Best of TechEd 2013: Enabling On-demand Infrastructure Services in YOUR Datacenter with the Windows Azure Pack

Didn’t make it to TechEd this year? Don’t worry!  This month, we’ll be releasing a new article series that highlights the Best of TechEd announcements and technical information for IT Pros.  Today’s article focuses on the new Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2, which provides an on-demand self-service experience for provisioning applications, VMs and Virtual Networks in YOUR datacenter in much the same way as our Windows Azure public cloud platform..

Enabling On-premises IaaS Solutions with the Windows Azure Pack

Eric Winner and Marc Umeno gave an information-packed talk at TechEd 2013 that introduced the Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 Private Cloud environments.  Although the Windows Azure Pack was originally envisioned for hosting partners that need to support multiple customer tenant environments, other organizations have expressed interest in the Windows Azure Pack as an easy-to-use user interface for self-provisioning virtual application workloads in an on-premises datacenter – such as development and testing teams that may need to quickly spin-up and spin-down dev/test environments on-demand. Below, I’ve provided a clickable index to the recorded session, so that you can easily concentrate on learning about the areas that are most important to you.

Download the deck and video for offline viewing.

Session Index – Enabling On-Premises IaaS Solutions with the Windows Azure Pack

• [ 0:53 ] Windows Azure Pack – Strategy and Vision
  • Consistent Service Model across Windows Server, System Center and Windows Azure
  • Private Clouds, Public Clouds, Hosted Clouds
     
• [ 9:31 ] DEMO: Provisioning Virtual Machines in the Windows Azure Pack Tenant Portal
   
• [ 21:23 ] Windows Azure Pack IaaS Architecture
  • Service Management API
  • Service Provider Foundation ( SPF )
  • System Center 2012 R2 ( VMM, Orchestrator, Operations Manager )
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V
     
• [ 22:38 ]  Using Virtual Machine Roles
  • Import Application Extension into VMM
  • Import Gallery Item into SPF
  • Offer to Tenants
  • Create Virtual Machine Role
  • Manage existing Virtual Machine Roles
     
• [ 23:35 ] Service Admin Gallery
  • Import and Manage Gallery Items
  • Publish / Unpublish Gallery Items to Tenants
  • Add Gallery Items to Plans
     
• [ 24:17 ] Tenant Virtual Machine Role Features
  • Cloud OS Virtual Machine Role
  • Support for VM Templates
  • Active Directory Authentication
  • Co-Admins can share subscription
     
• [ 24:53 ] Tenant Virtual Networks
  • Tenants can self-provision their own networks
  • Support for NAT, Site-to-Site VPN, Network Virtualization
  • Consistent User Experience with Windows Azure public cloud platform
     
• [ 25:22 ] Enable Remote Console Access for Tenants
  • Independent of VM networking and VM OS
  • Requires Remote Desktop Gateway in Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Remote Console Flow
     
• [ 27:48 ] Deep Dive - Virtual Machine Gallery
  • Virtual Machine Role Gallery
  • Virtual Machine Role Gallery Item
  • Virtual Machine Role
  • Three artifacts that provide configuration:
    • Virtual Machine Role View Definition
    • Virtual Machine Role Resource Definition
    • Virtual Machine Role Resource Extension
       
• [ 54:38 ] DEMO: Service Admin Importing Gallery Items and Offering to Tenants
   
• [ 1:04:28 ] Helpful Resources
  • Sample Gallery Items
  • Authoring and Best Practices Guide

Additional resources

Be sure to also check out the long list of new features and enhanced capabilities announced for Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V and System Center 2012 R2 VMM, since the Windows Azure Pack tightly integrates with both of these products to provide a complete solution.

• WATCH: Best of TechEd 2013: What’s New in Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2
   
• WATCH: Best of TechEd 2013: What’s New In Private Cloud with System Center 2012 R2 VMM
   

Now, it’s your turn … Let us know your feedback!

Are you excited about the availability of the Windows Azure Pack? Let us know your feedback and thoughts in the comments section below …

- Keith

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  The Windows Azure Pack is not replacing System Center 2012 App Controller.  App Controller provides a unified web management portal for managing Private Clouds, Azure Clouds and Service Provider Clouds from a single management tool. The Windows Azure Pack, on the other hand, is intended for organizations - originally intended for Hosting partners, but could apply to some enterprise organizations as well - that would like to deploy a self-service portal environment that multiple tenants can use on top of a common physical fabric - essentially it allows an organization to build a "Private Label" version of Azure VM and Web Site offerings that are consuming fabric resources from within their own datacenter environment. Hope this helps! Keith

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2013
  Will/does Windows Azure Pack in R2 replace App Controller used now in SP1? Will there be a way to transition, migrate to Windows Azure Pack if App Controller is already used? If it's not a replacement, how does it compare, differ?