTE NOW 

Register now @ http://www.mecisback.com/register.aspx.

So I have been quiet for a long time since I have been somewhat quiet over the past few months.  Well it has been a whirlwind, so if your interested read on. 

Business Tale:

So my career side I have decide to take a bit of change inside of Microsoft and step away from technical evangelism for a while.  After 8 years I have met some tremendous folks in the community but it was time for my career to take new path.  I started a new role as a Datacenter Solution Specialist (DCSSP).  I focus on driving System Center and Windows Server technologies for our customers.  The role is more as trusted advisor to the accounts I support and will require me to learn about licensing.  Now I know most of you  are probably laughing at this point.  After I have spent most of my time at Microsoft avoiding the licensing conversation, it is now a core part of my job.  It will help me to grow and understand the underlying business value of our technologies. You know I firmly believe our technology is fantastic and now I will be able to show the business value alongside the technical value.  What I have seen so far has been great and look forward to sharing.  Especially with all new versions on the horizon this is going to be an exciting role.

Another major factor driving the decision was a family desire to get back to home, in TX. As many of you know we were relocated a few years back to Ohio, but it was time to head back to TX,.  This is where all my kids were born and where we were for 12 years.   I was blessed enough to have an opportunity to get back to TX  and while I will miss golf with my dad, I am absolutely certain this is the right decision.

Personal Tale:

So while the relocation has been a major factor in the timing of my blogging and fitness.  I had one other aspect that has kept me busy for a while in October of last year I had surgery to fix my foot.  I had been dealing with a bad hammer toe and bunion for the last 3 years (even during my Goofy Runs)  IT was time to get it fixed.  2 screws and pin later and close to 4 months of down time.  I am in the slow process of getting back into shape.  However I do have a goal, on January 13, 2013 my buddy Jim and I will be running the 20th Anniversary of the Walt Disney World® Marathon Weekend  .  Who is with us?

So the relocation has been a lot of work, but I do have one funny story to share.  So the first day in our new house we get all of our boxes and furniture moved into our house and it was late when the movers where done.  We decided as a family to spend the night in my little apartment.  Before we left I got my refrigerator hooked up and water connection working.  I reached inside the freezer and turned on the ice maker.  We left.  The next morning I was in the house to get our TV’s hooked up.  When I walked in I smelled burnt plastic.  Do you know what smells like burnt plastic in the morning?  The inside of the freezer smells like burnt plastic.  There must have been a tremendous short as you can see from the pictures, so I am very blessed we did not burn the house down and the we got a new refrigerator.  So all good in the end.

So What’s Next?

I will still be trying to blog a little here and there.  While I learn my new role and transition into the new role.  One question I do have, do you have interest in my talking about the licensing with System Center 2012?  In fact some of you reading this post may already own the next generation of our System Center Products.   There are some interesting ways to get our latest technologies and I would love to make sure you aware of them.  So if your interested just drop me a line. 

In the month of March Ed Wilson is going to be running a PowerShell Webcast series and if you are at all interested you should sign up.  Ed is truly a PowerShell ninja master and this will be a great series. 

Click on the links to Register today!

• 3/12/2012 11:00:00 AM (PST):  PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 1 of 5): PowerShell 'SmowerShell'—Why You Should Learn Windows PowerShell
• 3/13/2012 11:00:00 AM (PST):  PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 2 of 5): Heard It through the Pipeline—How to Compound Windows PowerShell Commands for Fun and Profit
• 3/14/2012 11:00:00 AM (PST):  PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 3 of 5): Sole Provider? Not Hardly—A Look at Windows PowerShell Providers
• 3/15/2012 11:00:00 AM (PST):  PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 4 of 5): The Main Event—Windows PowerShell Does Event Logs
• 3/16/2012 11:00:00 AM (PST):  PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 5 of 5): More Than Remotely Possible—Using Windows PowerShell to Manage the Remote Desktop

Take a look at the first session sounds great and looks like there will be a lot of practical demonstrations!:

In this session, Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson discusses the fact that in addition to being the management future for Microsoft products, Windows PowerShell offers a number of compelling reasons for learning it. These reasons include the following:

• It is powerful and provides the ability to collect and to consolidate information from multiple remote systems into a centralized view of the data.
• It is safer than many other tools and offers the ability to prototype a command prior to the command execution.
• There is also a confirmation mode that will let a network administrator or other IT professional selectively step through a group of commands to pick commands to execute or ignore.
• It has built-in logging that provides documentation of not only what commands are executed but also the resultant output from those commands.
• It contains numerous features to promote a high level of discoverability and intuitive usability. and demonstrations.

