A blog covering Azure, Hyper-V, Windows Server, desktop, systems management, deployment, and so on …
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.
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:
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:
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.
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.
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’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.
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.
Hopefully this new Arc mouse will last me as long as the last one has!
As an attendee, the most exciting bit of the conference preparation is registration and booking travel. Then the excitement builds up with the release of the schedule builder – this is, historically, a list of the sessions that Microsoft is free to advertise and talk about at that point in time … other sessions are hush hush until the keynote 😉
The Schedule Builder is the tool that gives you the ability to list all of the sessions and check the ones that you want to add to your schedule. I typically break it down to time slots for the track(s) that I’m interested in, and check any session I like the sound of – and yes, I will double or even triple book … sometimes rooms are full, sometimes I change my mind, and sometimes I hear that sessions/speakers are excellent or not so good. Microsoft uses this information to plan room assignments for the sessions. Later on, you can sync the schedule builder to Outlook or download an ICS file – leave that as late as possible, maybe even until after you’ve attended the Monday foundational sessions.
The TechEd Europe 2014 Countdown Show, presented by Microsoft’s Joey Snow (@joeysnow) and Rick Claus (@RicksterCDN), featured the Schedule Builder last week.
In fact, at the 8:30 minute mark, the guys even mention a certain Hyper-V session 🙂 Thanks, lads!
I love a free promo!
Check out the schedule builder if you are attending, and maybe even the CH9 Events app on your mobile device to have a handy digital builder with you on site.
Windows 9 steals the headlines this morning. No; it is not out. No; you cannot download a preview yet. And yes; the person you know who says otherwise is an idiot. We know what we know – Microsoft is planning a sneak peek event for the enterprise audience on September 30th. There are no more facts than that.
And in other news, I’ve run out of stock of my super-duper Windows 9 tablets powered by i9 processors.
The big news yesterday was the leaking of screenshots of Windows “Threshold” (9). Most of them were more of the same, but we saw confirmation of some recently rumoured changes.
Retaining my backup of PowerShell scripts for 9 years!