Thursday, October 31, 2013

VMware Best Practices Webcast on Virtualization

Virtualization is now everywhere in the IT Industry and the first thing that comes to our mind when we talk about this topic is the Virtual Machines then next it's none other than our VMware. VMware needs no introduction for the readers as its one of the largest giant today in providing Virtualization at all ends.

When it comes to Server Virtualization the major part we are concentrating is over the cost reduction and simplification of management and also there is one more vital part to check is the Business Continuity and this part is more crucial as it involves the continuous availability of services for users at all times without downtime to provide a rich user experience.

VMware brings many enhanced products and features which performs these tasks integrated with one another to provide such Highly available service and it's always good to learn from the experts and it's time for one such learning event Organized by VMware on November 5th 10.00 AM PST, Register yourself and attend the Webcast session to more on the benefits of Virtualization.


Register here: Best Practices: How to Improve Business Continuity with Virtualization

If you are new to Virtualization, learn the basic concepts here

Block level storage vs. File level storage

Storage plays a major role when it comes to data management and every Industry is spending huge investments on their Storage Architecture which can give more reliability and redundancy and also provides high level data protection and security along with ease of access and a capability to expand the storage capacity when data grows higher without any data loss. Storage mechanism is enhanced to the core in today's IT world from traditional Hard disk drives , SSDs to SAN, NAS and now extended up to Cloud.

Today I was reading few articles over storage and came across an excellent article from TechRepublic under Enterprise Cloud Forum by Scott Lowe , where Scott has compared the difference between Block level and File level storage and shows us their feature differences and provides us adequate knowledge to adopt the appropriate one for the correct requirement by knowing their pros and cons to minimize the challenges we face in the Storage world, Thought of writing a post today to take you there.

Read the full post here : Block level storage vs. file level storage: A comparison

Additionally read one more excellent post on this topic from MyITForum

Block Level Storage or File Level Storage: Which will Suit you Better?

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Will You still Continue to use XP after Reading this?

Microsoft Windows XP is one of the greatest Operating System of all time and like every product it has reached its deadline of support, As everyone know by April 8th 2014 Supports ends Windows XP and this date XP users will no longer receive security updates, non-security hotfixes or free/paid assisted support options and online technical content updates.This makes most of the Organizations to re-think over their Client OS support model and already most of them started to upgrade their environment to either Windows7 or Windows8.


Also performing a OS upgrade on a huge environment is not easy task as it not only involves the deployment tasks it majorly involves the cost and also the training that needs to be provided to the end user to adopt to the new System model and get their queries answered rapidly to restore the user experience at the earliest.

Though above all said things are vital the major one to consider is the Information Security and ensure that the environment is safe from vulnerabilities and Corporate sensitive data is maintained secure at all levels. Organizations already spending more investment towards making the environment secure and now with the unsupported software present in the environment it causes additional threats to the Information Security and leaving behind this vital part would eventually make us get prone to be affected by Malicious Hackers and would make us doomed. So taking the right step ahead is the right decision.

 I wrote this post today because of the latest article I read from Microsoft On the Issues TechNet blog where Tim Rains Director, Trustworthy Computing, Microsoft through the latest Cyber Security Report updated us over the Security threats faced by users today using various flavors of Microsoft Operating Systems by comparing the Malicious Attacks Encounter Rate and Infection Rate and concludes that its always good to update our OS or software up-to-date to ensure that we are safe from the mitigating attacks and in the discussion major part is concentrated over Windows XP which is Highly infected to the maximum of 9.1 on a scale of 10 and after the Support ends its prone to get infected more as it easily allows the hackers to get attracted to do their Jobs easily with out any protection.

Preview from the report 


Read this article completely to Know more : New cybersecurity report details risk of running unsupported software

Additionally read this latest Redmond Magazine post:  Microsoft SIR 15: XP Won't Keep Users Safe

So I believe you will be having the answer now for the question I asked after reading this. Let's get things started asap as we won't fall behind before we meet the deadline.

Story of Ctrl+Alt+Delete

Today I saw a tweet from O365 team it took me to a Fast Feed post which revealed me the story of how the Ctrl+Alt+Delete key was invented by David Bradley and how Microsoft Team really wanted that to be and how Bill Gates feels about it, It was quite a interesting story and wanted to write a post here to take you there.




Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Controlling Security and Identity On-Premises and in the Cloud Online Conference

Information Security plays a vital role in any Organization's IT Infrastructure and nobody will compromise on this at any cost and want to have a Secure Environment at all means whether its a regular On premise environment or Online Cloud Environment or mixture of both in a Hybrid configuration.

It's now time for one more Online Conference Live event from WindowsITPro team on Controlling Security and Identity On-Premise in the Cloud, security experts Orin Thomas and Darren Mar-Elia will discuss on the topic with real world examples and also answer your queries to make you gain adequate knowledge to deploy and maintain a Secure Organization.

Live Event is going to be held on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 11:00 AM ET and registrations are now open, get yourself registered soon and engage your calendar on that day for the event.


Server Virtualization w/ Windows Server Hyper-V & System Center Jump Start

Server Virtualization plays a vital role in today's IT Infrastructure and there are many Virtualization platforms available out in the Market and many of us are familiar with names VMware, Citrix and Hyper-V and each of these are unique in their architecture and it's always good to know multiple platforms and get ourselves expertise to start supporting them during the right time with out difficulty.

Microsoft team is now concentrating more on their Cloud technologies and Virtualization is the key part when it comes to Cloud Computing and this will be the future of IT and Microsoft with their Latest release of Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 products made some remarkable changes to this platform and made it a great competitor among other Virtualization platforms.

If you are already expertise in VMware or Citrix or new to Virtualization then make use of this Jump start session from Microsoft Virtual Academy on November 19&20 from 9.00 AM - 4.30 PM PDT to know more on Virtualization and how this can be accomplished with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center.


Register here: Server Virtualization w/ Windows Server Hyper-V & System Center Jump Start

Source Article : Microsoft Wants to Help VMware Experts “Future-Proof “ Their Career

Monday, October 28, 2013

Lync 2013 Ignite Videos Now Available!

Lync 2013 Ignite Video Series is now available at Channel9, This is an Excellent session in which our Lync Experts Brian Ricks and Aaron Steele joined again to provide us an exotic Journey to the world of Lync 2013.



Topics covered 
  • Configuring Lync Room System
  • Meetings and Collaboration
  • Identifying Critical Support Dependencies
  • What’s New with Lync
  • Securing Lync Deployments
  • Lync Top Support Topics and Troubleshooting Tools
  • What’s New in Lync Mobile
  • Lync Devices Strategy
  • Lync Enterprise Voice Applications and Features Updates
  • Lync Enterprise Voice Core Infrastructure Updates
  • Lync Network Assessment Methodologies

Access the Training here :  Lync 2013 Ignite


Sunday, October 27, 2013

Which cloud is right for you?

In continuation to my Hybrid Cloud series where I am writing posts and sharing information with the discussions and events happening in Today's IT world towards the future with Hybrid Cloud being the most prominent option for Cloud deployment, Here comes one more post today.
 

 I came across an excellent post from BMC Software company on their Cloud Computing Forum View Point on Cloud written by Herb VanHook, Vice President, CTO Office, BMC Software on planning for the best Cloud Technology to adopt amongst the variety of Cloud options available in the Market and choose which one is best according to you needs by knowing what they are and their pros and cons.

Access the Post here: Which cloud is right for you?

Additionally Take a look at the free webinar on Hybrid cloud from BMC Cloud Experts to know more



Access the webinar here : Hybrid solutions beyond VM acceleration

Additional Bytes:

Recently found a new article from Talkin' Cloud Forum over the choice of adopting the Cloud computing which offers both Virtual and Bare Metal dedicated servers based on your requirement and their Pros and cons explained nicely.

Take a quick look here : Virtual or Bare Metal Dedicated Cloud: Which Option is Right for You?

*Also have a quick look at the below ZDnet post


Public, Private or Hybrid? What are YOUR Cloud choices?
Hybrid solutions beyond VM acceleration
Hybrid solutions beyond VM acceleration
Hybrid solutions beyond VM acceleration

Real-world Exchange Load Balancing Webinar

Load Balancing is not a new term for most of us, In any Server environment to split the Load across different Servers and  to achieve high availability we rely on Load Balancing solutions, it starts from the regular Network Load balancing, DNS Round Robin extends up to Hardware/Software/Virtual Load balancers.




