Taking a look at virtualization technologies and the benefits it brings to customers can help build an understanding of some of the potential areas cloud computing can also help businesses. Cloud computing takes the concept of virtualization to a whole new level, far beyond the simple server consolidation that many people still associate it with. When you think of the cloud (particularly a private cloud, which more and more enterprises are making a priority) you should think of it as a virtualized computing environment that delivers a host of compelling new IT benefits. A private cloud presents your datacenter as a pooled, single entity of compute power instead of a collection of individual servers. So it's easy to see that factors such as management and identity become crucial, as does your approach to application development if you intend to take full advantage of cloud computing.
Data from one of our internal teams at Microsoft sheds new light on the state of affairs in virtualization today. As detailed in this study and related blog post, a group at Microsoft dubbed the "War on Cost" team wanted to understand the ongoing operations and management costs for virtualization implementations using a Microsoft Hyper-V solution vs. VMware's ESX and vSphere products. They hired a research firm to get the answer to two questions: which platform is less expensive to operate, and how do management tools impact cost? Some great highlights:
Your mileage may vary, but take a look at the study and related blog post I mentioned above. And there's certainly more than just cost involved in considering your cloud computing options. But however you cut it, these numbers make a compelling case for the power and value of Microsoft's virtualization solutions today. And they provide an interesting snapshot of the cutting edge of competition for cloud computing for tomorrow.
Thanks - Mario
When you were a child, chances are you looked up into the sky and wondered what kind of cloud you were looking at or what cloud you want to be. Back then knowing what type of a cloud you were looking at boiled down to a three main choices:
Now you may not have really asked that question, but you may have had a pushy science teacher asking you the question. You may even have been dozing when you were asked that question, and blurted out a name at the top of your head, which btw was not your favorite or the right answer. Heck you did have a 1 in 3 chance of getting the answer right.
As an IT Professional today, you are being asked, or asking yourself, the same question today. What kind of Cloud is right for the business? This is not a question you want to guess at, or even get wrong. It is a question you will have to take a look at your business, and the cloud choices to make the best decision for your organization.
This question could be coming from many different sides, it might come from your boss, your developers, or even your colleagues from other business. With all the choices we have today the possibilities in the coming in the future, you have several choices of clouds to consider:
Now combine the conversation with the fact you the choice to house your infrastructure, on-premises, all in the cloud, or a mix based on your business needs. Chances are like most organizations you are looking at the mixed type of environment. You have to start thinking about the cloud, and what type of cloud will most benefit your business today. There are a lot of organizations asking this question today, and finding value in the cloud and so can you.
So: What Kind of Cloud is Your Business Looking to Become?
When you look at all the above choices from Microsoft, they provide a secure and flexible set of cloud-based IT solutions, including communications, collaboration, data storage, and infrastructure services. By providing a safe, familiar environment where you can test, develop, and deploy, Microsoft cloud services lets you dramatically scale your applications; leverage skills like PHP, Java, and Eclipse; and more. To help you find out, I have a Quiz for you to take:
www.microsoft.com/cloud/quiz
This quiz will let you know what kind of cloud you are and more importantly allow to start to discover more about the choices the cloud has for you. Find out how Microsoft® cloud services can help you focus on development, not infrastructure, and ultimately help you answer the question, what kind of cloud are you.
The world of IT is changing, again. This time we are looking at a change in the way we think about hosting operating systems, applications, and services. In the traditional model all three of those things were hosted on a companies local server. Over the past few years we have really seen the explosive growth of three key areas called platform as a service (PAAS) architecture as a service(AAAS) and software as a service(SAAS.) Taken collectively these components (and a bunch of other stuff too) is called “The Cloud.”
