I just found out about this and had to pass it on! John and I have been colleagues for years and I am certain that this will be an incredible training. This intensive one week event is designed to give attendees the skills required to architect, deploy and manage a Microsoft centric environment. By the...

TechEd 2013 North America will take place June 3-6 in New Orleans. TechEd is Microsoft’s premiere conference for IT Professionals and Enterprise Developers, offering the most comprehensive technical education across Microsoft's products, solutions, tools, and services. I have had the privilege...

Here are all the parts of the Wndows Azure IaaS Series, please check as this post will be updated daily. If you want to see a particular scenario let us know and email me at mhester@microsoft.com . Also remember you can sign up for a FREE Windows Azure 90-Day Trial here: Get Started TODAY with a FREE...

Being able to protect your Private cloud is one of the more important things you can do. With so many moving parts how do you approach this. If you are leveraging System Center 2012 for the many other components of your infrastructure, than I would highly recommend you look at Data Protection Manager...

In Part 3 of the Windows Azure IaaS series I discuss with Keith Mayer common scenarios in which IT Pros may use Windows Azure as a hybrid solution between their on-premise and cloud service needs. Tune in as we discuss disaster recovery and storage as well as how to migrate your SharePoint environment...

When you first start working with provision your private cloud, you will need to learn how to provision the physical hardware or bare metal of your environment.  Learning how to provision bare metal systems allows you to deploy physical systems to serve various roles.  In regards to the private...

Here is part 2 of the Windows Azure IaaS series and in this episode I take a look at the top Windows Azure Virtual Machines FAQs and common gotchas with Hari Dogiparthi. Tune in for this Q&A session and get the answers to some of the most common issues seen by customers. Also stick around for a quick...

I kick off a 8 part Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) series and in today’s episode I welcome Chief Technical Evangelist for the Cloud, Brian Prince to the show as they give us an overview of Microsoft’s IaaS platform, aka Windows Azure Virtual Machines . Tune in as we build...

I had the privilege to sit down and talk with Yuri Diogenes and Tom Shinder to talk about Windows Azure IaaS .   We chatted about the overall capabilities to configure and deploy VMs, security functionalities and recommendations during the migration process. I also did a quick demonstration...

Build your very own Virtual Network in the Cloud for FREE with the Windows Azure cloud platform, and Enter for a chance to win one of the following fantastic prizes: One Grand Prize: Ticket to TechEd 2013 North America in New Orleans, LA ( $2,195 retail value ) PLUS a $500 VISA Gift Card. Two...

As I wrote in October of last year, SMB is dramatically improved, to learn more about SMB take a look at this article: 31 Days of Our Favorite Things: SMB 3.0 the Glue in Windows Server 2012 .  In this post, you will take a closer look at how Hyper-V and SMB.  Bob takes a look at some of the...

Here is a part 17 and Tommy does a great job at taking a look at System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM).    He shows how it works with Hyper-V and what you can monitor about your virtualization environments  Check out his post here: Virtualization Experts Series – Virtualization...

To download a copy of a slide deck: Click on the bottom right of the PowerPoint to “View full-size presentation” In the new browser window go to the menu and click File –> Download a copy Session 1: System Center 2012 SP1 and Azure IaaS Overview Session 2: Upgrade To Windows Server 2012 Session 3...

One of the features in Windows Server 2012 that got greatly enhanced is the Failover Clustering. See the bottom of this post for a list of all the new and improved features. In today’s part we are going to take a look at how Hyper-V takes advantages of some of these enhancements and how you can...

As some of you may know I am extremely excited about Windows Azure IaaS and the virtual machines feature (currently in customer preview). During my sessions I get a lot of the same questions about how Windows Azure IaaS works. Well I had a chance to do an ask the experts session a couple of weeks ago...

In Windows Server 2012 , and in networking in general there has been tremendous strides to improve network teaming.  Virtualization is no different and in this post Harold takes a look at the network teaming built-in to Windows Server 2012 .  Check out his post here: Server Virtualization Series...

In Windows Server 2012 , we have really enhanced the Hyper-V role.  One feature in Hyper-V that really got an overhaul is the virtual networking.    From  Virtual Machine Queue, IPsec task offloading, Single-root I/O virtualization(SR-IOV), and Live migration on Server 2012 Hyper...

In the part of the series Brian takes a look at one of the new features in Windows Server 2012 .  The ability to migrate your storage for your virtualization.  Take a look at his post here: Step-by-Step: Storage Live Migration ( Part 8 of 20)   We hope you enjoy the series, and if you...

One of the services we introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2 was the iSCSI services (which was a free download)  In Windows Server 2012 this is built-in and easy to install.  You can also do a majority of the work in PowerShell.  In this part Keith takes a look at the iSCSI services and...

Storage and where to put all the components for your virtual machines is key to your virtualization deployment.  In part 5 of the Bob, takes a great look a the different storage options.  What is even more amazing, is a some of the options fit really well inside of Windows Server 2012 . ...

Today we take a look at data stores. Tommy does a great post where he talks about datastores…err Folders in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V .  He does a great job of highlighting the differences between Hyper-V and VMware: Hyper-V “Datastores” – Wait we dont need no stinkin’ datastores! We hope you...

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...

Today get two posts for the price of one.  Dan and Chris take a great look at Dynamic Memory in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V .  Dan’s post takes you thoroughly through the feature he even does a comparison of Hyper-V Dynamic Memory vs. ESX Overcommit.  He does a great job take a look at...

So have you ever wanted to add a hard drive to physical system while it is hot (running) but too afraid to try?   Just kidding I know most of you have probably done this at one point or another.  So how do we Hot add stuff to Hyper-V , and more importantly what can we hot add to Hyper...

Well another month and another series!  This month we are going to be going through Virtualization and talking about how Windows Server 2012 has changed the game when it comes to Virtualization.  This month we are going to take a look at all great things you need to know.  In this first...