Register Today!

Well this year was not nearly as good as last, and is really a bummer year for my predictions.  I am getting a better understanding of what is the trends are, so look for some better predictions next year!  On the bright side I did pull a Chuck Woolery with my results this year:

Total 2.2

1. Cleveland Browns are going to win the Super Bowl! Yeah I know I make this prediction every year and we finished second to last in the division last year. However, we only lost a 4 games by double digits the entire year. With Colt McCoy looking solid and of course with Peyton Hillis surprising the league. I look forward to seeing a balanced attack this year and with a tremendous amount of positive improvement!: GO BROWNS!
   Result: .1 Okay so this was a predictable score and the Madden Curse hit Peyton Hillis, so why did I give myself .1.  Put simply I was the first kid on my block to have the madden game and more importantly in the game the Browns went undefeated and won the Super Bowl, so I give myself .1
   
2. Aaron Rodgers, League MVP, Aaron Rodgers is becoming a premier QB in the NFL after winning the Super Bowl last year and he still looking good for the year. I think he will have another tremendous year this and could possibly have the Packers in the Super Bowl this year.
   Result: 1  Nailed this one, and Aaron Rodgers had a great year and well deserved of the award.  I did truly think I was going to have to myself a score of .5 with the great year that Drew Brees had.  In the end however for my wife’s packers they did not make the Super Bowl.
   
3. BY Week 5 Tim Tebow will be Starting in Denver, This is one of my favorite predictions this year and being a Buckeye fan this might surprise you. I just have a feeling Orton is going to lose the first few games and Denver will be looking for a change. Tim Tebow has it and I disagree with a lot of people about him. He has “it” and he is a winner. This could be fun for Denver fans.
   Result: 1 Wow, Is should almost get double points on this one.  He started Week 5 and the Broncos just had an amazing run.  While Tebow did not have the stats, he is still a tremendous leader on the field, and next year could be very interesting with that great defense.
   
4. Terrelle Pryor will be Playing Receiver by end of the year. He is not a NFL QB and he does not have what it takes in my opinion. But with his size and speed, he could look to be a great receiver in the NFL. There are plenty of great examples of college QB’s who becoming successful (Joshua Cribbs, Hines Ward, Kordell Stewart…etc). I think he could be great as a receiver, and I will make a bonus prediction his first TD in the NFL will be as a receiver.
   Result: 0  Missed this one altogether, but I was kinda close I knew he would not play QB and in fact the Raiders did bring in Carson Palmer, and not Terrelle Pryor to run the offense.  Pretty Telling, I may make this some prediction next year.
   
5. NFC West Champion will be 500…again, Okay this would have been a great prediction for last year, but looking at the schedules, I see this happening again. Unless one of the teams sweep the division, I see this as another down year for the NFC West. If I had to pick, I do like the Rams as the champion.
   Result: .1  Another almost goose egg, but who could have predicted the San Francisco 49er’s and Handshake gate.  Wow what a great year for the 49er’s I know my realtor was happy!  So why the .1 the other teams in the division records were 8-8, 7-9, 2-14.  So take away the 49ers and 500 is the winner.

As always:

Go Browns!

