Ramblings from another nerd on the grid
Gadget Links
Virtual Stuff
Microsoftees
Windows Sites
Other Diversions
In this post we’ll examine two critical aspects of hybrid cloud operations: Health monitoring and self-service, including how to identify and troubleshoot some of the most common maintenance questions and obstacles. To successfully operate your Hybrid Cloud, both of these factors will need to be planned for and actively executed on a regular basis. MORE
See http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t440s/ for the details and specs. I ordered the base model with an upgraded CPU. I will add more memory and storage later. Looking forward to seeing the new IPS screen. Did Lenovo finally get a clue? We’ll see. I should have it around Thanksgiving. Gobble Gobble.
Hold on to your butts. http://cars.mclaren.com/p1.html
Tis the season to spend money and if you are considering a notebook or slate, you should consider the popular Lenovo Yoga. Lenovo just released the Yoga 2 Pro with the latest generation Intel Haswell processors. This form factor device works in a variety of configurations from standard notebook mode, to a slate or tent mode. Very nice.
See the features, technical specs, and ordering links at http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/yoga/yoga-2-pro/.
Nokia took the wraps off some new devices today on the other side of the world. See the press release for details on their new slate form factor computer and smartphones. I don’t normally dig huge screen smartphones, but the list of features in the Lumia 1520 is rather impressive. 6†IPS 1080p display, 20 megapixel camera, Snapdragon Quad Core 800 processor and much much more. Dig it!
More information on this lovely phone at http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/lumia1520.
Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8.1 includes Server Manager, Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins, consoles, Windows PowerShell cmdlets and providers, and command-line tools for managing roles and features that run on Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2. In limited cases, the tools can be used to manage roles and features that are running on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008. Some of the tools work for managing roles and features on Windows Server 2003.
Go get the bits @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39296
This download package contains Word and PDF versions of the technical documentation for Windows Azure Pack. The following guides are available:
Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40792
Check out the 411 on Windows 8.1 at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/features.
I am proud to be part of the team providing information on the innovation Microsoft is delivering to support our Cloud OS vision. Today some of the best products in the industry are “generally available†meaning you can download them and start testing them against your unique technical requirements. Here’s a recap of the blog posts we have written and posted on the Server and Tools Blog Network today:
We have a ton of technical information coming over the next weeks and months. Deeply technical “How-To†posts and videos to help you build technical muscle and competencies on the products.
In the meantime, be sure and explore the TechNet Evaluation Center to grab some bits. Windows Server 2012 R2 is at the core, so head on over to the TechNet Windows Server 2012 R2 hub for information and videos on the server roles and technologies.
It is the holiday season. Cool weather, leather jackets, the sound of the leaves shaking to old man winter. Then there is the fall parade of cameras, gadgets and computers vying for your hard earned dollars. Today the parade begins. Windows 8.1 is officially available and our OEM partners are taking the wraps off a slew of devices.
Samsung has one of the best laptop designs on the planet and the machine they released today is no exception. The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus NP940X3G-K04US is a crowd pleaser. Next generation Intel i7 4500U dual core CPU with integrated 4400 GPU, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, a mind blowing 13.3†3200x1800 resolution screen, backlit keyboard, and much more. I had the pleasure of owning the previous generation machine and you literally could not tell it was in my backpack. Look at the technical specifications carefully.
If you need a state-of-the-art light weight computer, this should be on your list of candidates. It isn’t cheap so look for a deal. Let me know if you have any questions. I have owned both the 13.3†and 15†versions of the previous generation.
The Office for Mac 2011 training downloads include Portable Document Format (.pdf) and PowerPoint (.pptx) versions of all Office 2011 tutorials and videos. I pulled down the Outlook zip file and took a look at a couple of the videos. These are tastefully done and informative. Short and sweet.
Go get them @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=19790.
For you visual creatures, we have some new posters that will help you understand some of the new Windows Server 2012 R2 components, the architecture under the covers, and some key Hyper-V mini posters. Highly recommended for your reference library.
Go get them @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40732.
Black Carbon fiber. Only $3,000,000.00 USD. I got this.
