https://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlazure/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlazure/purchase.aspx

Whitepapers
Current Options for Backing up Data with SQL Azure - This white paper covers the current backup operations for SQL Azure.
Moving Access Data To The Cloud - This white paper walks through how to use the SQL Server Migration Assistant migration wizard to move the North Wind database in Microsoft Access to SQL Azure.
Overview of Security in SQL Azure - This white paper will provide an overview of Security on SQLAzure, including firewall settings and user permissions.
Overview of Options for Migrating Data and Schema to SQL Azure – This white paper provides an overview of the tools that can be used to Migrate SQL Server data and schemas to SQL Azure.
Overview of Tools to Use with SQL Azure – This white paper provides an overview of the current tools produced by Microsoft that support SQL Azure
Connection Management in SQL Azure – Describes the thresholds and conditions that trigger connection loss and how to mitigate it

More whitepapers:
https://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/whitepapers/

Academy Live: SQL Azure: What is it and How is it Different from SQL Server?
Click here to watch the session.

Check Out the Latest Blog Posts and Briefs
What to Watch and How to Stay Connected with SQL Azure at PDC10
New Windows Azure Platform-as-a-Service capabilities unveiled at PDC
What's New in SQL Azure?
Introduction to SQL Azure Reporting
Introduction to Windows Azure AppFabric Caching CTP
Windows Azure AppFabric SDK October Release available for download
Windows Azure AppFabric CTP October Release

Windows Azure Platform Training Kit - September Update
https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78&displaylang=en

Windows Azure Platform Training Course
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/wazplatformtrainingcourse.aspx

Windows Azure Virtual Labs
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dd540819.aspx

PDC 2010 sessions:
https://player.microsoftpdc.com/schedule/sessions

Security Resources for Windows Auzre:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff934690.aspx

Pricing:
https://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing/

Hope you find this little reference of links useful in your Azure journey.

Enjoy!

Brian

• Application Virtualization (App-V) 
• Presentation Virtualization - Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services
• Desktop Virtualization - VDI and Virtual PC

App-V

App-V previously known as SoftGrid provides the ability to deliver applications to end users without actually installing the applications on the client computers. It allows you to package applications so that they can run within a self-contained virtual environment or “sandbox” on client computers.

Pros:

·         No need to install application on local computer.

·         Package is self-contained which allows application to run in environments that may cause app compatibility issues if application was installed local.

·         App –V application package runs local on the box

·         Easy deployment and updating of application.

·         Can deploy seamlessly to virtual machine when client logs on.

Cons:

·         Requires MDOP and SA

·         Not all applications can be sequenced

ISV play:

Allows ISV to provide easy delivery of applications to different environments without customers needing to do local install. ISV can easily deploy update as package can be configured to check for update every time it starts. May remove the need to create complex setup programs to install application and also allow application to run in environments that were previously unsupported. 

Presentation Virtualization
Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services)

Presentation virtualization allows you to separate an application’s user interface from the physical computer where the application is physically running. Some folks also use the term “Server Based Computing” to describe this.

Pros:

·         Allows securing of applications and data in the Data Center as application and data are not run or stored on the end-users box.

·         Allows easy deployment of applications, allows control of what applications end-user has access to based on location of user.

·         Easier to manage then individual desktops.

Cons:

·         No offline use.

·         Performance may suffer if running on slow connection.

·         Not all application are compatible running in terminal services environment

·         End-Users share computing resources between sessions

ISV Play:

The ability to run desktop or applications in the data center with terminal services has been around for many years. Many customers currently use this model and partners such as Citrix have extended our terminal services offerings.  ISVs that create LOB applications should test to make sure that they work in this environment.

Desktop Virtualization
VDI and Virtual PC

While VDI and Virtual PC have some major differences I have put them in the same section as they both mainly deal with Client OS and ways of deploying desktops to end-users. Both VDI and Virtual PC use virtual machines to allow the deployment of standardized desktops.  The key difference is that with VDI the virtual machine is deployed to a server and runs as a guest OS on top of Hyper-V. (Thin client) This allows the desktop OS to live in a corporate data center and use a Remote Desktop Protocol to connect the user to their virtual machine. With Virtual PC the virtual machine is deployed to the user’s laptop or desktop and run local. This allows end-users to use a standardized desktop even if they are not connected to a network. Both VDI and Virtual PC allow easy deployment and update of a standard desktop and allow each end-user to have their own dedicated desktop that can be personalized.

Pros:

·         A master VM can be deployed to many different end-users.

·         You only need to update the master VM and not individual desktops

·         VDI OS and data lives in the corporate data center.

·         For Virtual PC corporate VM can be locked for better security and control when user is not connected to corporate network.

