Tag: Cloud

Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Now Available

Tonight Microsoft has made available the public preview release of Windows Server 2012 R2. With this release, Microsoft is laying out its vision for what it calls the Cloud OS.

The Cloud OS is the platform that Microsoft is building with the release of Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2, SQL Server 2014 and Windows Azure. The four key tenets of the Cloud OS are:

      • Transform the Datacenter
      • Enable modern business applications
      • Empower people-centric IT
      • Unlock insights on any data

New to Windows Server 2012 R2 are such features as:

        • Storage Tiering within Storage Spaces
        • Software-defined networking
        • Virtual IP Address management
        • Windows Powershell 4.0
        • Windows Server Essentials Experience

To get started with the Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview, go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dn205286.aspx

Welcome to Windows Server 2012 Essentials

Server2012eLogoLast week, Microsoft announced this new edition of Windows Server 2012 called Windows Server 2012 Essentials.

This new edition replaces Windows Small Business Server (both the Standard and the Essentials editions) as well as the now defunct Windows Home Server.

What makes this release interesting is it shows what Microsoft’s strategy is around the “first server” space. It used to be that the preferred solution was the monolithic Small Business Server. Everything that a business needed was on one physical box. Exchange was there for email, SharePoint was there for collaboration, and being that it’s a Windows box, line of business applications could be installed.  However, with the huge bet that Microsoft is making on the cloud, they are doing away with SBS Standard and building on the Colorado platform (SBS Essentials and Windows Home Server).

Windows Server 2012 Essentials is really Windows Small Business Server 2012 Essentials, but Microsoft is killing off the Small Business Server branding and positioning Essentials as a core edition of the broad Windows Server family. Let’s dig in and learn more about this version of Windows Server.

Windows Server 2012 Essentials is aimed at small and mid-size businesses. It supports up to 25 users and up to 50 devices.  The design of Essentials is that of a hybrid infrastructure. File sharing, line-of-business applications, and other things live on-premise, but Microsoft wants you to use Office 365, and Essentials can integrate and federate to Office 365 right out of the box. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t run Exchange on-premise. You can, and Essentials will integrate with your Exchange server as well, but it would have to run on separate hardware or in a separate VM (depending on how you setup your infrastructure).

Being as Essentials is the evolution of Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, features such as full PC backup and restore, Remote Web Access, add-in extensibility, and network alerting live on and in some cases are even improved.

New to Windows Server 2012 Essentials are the following features:

  • Support for DirectAccess and VPN access
  • With Storage Spaces adding storage becomes painless and easy
  • Remote Web Access has been refreshed and has a new tablet mode for easier navigation on tablet devices.
  • Bare-metal backup and restore of the server
  • Support for backup of volumes larger than 2 terabytes
  • Windows 8 Metro-style app for accessing company data stored on a Windows Server 2012 Essentials server
  • Integration with cloud or on-premise Exchange services

According to Microsoft’s edition listing for Windows Server 2012 Essentials, the Open No Level pricing is $425 USD, CALs not required.

I’d strongly encourage anyone interested, to try out the public beta, which Microsoft has released.

Windows Home Server, 2007-2012

As I’m sure most of you heard, Windows Home Server is no more. Microsoft this past week announced the Windows Server lineup, and both Windows Home Server and Windows Small Business Server Standard were not on that list.

In a Frequently Asked Questions document, alongside the announcement of Windows Server 2012 Essentials (more on that soon), Microsoft answers the question of “Will there be a next version of Windows Home Server?”

No. Windows Home Server has seen its greatest success in small office/home office (SOHO) environments and among the technology enthusiast community. For this reason, Microsoft is combining the features that were previously only found in Windows Home Server, such as support for DLNA-compliant devices and media streaming, into Windows Server 2012 Essentials and focusing our efforts into making Windows Server 2012 Essentials the ideal first server operating system for both small business and home use—offering an intuitive administration experience, elastic and resilient storage features with Storage Spaces, and robust data protection for the server and client computers.

I can’t say that I’m surprised by this decision. I’ve known about this for a few months now. However, it is disappointing.