We are pushing the boundaries of our data platform with breakthrough performance, cloud capabilities and the pace of delivery to our customers. Last year at PASS Summit, we announced our In-Memory OLTP project “Hekaton†and since then released SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse and public previews of Windows Azure HDInsight and Power BI for Office 365. Today we have SQL Server 2014 CTP2, our public and production-ready release shipping a mere 18 months after SQL Server 2012. MORE
This Microsoft Test Lab Guide (TLG) provides you with step-by-step instructions to create the Windows Server 2012 R2 Network Virtualization with System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) test lab, using computers running Windows Server 2012 R2. This test lab is based on four physical computers, each hosting multiple virtual machines. Updated September 2013 to include forwarding gateway and NAT functionality.
This is core learning. Read, build and learn at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39284.
Microsoft Monitoring Agent monitors computer infrastructure and application health. It collects diagnostic data, such as performance metrics, event logs, and traces. Microsoft Monitoring Agent can be used as a standalone tool or together with System Center Operations Manager. When monitoring .NET applications, you can direct the agent to save application traces in an IntelliTrace log format that can be opened in Visual Studio Ultimate. When connected to System Center Operations Manager, the agent calculates the health state of the monitored computers and objects, and then reports back to the management server. The management servers centrally distribute the configuration to agents and store data received from the monitored computers.
More information and the download @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40316.
NIC teaming, also known as Load Balancing/Failover (LBFO), allows multiple network adapters to be placed into a team for the purposes of bandwidth aggregation, and/or traffic failover to maintain connectivity in the event of a network component failure. This guide describes how to deploy and manage NIC Teaming with Windows Server 2012 R2.
Get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40319
Get the 411 @ http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/pre-order
I posted this to my facebook page, but I thought it was appropriate to share here. Rewind to the week before 9/11. I was in New York and New Jersey the week before calling on customers and talking with them about the Microsoft Trusted Solutions Platform (TSP). What happened after will forever be etched in my soul. The actual images are too horrific to repost. If you must see, click the image below but they are painful.
“Keith Combs The place I sat was joyous. Sitting, sipping a glass of wine, eating Italian goodies, watching and listening to some great music on an elevated stage. Vivid. Etched in my mind... It's now a memorial. Customers and friends gone. I cry.â€
As noted in my earlier post about the availability dates for the 2012 R2 wave, we are counting the days until our partners and customers can start using these products. Today I am proud to announce a big milestone: Windows Server 2012 R2 has been released to manufacturing! MORE
This guide is the third edition of the first volume in a series about Windows Azure. It demonstrates how you can adapt an existing on-premises ASP.NET application to one that operates in the cloud by introducing a fictitious company named Adatum that modifies its expense tracking and reimbursement system, aExpense, so that it can be deployed to Windows Azure. To illustrate the wide range of options and features in Windows Azure, this guide and the code examples available for it show a step-by-step migration process that includes using Windows Azure Web Sites, Virtual Machines, Cloud Services, and SQL Database. Together with useful information on developing, deploying, managing, and costing cloud-hosted applications, this guide provides you with a comprehensive resource for moving your applications to Window Azure.
Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29252.
It occurs to me that “The Security Realm – A Microsoft Map of the Known World†picture at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39706 is quite possibly the largest pic I’ve downloaded. The detail is impressive and fun. The picture original size is a massive 13500 x 10800 and the filesize is a whooping 81 MB. Pretty kewl.
The August 2013 update of the Windows Azure Training Kit includes updated versions of Introduction to Access Control Service 2.0 to the latest portal experience and MVC 4; Getting Started Windows Azure Storage with two extra exercises that go deeper on each storage abstraction security; and 4 new labs showing brand new portal functionalities. Content Updates:
Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8396.
The Microsoft Cloud OS solution provides a modern datacenter with enterprise class virtualization, greater resource utilization, end-to-end service management and deep insight into applications so organizations can focus on delivering business value. Together with Windows Azure or a Microsoft Service Provider, you can also create advanced hybrid cloud deployment scenarios where seasonal spikes in demand can be easily managed through the public cloud.