I have reviewed few articles and websites which I wanted to share with you before I update over the actual topic, because reading these links will provide you some insight over various types of Load Balancing solutions available in the Market, their feature differences along with the things to consider before we adopt the best one for the requirement .

Review the below websites to know more

Different Types of Load Balancers in Computer Networking

Load Balancer FAQ

Load Balancing Concepts from Citirx

10 Things to consider before buying a LoadBalancer 

Let's Get in our Topic for the day, Load Balancing is a vital part when it comes to Exchange Server from the earlier days most companies already using various types of Load Balancing Solutions to split the workload across servers and over the time there are various changes made to both Load Balancing solutions and Exchange Server products and to know more on this I would suggest you to register for the upcoming Webinar session from none other than our renowned Exchange Server MVP J. Peter Bruzzese organized by Petri IT and sponsored by one of the popular Load Balancing Solution Giant Kemp Technologies.
 

Register here : Real-world Exchange Load Balancing: Graduating from NLB


Core Solutions of Exchange Server 2013 Jump Start Videos Now available At Channel9

Core Solutions of Exchange Server 2013 Jump Start from Microsoft Virtual Academy was Organized earlier this month and the event was really excellent in covering all the aspects of Exchange Server 2013 and guide us by providing adequate knowledge to take up the 70-314 Exam.



The session videos are now available at Channel9 website and we can either view them online or download them for offline viewing according to our required format.

Access here: Core Solutions of Exchange Server 2013 Jump Start

I have already downloaded all the Session Slides from MVA website and uploaded them in a single zip file and you download the Slides here

Friday, October 25, 2013

Active Directory Recycle Bin

Active Directory Recycle Bin is not new to the Windows Administrators who work with Windows Server 2008 R2 Environment. When a AD object is accidentally deleted by an unexpected event it can be recovered from the AD Recycle Bin with the same state as it was before deletion with all the attributes preserved.


Windows Server 2012 now adds one more add-on to this feature by providing the GUI with which we an easily search and recover the appropriate objects we need at ease. Though this feature is excellent to enable this  there are other caveats to look out for like Forest functional level needs to be set to Windows Server 2008 R2 or higher, Once you enable this feature we cannot disable it again and to restore objects we need full permissions on the AD and this task cannot be delegated and some more.

You can read this TechNet Article Introduction to Active Directory Administrative Center Enhancements to know more

Also this feature is good but it will not help us in major ways where we can only restore the deleted objects and cannot roll back the unwanted changes made to the objects at a mass during a AD disaster and in here the Recovery Manager for Active Directory from Dell systems plays a role. I recently came across a FAQ whitepaper from IT World where I got most of the above said information explained clearly along with other feature comparison between Windows Server products and Recovery Manager for AD and decided to share this information via this post.

Read the whitepaper here : Windows Server 2012 Recycle Bin and Recovery Manager for Active Directory

To know more on how to utilize AD recycle bin review this below TechNet blog post

The AD Recycle Bin: Understanding, Implementing, Best Practices, and Troubleshooting

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Windows PowerShell 4.0 Available Now!

Today I saw the latest post from WindowsITPro by Rod Trent over the release of PowerShell 4.0 as a part of Windows Management Framework 4.0 today by Microsoft and with this release we can utilize this package and install it on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012. By default we have this feature preinstalled on the latest Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 and now with this stand alone package we can install on the legacy Operating Systems as stated above and get the enhanced benefits of the new Windows PowerShell 4.0.


Read the post here to know more : Windows PowerShell 4.0 Released for Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2012

One more question came to my mind when I read this post as an Exchange Admin over Exchange Server Compatibility for Windows PowerShell 4.0 , We had a known issue that we should not install PowerShell 3.0 on Machines running Exchange Server 2010 or 2007 as it will break the Update Rollup installation and could cause other potential issues which is explained clearly in this EHLO Blog post Windows Management Framework 3.0 on Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 then how about the compatibility for Exchange Server 2013 with PowerShell 4.0 as PowerShell 3.0 is by default support for this version of Exchange and after reading the release notes its stated clearly that even this PowerShell 4.0 is not supported for installing with Exchange Server 2013 and other Exchange versions same as with PowerShell 3.0 below is the update in the Release Notes .


It's always good to read the release notes before we update and try something and hope this information is useful.
  
