The 'Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Release' book from Microsoft Press is now available. You can download it for FREE or order your own hard copy version. This is a great way for you to see what’s new in Windows Server 2012 R2. Download from here http://aka.ms/IntroWinServ2012R2Preview/PDFebook

 Preview new features and enhancements, including:

• Server virtualization and cloud solutions
• Availability and scalability
• Provisioning and storage management
• Security features, access, and data protection
• Infrastructure options
• Server management and automation

+ more titles coming out later this year…

• Introducing Microsoft System Center 2012 R2
• Introducing Windows Azure for IT Professionals

Nice post by Zahir at http://zahirshahblog.com/2013/08/19/implementing-private-cloud-with-system-center-2012-creating-hyper-v-vms-using-work-flow-based-approvals-creating-vms-using-service-manager-and-orchestrator-run-books/

Enjoy!

Citrix has announced that version 7 of its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) product XenDesktop can now be deployed on top of a Windows Azure virtual machine. This is now possible because Microsoft has made Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Subscriber Access Licensing (SAL) available on Azure, paving the way to install XenDesktop on a VM running on Azure. In order to support this announcement, Citrix published two new Design Guides detailing how to design a VDI environment on top of Windows Azure.

Design Guide for XenDesktop 7 on Windows Azure http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/partner-documents/xendesktop-7-on-windows-azure-design-guide.pdf

Design Guide for Service Provider hosted desktops on Windows Azure http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/partner-documents/csp-hosted-desktop-on-windows-azure-design-guide.pdf

Cloud Server Performance: A Comparative Analysis of 5 Large Cloud IaaS Providers Posted by John.... Read the details here http://www.cloudspectator.com/cloud-server-performance-a-comparative-analysis-of-5-large-cloud-iaas-providers-3/

Nice article on how to create a backend for your web application in the cloud using PHP on Azure, read the tutorial here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msgulfcommunity/archive/2013/04/02/touch-the-cloud-windows-azure-step-by-step-tutorial.aspx

Enjoy,