Our web-based tool provides a quick comparison of the TCO and benefits of deploying a Microsoft hybrid cloud vs. a VMware private cloud solution for your new workloads; or migrating your existing VMware workloads. Check it out!
The Microsoft Test Lab Guide (TLG) provides you with step-by-step instructions to create the Windows Base Configuration test lab, using computers running Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview, With the resulting test lab environment, you can build test labs based on other Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview-based TLGs from Microsoft, TLG extensions in the TechNet Wiki, or a test lab of your own design that can include Microsoft or non-Microsoft products.
For a test lab based on physical computers, you can image the drives for future test labs. For a test lab based on virtual machines, you can create snapshots of the base configuration virtual machines. This enables you to easily return to the base configuration test lab, where most of the routine infrastructure and networking services have already been configured, so that you can focus on building a test lab for the product, technology, or solution of interest.
Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39638.
This reporting workbook provides you with a detailed view into the email protection data that is available in the Office 365 Reporting dashboard. This workbook is available to all Exchange Online and Exchange Online Protection customers. The workbook provides summary graphs for a number of different types of email message filtering. This includes messages identified as spam, malware, or good mail (mail that cleanly passed all filtering). It also shows graphs for messages that were identified by either a transport rule or DLP policy (Exchange Online customers only).
The data for the summary graphs is pulled locally via a web service call. After loading the summary data into the workbook, you can perform deeper analysis through the use of data slicers. These allow you to change the view of the data in order to identify trends or unusual activity. When such a condition is found, you can click through from the summary to the detail data. Another web service call will be made to pull the detail data that you can use to identify the actual messages that caused the condition seen in the summary graph.
Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30716. I really need to try this with my accounts.
This download includes Group Policy Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool files for use with Office 2010 applications. It also includes an \Admin folder with an Office Customization Tool, and ADMX, ADML, and ADM versions of Office 2010 system Administrative Template files.
For administrative template files, you may use the ADM files for any Windows operating system, or the combination of ADMX and language-specific ADML files on computers running at least Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.
This download version contains updates to support Office 2010 SP2. For the latest information about policy settings, please refer to the updated Microsoft Excel 2010 workbook, Office2010GroupPolicyAndOCTSettings_Reference.xls, which is available in the Files to download section of this download page. The updated workbook, Office2010GroupPolicyAndOCTSettings_Reference.xls, contains settings changes that were made after the download package was built.
Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=18968.
I still remember the magic of touching my first fibre HBA. Releasing the server form the shackles of SCSI chaining and throughput issues. It seems like a long time ago, but improvement continues to march on and one of our teams just released a nice article called the “Hyper-V Virtual Fibre Channel Design Guide†written by Microsoft Consulting Services Senior Consultant, Jason Dinwiddie. Be sure to check it out. Definitely worth the short read. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831531.aspx for other articles on Hyper-V.
As we set out to further invest in Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials, we wanted to build upon the great primary server experience that exists today with Windows Server 2012 Essentials, while at the same time providing a new level of flexibility in terms of how your server can be deployed. The Windows Server Essentials team is excited to announce the availability of the Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Preview, and the Windows Server Essentials Experience server role for the Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and Datacenter editions! MORE
Welcome to TechEd Europe 2013 being held in Madrid, Spain June 25-28, 2013. We have a lot of information to share this week on Microsoft products and services that comprise our Cloud OS vision. In addition to the great session content, we also have announcements as well as partner and customer information we think you will find valuable. It’s going to be a busy week with a lot of great information.
See http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2013/06/25/teched-europe-2013-launches-with-cloud-os-product-previews-partner-announcements-and-customer-case-studies.aspx for the 411 on the announcements, downloads and on-demand viewing.
Tatsuo Horiuchi said, “Graphics software is expensive but Excel comes pre-installed on most computers. And it has more functions and is easier to use than [Microsoft] Paintâ€.
See the amazing article at http://twistedsifter.com/2013/06/excel-art-by-tatsuo-horiuchi/ for more information.
Artwork by Tatsuo Horiuchi.
