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Two half-days – Wednesday July 16^th & Thursday July 17^th – 9am-1pm PST

IT Pros, you know that enterprises desire the flexibility and affordability of the cloud, and service providers want the ability to support more enterprise customers. Join us for an exploration of Windows Azure Pack's (WAP's) infrastructure services (IaaS), which bring Microsoft Azure technologies to your data center (on your hardware) and build on the power of Windows Server and System Center to deliver an enterprise-class, cost-effective solution for self-service, multitenant cloud infrastructure and application services.

Join Microsoft’s leading experts as they focus on the infrastructure services from WAP, including self-service and automation of virtual machine roles, virtual networking, clouds, plans, and more. See helpful demos, and hear examples that will help speed up your journey to the cloud. Bring your questions for the live Q&A!

Register here: https://aka.ms/WAPIaaS

If not, don't waste any time and explore this really cool new design. It was recently featured at TechEd North America in Houston by Scott Guthrie.

Its a radical shift from today's portal, it delivers a much richer and intuitive end user experience. A lot more dashboarding featured to provide you greater insight into how your resources are performing in Azure.

Take the tour at: https://portal.azure.com/ 

Microsoft Azure

Cloud Identity and Access Management

Cloud Security

API Management

Media Services

Mobile Services

SharePoint with SQL Server AlwaysOn

Infrastructure Services

Building real-world cloud apps

Scaling applications using Cloud Services

Microsoft integration platform

Mobile Gaming

Cloud Design Patterns

Get your copy today!

In an increasingly multi-hypervisor world, more and more IT organizations are using Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft Azure to achieve superior performance and workload flexibility at the best possible price. With nearly two-thirds of businesses on more than one virtualization platform, adding Microsoft virtualization and cloud skills to your technical repertoire can improve your career options and prepare you to face new IT demands.

Rewards and Prizes (U.S. Only)

Complete the online Quests and receive a completion badge suitable for printing or sharing online to showcase your new skills with Microsoft virtualization! In addition, IT Pros located in the U.S. are eligible to win one of several cool prizes during monthly prize drawings in April, May and June 2014. **

If you're located outside of the U.S., you're certainly still welcome to join us and take advantage of the Early Experts study materials to help you prepare for certification.

The clock is ticking … Join us today!

Early Experts study groups are forming now for existing VMware / Virtualization professionals targeting the following Microsoft certification:

• Specialist: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center (Exam 74-409)

**NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to IT Professionals who are legal residents of the 50 U.S. states or D.C., 18+. Sweepstakes ends on June 30, 2014. See Official Rules.

http://www.questofthecloudwalker.com/

Hark beleaguered IT Professionals!

We know of the evils which plague you daily—mountains of help desk tickets, crashing computers, ridiculous requests from management, and far, far worse. But fear not, for we have felt your misery and despair, and created a fantastical world where you can use your hard-earned knowledge to crush demonic personifications of your IT woes.

So begin thy quest, choose from one of three heroic avatars, and arm yourself with up to four of the righteous weapons of IT. For each mystical weapon you arm yourself with, you’ll receive a code to enter in the game for a chance to win a fabled Xbox One.

Then carry onward into battle, where eight of your greatest foes await. There is Tickakomus, the God of forgotten passwords and missing power cords; Messglore, master of server closet chaos; and of course, the most feared monster of all, Chronos, Devourer of Time and Destroyer of Reality!

The task before you is mighty, but if you are true of heart and steeped in knowledge, your victory is assured. Become the savior all besieged IT Pros have been waiting for, in Quest of the Cloudwalker!

Stay up to speed on Channel9

A lot of exciting stuff no matter what track your focus is on, but if your like me on the Azure side loads of news there so far. Static IP Reservations, Site Recovery Additional Azure Backup capabilities, Malware protection for Azure VM’s just to name a few.

Tune in & get ahead.

Have Fun :)

If you are a System Center geek like me and you are going to be in Houston on May 16th you should check out Day-5. Day-5 is a community built event focused on providing some additional System Center content for the people who just want more. Many of our MVPs, community members and partners who are making a long trek from out of state or country to be @ TechEd. The additional event put together by two of our finest MVPs – Maarten Goet and Cameron Fuller is supported by Stephen Leuthold and the HASMUG (Houston Area System Management User Group). Day-5 will be a 2-track learning event and will include 12 MVPs across the System Center, Azure, and Hyper-V expertise. Here is the latest speaker and sessions posted on the event site:

Speakers & Session titles: (Alphabetically ordered)

• Chris Ross (#SCSMUS) Demystifying Service Manager Reporting
• Damian Flynn (@damian_flynn) From Dev to Ops: Visual Studio, TFS and WAP
• Hans Vredevoort (@hvredevoort) The Windows Azure Pack Usage Service and how it depends on System Center 2012 R2 components
• Jason Sandys (@JasonSandys) A case study in deploying Windows with Third-party Full Disk Encryption
• Johan Arwidmark (@jarwidmark) Advanced Troubleshooting - ConfigMgr 2012 R2 OSD
• Marc van Eijk (@_marcvaneijk) WAP showdown – VM Template vs. VM Role
• Marcel Zehner (#itnetx) Customer requirements first - Service Manager customizations without limits
• Michael Niehaus (@mniehaus) Windows 8.1 Update – installing, deploying, using
• Robert Hedblom (@RoberrtandDPM) How to deliver BaaS and RaaS in a modern datacenter
• Pete Zerger (@pzerger) WAP: Web Sites for IT Pros
• Wally Mead (#WallyMead) Leaving the Dark Ages: Migrating to Configuration Manager 2012 R2

You can register for Day-5 @ http://hasmug.eventbrite.com

• For more information on HASMUG and this event: http://www.hasmug.com/
• For all information currently available on this event: http://tinyurl.com/TE14D5
• For the latest information on Day-5 follow @SCUGDay5 and check out #TE14D5

See you all in next week!

Be sure to check out;

Windows 8.1 updates and more, for a full list of all the blog posts coming live from the conference check out: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/events/build/materials.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2014/03/16/using-azure-backup-with-dpm.aspx