I just learned about a great event coming up in March!  The very first "PowerShell Saturday"!  This is an all-day event that will provide registered attendees with the following:

• Chance to learn Windows PowerShell from experts in the field like Ed Wilson "The Microsoft Scripting Guy" – the person who has written 5 books on Windows PowerShell and taught literally thousands of people in person.
• The event will be great fun – a chance to interact with 100 other people who LOVE Windows PowerShell so much, and realize the value of Windows PowerShell that they are willing to give up their Saturday to learn the stuff.
• It will be of immediate value – we are planning several SMALL group meetings as a Script Club where they can bring a script they are working, or are wanting to write and discuss and develop it in conjunction with an Expert who will be manning the room. This is a totally UNIQUE opportunity.
• You will have an opportunity to meet and learn about some of our sponsors and their products like DevFarm
• There will be great prizes handed out (a few examples)
  • ​Jeff Hicks Training from TrainSignal
  • PowerShell Plus from Idera
  • Great books from O'Reilly
  • Products from SAPIEN
• This will be a UNIQUE opportunity for some great networking. They should bring their business cards to the event, and be prepared to make new friends, establish new contacts, and find great support.
• It is a great chance to find out information about the Central Ohio PowerShell User Group --- there will also be people attending from the Pittsburgh Windows PowerShell User Group and the SE Michigan PowerShell group as well.
• The $10.00 fee covers lunch and snacks.
• You can also meet the Scripting Wife!

There are only 100 spots available so register soon!

Meeting Date:
Saturday, March 10, 2012 - 08:30 - 16:00

Location:
Microsoft Office
8800 Lyra Drive Suite 400
Columbus, OH43240

Quiz #6 (the last quiz, your last chance to get into the challenge!) opens today at 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST

Are you up for the Challenge?

If you answered yes, and if you are you a student, do you know a student or are you going back to school and can you answer a question like this then your ready for Round 1 of the Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge:

You are the administrator for the company network. You are bringing a new remote office online. The office has a domain controller that also runs DNS and WINS. It also has a file server that runs DHCP. DHCP enabled workstations are not getting DHCP addresses as expected. What should you do?

1. Move the DHCP service to the domain controller
2. Disable WINS since it interferes with DHCP on the same network
3. Authorize the DHCP server in Active Directory
4. Enable DHCP forwarding on the workstations

Well if you can answer that (btw this is from the practice test) then you may be ready to take the test to pass round 1, Until October 20th, go take the practice exam here:

Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge

To learn more about the challenge take a look at my post here : Students Are You Up for a Challenge? Enter the Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge NOW!

Here are the quiz dates

• Practice Quiz: Available beginning October 17
• Quiz 1, 20 October 2011:
  October 19th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 2, 15 November 2011:
  November 14th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 3, 1 December 2011:
  November 30th , 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 4. 14 December 2011:
  December 13th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 5, 9 January 2012:
  January 8th, 2012 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 6, 26 January 2012:
  January 25th, 2012 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)

On February 21 & 22 there is a 2-day virtual training event to learn about the upcoming enhancements with the Creating & Managing a Private Cloud with System Center 2012 Jump Start. 

It is 100% free and open to the public register now!

Sign up today at: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=298

Event Overview

Adopting this exciting new computing paradigm provides a whole new landscape of technology and career direction for IT professionals. Microsoft Learning and the Microsoft System Center 2012 team have partnered to bring you an exciting opportunity to learn what you need to know to deploy, manage and maintain Microsoft’s private cloud solution. Leveraging the popular Jump Start virtual classroom approach, the industry’s most gifted cloud experts will show attendees why this new private cloud solution, based on System Center 2012 and Windows Server, has garnered so much attention. Presenters include Symon Perriman, Sean Christensen, Adam Hall, Kenon Owens, Prabu Rambadran & Chris Van Wesep and there will be a live Q&A during the event.

Event Agenda

Day 1: Deployment & Configuration (Feb. 21)

• Part 1: Understanding the Microsoft Private Cloud
• Part 2: Deploying the Infrastructure Components
• Part 3: Deploying the Private Cloud Infrastructure
• Part 4: Deploying the Service Layer
• Part 5: Deploying the Applications & VMs

Day 2: Management & Operations (Feb. 22)

• Part 6: Managing the Infrastructure Components
• Part 7: Managing the Private Cloud Infrastructure
• Part 8: Managing the Service Layer
• Part 9: Managing the Applications & VMs

Sign up today at: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=298

Jump Start Overview

This accelerated Jump Start sponsored by Microsoft Learning is tailored for IT professionals familiar with Windows Server technologies, Hyper-V virtualization, and the System Center management solutions. The course is designed to provide a fast-paced and technical understanding of how and why Microsoft’s approach to the private cloud delivers scalability, security, flexibility and control. Here are few unique benefits of this course:

• Students have the opportunity to learn from and interact with the industry’s best cloud technologists!
• This high-energy, demo-rich learning experience will help IT Professionals understand why Microsoft private cloud solutions are making a splash in the industry.
• Students will see with their own eyes how Windows Server 2008 R2 and System Center 2012 work together to provide the best combination of security and scale.
• Information-packed agenda! Day one of this two-day online course will focus on designing and deploying the right solutions for your organization, while day two will provide an in-depth look at the tools available to help monitor, secure and control the operational aspects of a private cloud.

Sign up today at: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=298

Go get it @ http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9796988. Here’s some bedtime reading while you watch the download, download.

=======

A Microsoft private cloud dramatically changes the way your business produces and consumes IT services by creating a layer of abstraction over your pooled IT resources. This allows your datacenter to offer true infrastructure service capability as well as optimally managed application services. Microsoft private cloud solutions are built on System Center and Windows Server.

• System Center 2012 Release Candidate empowers you with a common management toolset for your private and public cloud applications and services. System Center helps you confidently deliver IT as a Service for your business.
• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (optional download) will give you improved powerful virtualization capabilities that can transform how you deliver IT services to your end users and enable you to lay the foundation of a private cloud infrastructure.

Please Note: Many Microsoft private cloud scenarios require Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. If you are using an older version, we highly recommend upgrading to experience the full Microsoft private cloud evaluation.
Need more information? See the product details page. Register to access technical product resources at the Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Resource Page.

The Microsoft private cloud evaluation includes:

System Center 2012 Release Candidate
Available in these languages: English

• System Center 2012 Unified Installer is a utility designed to perform new, clean installations of System Center 2012 for testing and evaluation purposes only. If you want to upgrade from an existing System Center installation or choose set up options such as high availability or multi-server component installs, please refer instead to the System Center 2012 component installation guides located on the Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Resource Page.
  User's Guide >>
• System Center 2012 App Controller provides a common self-service experience across private and public clouds that can help you empower application owners to easily build, configure, deploy, and manage new services.
  System Requirements >>
• System Center 2012 Configuration Manager provides comprehensive configuration management for the Microsoft platform that can help you empower users with the devices and applications they need to be productive while maintaining corporate compliance and control.
  System Requirements >>
• System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager provides unified data protection for Windows servers and clients that can help you deliver scalable, manageable, and cost-effective protection and restore scenarios from disk, tape, and off premise.
  System Requirements >>
• System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection, built on System Center Configuration Manager, provides industry-leading threat detection of malware and exploits as part of a unified infrastructure for managing client security and compliance that can help you simplify and improve endpoint protection.
  System Requirements >>
• System Center 2012 Operations Manager provides deep application diagnostics and infrastructure monitoring that can help you ensure the predictable performance and availability of vital applications and offers a comprehensive view of your datacenter, private, and public clouds.
  System Requirements >>
• System Center 2012 Orchestrator provides orchestration, integration, and automation of IT processes through the creation of runbooks that can help you to define and standardize best practices and improve operational efficiency.
  System Requirements >>
• System Center 2012 Service Manager provides flexible self-service experiences and standardized datacenter processes that can help you integrate people, workflows, and knowledge across enterprise infrastructure and applications.
  System Requirements >>
• System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager provides virtual machine management and services deployment with support for multi-hypervisor environments that can help you deliver a flexible and cost effective private cloud environment.
  System Requirements >>

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (optional download)
Available in these languages: Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish

• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 is designed to help you increase control, availability, and flexibility of your datacenter and desktop infrastructure while helping reduce costs.
  System Requirements >>

Go get it @ http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9796988.

I was asked by Ed Wilson to talk about, what else PowerShell!  In the article I talk briefly about how to automate the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit with PowerShell.

Check out the article: Learn How to Use PowerShell to Automate MDT Deployment 

Yeah I know it is a bit late, but I have been a little busy lately.

Quiz #5 opens today at 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST

Are you up for the Challenge?