“The Cloud!” The term conjures ideas of all of the things that an IT guy dreams of on a good night. Unlimited IT Resources. (oooooooo) A pay as you go cost model with no up front fixed hardware costs to amortize over 2 to 3 years.(ahhhhhhhh) Automated quality backup with geographically dispersed data storage. (Ohhhhhhh) The possibilities really are pretty cool. One of the greatest examples I have seen recently comes from the Chicago Tribune. They are embracing Windows Azure as their platform as a service offering. They will be staking the future of their business on Windows Azure. When you watch the video a few key points will emerge, and I think they are worth talking about because they don’t just apply to the Chicago Tribune. They apply to just about every business. 1. Onsite IT is really expensive! Trying to maintain an IT infrastructure onsite and the staff to manage that infrastructure is really a cost drain. 2. Expertise is expensive, and essential. An internal IT infrastructure has a set of requirements around infrastructure services (like AD, DNS,IP,etc.), security, and maintenance that must be in place in order to successfully operate the business. That’s expensive. 3. Hosting your own applications is expensive! If you want a website that does more than offer fairly simple static information, the applications and automation will require both programming and architecture to make them work. 4. Buying your own infrastructure offers no flexible scalability! If you are running your own hardware architecture you have to buy the biggest baddest server you can afford, (translation: Expensive,) knowing it will probably not be enough power if your online idea goes big, and more likely will be too much if your online idea receives a lukewarm reception. Those 4 key points can all be addressed by running your applications on Windows Azure. The Chicago Tribune, and every other newspaper, magazine, radio show, television program and media network, will not survive without the move to the online world. Azure is the Platform as a service offering that will offer the inroads and solutions they are looking for. Azure solves several of the key IT problems associated with the next generation of IT for the media and information dissemination outlets. It will also provide that same solutions for your business! How much will you save and what can your business do with the savings?
“The Cloud!” The term conjures ideas of all of the things that an IT guy dreams of on a good night. Unlimited IT Resources. (oooooooo) A pay as you go cost model with no up front fixed hardware costs to amortize over 2 to 3 years.(ahhhhhhhh) Automated quality backup with geographically dispersed data storage. (Ohhhhhhh) The possibilities really are pretty cool.
One of the greatest examples I have seen recently comes from the Chicago Tribune. They are embracing Windows Azure as their platform as a service offering. They will be staking the future of their business on Windows Azure.
1. Onsite IT is really expensive! Trying to maintain an IT infrastructure onsite and the staff to manage that infrastructure is really a cost drain.
2. Expertise is expensive, and essential. An internal IT infrastructure has a set of requirements around infrastructure services (like AD, DNS,IP,etc.), security, and maintenance that must be in place in order to successfully operate the business. That’s expensive.
3. Hosting your own applications is expensive! If you want a website that does more than offer fairly simple static information, the applications and automation will require both programming and architecture to make them work.
4. Buying your own infrastructure offers no flexible scalability! If you are running your own hardware architecture you have to buy the biggest baddest server you can afford, (translation: Expensive,) knowing it will probably not be enough power if your online idea goes big, and more likely will be too much if your online idea receives a lukewarm reception.
Those 4 key points can all be addressed by running your applications on Windows Azure. The Chicago Tribune, and every other newspaper, magazine, radio show, television program and media network, will not survive without the move to the online world. Azure is the Platform as a service offering that will offer the inroads and solutions they are looking for. Azure solves several of the key IT problems associated with the next generation of IT for the media and information dissemination outlets. It will also provide that same solutions for your business! How much will you save and what can your business do with the savings?
Welcome to part 6 of a 6 part series talking about a great FREE tool, which has released it’s 5th major version on Monday (7-12-2010).
The new version, MAP 5.0, has some exciting new features to help with discovery and software usage. In this screencast we will take a look at MAP can help right-size your IT environment and simplify software license management and compliance processes. MAP 5.0’s new usage tracking feature provides consistent software usage reports for key Microsoft server products: Windows Server, SharePoint Server, System Center Configuration Manager, Exchange Server, and SQL Server. Run updated reports whenever you need to accurately assess current software usage and client access history in your environment. This reduces time and administrative costs for managing your server and client access licenses (CALs) and helps you to streamline the management of your software assets.