Thanks Once again to Rod for the excellent post.

Directory Based Edge Blocking for EOP

Directory Based Edge Blocking is an excellent feature that was available with FOPE which added an additional layer of security to your Mail routing topology ensuring that your Inbound E-mail routing is secure and your organization is receiving E-mails only for legitimate users.


Microsoft tend to discontinue already existing products and release new products as alternatives which are likely to be called as an enhanced version of the old ones which provides some more core functionality than it's predecessor and in vain few existing features were either modified or discontinued and brings some pain points among the customers to upgrade or adopt to the newer products and at a later stage based on customer feedback they are validated and included back to the newer products.

Once such above said fact is over the new Exchange Online Protection (EOP) the alternative product for Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE), Microsoft team already started to upgrade customers with FOPE to EOP in O365 as a part of their Wave 15 Service Upgrade. And also they started to notify customers who are using Stand alone FOPE to transition to new EOP.

Organization already Implemented Directory Based Edge Blocking with FOPE need to rely on the Exchange Transport rules post transition to EOP.  You can review the comparison article here to know more on the feature differences and when you check the Directory Based Edge Blocking section you'll get to know on what I said earlier.

Based on the Customer feedback Microsoft Team is planning to bring this feature back to EOP soon and updated this through their new EHLO blog post today and also the alternatives we can adopt to get the similar experience till we get this feature enabled. Hope we get this feature soon.

Read the post here to know more: Directory Based Edge Blocking for Exchange Online Protection

Additionally read this below post to know how this Directory Based Edge Blocking feature is enabled with Exchange O365 Hybrid deployment with FOPE for clear understanding

Read here: Exchange 365 Hybrid deployment Directory Based Edge Blocking

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Lync Server 2013 Networking Guide V2

Networking plays a vital role when it comes to deployment of any product in any IT Organization, and proper planning and designing of Network Architecture is important for providing Highly Available service and rich end user experience by minimizing downtime and restore services quickly when some thing breaks unexpectedly.


Lync Server 2013 is a robust product and provides various enhanced features as ever before and to utilize all these, proper planning of Networking is required and performing this is not a easy task as it involves thorough study and field experience. Microsoft Team has released the updated Networking Guide today for Lync Server 2013 to understand more on this topic to gain adequate knowledge for a successful Lync Server deployment and Administration.



Exchange Server 2013 Virtualization Ignite Webcast

It's time for one more most awaited Live Webcast Event from Ignite Community, It's on Exchange Server 2013 Virtualization and the event is happening tomorrow 24th October from 10.00 AM PST.


Virtualization plays a vital role in today's IT Infrastructure and forms the basis of future Technologies and this session would be an effective one for us to know how to Virtualize our Exchange Server 2013 Environment more effectively. Book your calendar for this event and attend the session to know more.

Access here : Exchange Virtualization

Review my earlier post Virtualizing Exchange Server 2013 for additonal information along with this webcast event.


What is Cloud Orchestration?

When we are reading over Cloud Computing we should be aware about an other term called Cloud Orchestration and I came across this terminology recently and when searched over it found an excellent post from TechTarget under Search Cloud Applications forum which clearly explains what is Cloud orchestrator and what is Cloud Orchestration all about and how it assists in a successful Cloud deployment and Administration.


Read the full post here to know more : Cloud Orchestration

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Why My DAG is Not Stable?

One of the great feature of Exchange Server 2010 and 2013 is the Database Availability Groups (DAG), Environments which deployed DAG can minimize downtime by leveraging the great feature of automatically mounting the Passive copies when Active goes down due to an unexpected Event and thus maintaining high availability with no end user downtime.


I have already written few Articles specifically over DAG and Exchange Server High Availability which talks more over this feature and they all can be found here. Today I came across two important Articles from our Exchange Experts Tony Redmond on Windows IT Pro and the latest EHLO Blog post from Mike O'Neill - MSFT which made me write this post.

Both of these Articles are really great enough and provides us some overview of the potential causes that makes our DAG Environment to go unstable other than some common events which causes the Passive Database to get activated by the Active Manager.

In the below Post Tony explains how the new Managed Availability feature Introduced with Exchange Server 2013 causes our DAG to go unstable due to other potential causes, unlike 2010, where we have now this new Managed Availability component which closely talk with the Active Manager and issues mount request to activate the passive copies when some thing goes wrong with the server holding the Active database copies. Also he has explained how Admins can control and know how to monitor when some changes occurs within the DAG distribution and fix it accordingly and much more in detail.