·         Easier to manage (MED-V for Virtual PC on Windows 7)

Cons:

·         Not all client applications run in a virtual environment.

·         May require new hardware to support MED-V

·         VDI (thin client) may utilize more network bandwidth.

ISV Play:

ISVs will need to start testing LOB applications to make sure that they run properly when running in a virtualized Guest OS. For complex LOB applications ISV may be able work with customers around designing standardized virtual machines that will have their application installed on the base VM image.

Enjoy!

“Virtualization is an approach to deploying computing resources that isolates different layers – hardware, software, data, networks, storage – from each other”

While most folks think of Virtualization as being some kind of Hypervisor it can be much more. Microsoft has the following technologies that are all virtualization technologies based on the above definition.

1.       Application Virtualization (App-V)

2.       Presentation Virtualization - Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services)

3.       Desktop Virtualization - VDI and Virtual PC

4.       Hyper-V

5.       Management of Virtual environments

I include Management as moving to a virtual environment is no good if you cannot manage it. Today I would like to cover Hyper-V and SCVMM. I will cover the other virtualization technologies in future posts.

Server Virtualization
Hyper-V

Hyper-V allows you to virtualize entire computers by running multiple operating systems on a single physical computer. It appears to each guest operating system that it has exclusive use of the computer’s hardware resources. This is because each operating system is running in a separate virtual machine, with all the virtual machines running on the same physical computer. In a non-virtualized environment only one operating system can be running on the computer. Hyper-V provides the ability to run multiple operating systems on a single physical box. 

Pros:

·         Ability to consolidate multiple server workloads on to a single physical box.

·         Ability to easily create highly available workloads and to move the workload from one physical server to another with no down time.

·         Ability to create master virtual machine that all new virtual machines use as the base image. You just need to update the master to have all virtual machines update.

·         Can shorten the deployment time for new server workloads.

Cons:

·         Not all applications work in a virtual environment. Applications that need to access hardware directly are not good candidates for virtualization.

·         May require company to purchase new hardware to run Hyper-V

ISV Play:

Supporting Hyper-V is now part of Server 2008 R2 certification. VHD test drive program allows ISV to create virtual appliance that they can give to customers for test and demo of their software. You can make application high availability (HA) without having to write special code to do so as it is easy to use Hyper-V to create HA VMs. VMs can help cut QA time as it is easy to install and rollback changes. If customers are running the applications in a VM they have the ability to provide support with the complete VM for troubleshooting issues. Providing end customer guidelines for how to create VM to run complex workloads can shorten deployment time and save on support costs.

Management of Virtual environments
SCVMM

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) consists of a number of components that work together at different layers to facilitate the provisioning and management of virtualized workloads. Some of the features that SCVMM provides are a library for VMs, ability to convert physical machine to virtual machine, finding suitable physical machine for a virtual workload to run on, and ability to create new VM for a template.  SCVMM API is completely built on PowerShell which makes it easy to automate SCVMM tasks. 

Pros:

·         Centrally manage both Hyper-V and VMWare virtual machines across hosts

·         Physical to Virtual Machine Conversion (P2V)

·         Intelligent Placement (Selecting appropriate host for Virtual machine based on workload)

·         Library (ability to find and maintain image files for virtual machines)

·         Fully Scriptable using Windows PowerShell

Cons:

·         Cannot manage ZenServer at this time

ISV Play:

If ISV has created management pack for their application they may want to look at using Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) which is a new feature in SCVMM that allows OpsMgr to communicate to SCVMM and adjust, move, or start a new instance of the VM that the application is running in.

References:

Server Virtualization (Hyper-V):
https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-main.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730764.aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768520(BTS.10).aspx
https://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM):
https://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/virtual-machine-manager.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc764292.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc764283.aspx

Other useful links:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897468.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501231.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualserver/bb676673.aspx
https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/virtualization.aspx

Microsoft Virtualization ISV Step-by-Step Resource Guide:
https://download.microsoft.com/download/3/4/A/34AB39E8-9404-4B1F-B12A-F866AB549D26/Virtualization_ISV_guide_v1.0.pdf

enjoy!

Secure and Agentless Inventory
The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) provides secure, agent-less and network-wide inventory that scales from small business to large enterprises.

Comprehensive Data Analysis
The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) performs a detailed analysis of hardware and device compatibility for migration to Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Application Virtualization, and Windows Vista.

In-Depth Readiness Reporting
The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) generates reports containing both summary and detailed assessment results for each migration scenario. The results are provided in both Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word documents.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) is a great tool for helping you manage your virtual environment and I highly recommend it. However many times and organization would like to get some information about doing server consolidation with Hyper-V or Virtual Server in their environment without first deploying SCVMM. Well MAP can help with this too.  It has a Server Consolidation and Virtualization Wizard that can be used to provide a server consolidation and virtualization assessment. This wizard performs the following functions to complete the assessment:

• Performs an inventory of the computers considered for consolidation and virtualization.
• Consumes the performance monitoring data collected by the Performance Metrics Wizard.
• Allows the user to provide a “model” virtual server that will host virtual machines (guests).
• Determines the number and placement of guests on the virtual server.

