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Posts tagged private cloud
System Center 2012 SP1 Beta is Now Available
Sep 10th
After we had already spotted the updated documentation on Microsoft Download and on TechNet, we now have the beta bits for System Center 2012 SP1. So finally we can also manage the recently released version of Windows Server 2012.
Fortunately SP1 Beta is not restricted to TAP customers, but publicly available. But be careful if you decide to run this beta version in production. There is no formal support available from Microsoft unless you are part of the TAP program. You can download the software here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34607
Microsoft Private Cloud Computing Book Release
Jun 15th
Monday June 18 2012 will be the big day for us. Our book Microsoft Private Cloud Computing will be officially available and even a little earlier than expected. Mid-2011 four MVP’s decided to make a joint effort at writing a practical book on deploying a Microsoft Private Cloud. The four authors are:
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Aidan Finn (MVP Virtual Machine @joe_elway)
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Patrick Lownds (MVP Virtual Machine @patricklownds)
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Damian Flynn (MVP System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management @damian_flynn)
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Hans Vredevoort (MVP Virtual Machine @hvredevoort)
Kristian Nese (@kristiannese) who is also MVP System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management kindly accepted the role of technical reviewer. Kristian has also written a book on Cloud Computing in Norwegian.
Learn the foundation of cloud computing and how to build your own Microsoft private cloud
Written by a team of expert authors who are MVPs and leaders in their respective fields, this one-of-a-kind book is an essential resource for IT administrators who are responsible for implementing and managing a cloud infrastructure. You’ll quickly learn how cloud computing offers significant cost savings while also providing new levels of speed and agility.
Serving as a how-to guide, Microsoft Private Cloud Computing walks you through building a secure, internal cloud and delivering it as a service to your company using Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012.
- Walks you through the entire process: understanding cloud computing, understanding the Microsoft concept of a private cloud, deploying a private cloud fabric, deploying services, and building a private cloud, as well as integrating it with Microsoft’s public cloud to create a cross-premises or public cloud
- Discusses fabric management with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012
- Examines how to provide network and storage with VMM 2012
- Looks at the VMM library configuration
- Discusses private cloud and cloud service management with Microsoft App Controller
Microsoft Private Cloud Computing is a must-have comprehensive resource that covers all aspects of implementing a private cloud
Aidan wrote the introductory chapters on Private Cloud, Hans dealt with the Fabric Management chapters (Servers, Storage, Network) including Bare Metal Deployment, Patrick wrote the chapters on Service Management (VMM Library, Service Modeling) and Damian contributed chapters on Private Cloud Solutions (VMM Services, Self-Service, App Controller) including the Cloud Services Process Pack.
If you are dealing with the Fabric part you need lots and lots of hardware. Fortunately one of our great customers at INOVATIV as well as my personal friends from XS4ALL (Joey Hofstede, Alexander Rijnbeek) have helped us tremendously. They offered us a remotely accessible lab including HP Blade Servers, HP EVA storage and lots of capacity to test all new VMM 2012 functionality. XS4ALL is a key Dutch Internet Provider, so you can imagine the download speeds if I ever wanted to grab a few ISO’s.
The book can be ordered here and will hopefully soon be found in most large bookstores.
Here are the (earlier) announcement blogs of my fellow authors:
Aidan: http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=12024
Damian: http://www.damianflynn.com/2012/01/17/microsoft-private-cloud-computing-book/
All-In with System Center 2012: 8 minute video [Dutch]
Jun 7th
The company I work for is All In with Microsoft System Center 2012 and it is no surprise that we spend a lot of effort getting across the message that this Microsoft Management suite is what you really need if you build a Microsoft Private Cloud with a heterogeneous landscape of hypervisors, operations systems and applications.
In my book Microsoft Private Cloud Computing several of the important pieces are covered such as System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 and App Controller 2012.
This 8-minute video explains why System Center 2012 is such an interesting management suite and ought to be considered by every IT manager or CIO looking to efficiently manage a small, medium or large datacenter.
