Yes, Azure Stack Technical Preview 1 was released today. And that is getting a lot of attention (rightfully so!). It is easy to get caught up in all the excitement, so I wanted to offer a little guide to the available “aka.ms” links I currently have visibility/manage for Azure Stack.

This post is really intended to be used as a quick reference guide to the available “Short URLs” available for Azure Stack and related content. We have many and various public information targets, the URLs listed here should make it easy to reference and remember these sites and their intended use.

The following table outlines the current known aka.ms sites for Azure Stack and related content.

I will keep this table updated with new aka.ms links that I create over time.

And one more, that I do not manage, but is a fantastic resource (thanks, Hans!):

Have more? Let me know!

enJOY!

It is almost here! What we have all been waiting for…The Technical Preview of Azure Stack!

Announced yesterday by Mike Neil on the Microsoft Azure Blog, “Announcing the first Technical Preview of Microsoft Azure Stack” was the first of many, [I mean many] posts, reposts, tweets, retweets, and overall positive social sentiment around the excitement of this amazing new offering from Microsoft.

I feel honored to have been working on this project for about a year now…and I am very pleased that I get to start sharing in all YOUR #AzureStack experiences with the release of its Technical Preview starting Friday, January 29th.

Some of you have noticed that I have been pretty silent on Twitter, Blogs, Videos, etc. This has been very much on purpose. As I look back on the past year, I have only really tweeted a handful of times, more teasers than anything…and since I am reminiscing, I will highlight one of my favorites…

…an image that I had to intentionally blur at the time. But now, things are starting to get much more clear. No more intentional blurring - I mean just look at the photos posted to Twitter with the #AzureStack hashtag…

How Exciting!

So, what is next?

A few things, coming soon…

1. I will be re-homing the https://aka.ms/AzureStack URL, to something much more official (in case you didn’t know, it currently redirects to a blog post I published on May 6th: #AzureStack @ #MSIgnite
2. I will be tweeting and interacting on social media more, with more information, tips, tricks, etc.
3. I will be blogging to help increase awareness of all the great stuff going on in the #AzureStack space – so much stuff coming
4. And, one of the more exciting things for me – I will be bringing new life to my old YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/charlesjoyMS!

Until then, as a reference, here are some of the most recent #AzureStack resources:

• Microsoft Azure Stack: Hardware requirements (published December 21, 2015)
• Announcing the first Technical Preview of Microsoft Azure Stack (published January 26, 2016)
• Microsoft Azure Stack, Azure.com landing Page (currently “Coming Soon, Get Notified”; soon THE destination for #AzureStack!)
• Introducing Microsoft Azure Stack (save the date page for the upcoming Webcast with Mark Russinovich and Jeffrey Snover)
• Twitter Accounts to Follow/Watch: @Azure, @MShybridCloud, @jsnover, @markrussinovich
• And of course all the previous reference links: #AzureStack @ #MSIgnite

enJOY!

I am sure you will see it in many other places, but I figured it might be nice for it to come from a PM on the Azure Stack team…

Important References

So, here are the important links – to content and #MSIgnite sessions – for the newly announced #AzureStack!

#AzureStack @ #MSIgnite Session Links

And now for the #MSIgnite #AzureStack “Platform Vision” and related sessions:

Videos

Microsoft Azure Stack Application Deployment (from Mike Neil’s blog post above):

The following are the high level videos found on the Main Azure Stack Site:

And finally, here are links to the next level videos, also found on the Main Azure Stack Site:

I hope this collection of Azure Stack collateral was helpful.

Please leave comments below, or “get social” with us on Twitter, using the #AzureStack hashtag!

enJOY!

Some of you may know that I have moved! Well, partially moved. I will still keep this blog up and running for historic purposes, and who knows, I may write new stuff here again…

But, where I will be writing new stuff - on a pretty regular basis – is something new, you know for the New Year:

Building Clouds

It is a team blog, my team, here at Microsoft. My close team (like a nuclear family) is TED (Technical Enablement & Delivery); my extended team is WSSC (Windows Server & System Center).

Building Clouds is the blog for all things that fit with, among and around these two teams.

Take a look at the team specific introductory post here: The Launch of the “Building Clouds” blog

Then, if you would like, take a look at my personal intro: Building Clouds–An Introduction to the Automation Track

Finally, you can just start looking for new posts like this one (Automation–Orchestrator Integration Pack for Text Manipulation) which will be published at a pretty decent pace (especially to work through all the existing stuff).

Oh, and I best not forget – The new home for my “tools” (Integration Packs, Runbook Examples, etc.) will now live here:

TechNet Gallery

I will be tagging everything I do with various obvious tags, but for an all up look at Building Clouds TechNet Gallery contributions, simply search for “Building Clouds” on the main TechNet Gallery page.

Anyway, thanks for your attention and I will see you over at Building Clouds!

enJOY!

I know it has been a LONG time since I posted anything… and this post is not about Orchestrator.

Instead, it is about SkyDrive + Surface RT + Start Screen Pinning

NOTE: Pinning documents (non SkyDrive) to the Start Screen can be done this same way.

