Month: September 2014

Microsoft Releases The First Hints About Windows Server & System Center “Threshold”– Preview Out on Oct 1st

Microsoft confirmed the future plans of Windows Server & System Center (Cloud OS) vNext tonight. The released “a bit” of information:

    • Infrastructure upgrades: Rolling upgrades for Hyper-V clusters to the next version of Windows Server without downtime for your applications and workloads. This includes support for mixed versions as you transition your infrastructure.
    • Networking:  New components for our software-defined networking stack that enable greater flexibility and control, including a network controller role to manage virtual and physical networks.
    • Storage: New synchronous storage replication that enhances availability for key applications and workloads plus storage Quality of Service to deliver minimum and maximum IOPS in environments with workloads with diverse storage requirements.
    • Remote Desktop: Enhanced application compatibility with OpenGL and OpenCL support.
    • Identity and Access Management: New scenarios to reduce the risk profile of administrators with elevated rights, including time-based access with fine-grained privileges, and new application publishing capabilities.

They also confirmed that the preview will be out on Oct 1st:

As our first step in this journey, we will be making a “Technical Preview” available for the next version of Windows Server and System Center on October 1.

 

This bit of news is strange:

We are also evolving how we ship our software and service our platform products to keep the software up-to-date. For our datacenter products, there is a duality in what customers want: in some scenarios customers tell us they favor stability and predictability while in other scenarios they want access to the latest and greatest technologies as fast as possible. We’ll have more specifics in the coming months, but you can expect us to deliver the best of both worlds: options for speed and agility, plus options for stability and durability

Hmm, worrying. I think they aren’t listening to us about update trustworthiness. We need to speak louder.

But on the positive side … .rolling friggin updates of Hyper-V clusters. Woooooooooooooooooooohoooooo!

Synchronous storage replication should be *ahem* very interesting. I also like the introduction of storage QoS.

Windows 10 Is The Next Version of Windows

There’s no Windows 9. It’s called Windows 10. I know there’s got to be a story behind this, probably one that we’ll never here, and probably related to a change in management, and possibly direction.

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Thank frak they did not call it “Windows” or “Windows One”, both of which were teased during the event.

You can see a video of Windows 10 in action here:

Not much was shown that we didn’t already know about. This is a very early build. I think this in conjunction with the skip of Windows 9, suggests to me that there was a re-planning quite late in the process.

The technical preview (a very early build) is out tomorrow (Oct 1st). Join the Windows Insiders program to get your hands on this, probably unstable and frequently updated, build and contribute feedback.

The goal of this build is to show that Windows 7 users can move to Windows 10, like moving from a Prius to a Tesla without re-learning to drive.

The only mention of Windows Server Threhsold was that the preview will be out after the release of the Windows 10 preview.

On the schedule of Windows 10:

  • Tech preview on Oct 1st
  • Consumer preview in early 2015
  • GA in mid-late 2015 … further convincing me that there was a re-start on planning because we originally thought RTM would be around April 2015

Joe Belfiore will be one of the keynote speakers at TechEd Europe. I think we’ll hear much more then regarding enterprise features.

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EDIT #1

Microsoft released a recording of today’s event. Why oh why could they live stream this over Azure if they were going to even bother having cameras there?

EDIT#2

Another video was released, showing the concept of Continuum, the adaptive UI experience for convertible devices.

Windows “Threshold” (9) Press Conference Today – And I’m Concerned

Today in San Francisco, Microsoft is doing their first official unveiling of Windows codename Threshold, otherwise known as Windows 9 or Windows vNext.

Supposedly, this event was to be the enterprise unveiling. Enterprise customers are an important market for Microsoft; that’s because business decision makers have opted to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, and not Windows 8/8.1, effectively choosing to make Windows 7 the next XP – a legacy OS that will exit mainstream support next year. Microsoft supposedly wants enterprises to try Windows Threshold early, and submit feedback, so that, supposedly, Microsoft will engineer the product based on feedback.

I used a lot of “supposedly’s” there, didn’t I? If I wanted to get enterprise customers interested then I would stream the unveiling live on the Internet, and not have a private press event where most of the invitees haven’t the foggiest about what enterprise customers want. It just does not make sense to me.

I wonder what value the event really has. It’s not a launch – that will likely be TechEd Europe on October 28th. The preview is not out until October. Don’t expect to hear a whisper of Windows Server or System Center for another month and a half. And come tonight, I doubt we’ll hear about anything in the Windows client OS that we do not already know – a lot of the GUI features were leaked months ago. I wonder if this event is actually Microsoft’s attempt to take control of the messaging.

There are two remaining questions:

  • Will this be a free upgrade? Enterprise customers usually have software assurance so that’s irrelevant to them. That’s more of a question for SMEs and consumers. Today is allegedly all about enterprises so I doubt we’ll hear anything.
  • What will they call it? Anything other than Windows 9 is a failure. It is rumoured that Windows Threshold will be the start of a more rapid release program, like you get with mobile devices. For enterprises: that would be hellish. Nice for consumers. It is also rumoured that Microsoft will simply call it “Windows”. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! How is an enterprise to support something that changes frequently and has no obvious version number?

I really hope a lot of these rumours are wrong. Otherwise we’ll be contemplating Windows burning while Nadella plays his “cloud first, mobile first” fiddle.