Read the post here for more detail: The influence Managed Availability has over DAGs that you might not realize

Now, let's come to the second article from EHLO Blog in here Mike explains about one more hidden cause on NIC Card power management settings that would eventually make our DAG unstable based on his real time findings and suggested us how to fix the issue proactively and make our DAG Environment stable.

You can read the following blog post to know more : Do you have a sleepy NIC?

These blog posts are quite significant to know more over DAG instability and react accordingly.

Thanks once again to Tony and Mike.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Solution for Enterprise IT

In continuation to my Earlier post Hybrid Cloud is The Future of IT...  its now time for us to spend some focus on the Hybrid Cloud deployment and I started to read from Microsoft and found an excellent TechNet blog post from Thomas W Shinder - MSFT.



You can review the article from the below Cloud and Datacenter Solutions TechNet blog to know more.

Read here: Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Solution for Enterprise IT - Overview

Spend some time and read the article set completely and cover all the 5 topics provided and Each topic has it's own significance and useful when you plan for a Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure.
  • Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Solution Overview
  • Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Solution Scenario
  • Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Solution Design
  • Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Solution Implementation
  • Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Solution Design Considerations
Once you complete this navigate to the below TechNet blog where Thomas outlines few of the above said details and provides us some additonal information along with a small Video on this Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Solution for Enterprise IT article set by Jim Dial.


Admin Script Editor is Now Free...

When it comes to administration most of the users prefer the traditional GUI and still few are comfortable with using command line and there are scenarios in which we require certain tasks that can be done through command line should be available as a GUI. In a nutshell people who are expert with Scripting knowledge would take advantages of UI tools that can incorporate with the regular cmd lets or functions and builds some robust custom application or utility that has a GUI console to perform specific tasks at ease.


One of the best tool available in the market is Admin Script Editor, I had a chance to explore this product long back while I was very much fond of Powershell scripting and It was Introduced to me by one of my Mentor and he showed few scripts that were designed with this utility which provided GUI interface for managing certain tasks.

This Tool is quite great and it was available for cost, I saw a tweet from WindowsITPro today from Rod Trent where he updated about the current status of the product which states that now ASE reached a stage where the Company who created this tool is now discontinuing further development of the tool and made it available free for users, with the current capabilities of the Tool it is more than enough for us to take full advantage and do more.

You can download this Tool from ITNinja.com using the below link

Download : Admin Script Editor (ASE)

Refer the source article below for some additonal information

Forever Freeware: Admin Script Editor Gets a Final Resting Place

Sunday, October 20, 2013

ADDS VS WAAD

Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS) is your On premise AD and very much all Server Administrators would know more on this and with the advent of Cloud Computing Microsoft team introduced their Cloud Active Directory which is called as Windows Azure Active Directory (WAAD) for Identity and Access Management in Microsoft Cloud.


A question was asked recently by one of my friend which made to learn over this topic, and I decided to write a post on this to share it with my readers. When we were discussing over Cloud Computing he asked me a question since we are having the Azure directory now do we still need On premise AD? I don't have an answer for that question at that time, Also Its been quite sometime since I worked on Windows Servers as I am pretty much tied up over supporting Collaborative Technologies, and decided to do some reading on the Internet to understand what Experts says about this to understand even better.

During my search I came across two Excellent blog posts from two great IT Experts over the topic through which I got answer to my question and additionally they provided me some more deep dive experience in understanding both ADDS and WAAD and their role in Cloud Computing.

Take a look at the blogs below to know more...

Active Directory: Differences Between On Premise and In the Cloud  posted by Chirs Avis on his TechNet blog
 
Active Directory-as-a-Service? Azure, Intune hinting at a cloud-hosted AD future
posted by Derrick Wlodarz  on betanews.com

Here comes one more excellent post from WindowsITPro on the topic posted by Sean Deuby

 Windows Azure Active Directory vs. Windows Server Active Directory

* Also review this latest comparison post from WindowsITPro on the topic posted by John Savill along with another significant comparison post written by John which show cast the difference between Azure AD and the new Azure AD Premium.