First off, let me be honest here, it was not intuitive – but based on some other Windows 8 Start Screen Pinning I have done in the recent past, it makes sense. The real trick was finding the actual location of the document on the SkyDrive, which I did find in a kind of round about fashion…

- Okay, so here goes… In just 4 Steps! -

Step 1

Pin Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, etc. to your Surface RT Desktop Taskbar (if they are not already pinned):

Step 2

Open the file you want to pin to the Start Screen, on your Surface RT (in this example it is an Excel file that happens to be already pinned to the Desktop’s Excel App Taskbar item):

NOTE: This if it is not already there, this should place a shortcut for the document in the App's Taskbar Pin Menu – feel free to pin in here as well (as I have).

Step 3

Two Options:

1. The Easy Way
   Copy the Shortcut created in the Application’s Taskbar Pin Menu for the file you want pinned, from the Taskbar to the Desktop, then Right-Click on that Shortcut and Choose “Pin to Start”
   
2. The Long/”Behind the Scenes” Way
   Open the following File Location in Windows Explorer: %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\
   
   
   NOTE: This is where you can place shortcut items so they appear on your Surface RT Start Screen.
   
   Then Copy the Shortcut created in the Application’s Taskbar Pin Menu for the file you want pinned, from the Taskbar to the
   %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\ folder:
   
   
   NOTE: %AppData% will bring you to: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\
   
   Also, the easiest way I have found to do this is to Right-Click and Hold on the document shortcut from the Taskbar, Drag-and-Drop into the folder, and Choose “Copy here”. If you are better at touch than me, I have heard it is possible to do it without a mouse/keyboard. :)

Step 4

Check your Surface RT Start Screen – You should see your newly created shortcut

enJOY!

I am not sure if you have seen this yet, but I thought I would point it out to you…

TechNet Library Entry for Database Sizing and Performance

I just recently found out about it, and as I know many of you have had questions about this for a long time, I figured I would pass it along.

:)

enJOY!

Ryan Andorfer has done it again - created a great solution which you can leverage as an example to perform similar tasks… This time it is all about AUTOMATING the ability to EXPORT and CHECK-IN Runbooks from Orchestrator to Team Foundation Server.

NOTE: This example solution does not include automated import of runbooks.

He has a detailed blog post (with instructions, images and links to CodePlex bits) here:

Automating the Export and TFS Check-In of Runbooks

enJOY!

Have you checked out the System Center Orchestrator - Engineering Blog lately?

It is full of valuable information about Orchestrator – Tips, Tricks, Secrets… a veritable Technical Wonderland.

Here is the URL:

https://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/

Some topics that may be of interest, especially for those of you who are starting to play with the Web Service and/or COM Interface:

• Accessing System Center 2012 Orchestrator Using the Web Service
• Cool Tool: Visualizing the Orchestrator Web Service
• Getting Deeper Information from Orchestrator via COM
• Getting Deeper Information from orchestrator via COM, part 2
• Getting Deeper Information from Orchestrator via COM, part 3
• Starting Runbooks and Stopping Jobs Using the System Center 2012 Orchestrator Web Service

enJOY!

I wanted to take a moment to introduce someone who you may have already interacted with or gained knowledge from by reading his blog… If not, I hope that this post will increase awareness of his blog and Orchestrator skill set!

Brian Nielsen, SharePoint Guy :)

Blog: https://wss-moss.blogspot.com/

Background in Opalis/Orchestrator:

He contributed content to the MS Press book SharePoint 2010: Deploying Cloud-based Solutions (Chapter 8). His content was focused purely on Private Cloud and Automation. While all of his content for this topic did not make it into the book, it has been copied to his blog and is available online. At a high level these are the sections covered:

• SharePoint Tenant creation with Change Request Tracking
• Monitor Content DB Size and provisioning a content DB
• Automating SharePoint in a Private Cloud using Opalis
• Exposing database sizes in SharePoint
• How to install Opalis and upgrade to 6.3

Please join me in welcoming Brian to the ever-growing Orchestrator Community…

enJOY!

Today we have something a little different, for this, the latest edition to the “8 Minute Demo” video series…

This video presentation/demonstration has been a long time coming, as I have been working on this project for quite a few months now.

It will walk you through the "Simple Disaster Recovery" example solution leveraging v.Current technologies: System Center 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V.

What it is:

• …the culmination of multiple customer, partner and internal MSFT team requirements
• …an EXAMPLE solution for truly simple disaster recovery
• …a “template” example solution which could be modified to allow for “any DR solution” to be plugged-in based on the knowledge within the existing Orchestrator Runbooks

What it is not:

• …the be-all-end-all solution for disaster recovery in all situations
• …the only solution for disaster recovery
• …the only offering from MSFT for disaster recovery

Completed Scope:

• Protect PROD Site Application and Backend at the VM level
• Recover PROD Site Application and Backend to DR Site
• Verify Recovery of Application and Backend at DR Site

Components:

• Application: SharePoint
• Backend: SQL
• Hyper Visor: Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V
• Virtual Machines: 2
• 1 for Application
• 1 for Backend
• System Center 2012 Solution Components:
• Data Protection Manager
• Virtual Machine Manager
• Orchestrator

enJOY!