If you answered yes, and if you are you a student, do you know a student or are you going back to school and can you answer a question like this then your ready for Round 1 of the Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge:

You are the administrator for the company network. You are bringing a new remote office online. The office has a domain controller that also runs DNS and WINS. It also has a file server that runs DHCP. DHCP enabled workstations are not getting DHCP addresses as expected. What should you do?

1. Move the DHCP service to the domain controller
2. Disable WINS since it interferes with DHCP on the same network
3. Authorize the DHCP server in Active Directory
4. Enable DHCP forwarding on the workstations

Well if you can answer that (btw this is from the practice test) then you may be ready to take the test to pass round 1, Until October 20th, go take the practice exam here:

Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge

To learn more about the challenge take a look at my post here : Students Are You Up for a Challenge? Enter the Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge NOW!

Here are the quiz dates

• Practice Quiz: Available beginning October 17
• Quiz 1, 20 October 2011:
  October 19th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 2, 15 November 2011:
  November 14th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 3, 1 December 2011:
  November 30th , 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 4. 14 December 2011:
  December 13th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 5, 9 January 2012:
  January 8th, 2012 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 6, 26 January 2012:
  January 25th, 2012 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)

The Dayton IT Pro Camp is a FREE, daylong Camp for IT Pros featuring Microsoft Cloud Technologies. During the day, we will have presentations on Hyper-V, SharePoint, Office365 and Azure. In addition, we will have a cloud security presentation and presentations from the Vendors who have agreed to support the Dayton IT Pro Camp.  For more information and to register click here:

Dayton IT Pro Camp Wed., Jan., 18, 2012 

The Vendors currently include Microsoft, Dell, donet, StorageCraft, Systemax ... the list just keeps growing! The Vendors will be showcasing their software and equipment at their Vendor Booths and during presentations.

Everyone loves to get an early Christmas present well this year, Veeam has a great gift you can unwrap today.   Today they announced a holiday gift for VMware vExperts, VMware Certified Professionals, VMware Certified Instructors, VMUG members, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, and Microsoft Certified Professionals. Last year they delivered a free gift and this year they are doing the same!  You can go unwrap your free two-CPU socket Not for Resale (NFR) license for Veeam Backup & Replication™ v6 for evaluation and demonstration use, this free software for your home labs.

So if you are a VMware vExpert, VCP, VCI, VMUG member, Microsoft MVP or MCP go here to get your gift:

       Free NFR license for Veeam Backup & Replication™ v6

This software was released a couple of weeks ago, and is version 6 of their Backup & Replication product. The best part is the tool now supports Windows Server Hyper-v!!!!!!!!!   You can learn more here: Veeam Brings its Data Protection to Windows Server Hyper-V.  Here is what Edwin Yuen, Director from Microsoft had to say about the new solution:

“Many organizations that rely on Windows Server Hyper-V also support other hypervisors. Veeam ‘s backup and replication solution for Windows Server Hyper-V, which includes innovations such as changed block tracking, gives customers a new option for managing their virtualized environments.”

If you are not familiar with Veeam’s Backup solution, it s a great tool that can help compliment your System Center DPM environment.  Here are some of the highlights:

• Veeam Backup & Replication support for Windows Server Hyper-V brings unprecedented speed and efficiency to Windows Server Hyper-V data protection. Major first-to-market capabilities include:
  • 2-in-1: backup and replication: Provides image-based backup and near-continuous data protection (near-CDP) in a single solution.
  • Built-in deduplication and compression: Included at no extra charge, these capabilities minimize consumption of network bandwidth and backup storage.
  • Changed block tracking for Windows Server Hyper-V: Exclusive Veeam technology enables fast, frequent and efficient backup and replication of all VMs, including those running on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV).
• Additional differentiators for Windows Server Hyper-V include:
  • Agentless: There are no agents to license, deploy, maintain, or monitor.
  • Forever incremental: Eliminates the need for full periodic backups by creating new full backups from incremental backups. This is essential when backing up large VMs or over a WAN.
  • Instant file-level recovery: Restore Windows guest files directly from an image-level backup.