Microsoft is right though. Windows Home Server is heavily adopted in home based businesses, and used in small businesses primarily for PC backup in conjunction with Small Business Server. What Microsoft saw as its primary market never fully materialized. Not many OEMs built a hardware product around it, marketing by the OEMs that did was iffy, and you could hardly find it in a brick and mortar store.

In some ways, the market killed the product. Not because the product sucked but because the feature set was championed by small business. This then led to Small Business Server Essentials, which really was Windows Home Server (minus Media Streaming) + Active Directory (what a lot of people wanted originally), and some hooks for integrating with Office 365. [Side note: Windows Home Server when it was designed initially used Active Directory, but it was cut after looking at the home market and finding that most home users were using Windows XP Home Edition.] There was also a NAS type version of Windows Home Server 2011 as well called Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials. Why I call it a “NAS type version” is because it’s designed to be an embedded product (similar to an HP MediaSmart Server), it supports up to 25 computers, and can be joined to existing domains.

Small Business consultants used to install Windows Home Server but when Small Business Server 2011 Essentials arrived they moved to that because it provided a compelling feature set. With Active Directory and Group Policy they could manage customer networks with ease. The integration module for Office 365 meant that businesses could use cloud-based services with ease. Create a new account on the SBSe server and have that user automatically created in the Office 365 tenant.

Another nail in the coffin for Windows Home Server was the removal of Drive Extender.  I can’t tell you how many people I heard from that threw their arms up at that point and said they were done and moving to something else. However, now with Storage Spaces in Windows 8 / Server 2012 users can perform Drive Extender like tasks with ease.

Soon I’ll be able to talk more about the replacement to Windows Home Server, Windows Server 2012 Essentials, but until then I want to leave you with a thank you.

I want to thank the Windows Home Server community as a whole. Having been around the product since it was announced at CES in 2007, I’ve watched the community mature and develop over the last five years. During my time at Microsoft the part I loved most was interacting with the community through the beta program newsgroups, the forums, or at different events. Outside of Microsoft, I’ve loved blogging and writing the SharePoint on WHS guide. The thank you emails and the emails of encouragement are what keep me at it.

Expect a flurry of posts and other goodness about Windows Server 2012 Essentials in the coming days / weeks / months / years.

Until then may your children always ask, “Mommy, why is there a server in the house?”, and may your server continue to Stop Digital Amnesia.

Test Lab Guides for Windows Server “8” Beta

Microsoft have released a series of guides to build Test Labs to check out various new features in Windows Server “8.” I’ve included a list below to some of the guides.

Test Lab Guide: Base Test Lab Guide for Windows Server “8” Beta – This Microsoft Test Lab Guide (TLG) provides you with step-by-step instructions to create the Windows Base Configuration test lab, using computers running Windows 8 Consumer Preview or Windows Server “8” Beta.

Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate High Availability Printing in Windows Server “8” Beta – This paper contains an introduction to Windows Server “8” Beta Printing and step-by-step instructions for extending the Test Lab Guide Base Configuration to demonstrate High Availability Printing.

Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server “8” Beta – This paper contains an introduction to Windows Server “8” Beta Remote Desktop Services Desktop Virtualization and step-by-step instructions for extending the Windows Server “8” Beta Test Lab Guide Base Configuration to demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Desktop Virtualization.

Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate ADDS Simplified Administration in Windows Server “8” Beta – This Microsoft Test Lab Guide (TLG) introduces Active Directory Domain Services Simplified Administration and provides step-by-step demonstration of new AD DS Administration features in Windows Server “8” Beta.

Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate DirectAccess Single Server Setup with Mixed IPv4 and IPv6 in Windows Server “8” Beta – This paper contains an introduction to Unified Remote Access and step-by-step instructions for extending the Windows Server “8” Beta Base Configuration test lab to demonstrate DirectAccess deployment in a single server deployment with a mixed environment of IPv4 and IPv6
Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate DirectAccess Simplified Setup in an IPv4-only Test Environment in Windows Server “8” Beta – This paper contains an introduction to Windows Server “8” Beta Remote Access and step-by-step instructions for extending the Windows Server “8” Beta Base Configuration test labto demonstrate Remote Access deployment using the Getting Started Wizard.
Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Desktop Virtualization in Windows Server “8” Beta – This paper contains an introduction to Windows Server “8” Beta Remote Desktop Services Desktop Virtualization and step-by-step instructions for extending the Windows Server “8” Beta Test Lab Guide Base Configuration to demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Desktop Virtualization
Test Lab Guide: Demonstrating DHCP Failover in Windows Server “8” Beta – This paper contains an introduction to Windows Server “8” Beta DHCP Failover, and step-by-step instructions for extending the Windows Server “8” Beta Base Configuration test labto demonstrate DHCP Failover setup.
Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate Virtualized Domain Controller (VDC) in Windows Server “8” Beta – This Microsoft Test Lab Guide (TLG) introduces Active Directory Domain Services Virtualized Domain Controllers and provides step-by-step demonstration of this new feature in Windows Server “8” Beta.
Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate Windows Server “8” Beta Print and Document Services – Introduction to Windows Server “8” Beta Printing
Test Lab Guide: Deploying RD Licensing – Use this test lab guide to install Remote Desktop Services client access licenses (RDS CALs) for Windows Server “8” Beta.
Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate IP Address Management (IPAM) in Windows Server “8” Beta – This paper contains an introduction to Windows Server “8” Beta IP Address Management (IPAM), and step-by-step instructions for extending the Windows Server “8” Beta Base Configuration test lab to demonstrate IPAM setup.
Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) in Windows Server “8” Beta – This paper contains an introduction to Windows Server “8” Beta DNSSEC and step-by-step instructions for extending the Windows Server “8” Beta Base Configuration test lab to demonstrate DNSSEC operation.

Windows Server “8” Beta released

This morning, Microsoft announced the release of the Windows Server “8” beta. Windows Server “8” is the successor to Windows Server 2008 R2 and is a member of the Windows 8 family.

Microsoft has four pillars around the release of Windows Server “8”:

– Windows Server “8” goes beyond virtualization – With this release, Microsoft is building an infrastructure capable of running much more than a simple virtual machine. Features are being built in that enable new public and private cloud based scenarios.

– Windows Server “8” brings the power of many servers and the simplicity of one – New features are added that enable users to take better advantage of commodity storage, provide simplification to server management, and provide uptime in a better and more cost-effective manner.

– Windows Server “8” is designed for every app and every cloud – Server “8” will enable flexibility in deploying applications on-premise or in the cloud or a combination thereof using similar tools and frameworks. Windows Server “8” will be highly scalable and elastic providing for better density and efficiency, as well as providing a better platform for hosting providers.

– Windows Server “8” enables the modern workstyle – Server “8” enables enterprises to offer access to corporate data and applications on any device while providing a secure and seamless experience no matter where users are in the world.

Microsoft’s Bill Laing has a post for more on Windows Server “8” that I highly suggest reading.

If you want to download and evaluate Windows Server “8”, click here. 

Imagine Cup 2011–Day 1–Opening Ceremony

Imagine Cup 2011 – Day 1

Tonight in New York City, Steve Ballmer along with Jon Perera, General Manager of Microsoft Education, Arthur VanderVeen, CEO of the Office of Innovation at the New York Department of Education, Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and Dennis Crowley, co-founder and CEO of Foursquare officially opened the 2011 Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals.

The energy in the room was electric. The passion and the excitement from the students here is incredible. As soon as Ballmer’s name was announced the noise level in the room intensified. It was crazy.

IMG_0086Ballmer talked to the students about how they are in a business that is constantly working to change the world. He talked about the importance of the cloud and the impact it is having on the world and the students’ projects by enabling real time collaboration, commerce, and social interaction. Ballmer also talked about how devices of the future would be dynamic, faster performing, and include more sensors and do more things. Ballmer also mentioned that Natural User Interfaces would open up new possibilities and enable even more people to use computers.

