MVA is running a Windows Azure Deep Dive week this month Jan 27-Jan31 

http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/colleges/windows-azure-deep-dive#?fbid=c3faeuin-q8

This will be a weeklong series of live, interactive sessions from the experts who built Azure that will show you how to start using Windows Azure in your solutions today. In addition to seeing lots of demos and real world examples, you’ll be able to get your questions answered in real time Q&A.

Scott Guthrie, Azure Guru and Microsoft Corporate Vice President, will kick off the week on Monday January 27 by building a real world application from scratch, end to end, to show you the latest capabilities of Azure.

Then each day, we’ll have deep dive sessions led by Microsoft’s top cloud platform development experts, including Scott Hanselman, Scott Hunter, Marc Mercuri, Cheryl McGuire, and Miranda Luna

These sessions are: (You need to register for each day/session…Registration link above.) 

1. Get Started with Windows Azure Today Jump Start: Overview Day, Monday January 27

2. Designing Applications for Windows Azure Jump Start: Architecture Day, Tuesday January 28

3. Building Windows Azure Applications Jump Start: Developer Day, Wednesday January 29

4. Windows Azure IaaS Deep Dive Jump Start: Infrastructure Day, Thursday January 30

5. Mobile Apps to IoT: Connected Devices with Windows Azure: Mobile Services Day, Friday January 31

Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication is the multi-factor authentication service that requires users to verify sign-ins using a mobile app, phone call, or text message.

Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication Overview (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn249471.aspx) provides a general overview of Multi-Factor Authentication and specific information on:

• Adding Multi-Factor Authentication to Windows Azure Active Directory
• Enabling Multi-Factor Authentication for On-Premises Applications and Windows Server
• Building Multi-Factor Authentication into Custom Apps (Using the SDK)

Enjoy

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/30/vmware_warns_of_possible_vsan_beta_data_loss/

VMware's vSAN isn't just giving storage appliance vendors a lot to worry about: it's also giving users plenty to consider because it erases data under some circumstances. Panic not, gentle readers: the tool is in beta and Virtzilla's engineers are onto the problem. But the problem is out there, and VMware has been kind enough to detail it here.

News of the data loss problem is well below the fold in that article, after discussions of the desirability for pass-through mode to be enabled on RAID controllers when running up a vSAN. The explanation of why, excerpted below, offers some interesting insights into vSAN's plumbing:

VSAN uses magnetic disks as the persistent store for the data on the VSAN datastore and Flash as a performance acceleration layer – a read cache and write buffer – in front of the magnetic disks. All writes go to the flash layer, and all reads are first tried from the flash layer. This design obtains the lowest $/GB (using magnetic disks) and the lowest $/IOP (using Flash). While magnetic disk drives provides a low $/GB, they only support limited IOPs.

VSAN directly manages the magnetic disks, published via the pass-thru controller, in a way that the limited IOPs on the magnetic disk are used in the most optimal way. To do so, VSAN implements a proximal IO algorithm. The proximal IO algorithm is used to de-stage writes from the Flash device that is “approximately” close to each other on the magnetic disk. This design addresses the “I/O blender” situation where sequential I/O from a VM can become random when multiple VM are doing I/O to the same disk. The VSAN proximal IO algorithm turns the random I/O from the I/O blender back into sequential I/O, thus improving performance.

All of which is very interesting, but you're really interested in data loss, aren't you, lest you mess things up during some beta testing.

The good news is that data loss problems will only strike users of the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) SATA controller, which VMware says “has known issues with VSAN.”

“This manifests itself as disks/controller going into degraded mode and resulting in PDL (Permanent Device Loss),” VMware writes. “This could result in data loss and VSAN becoming unavailable.”

That's VMware's bold tagging by the way.

The good news is that “The VSAN team is actively looking at this issue”, which probably means lots of chats with Intel, the source of AHCI. Virtzilla has also signed off on a handful of other RAID controllers from IBM, HP, Dell and LSI, so it's not as if the AHCI problem means vSAN is too dangerous to touch in beta form. ®

Umit is starting a new online training series following Windows Azure Learning Poster (http://aka.ms/WALearningPoster). Every week he will continue one step forward and enlighten the road to Windows Azure mastery

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/umits/archive/2013/09/23/windows-azure-from-zero-to-hero-online-series.aspx

Enjoy!

Booting from a storage area network (SAN), rather than from local disks on individual servers, can enable organizations to consolidate their IT resources, minimize their equipment costs, and realize considerable management benefits by centralizing the boot process. This white paper covers boot from SAN technology as deployed with Microsoft® Windows Server.  It describes the advantages and complexities of the technology, and a number of key SAN boot deployment scenarios.

Get the whitepaper from here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2815

Enjoy,