To learn more about MAP please take a look at the following:
As we have been looking at Azure for the past 12 months, it is beginning to get more and more features and the title of Mary Jo Foley’s article says it all:
Microsoft's Windows Azure: What a difference a year makes
Microsoft Windows Azure has added several new features and with more coming the in the late October time frame. Some of the changes include:
Now while most of this is still heavily focused on the application developers and provide a tremendous benefit to the applications they right. As an IT Pro we should expect some exciting changes in late October for us. Hopefully we will hear more about the Virtual Machine support in Azure. More importantly, on the IT Pro front for Azure we have a voice in the game now, with Bill Laing, Corporate Vice President, Server and Cloud Division. This comment from Mary Jo Foley’s article:
“The IT pro point of view is what I brought to this,” Laing said. “Azure originally was a developer platform. But as we started to talk to customers and partners, they wanted to know if they could have Azure in their own data centers.”
Like I wrote in my article, Windows Azure Bringing Developers and IT Pro’s of the World Together, the cloud provides a platform that is bringing together your dev and IT Departments. Now as the platform grows we will be able to do more with Windows Azure, from an IT Pro perspective, and truly leverage the scalability it offers. Windows Azure truly provides another source of allowing you to provide value back to your business, and another platform we get to work with.
As you can see the present and the future are looking great for Windows Azure!
Keith Combs and I have a podcast show called the IT Investigators. We like to have fun interviewing a variety of guests on wide ranging topics and this episode is no exception. So Keith calls me one day and says he has setup and interview for us. I asked who is it? He calmly and simply it was going to be none other than Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Tony Scott. Very Cool!
The body of questions center around general information technology skills and how they are changing in various situations. Some of the answers will surprise you. They certainly did me.
Keith and I also wondered about Tony’s time at Walt Disney Company. I mean after all, it is the magic kingdom so I just couldn’t resist asking about casual Friday and exploring your inner self with the characters of Disney. Tony was a good sport about it and talks about his stint as a bear.
The podcast is right at twenty four minutes and although the cell phone gods intervened right at the end, we managed to get a number of questions answered. I think you’ll find it is a good listen. Hope you enjoy it.
The Changing Nature of IT Skills – Interview with Tony Scott (24:18)
Files for Download and Offline Play – please right mouse click the format you want and SAVE AS to your PC or Mac.
Welcome to part 5 of a 6 part series talking about a great FREE tool, which has released it’s 5th major version on Monday (7-12-2010). The new version, MAP 5.0, has some exciting new features to help with discovery and software usage. In this screencast we take a look at how MAP performs a network inventory of IT assets remotely without the use of agents, identifying heterogeneous server environments consisting of Windows Server and Linux operating systems, including those running in a virtual environment. MAP 5.0 also automates the discovery of Linux-powered LAMP stacks.
Windows IT Pro is celebrating its 15 year anniversary this year. Congratulations! That’s a major achievement in our industry. As part of a series Michael Otley wrote a post for the Windows It Pro blog called “Top 15 Windows Server Innovations In the Past 15 years.” It is definitely worth a few minutes to go out and read the post in its entirety.
I loved the post! Otley is right on the money with some great innovations that we have seen in the world of Windows servers over 15 years. While I am sure it was hard to pick just 15 innovations I feel like there are some major keys missing from Otley’s list, and possibly some additions that made the list on hype not actual performance. (Eg. the Remote Fx, and the Dynamic memory stuff) Its not that I don’t think those are awesome innovations, but just not what I would consider top 15 in the past 15 years. As I read his post I started thinking about what my own list would look like. The difficulty of course comes from the fact that we are talking about 15 years, and in that 15 year time span Windows has gone from a tiny percentage of server market share to the overwhelming leader in the server industry. What innovations spurred that sweeping change? I would like to take a crack at answering that question myself. (Incidentally my list will only contain 5 items.)
So here Goes……
In order of importance…..
1. TCP/IP – I know, I know. Not glamorous or sexy, but in my mind this is the tipping point. Microsoft first released their version of TCP/IP for Windows 3.5 in September of 1994 which is technically 16 years ago, not within the 15 year Window, (pun intended) however this is the single most important innovation in the history of Windows Server. Yes you read that correctly! This is the single most important innovation in Windows Server history. It is the key driver that swung the balance of power away from our competitors and their various proprietary (albeit fast) protocols. It provided a standards based method of connectivity on which to build and host all of the major innovations that would follow. Had Microsoft chosen to stay with NetBEUI we would have never made the leap into the mainstream server marketplace.