• Provides detailed reports and proposals describing which servers can be virtualized and on which virtual server host computers the consolidation process can be carried out.

As you can see this tool can be a very useful addition to your toolbox and the price is right, free! For more information on MAP please see the following link:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb977556(TechNet.10).aspx

Ok so you are still having trouble sleeping because you are in charge of helping plan and design some of your  organization’s or your customer’s infrastructure and if it fails heads will roll. Well don’t worry take a look at our Infrastructure Planning and Design Series on TechNet.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc196387(TechNet.10).aspx

This will either help answer your questions or put you to sleep as you read another NAP paper.  Either way it is a good resource to help both you and your customers with infrastructure planning and providing some best practices. 

Until next time, enjoy!

So welcome the RODC. It allows you to have a DC at a remote site so users can authenticate at the local site for better performance and less WAN traffic. So why is this so cool? Because except for account passwords, an RODC holds all the Active Directory objects and attributes that a writable domain controller holds. However, changes cannot be made to the database that is stored on the RODC. Changes must be made on a writable domain controller and then replicated back to the RODC. You can also delegate local administrative permissions for an RODC to any domain user without granting that user any user rights for the domain or other domain controllers. Ok if you are paying attention you saw that passwords are not stored on the RODC. So you are asking how it can authenticate a user. The answer is that the RODC will need to make a call to the writable DC to authenticate the user. After that the credentials are cached on the RODC, the RODC can then directly service that user's logon requests until the credentials change. This limits credential caching to only users who have authenticated to the RODC. So if someone were able to hack the RODC only those credentials that are cached can potentially be cracked.

So what does this mean for folks that devleops software? While maybe nothing. However if you do use authentication or any AD calls in your code you should make sure to test against an RODC. If you have local applications that request Read access to the directory they will obtain access because Lightweight Directory Application Protocol (LDAP) applications that request Write access receive an LDAP referral response. This response directs them to a writable domain controller. A key point to remember with this is that if you attempt to read this new information you just wrote to the DC from the RODC you may fail if it has not received the update through replication.

For more information on RODC see the following links:
https://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/ea8d253e-0646-490c-93d3-b78c5e1d9db71033.mspx

https://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/ce82863f-9303-444f-9bb3-ecaf649bd3dd1033.mspx

Until next time, enjoy!

With quick migration, you run server workloads and applications on virtual machines that are hosted and moved between clustered physical (host) servers. This enables you to provide a wide variety of services through a small number of physical servers and, at the same time, maintain the availability of the services you provide.

Quick migration combines Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V hypervisor-based virtualization with failover clustering in Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Windows Server 2008 Datacenter. In quick migration, you run server workloads on virtual machines—guest operating systems running in turn on physical hosts. Each host server is then configured as a node in a failover cluster. If the server initially hosting the virtualized workload fails or requires scheduled maintenance, another server in the cluster hosts the virtualized workload.

If you think about this it is pretty cool. Each of the guest operating systems behaves like a cluster-aware application, with the cluster service providing health monitoring and automatic recovery for the guest operating system.

Now Hyper-V Quick Migration is not live migration. For planed downtime a quick migration saves the state of the running guest virtual machine to storage and then moves the storage connectivity from one physical server to another. It then restores the guest virtual machine onto the second server. So how long does this take? The answer is it depends on the speed and sophistication of the storage and network hardware in the cluster. The other factor is the amount of information in RAM (state of guest OS) that must be stored before the move can be completed. For unplanned downtime the guest OS is not able to commit memory (state) to storage. So in this case the guest virtual machine is started from previously stored images. If you are using a backup program that takes snapshots of the running virtual machine you can recover to the most recent snapshot of  the virtual machine. Here are some scenarios where Hyper-V Quick Migration may be useful:

·         Scheduled maintenance for host (either hardware of software updates)

·         For operating systems or applications that could not previously have been run in a cluster

·         Maintaining the availability of servers consolidated on to virtual machines.