Azure Active Directory vs. On-Premises Active Directory

Azure Active Directory vs. Azure Active Directory Premium


Thanks to Chris, Sean and John for these great posts!!!



Friday, October 18, 2013

The 7 Biggest Mistakes Keeping You From Your Dream Job

Everyone has multiple dreams that they want to accomplish in their lifetime and most vital one of them is to get their Dream Job and accomplishing this is not a easy task as it requires more learning and sacrifices to be made to reach the goal, Though we are all set we tend to make few mistakes which could make our goal unreachable and its always good to learn from the mistakes and it's even more wiser to know what those mistakes are prior with the help from experienced Experts in the Industry which would eventually make us to reach our target within the right time frame at ease.


I was blogging today and came across an excellent post from I Will Teach You To Be Rich website by New York Times best selling author Ramit Sethi , Ramit has written several books and presented various sessions that would provide us the adequate knowledge to learn the skills required and enough strength to face the challenges on our career path to accomplish our future goal and excel.

I used to read multiple motivational blogs, podcasts and seminars from popular authors and motivational speakers and they really gave me more confidence when I do any task and also guided me in the right direction in many ways , I saw this post today and it made me to write a post today over this rich content and to take the privilege of Introducing readers to one such blog and they can start their own Journey from here.

Read the post here : The Top 7 Career Mistakes And How To Stop Making Them and Land Your Dream Job

I would request you to register for this website and get access to various rich resources that would increase your potential skills at all levels.

Its always good to ask a successful person about what made him successful ? because the answer you get will give you the right steps to follow to reach the target..Success leaves tracks... Brian Tracy.


Windows Server 2012 R2 Released !

Microsoft released Windows Server 2012 R2 today and every one was quite interested over the new features and changes that it's going to bring to the Server Architecture. Already few of our Technical Experts had tried the Preview release and eagerly awaiting for the day of official release and today is the day for us to start and continue to explore.


You can download the Trail for Evaluation and also get access to the Data Sheet and Whitepaper to know more in detail

Access here : Greater flexibility and agility with Windows Server 2012 R2

Additionally read the TechNet and MSDN blog posts below

Today is the GA for the Cloud OS!

Announcing the General Availability of Windows Server 2012 R2: The Heart of Cloud OS

Announcing Availability of Windows Server 2012 R2 in Azure Image Gallery & Reduced Instance Pricing for Windows Azure

Thursday, October 17, 2013

iOS 7 Exchange ActiveSync Issue

Apple - i Phone users already started to upgrade their devices to new iOS 7.0 and similar to it's predecessor even this release has some issues with Exchange ActiveSync. iOS 6 Meeting Hijack issue made a huge Impact on the Environment last year and eventually got fixed at a later stage you can get more information on this here in detail.


Unlike IOS 6 this time the impact of this new issue is quite limited, where in it affects only the device synchronization and can be addressed by upgrading Exchange Server to latest RU and CU. Also Apple team is working on addressing this issue from their end. Thought of sharing this information through this blog post so that readers can be made aware on the issue.

Read the MS Article to know more : You cannot synchronize an Exchange mailbox after you update an Apple iOS device to iOS 7.0

Need-to-know IT job requirements with TechTarget

Information Technology is expanding its growth Every day and its a good practice to know where we head to and choose the right career path. Today I saw this excellent guide from TechTarget under SearchDatacenter forum where they have listed out few major requirements that we should be aware of and make ourselves prepared with the guidelines for a successful IT Career.


Access the Guide here to know more : Need-to-know IT job requirements

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Exchange Server 2013 Migration Virtual Event

Exchange Server 2013 is out there in the Market for a while now and Organizations have started to test the product in their Lab Environment and planning for Production Deployment and Migration from Legacy Exchange Versions. When we roll out such major change in production it's always good to acquire some adequate knowledge and clearly understand the pros and cons of the migration from Experts.

It's now time for us to hear from the Experts through the Live Virtual Event scheduled for this October 29th by WindowITPro and we have our renowned MVPs Tony Redmond and Paul Robichaux presenting on Exchange Server 2013 Migration and this would be our best place to know more on the Migration gotchas and also clarify our doubts with the experts in live.


Register here : Exchange Server 2013 Migration Virtual Event

Free Microsoft Exchange Tools Every IT Admin Will Love...

