Last week was a busy one with everything from cloud services to competitions and event announcements. There were also a couple of interesting case studies on Virtualisation and infrastructure as well and a bit on mobile.
You don’t have to be an engineer to find something useful in the list below.
If you would like to receive this sort of content directly to your inbox just sign up to our newsletter. Or if you prefer it tweeted to you follow us on Twitter. We also have a Facebook page for those who prefer to get their content that way.
We put Steve Plank in a room full of video equipment, computers and a whiteboard. Here’s what happened… He got really into explaining cloud computing and how to keep your business agile by explaining the advantages of scale through using cloud based architectures.
Anybody can achieve business agility if they spend enough money. Cloud computing allows companies to achieve it at a low cost: making the agile organisation that can make profit, take share and respond in a very dynamic way to new opportunities.
What top tips can you think of that would be useful to people considering cloud development but traditionally run their own hardware?
The weather has chilled somewhat in the UK this last week and the SQLBits Conference is coming up fast… with snow forecast next week we thought that it would be a great idea share some love for the conference and keep a few of you warm and cozy. So we’re offering up 3 NorthFace fleeces in our competition to keep you warm this winter. They are pretty awesome and come complete with the SQL 2012 logo on the left shoulder. (To show off your geek credentials!)
For a chance to win a fleece:
Each tweet, retweet and share that you generate will result in an entry into the competition. But remember you must be following us or have joined our Facebook page.
The competition closes at midday GMT on Tuesday 14th February when we will announce the three winners! Good luck!
Please note this competition is open to UK residents only. Prizes are non-transferable and a cash alternative will not be given.
Back in December Simon and I invited a few friends along to help us beta test a different kind of event, an IT Camp. The idea is simply to do smaller, more interactive events where discussions and questions are encouraged. The presenters, (Simon and I) being a bit more in the background. The first of these events went down very well, but in this spirit of interaction we were keen to understand what we could do to make the camp even better. Having made some changes based on the feedback from that test event we are now ready to go on the road and our events team are looking out for regional venues so we can come and see you rather than you travelling down to London or Reading.
There are actually four types of camps designed to complement the online resources we have on the Microsoft Virtual Academy site:
Camp 1. Server Virtualisation. This is for those unfamiliar with the latest version of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2. We will explore all the basics including networking and clustering and run through a short introduction to using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Camp 2. An Introduction to Microsoft’s Private Cloud. This builds on the first camp and explores all the key features in System Center 2012 that enable cloud like processes and capabilities in your own data centre. Camp 3. Server Migration. Specifically the tricks and tools from migrating your various server workloads from Windows Server 2003 to 2008 R2, Camp 4. Consumerisation of IT. This explores the issues and benefits of integrating your users’ own devices with your infrastructure, such as slates, smart phones and laptops.
Camp 1. Server Virtualisation. This is for those unfamiliar with the latest version of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2. We will explore all the basics including networking and clustering and run through a short introduction to using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012
Camp 2. An Introduction to Microsoft’s Private Cloud. This builds on the first camp and explores all the key features in System Center 2012 that enable cloud like processes and capabilities in your own data centre.
Camp 3. Server Migration. Specifically the tricks and tools from migrating your various server workloads from Windows Server 2003 to 2008 R2,
Camp 4. Consumerisation of IT. This explores the issues and benefits of integrating your users’ own devices with your infrastructure, such as slates, smart phones and laptops.
You’ll see more coming out about this in the TechNet newsletter and the various dates and venues are on the IT Camps page on the UK TechDays site, shortly, but I wanted to specifically mention that the first of these camps will take place in Leeds on 28th Feb. This will be a Camp 1 server virtualisation event. Our plan on the day is to work together to build a Hyper-V cluster using your machines as well as our own kit. You don’t have to use your own machine if you don’t want to but if you have a laptop with 20Gb of free space on and 4Gb of RAM and it can run Hyper-V then we’ll take you thought the steps to set up Hyper-V without affecting what you have on there already.
If you follow the links you’ll see that this event is by invitation and this is because we want to try and ensure the right people attend as it is limited to 70 delegates. So who are the right people? For this event it will be Techie IT professional types, who are only now becoming interested in what Microsoft is doing with server virtualisation, perhaps because they are using something else or their business for whatever reason is only now considering a move to use this technology, i.e. it’s not really for Hyper-V experts. If this sounds like you or a colleague then drop me an e-mail and I’ll send you the code, and you’re in.