For more information on this topic please see the following links:

https://download.microsoft.com/download/3/B/5/3B51A025-7522-4686-AA16-8AE2E536034D/Quick%20Migration%20with%20Hyper-V.doc

https://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/archive/2007/12/17/building-a-host-cluster-with-hyper-v-beta-1.aspx

https://download.microsoft.com/download/3/B/5/3B51A025-7522-4686-AA16-8AE2E536034D/Microsoft%20High%20Availability%20Strategy%20White%20Paper.doc

Until next time, enjoy!

https://download.microsoft.com/download/e/7/0/e703ca6e-8d81-4d6d-b0a4-8752fadd3ef7/Hyper-V%20Product%20Overview_v1.0.doc

Alright, you are ready to make the move to Server 2008. But what about the folks in your organization are they ready? Well don’t worry we have some free e-books and training to help get your folks and team members ready for Server 2008. Just take a look at the following:

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/windowsserver2008/default.mspx#EBOOK

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/windowsserver2008/default.mspx#ELEARNING

Until next time

Enjoy!

From here you have access to tools, and white papers, along with many other resources. For example:
The Windows Server 2008 Application Compatibility Cookbook
https://microsoft.mrmpslc.com/InnovateOnWindowsServer/Download/WindowsServer2008andVistaCookbook.pdf

And the Server 2008 works with tool.
https://microsoft.mrmpslc.com/InnovateOnWindowsServer/redirect.aspx?d=Download/Works_with_tool.msi
This is also a good tool to use as part of your applications Q&A process.

So take a look at these and other resources that are available on the resource page.
https://microsoft.mrmpslc.com/InnovateOnWindowsServer/Resources.aspx

For flagship and other critical applications you should also look at Certified for Windows Server 2008 certification.
https://microsoft.mrmpslc.com/InnovateOnWindowsServer/CertifiedForLogoProgram.aspx

For non-flagship applications you may want to get Works with Windows Server certification.
https://microsoft.mrmpslc.com/InnovateOnWindowsServer/WorksWithLogoProgram.aspx

Until next time enjoy!

https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0818D425-CD47-4279-BE8D-24ABA14530A3&displaylang=en

You can get more information on RC0 from here: https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/default.mspx

One of the great new features of Server 2008 is Server Core. Ok you installed Server Core to take a look and all you saw was the command prompt (C:\>) so you say how exciting is that. Not very, but let’s take a look at what is behind the curtain. Many IT organizations have older hardware that they would like to continue using. Sever Core allows me to do that and to dedicate that box to just doing one or two tasks. They may also be looking at keeping their servers more secure by just installing the specific roles that I need on the box. Ok if I have your interest read on, if not feel free to change the channel.

So let’s look at what roles a Server Core Installation supports. Out of the box you can do the following:

·        Active Directory Domain Services

·        Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS)

·        Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Server

·        DNS Server

·        File Services

·        Print Server

·        Streaming Media Services

·        Web Server (IIS)

The following optional features are also supported:

·        Microsoft Failover Cluster

·        Network Load Balancing

·        Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications

·        Windows Backup

·        Multipath I/O

·        Removable Storage Management

·        Windows Bitlocker Drive Encryption

·        Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

·        Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS)

·        Telnet client

·        Quality of Service (QoS)

Now all this looks good so there must be a catch. Well there is. Here are some of the limitations.

·        No graphical user interface is available

·        Dot Net(managed code) Framework (CLR) is not installed

This means that you are very limited in what you can run on a Core installation and how you can manage it.  For example because CLR is not installed you will not be able to use IIS to run ASP.Net applications. For management you will either have to use command prompt or remote manage the server. For remote management of a Server Core installation you can use the following:

·        Remotely using the MMC

·        Terminal Services Remote Desktop

·        WS-Management and Windows Remote Shell

·        WMI – This includes using PowerShell to call WMI features to remotely manage

I would like to end on a few of the benefits that Sever Core can provide IT departments.

·        Reduced maintenance

·        Reduced attack surface

·        Reduced management

·        Less disk space required

If you want to learn more about Server Core take a look at the following links:

https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/servercore.mspx

https://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/bab0f1a1-54aa-4cef-9164-139e8bcc44751033.mspx?mfr=true

https://download.microsoft.com/download/b/1/0/b106fc39-936c-4857-a6ea-3fb9d1f37063/Server%20Core%20Installation%20Option%20of%20Windows%20Server%20Longhorn%20Step-By-Step%20Guide.doc

Until next time, Enjoy!

 If you want to do the try before you buy take a look at the TechNet Virtual Labs for Windows Server 2008
https://www.microsoft.com/technet/traincert/virtuallab/longhorn.mspx

It does not matter how you plan to use Server 2008, you will need to manage it. This includes tasks such as adding or removing server roles or features. One way to do this is through Server Manager which is an expanded Microsoft Management Console (MMC). This is great if you want to us a UI to add and remove roles and features along with seeing what is available and what has already been installed.

If you don't want to use a UI you can take a look at the new ServerManagerCmd.exe. This is a new command-line tool that allows you to perform most of the Server Manager tasks outside of the Server Manager Console. This makes it a great tool to support scripting and automatic deployment of server roles or features.