If Veeam seems familiar to you, they participated in the recent blog series The Cloud on Your Terms- 30 Days about the Cloud  and they wrote The Cloud on Your Terms Part 12 of 30- One Big Happy Private Cloud.  Veeam Software, innovative provider of data protection, disaster recovery and management solutions for virtual datacenter environments, 

Quiz #4 opens today at 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST

Are you up for the Challenge?

If you answered yes, and if you are you a student, do you know a student or are you going back to school and can you answer a question like this then your ready for Round 1 of the Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge:

You are the administrator for the company network. You are bringing a new remote office online. The office has a domain controller that also runs DNS and WINS. It also has a file server that runs DHCP. DHCP enabled workstations are not getting DHCP addresses as expected. What should you do?

1. Move the DHCP service to the domain controller
2. Disable WINS since it interferes with DHCP on the same network
3. Authorize the DHCP server in Active Directory
4. Enable DHCP forwarding on the workstations

Well if you can answer that (btw this is from the practice test) then you may be ready to take the test to pass round 1, Until October 20th, go take the practice exam here:

Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge

To learn more about the challenge take a look at my post here : Students Are You Up for a Challenge? Enter the Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge NOW!

Here are the quiz dates

• Practice Quiz: Available beginning October 17
• Quiz 1, 20 October 2011:
  October 19th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 2, 15 November 2011:
  November 14th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 3, 1 December 2011:
  November 30th , 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 4. 14 December 2011:
  December 13th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 5, 9 January 2012:
  January 8th, 2012 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 6, 26 January 2012:
  January 25th, 2012 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)

One of the things that can help provide a differentiator in your career is certification.  Especially with all of the new technologies centered around today’s technology.  You may be wondering where to start, well Brian provides some great and helpful tips for you get jumpstarted on certification.

Check out Brian’s post here: The Cloud on Your Terms Part 30 of 30: Certification Tips To Get Your Career Ready For The Cloud

As I mentioned in part 1 we are going to be posting the series across 4 blogs: Brian Lewis, John Weston, Kevin Remde and myself. Let us know what you think of the posts and if you think of topic let us know!

If you happen to miss a part and want to get caught up. You can find all the parts of the series here: The Cloud on Your Terms: 30 Days about the Cloud

Quiz #3  opens today at 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST

Are you up for the Challenge?

If you answered yes, and if you are you a student, do you know a student or are you going back to school and can you answer a question like this then your ready for Round 1 of the Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge:

You are the administrator for the company network. You are bringing a new remote office online. The office has a domain controller that also runs DNS and WINS. It also has a file server that runs DHCP. DHCP enabled workstations are not getting DHCP addresses as expected. What should you do?

1. Move the DHCP service to the domain controller
2. Disable WINS since it interferes with DHCP on the same network
3. Authorize the DHCP server in Active Directory
4. Enable DHCP forwarding on the workstations

Well if you can answer that (btw this is from the practice test) then you may be ready to take the test to pass round 1, Until October 20th, go take the practice exam here:

Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge

To learn more about the challenge take a look at my post here : Students Are You Up for a Challenge? Enter the Imagine Cup 2012 IT Challenge NOW!

Here are the quiz dates

• Practice Quiz: Available beginning October 17
• Quiz 1, 20 October 2011:
  October 19th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 2, 15 November 2011:
  November 14th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 3, 1 December 2011:
  November 30th , 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 4. 14 December 2011:
  December 13th, 2011 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 5, 9 January 2012:
  January 8th, 2012 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)
• Quiz 6, 26 January 2012:
  January 25th, 2012 8:01 p.m. EST (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)

In today’s post we have Net/IQ talk about how do you get to the cloud.  Hopefully during this series you have wanted to hop on in and try virtualization.  Maybe you are taking a look at comparing your existing virtualization environment with Hyper-V, but how do you get there?  Well in today’s post Net/IQ gives you one possible answer to that question, with a tool called PlateSpin Migrate.

  Check out NetIQ’s post here: The Cloud on Your Terms Part 29 of 30: How Do I Get to Hyper-V?