IMG_0149IMG_0124To close out his remarks, Ballmer gave the students three key pieces of advice. The first is that ideas matter. When you come up with an idea make note of it. Stick with it. The second is to be passionate about what your idea and what you do. The third is to be tenacious. Don’t give up. Stick with it and see the idea through until the end.

IMG_0154Jeffrey Sachs then came to the stage and talked to the students about how the world has changed and there are many challenges that we face. These challenges range from strain on world food supplies to population growth, climate change, hunger, and others. He told students they were being given a lifetime homework assignment, and that this assignment was to find ways to better the world and to solve these tough challenges.

To close out the evening, Dennis Crowley came to the stage and talked to the students about IMG_0186sticking with their ideas and seeing them through. He talked about his experience with startups and said that Foursquare’s success is “built off of 10 years of failure.” He told students to never give up on their ideas and that even if the present wasn’t the best time for their idea, it could be a year from now, two years for now, or even ten years from now, but to be persistent and stick with it.

Tomorrow the competition begins.

Taking a bite out of the Big Apple

I’ve arrived in New York City for the 2011 Microsoft Imagine Cup. For those of you just joining us, the Microsoft Imagine Cup is the premier student technology competition. I tend to tell people that it’s the Olympics of technology.

At the Imagine Cup, the top students from around the world come together to compete against each other in categories such as Software Design, Game Design, Embedded Development, and the Windows Phone 7 challenge just to name a few.

I’ll be here covering five teams and their progress throughout the Worldwide Finals. My teams are as follows:

The Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals begin this Friday, July 8th and end Wednesday, July 13th.

For more on Imagine Cup please visit www.imaginecup.com, or search for #ImagineCup on Twitter. You can also follow me on Twitter, @tziegmann, to follow along this week as well.

Microsoft Office 365: First Impressions

ofc365_h_webYesterday in New York City, Steve Ballmer announced the general availability of Microsoft Office 365.

Office 365 is the long-awaited successor to Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS). BPOS at the core was Exchange Server 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007 in the cloud. Also included was Office Live Meeting which could be used for hosting conference calls and presentations.

Office 365 in some ways is an evolution of BPOS, but there is so much more to Office 365 that I see it as an entirely new offering. The offerings in Office 365 are much improved from a cloud services architecture standpoint I’ve included a chart below listing the differences between the two products.

Screen shot 2011-06-28 at 9.49.30 PM

With Office 365, collaboration and communication are on a whole other level. By combining Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync in a cloud solution, Microsoft has made it easy for small businesses to have access to enterprise size technologies at a reasonable price and without having to deal with any of the infrastructure, licensing, and personnel overhead.

What do I mean by enterprise size technologies? Let’s take a look.

  • Mail, Contacts, and Calendar powered by Exchange 2010
  • Instant Messaging, Live Meetings, and Audio / Video conferencing powered by Lync 2010
  • Collaborative Team Sites powered by SharePoint 2010

Best part about Office 365 though, is that they have a pricing model to fit everyone’s needs. Starts out at $2/user all the way up to $27/user based on the services provided. For small businesses and individuals, it’s only six bucks a month!

I’m currently in the process of migrating my single person Google Apps account to Office 365 and will then be migrating my personal e-mail over and then I’ll be relying entirely on the cloud. So far so good. The only hitch I have run into is that I signed up as a partner and there is a bit of a lag between account setup and when the actual licenses show up and are available to be used. Not a big deal. Other than that, I strongly recommend that users keep control of their DNS settings and manually set the appropriate Office 365 settings. I’ve seen too many comments in the Office 365 forums about inability to modify when MS Online has control.

Once I start using Office 365 on a daily basis, I’ll post more of my thoughts, but so far, it’s been pain free.

For more on Office 365, visit http://www.office365.com

If by some chance, you’re a small business in Arizona, and want to talk more about Office 365 and how it might fit in your business, send me an e-mail. tom (at) tomontech (dot) com

Hands-On Labs at TechEd 2011 | How does it all work?

This week at TechEd 2011, an attendee favorite are the Hands-On Labs. I met with the good guys from XB Velocity to get a behind the scenes look at how everything works.

