Part 5 of a 9-part series . Today’s post is the 2nd of two sections; to read the first half, click here . I recently had an opportunity to speak with a number of leaders from the former VMWare User Group (VMUG), and it was an incredibly educational...

  Part 5 of a 9-part series . Today’s post has two sections; the second half is here . One of the industry metrics that I follow closely every quarter is the sale of x86 servers around the world. I look at the trends around the purchase of the server...

  Part 4 of a 9-part series . The Common Engineering Criteria (CEC) that I’ve talked about in previous posts have been instrumental in ensuring that the teams contributing to 2012 R2 met rigorous and specific criteria in areas like Manageability...

Check out my appearance on the latest episode of The Edge Show with Rick Claus. In this episode I talk about some of the behind-the-scenes elements in the “ What’s New in 2012 R2 ” series, with an emphasis on the first pillar covering PCIT .  I’ll...

This week’s episode is a repost of an interview I did with TechNet Radio earlier this week.  In this interview I talk with host Kevin Remde about the new 2012 R2 wave of products, and we talk about the first two posts (covering People-centric IT...

Part 3 of a 9-part series . In today’s post, we tackle a common question I get from customers: “Why move to the cloud right now ? ” Recently, however, this question has changed a bit to, “What should I move to the cloud first ? ” An important thing to...

Part 2 of a 9-part series .  The modern workforce isn’t just better connected and more mobile than ever before, it’s also more discerning (and demanding) about the hardware and software used on the job. While company leaders around the world are...

Part 1 of a 9-part series . Over the last three weeks, Microsoft has made an exciting series of announcements about its next wave of products, including Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2, SQL Server 2014, Visual Studio 2013, Windows Intune...

On Thursday Gartner released their 2013 Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure , in which they positioned Microsoft as a “ Leader ” in the industry. For anyone unfamiliar with the format of the graphic below, the Magic Quadrant is...

Back in May , I discussed how technologies such as Windows Server 2012, Hyper-V, and System Center 2012 SP1, provide the most scalable, reliable, and feature-rich platform to run key, tier-1 workloads like SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange, at the lowest...

In place of this week’s podcast (since everyone is on their way back from Spain!), check out this replay of my TechEd Europe keynote from earlier this week.

I am absolutely thrilled to be delivering the Day 1 keynote at TechEd Europe for the third straight year . This is consistently an amazing event with the very best and brightest companies and IT pros across Europe, not to mention some equally amazing...

This week's episode, we discuss the very popular Service Template for SharePoint 2013 and talk with its creator, Jim Britt. I first talked about this service template in my keynote at MMS 2013 , and I encouraged everyone to read more about it in the "Automation"...

The new Hyper-V features introduced by Windows Server 2012 were game changing for the IT industry, and the impact has been so positive that, just about every customer I speak with is conducting their own tests on Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V as their...

In this episode, Brad expands on the topics he discussed earlier in the week on the topic of cloud-based corporate device management. As noted in that previous post, to see some amazing corporate device management demos, take a look at Molly Brown’s demo...

In a previous post I talked about technical, people, and cloud computing trends in corporate IT.  The practical impact of these trends means that the shift to a “bring your own device” (BYOD) or “choose your own device” (CYOD) enterprise workforce...

This week’s podcast is preempted by events at TechEd 2013, but, in case you haven't had a chance to see it yet, my Day 1 keynote is included below in its entirety (including the opening video with Aston Martin!). Thanks again to everyone who attended...

Earlier this week (both on-stage and on this blog ) I commented that “ cloud computing is no longer a spectator sport “ and that now, more than ever, there are countless reasons to get excited about what your business can do in the cloud. Whether you...

Yesterday was a HUGE day for the IT community , the tech industry, and Microsoft. In case you missed my keynote or any of the other sessions, you can watch them on-demand h ere (you can also read the keynote transcript ). To get into even more detail...

[Posted Monday, June 3]   In Satya Nadella’s post from earlier today , he describes Microsoft’s transformation to a “cloud-first” business: Two years ago we bet our future on the cloud and quietly refocused our 19 billion-dollar software business...

In this episode, I discuss what to expect from TechEd North America (June 3) and TechEd Europe (June 25), as well as some of the big themes in my Day 1 keynote at both events. This is a huge event for the tech industry, and I look forward to seeing a...

Back in mid-April, I discussed the importance of data center high availability , and how the cost of data storage is minimal compared to the cost of not being able to access that data. There are a lot of options for creating a highly available system...

In episode 7, I take some extra time to look at Wednesday's "Better Together' post in greater detail. In particular, we talk about the performance benefits of running Microsoft workloads (Exchange, SharePoint, etc.) on Microsoft platforms (Windows...

I’ve heard IT departments all over the world share a very similar joke about how the rest of the company has no idea where their e-mail comes from or where their SharePoint sites are stored – they just want these things to be there when they need them...

In this episode, I take a look at the topic of high availability, back up, and disaster recovery.  These are incredibly important topics for businesses that depend on consistent access to corporate data, and whose customer base insists on avoiding...