As I mentioned in part 1 we are going to be posting the series across 4 blogs: Brian Lewis, John Weston, Kevin Remde and myself. Let us know what you think of the posts and if you think of topic let us know!

If you happen to miss a part and want to get caught up. You can find all the parts of the series here: The Cloud on Your Terms: 30 Days about the Cloud

If anyone has a spare $650,000k laying around, I would like one.  Full article here: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/20/the-gadget-show-builds-an-fps-simulator-that-shoots-back-video/ Watch the video (about 17 minutes) amazing technology:.

Welcome to my personal favorite part of the series, part 28!  Really the series would have been incomplete without a part of the series focused on PowerShell!  As many of you may know PowerShell is one the great tools we can use as administrators for automation of repetitive tasks.  IT Administrators have been saving time for years with PowerShell and on premise servers.  Well you can continue to leverage your PowerShell skills as there is support for the worlds greatest shell in Office 365 and Windows Azure.  In today’s post we will take a look at both ways to leverage the PowerShell in both technologies.

Windows Azure and PowerShell

The cmdlets are based on the the Windows Azure Management and Diagnostics APIs and the full source code is available through this CodePlex project so you can better understand the underlying APIs. Finally, the documentation included with the download package also shows how to use the cmdlets to perform a new Windows Azure deployment and retrieve information about a hosted service. You can download the cmdlets here: Windows Azure Platform PowerShell Cmdlets    The Windows Azure Platform PowerShell Cmdlets enable you to browse, configure, and manage Windows Azure Compute and Storage services directly from PowerShell. These tools can be helpful when developing and testing applications that use Windows Azure Services. For instance, using these tools you can easily script the deployment and upgrade of Windows Azure applications, change the configuration for a role, and set and manage your diagnostic configuration. There is also some great documentation for the cmdlets here: To Learn more about the Azure cmdlets   You can view a full list of the PowerShell Cmdlets here.   Cerebrata also makes a 3rd part toolset for Windows Azure, you can learn more here: http://www.cerebrata.com/Products/AzureManagementCmdlets/ 

Office 365 and PowerShell

With Office 365 you can leverage PowerShell for Exchange Online as well as a couple of ways to work with the Office 365 service.  Before you can begin to work with Office 365 in a PowerShell session you need to download the Microsoft Online Services Module for Windows PowerShell.    This module for installs a set of Office 365 cmdlets that you can use to accomplish many administrative tasks, such as user management, domain management, and configuration of some of the service-level settings discussed on this page.   You can learn more about the Microsoft Online Services Module for Windows PowerShell here: Use Windows PowerShell to manage Office 365 .  After you have installed the PowerShell module you can import the module with the following PowerShell command or load the Microsoft Online Services Module for Windows PowerShell shortcut :

Import-Module MSonline

You can use these PowerShell cmdlets to change users passwords,  add users, set user properties…etc.  To see all the cmdlets for the module you can run the following:

Get-Command -module MSonline

One of the fantastic capabilities for is the ability is to manage Exchange Online with PowerShell.   This is actually pretty easy to do after you have loaded the MSOnline module.  The following PowerShell commands will allow you to manage your Exchange online environment:

#Get your Credentials (you will use your administrator account for your Office 365 account (i.e. admin@domain.onmicrosoft.com)
$LiveCred = Get-Credential

#Create a new Remote Powershell Session to Office 365 (the credential you stored in $LiveCred is used here to take you the specific Exchange online environment)
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $LiveCred -Authentication Basic –AllowRedirection

#Start the the Exchange Online session
Import-PSSession $Session

#Find the commands (when you start the session you will get a script with a tmp and long identifier)
Get-Module
Get-command -module #name of the tmp*

If you want to learn more about PowerShell here are two great resources for you:

• PowerShell Not Your Father's Command Line: 31 Days of PowerShell
• My Book (available now): Automating Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Windows PowerShell 2.0 

As I mentioned in part 1 we are going to be posting the series across 4 blogs: Brian Lewis, John Weston, Kevin Remde and myself. Let us know what you think of the posts and if you think of topic let us know!

If you happen to miss a part and want to get caught up. You can find all the parts of the series here: The Cloud on Your Terms: 30 Days about the Cloud