At the highest level, the labs are stored in an on-site private cloud and then accessed through Internet Explorer on each PC in the lab. Lets dive in and look at things at a deeper level.

What’s the hardware involved?

What’s in each blade?

  • 2 physical processors each with 6 cores (Intel Xeon X5670, 2.93 GHz, with Hyper-Threading)
  • 128GB of RAM
  • 2 146GB hard drives
  • 1 320 GB HP IO Accelerator Card, powered by Fusion IO (provides 150,000 IOPS, Read speed 750MB/s | Write speed 550MB/s)
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter SP1 w/ HyperV

How’s the infrastructure managed?

  • System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 – Used for reporting and deploying updates to lab clients
  • System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 – Used to monitor all servers involved
  • System Center Service Manager 2010 – Used to run help desk and provide incident routing during the show
  • System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Beta – Used for monitoring lab VMs and managing  / monitoring infrastructure VMs

The Nitty Gritty:

The hands on labs this year are all running on a private cloud setup using the aforementioned hardware and software. This private cloud serves 350 users located in the lab area. All of the base lab VHDs (Virtual Hard Disks) are stored on the SAN, and differencing disks that point to these base VHDs are stored on each blade’s IO Accelerator card. When someone wants to start a lab, a copy of the virtual machine (already in a saved state for quick starts) is made, pointed to a differencing disk on the IO Accelerator, and the VM is then turned on and available to the end user.  By doing it the this way, the labs are able to be run at optimal speed and there is little risk of any damage to the Base VHDs stored on the SAN. For better memory management within the VMs, Dynamic Memory is enabled to allow the VMs to take more RAM if they need it, and to give up RAM they don’t need.

End-User Experience:

When the user sits down in front of a lab station they are presented with a list of categories and labs to choose from. When they find the lab they click the Take Lab Now button and that begins the backend VM creation and startup process. Once the VMs have launched, another window opens on the second screen with the lab manual. If there are multiple VMs involved, there is tabbed navigation between each of the lab’s VMs. After the user finishes the labs, the VMs are shut down and then destroyed, or if a user leaves without ending their session, the system will automatically destroy the VMs after 40 minutes of inactivity. I’ve included some screenshots and photos of the setup below.

IMG_0021 IMG_0014

The Serverquarium at TechEd 2011                          Lab menu on left, lab manual appears on right

IMG_0016 image

Running lab at TechEd 2011                        Screenshot of the Lab selection menu

 

image IMG_0032

Screenshot of running lab showing multiple VMs                          Hands-on Lab Private Cloud

IMG_0030 IMG_0028

Inside of one of the blades                                       320GB HP IO Accelerator Card

Blade Enclosure SCVMM2012(beta)

SCOM diagram of BladeCenter enclosure              Hyper-V performance metrics

HP IO card perfmon mosaic

HP IO Accelerator Card Performance                  Mosaic showing all running VMs in HOL area

Windows Intune–What is it and why should you care?

One of the major focuses this week at TechEd and for Microsoft in general is cloud computing and cloud based services. One of the services getting some real love this week is Windows Intune. In this post I’ll be introducing the Intune service and explaining how it can benefit you.

Windows Intune is a service that provides security and management capabilities through the cloud and a web-based management console. With Intune, you get malware protection, policy management, system health alerting and more.

Key Features:

  • Centrally manage deployment of Microsoft updates
  • Malware protection using the same engine as Forefront Endpoint Protection
  • Provide Remote Assistance to your users from anywhere
  • Track PCs and track software license usage
  • Centrally manage firewall and malware settings for PCs connected to the service

I’ve just started using the service today, but what I like I about it is the usability. Unlike deploying Windows Server Update Services, Forefront Endpoint Protection and System Center Operations Manager locally to achieve the same integration, managing Windows Intune is a breeze. Most of the hard stuff is done for you, freeing you up to take care of what matters the most.

Installation of the Intune client is a breeze. One click to download a ZIP file that has the executable and necessary files to associate the client, and then installation takes place seamlessly and silently.

Windows Intune supports Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate SKUs and is reasonably priced at $11 per device per month.