Dutch version: http://www.systemcenter2012.nl/
Please take a look at the list of System Center 2012 References at the bottom of this blog.
System Center References:
System Center User Group [Dutch]: http://www.scug.nl/
System Center Blog: http://www.systemcenterblog.nl/
System Center Central: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/
System Center Microsoft site: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/default.aspx
System Center 2012 Books: http://www.systemcenterblog.nl/tag/system-center-2012/
System Center Technical Resources: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/
System Center Solution Center: http://support.microsoft.com/ph/16340
Microsoft Private Cloud Computing Book: http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=12024
How to Participate in the System Center Community:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/11504.how-to-participate-in-the-system-center-community.aspx
System Center twitter hashtags;
http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/92725/Default.aspx
System Center Virtual Machine Manager Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/scvmm/
System Center Operations Manager Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/
System Center Data Protection Manager Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/
System Center Service Manager Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/
System Center Orchestrator Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center Configuration Manager Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/
System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management (CDM) MVP’s:
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=System+Center+Cloud+and+Datacenter+Management
Windows 8 Storage and Hyper-V – Part 1: Introduction
Jan 21st
If you are a server, storage or network vendor, please also read the last section.
Now that the Windows Server 8 beta can be expected any time now – but promised before the last week of February 2012 – it might be a good idea to start looking at several of the groundbreaking storage related technologies that could turn up in Windows 8. I stress the word could because we must always be careful since functionality shown in Pre-RTM builds is never guaranteed to be in the GA release.
I am planning to write a couple of blogs about Windows 8 Storage which in many cases is related to the new version of Hyper-V.
If you are running a SAN but also if your company simply can’t afford a SAN, chances are that you will see significant performance increases when reading, writing, copying, moving data with Windows Server 8. In-box storage manageability with PowerShell will strongly contribute to making Windows 8 Storage one of the major pillars of the Microsoft Private Cloud Fabric. As I have looked at it so far, storage is handled extremely well in Windows Server 8. Mind you this is only what I have determined based on what I have heard and seen on \\build and have personally tested since September 2011 with the Windows 8 Developer Preview.
This edition is not at all intended to be stable and testing with de Developer Preview is a true challenge. As a preparation for the Hyper-V.nu event with several sessions on Windows Server 8, I wanted to try out and show some unique new functionality for moving living Hyper-V guests between different types of storage. I had time for building up the pre-requisites and was able to successfully show a Live Storage Migration of a guest between two SMB2 shares on a ScaleOut File Cluster. But there were several other Live Storage moves that I tested but also want to explore further:
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Live Storage Migrate a guest from USB disk to a local disk
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Live Storage Migrate a guest from a local disk to a new Windows 8 Pool and Spaces virtual disk
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Live Storage Migrate a guest from local disk to shared storage on a single host
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Live Storage Migrate a guest from a shared disk on a single host to a shared disk on a Windows 8 Hyper-V cluster
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Live Storage Migrate a guest from a shared disk on a cluster to a CSV version 2 volume on the same cluster
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Live Storage Migrate a guest from any location to an SMB2 file share on a ScaleOut Fileserver with Continuously Available Shares
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Live Storage Migrate a guest between two SMB2 file shares on the same Windows 8 Hyper-V cluster while the ScaleOut Fileserver cluster is moved between nodes.
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Live Storage Migrate a guest between an SMB2 file share used by one Windows 8 Hyper-V cluster to another Hyper-V cluster or even to another SMB2 file share on another server.
Am I now running out of options? On the contrary, I have only just started!
Big day for System Center and Microsoft Private Cloud
Jan 4th
Don’t miss the big public webcast about System Center 2012 & Microsoft Private Cloud with Satya Nadella (President of Server and Tools) and Brad Anderson (CVP of System Center and Management).
The new System Center 2012 vision will be laid out in full detail!