We’ll be watching the tweets of Mary Jo Foley & Paul Thurrott, and the live blog on the Verge to find out what’s been discussed in San Francisco later this afternoon.

On Vacation

I will be away until Sept 29th on vacation. There should be no posts between now & then – but don’t be shy of hitting the archives and the search tool.

FYI, there will be no responses to email, no answering my phone, and no alarm calls in the morning. I am chilling in a warm climate, by the sea, with not a mosquito, midge, raptor or bear to be seen.

You Cannot Switch To Azure Open Licensing – Yet

There are a number of ways that you can purchase Azure. You can get it as a part of an enterprise agreement (high cost of entry, but highest value). You can get it via one of these means:

  • Pay direct (credit card)
  • Trial
  • MSDN benefit

We in the licensing biz bundle those options up as MOSP (Microsoft online subscription program). And then there is Open volume licensing (low cost of entry with control over spending and no long/big commitment).

I was told that at WPC (I was not there) attendees were briefed that customers who were subscribing to Azure via MOSP (see above) could switch to Open licensing.

That is not true; at this point, if you have been consuming Azure via direct payment (credit card), trial, or MSDN benefit, then you cannot switch to Open licensing – yet.

Microsoft is addressing this issue, and we believe a change of some kind is coming this calendar year (no promises because I do not work for Microsoft). That will allow:

  • Customers paying by credit card to centralize and take control of their Azure spending
  • Use a free trial to evaluate and price an Azure deployment, and switch to their desired Open licensing

So right now, not possible, despite what we were allegedly told at WPC, but a change is coming to enable switching to Azure on Open.

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Microsoft News Summary – 19 September 2014

The positive highlight for me is the excellent TechNet article on managing tiered Storage Spaces. The lowlight was the unannounced price changes in Azure – (A) it was unannounced (B) there was no notice, and (C) it means that customers cannot plan; customers hate each and every one of those, especially the latter.

Hyper-V

Window Server

Windows

  • The September 30th Microsoft Event: Paul Thurrott (on Windows Weekly) confirmed that this event will not be streamed. Major mistake in my opinion. The attendees are a small set of media, and the subject matter is Windows “Threshold” in the enterprise. Sure … let’s not let the IT pros who will make the recommendation see the event. That’s reeeealllly sensible. Let the Windows 8 insanity continue.

Azure

Office 365

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Licensing

  • SPLA Audit start to finish: SPLA is based on an honour system – but audits have become a way of life with such licensing programs.

Miscellaneous

RunAs Radio – Software Defined Storage with Aidan Finn

I recorded an episode of the RunAs Radio podcast as a guest with MVP Richard Campbell a couple of of weeks ago, where we talked about using Windows Server in conjunction with commodity hardware to build software-based storage solutions:

Richard talks to Aidan Finn about Software Defined Storage. Picking up he left off in April talking about Microsoft’s Scale-Out File Server, the whole concept of Software Defined Storage is abstracting the details of the storage hardware away from the actual storage process. Aidan digs into how mixtures of SSD and spinning drives to optimize performance using Windows 2012 R2 Storage Spaces reduces costs and simplifies getting significant amounts of storage without any custom gear. And as Aidan says, in the end, it’s all just Windows. Storage continues to evolve, and not just for the big enterprise folks – there are clustered storage solutions for small and medium businesses too!

Here is the whitepaper that I refer to where 1,000,000 IOPS was achieved with a single JBOD tray. Here is the video that I produced that Richard mentions.

You can subscribe to the podcast (RSS here) via all the usual means, and you can download the MP3 here.

Or maybe you would like to see how a new 2U Cluster-in-a-Box (for cloud, branch office and SME deployments) model from DataOn has hit over 2 MILLION IOPS?

Microsoft News Summary – 17 September 2014

Microsoft’s patch woes continue. A September update for Lync was pulled this week. Please: do not approve updates immediately; wait 1 month and let some other mug find the bugs for Microsoft.

Azure

Networking

  • Announcing the Message Analyzer 1.1 Release: The completely indecipherable replacement for Network Monitor has just been upgraded to v1.1. I find this replacement for NetMon to be a complete mystery and the UI looks like something Symantec would come up with (random). It’s no wonder WireShark remains the #1 choice.
  • Introduction to Message Analyzer 1.1: A YouTube video to give you a high-level introduction to Message Analyzer 1.1. Includes a run-through of the UI and an overview of general features.

Deployment

Office 365

Miscellaneous

New Microsoft Arc Touch Bluetooth Mouse

Microsoft just announced a bunch of new peripherals, including the new Arc Touch Bluetooth Mouse. I still have the original Arc mouse, which I’ve loved for the many years that I’ve had it. In case you don’t know – I really like Microsoft’s mice and keyboards, especially their substantial mice for desktop computers.

I just picked up the new Arc Touch mouse that is Bluetooth (4.0 low power) capable (working for a distributor has it’s benefits!). The fold-to-flat award-winning design is a space saver. It auto powers off the mouse, powered by 2 x AAA batteries. And it’s light. It paired straight away with my Windows 8.1 Toshiba KIRAbook, and the touch strip works nicely with the touch interface in Windows – there’s also a slightly audible scrolling noise to simulate a wheel movement with physical feedback. It’s working well on a wooden desk with no mouse mat.

ATBM

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Hopefully this new Arc mouse will last me as long as the last one has!

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