2. Exchange (Windows Messaging) – 15 years ago Microsoft plunged headlong into the uncharted world of something called e-mail. That foray has resulted in one of the most used server products in the world today. Many of the innovations that are on Mr. Otleys list (and on mine for that matter) were tested or developed from Exchange. Can you imagine a business without email? Me either.
3. Active Directory – for all the reasons Michael Otley lists and many many more.
4. The NTFS File System – Again not sexy but oh so important. Unlike proprietary protocols file systems do very well in a proprietary environment. NTFS is the proof.
5. Microsoft Office – I know I have broken the 15 year rule again. So lets just say all the versions of Office since 1995. Now many of you are thinking that Office is a desktop technology and I guess when it comes right down to it you are right, but, and this is a really really big but, the files associated with office are the key drivers of File server adoption. Office and Server are such a powerful combination we would be totally remiss if we didn’t include this on the list of key server innovations. It is no coincidence that versions of Office are generally preceded by releases of Windows Server and vice versa. The 2 products have a symbiotic market relationship. I will state one more argument for putting office here. The reason we have SharePoint, #5 on Otley’s list, coincidentally, is because of office.
And there you have it. My list of key innovations of the past 15 years. The past is the past. We can learn from it and celebrate it.
What are the key innovations happening right now?
What we will look back on in 15 years and say “Those were the key innovations of the last 15 years!”
Oddly enough I think the list starts with exactly the same thing.
1. TCP/IP! This time Microsoft is pushing hard to IPV6 and the innovations that this change has already fostered and will yet foster will drive the server business for the next 15 years. If you would like to know the rest of the list stay tuned to this blog……………
I've been away on vacation this month so it's been a while since I posted, but I wanted to share the story of a Fortune 500 customer I just came across that really helps demonstrate the potential savings of Microsoft virtualization over competitive offerings.
CH2M HILL is a Fortune 500 company and global leader in full-service engineering, consulting, construction, and operations management services. In a recently published case study, the company talks about how they were looking for ways of reducing costs and increasing efficiencies. One of the things they looked at was their virtualization technology, which was VMware at the time. Needing a more cost effective virtualization solution, CH2M HILL began investigating the alternatives. Following a head-to-head test, they chose the Microsoft virtualization solutions, including Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and the System Center offerings such as System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
They expect to save over $3 million over the next three to five years by making this switch. In their own words:
"The company was cutting costs across the board, and we wanted to push forward with virtualizing more servers, especially in our field offices, but we just couldn't do it with VMware," said Greg Barton, senior analyst, Enterprise Systems Group, CH2M HILL. "By switching to Microsoft from VMware, we will save $280,000 in software fees. Plus, we can now afford to tackle our 600 field servers and are aiming to virtualize 20 percent of these computers each year. At $5,000 a server, that's a savings of $3 million over the next three to five years."
They're also seeing benefits from the reduction in time that their IT staff needs to spend on day to day tasks, freeing them up for more mission critical tasks and forward planning.
You can read CH2M HILL's full case study and also find more details at this site. If you'd like to see the benefits and savings that other customers are experiencing you can find additional information at the Microsoft virtualization site and also in various case studies for customers that have also switched to Microsoft's virtualization offerings.
Welcome to part 4 of a 6 part series talking about a great FREE tool, which has released it’s 5th major version on Monday (7-12-2010).
The new version, MAP 5.0, has some exciting new features to help with discovery and software usage. In this screencast we take a look how MAP 5.0’s new database discovery feature gives you the information you need to optimize your database resources and investments. MAP helps you simplify database administration and provides wide-ranging details of databases and server instances—information you can leverage for consolidation. Use the MAP Toolkit’s proposals to better utilize hardware and database resources, reduce administrative costs, and streamline your software licensing needs— all essentials for cost effective IT planning and operations.