Register for it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/business/events/en-us/PrivateCloudExec
Date: January 17th 2012
Time: 17:30h CET
The private cloud explained
Nov 28th
Everybody is talking about the cloud these days. However the term Cloud is completely over-hyped! Suppliers rebrand their products into cloud products even when it has not only one Cloud property. People say that they are using Cloud computing, but they mean virtualization… and so on.
In this article I’ll try to explain the Internal Cloud and what you need for the Internal Cloud. We also will take a look if we can build an Internal Cloud with Hyper-V and System Center.
Let’s first take a look at the Wikipedia definition of Cloud computing:
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet).
When you look at this definition I can imagine that you say: Hey we’re already doing this for a couple of years and that can be true. Cloud is just a marketing term!
Ok now we’ve clarified the term Cloud let’s take a look at the difference between an internal cloud and a public (external) cloud. The main difference is that an internal cloud is only dedicated to your company and a public cloud is shared with many. An example of a public cloud service is Office 365. Many companies share this platform with other companies and it’s not possible to get a dedicated Exchange server or Sharepoint server within this service. The opposite is true for a private cloud service. Within a private cloud you can get dedicated servers or dedicated hardware.
However, the question is: when are we talking about a private cloud? Well Gartner made a nice model with required en preferred components for a private cloud:
When any of the required components is missing we’re not talking about a private cloud.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Release Candidate RELEASED!!!
Sep 9th
Overview
System Center 2012 cloud and datacenter management solutions empower you
with a common management toolset for your private and public cloud applications
and services. System Center helps you confidently deliver IT as a Service for
your business. Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Release Candidate (RC) is key to
delivering the promise of the System Center 2012 release. Virtual Machine
Manager 2012 enables you to:
with a common management toolset for your private and public cloud applications
and services. System Center helps you confidently deliver IT as a Service for
your business. Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Release Candidate (RC) is key to
delivering the promise of the System Center 2012 release. Virtual Machine
Manager 2012 enables you to:
Results of The Great Big Hyper-V Survey of 2011 (part 2)
Sep 8th
In yesterdays blog I started with the first part of my analysis of the Hyper-V Survey:
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Why Hyper-V?
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Hyper-V Implementation
The second part focuses on these three topics of the survey:
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Systems Management
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Private Cloud?
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The Year is 2012
SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
In this part we want to learn how people are managing their Hyper-V servers. Somehow I was not surprised to see that over 56% use System Center Virtual Machine Manager as their primary management tool. Many will be pleasantly surprised if they see what VMM 2012 can do for them! There are still a number of tasks you can only do (efficiently) in Hyper-V Manager or Failover Cluster Manager. So the 38% is understandable too.
SCVMM 2012 – Bare Metal Deployment of Hyper-V Servers
Apr 20th
Instead of one big article, I decided to split the Bare Metal Deployment blog in a number of smaller pieces to reach the final goal: automating the creation of a Hyper-V cluster. If you go back a few articles you’ll see several other blogs about SCVMM 2012. Although only recently in beta, it is a remarkable piece of software with a great number of new and astounding features aimed at creating and managing what we have come to call the private cloud.
Let me first point out that although SCVMM 2012 is well equipped to manage Hyper-V, VMware and XenServer hosts, some features are currently focusing on Hyper-V as its primary citizen. In the current version Bare Metal Deployment and Cluster Creation can only be done with Hyper-V R2. The primary reason for this is the technology used: boot from VHD which is an R2 feature not seen in VMware or XenServer.
In my previous blogs I explained the concept of Run As Accounts/Profiles, Out of Band Management, adding HP iLO2 to OOB and Host Profiles in SCVMM 2012.
Microsoft Virtual Academy
Apr 4th
I took all four available courses on Microsoft Virtual Academy. Quite a nice crash course about private and public cloud based on Microsoft technology. It took me a few hours to reach a shared first place with 372 points completing all four assessments. I’m looking forward to more content. There are still a few medals to earn …
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