SMB is getting a lot of attention with Windows Server 2012, and we’ve had questions from a few customers regarding the inter-play between SMB shares and Hyper-V Replica. In this post we’ll share our experience around setting up and using various configurations involving SMB shares and Hyper-V Replica. The issue we were expecting to run into is the apparent lack of authorization to use the SMB share, when using remote management.
See the full post at http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2013/06/14/using-smb-shares-with-hyper-v-replica.aspx.
Today, we're releasing Office Mobile for iPhone available at no extra charge from the Apple App Store for Office 365 Home Premium and Office 365 ProPlus subscribers. Similar to our free Office Mobile for Windows Phone that ships with every handset, the iPhone app enables great Office content viewing and on-the-go content editing capabilities.
See the Office blog at http://blogs.office.com/b/office-news/archive/2013/06/14/office-mobile-for-the-iphone-is-now-available-for-office-365-subscribers.aspx for more information. Enjoy!
Make sure you memorize the following if you decide to interview for a technical position here. Ok, I’m half joking. If you were going to interview for something that doesn’t involve Exchange Server, then you can save a few brain cells. If however you are interviewing for a Support, TS or MCS position that involves Exchanger server, you’d better be intimate with this poster.
Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39102.
This update fixes critical issues and also helps to improve security. It includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. For more information about this update, please visit the Microsoft Web site.
Applies to: Office 2011, Office 2011 Home and Business Edition, Word 2011, Excel 2011, PowerPoint 2011, Outlook 2011, Office for Mac Standard 2011 Edition, Microsoft Office for Mac Home & Student 2011, and Microsoft Office for Mac Academic 2011.
Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39142.
ASUS took the wraps off the Zenbook Infinity. I may have to get one, along with a matching G37. Until ASUS posts the details on their website, we’ll just have to drool over the new slick blue notebook. Looks like it has mini DisplayPort in the pic. There’s a move in the right direction if true.
Earlier today at Computex, Dell shared some details about a new convertible laptop, the XPS 11. Though it’s the smallest convertible Windows 8 machine they have designed, it brings a lot of power. It features a gorgeous Quad HD (2560 x 1440) display and the latest hardware from Intel.
See more details at http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2013/06/03/dell-s-xps-11-makes-appearance-at-computex-2013.aspx.
I know there is a flurry of information hitting you from all sides right now, but I wanted to being some important links and information to your attention. First up is a blog post at http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2013/06/03/microsoft-is-cloud-first-at-teched-north-america-2013-day-1-highlights.aspx penned by yours truly.
This post has a number of links to announcements from the Presidents and VP’s at Microsoft for Windows Server, System Center, Azure, Visual Studio, etc. There are links to important videos and other sessions happening today at TechEd North America 2013 in New Orleans.
Second, we have a fabulous new set of web pages at http://microsoft.com/server-cloud to give you keen insight into Microsoft’s Cloud OS vision. At the same time we launched a new YouTube channels at http://www.youtube.com/mscloudos.
That should keep you plenty busy for a few minutes. Enjoy!!
Windows 8.1 will advance the bold vision set forward with Windows 8 to deliver the next generation of PCs, tablets, and a range of industry devices, and the experiences customers — both consumers and businesses alike — need and will just expect moving forward. It’s Windows 8 even better. Not only will Windows 8.1 respond to customer feedback, but it will add new features and functionality that advance the touch experience and mobile computing’s potential. Windows 8.1 will deliver improvements and enhancements in key areas like personalization, search, the built-in apps, Windows Store experience, and cloud connectivity. Windows 8.1 will also include big bets for business in areas such as management and security – we’ll have more to say on these next week at TechEd North America.
See the full blog post at http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/05/30/continuing-the-windows-8-vision-with-windows-8-1.aspx.
Hyper-V 3.0 in many ways is the crown jewel of our enterprise virtualization and private cloud strategy and is the heart of where many of the improvements in our flagship Server OS reside. So we should probably talk about what has improved since our previous Hyper-V releases, and what you can do with our hypervisor technology out of the box in Windows Server 2012 today.
See the start of this series and the full post at http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2013/05/22/cloud-broiler-hyper-v-a-platform-the-scales-out-for-building-the-largest-public-and-private-clouds.aspx.