As IT Pros, we absolutely love building with new technology! In February, my fellow IT Pro Technical Evangelists and I have been worked 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. Here...

As some of you noticed we have been delivering another series this month focusing on Deployment and Migration on several scenarios. This post is do you caught up some of the great posts we have delivered over the last couple of weeks. 6. Requirements for a fresh Windows Server 2012 Installation...

The Windows Server 2012 "Early Experts" Challenge provides a FREE online study group with certification exam preparation materials for quickly learning about the latest version of Windows Server! The Challenge involves a series of Knowledge Quests - starting with the Apprentice Quest below - and each...

The Solution Accelerators team just announced the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 8.0 Beta.   Join the MAP 8.0 beta. Included in MAP 8.0 Beta are hardware and infrastructure readiness assessments to assist you in planning the deployment of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 , preparing...

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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...

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...

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...

As a Microsoft Certified Trainer I have had the privileged to meet and work with some fantastic individuals.  I have also been part counselor when I have had folks come to my class worried about jobs, from folks worried about learning Active Directory from other directory services, to folks learning...

Quiz #2 (sorry I missed quiz one I was OOF)  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...

In our last few posts we have taken a look at some of concepts and technologies behind the cloud.   In this post we are going to take a look at your servers and your core infrastructure.  Often times I think we get all excited coming technologies then we realize we are still running Windows...

Welcome to Day 1 of 30 days of Cloud on Your Terms!  Brian Lewis , John Weston , Kevin Remde and myself are going to take you through 30 days of Cloud discussion, from public to private to hybrid you are going to hear about it all from a technical aspect and stories from our own experiences working...

I got to spend some time with my good friends Chris and Blain on the IT Time “Halloween” episode we discussed  the Top 10 Scariest things an IT Pro can avoid when using Windows Server 2008 R2.    As you can tell the episode was a bit different.  Have fun! Check out the book: Windows...

Well we the Imagine Cup 2011 IT Challenge is back again and I have just one question for you?  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...

Well we are on the road again!  We are hitting the road and take a look at the events we are doing in the US at TechNet Events in the central US to see if you’ll be able to spend the day with us. “A day? I thought you guys usually do the 1/2-day TechNet Events.” Yeah, that was then. This is now...

I saw this case study and thought I would share, and it has some really good info into what goes into a private cloud.  Microsoft moves to the Private Cloud by planning, architecting, developing and managing the first Private Cloud solution within the Microsoft datacenter. The combination of shared...

One of the fun things I get to do everyday is point people to products and resources.  With IT there seems to be an ever changing world and transformation on the tools and resources we use almost happens daily. have a had a few folks ask where can I get the tools and resources to test some the new...

Talk TechNet is a twice weekly, one hour radio show for IT Professionals hosted by Senior Program Manager Keith Combs and myself.  Each episode focuses on a specific product or technology. Listeners are encouraged to call in and discuss the topic for the day, or ask questions to help unblock a deployment...

We have a new promotion for TechNet Professional Subscriptions from now until June 30, 2011 purchase a new TechNet Subscription Professional and save 15% with TN3MNA06 . By using TN3MNA06 you can save 15% on a new TechNet Professional Subscription! Click here to get your TechNet Subscription: Purchase...

Good afternoon and thank you to everyone who attended the event in Cincinnati ! I hope everyone had a good time.  Again thank you for the patience with the projectors it turned out to be a crossed cable at the projector, but thank you for Thinking Pink during the event.  As promised here are...

May 2 – Toronto | May 4 – Detroit | May 6 – Chicago | May 9 – Indianapolis | May 11 – Dallas | May 13 - Columbus The Springboard Series Tour is back! This 6 city tour brings the top product teams from Microsoft to you. We understand the questions and issues that IT pros deal with every day. How do I...

If you have ever wanted to use Live Migration (LM) and High Availability (HA) you had to have shared storage . This shared storage can be in the forms of SAS, iSCSI or Fiber Channel SAN. For many environments this isn't an issue, but there are some specific scenarios where customers need LM and HA and...

Thank you to everyone who attended the event in Cleveland, I had a great time and a lot of great conversations, here is the Q/A and resources from the event. I will also be placing the slides here: TechNet Slides: Transforming IT from Virtualization to the Cloud and here: TechNet Event Slides I also...

One of the great aspects of my job is I get to work with a lot of different user groups and meet lots of people from the IT Pro community.  Well I did my best to get a list of all the IT professional  user groups I work with in the Heartland territory (Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee...

This is the Last Call, Quiz number 8 Opens tonight at 8:01p.m. est! Quiz 8:  January 31, 2011 January 30, 8:01 p.m. EST  (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)  Click here to register: http://imaginecup.com/register If you are not familiar with the challenge, the Imagine Cup IT Challenge...