Today I followed a tweet and it landed me to a Slideshow in InfoWorld posted by our renowned Exchange MVP J. Peter Bruzzese regarding 12 Free Microsoft Exchange Tools that are really vital for every Admin to know and manage the Exchange Organization.


Take a quick look at the Slideshow here : 12 free Microsoft Exchange tools every IT admin will love

Additionally you can check my earlier blog post Troubleshooting Tools you should know...  to take a quick preview of few other common tools.

Also Check this latest WindowsITPro post Ten Great Exchange Server Tools 

Comparing vSphere 5.5 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V At-A-Glance

Today I was reading some blog posts over Virtualization and came across an Excellent blog post series "VMware or Microsoft?" written by Keith Mayer Senior Technical Evangelist at Microsoft on his TechNet blog KeithMayer.com - IT Pros ROCK!


Among multiple blog posts in the series the most vital one for us to check is the Comparison between the new VMware vSphere 5.5 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper -V, Keith has compared both of the products under various categories in terms of  Licensing, Scalability, High Availability, Storage etc. to provide us some insight on the benefits of using either of the products and with this rich information we can evaluate and choose the appropriate one to adopt for the Environment.

Read the full post here : VMware or Microsoft? Comparing vSphere 5.5 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V At-A-Glance

Download the Complete Report from the Perficient for offline viewing

Download here: At-A-Glance: VMware vSphere 5.5 and Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V

Also I would suggest you to read other articles on this topic to know more on Virtualization.

Additionally review below links to know more...

VMware vs. Hyper-V: Architectural Difference

Top 10: New Features in Hyper-V 3.0

10 great new features in Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V

12 terrific new updates in VMware vSphere 5.5

Is Microsoft's hybrid cloud a better choice compared to VMware?

How to Choose Between Hyper-V and vSphere

Principled Technologies - Total Cost Comparison: VMware vSphere vs. Microsoft Hyper-V

Virtualization 2014: Are we still having this conversation?

5 Reasons To Choose Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V over VMware vSphere 5.5

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Exchange Server 2013 Managed Availability Ignite Webcast

It's Time for another Live Webcast event this Thursday from Ignite Community, And this time it's on Exchange Server 2013 Managed Availability. Make your calendar free to attend this session between 9.00 AM - 10.00  AM PST.



Visit here: Managed Availability Webcast

Easily compare Office 365 features across different plans

Today Exchange Team has released the Office 365 service descriptions Excel web part through which we can compare different O365 Service plans and see what is available and what is not under various plans and decide the one best for our need.


More information is available in the Exchange Team blog post below

Read here: Easily compare Office 365 features across different plans

Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster Available now!

Windows Server 2012 R2 is getting released this Week and Microsoft Team has made major enhancements with the Hyper-V and released a Poster that shows us the new Component Architecture and Microsoft team is labeling the new improvements as Generation 2 Virtual Machines.


More information is available in the below source article from WindowsITPro post

Read here: Microsoft Releases Visual Aids for Understanding Generation 2 Virtual Machines

You can download the posters from Microsoft Download center


Download here: Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster and Hyper-V Mini-Posters

Additionally, check out the below TechNet blog to view the posters in Zoomit.

Access here : Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V Architecture Poster

Office 365 MVPs Blog

Today I saw a tweet from Tony Redmond which pointed me to the new Blog called Office 365 MVPs developed and managed by MVPs from various domains, and in here they share their Technical Expertise through various posts and this blog is available quite for sometime from earlier this April and I got a chance to review it today and found that it contains quite a rich resource of information on O365.

I added this site to My browser favorites and also decided to write a post on this to Introduce readers to this new blog.



Check the blog here : Office 365 MVPs

Click here to know the MVPs and Contributors to this Blog: Who We Are

Introducing Windows 8.1 for IT Professionals

Windows 8.1 is getting released this Friday and it's now time for one more free E-book from Microsoft Team to know what's new in Windows 8.1 and much more as a Technical preview of the product.


Read the full MSDN Blog post here: Introducing Windows 8.1 for IT Professionals

Download the E-Book here:  Introducing Windows 8.1 for IT Professionals Technical Overview

Monday, October 14, 2013

Microsoft Insights 2013

What is your role in IT after 5-10 years from now ? How many of us can answer this question now with the drastic changes happening in the IT Industry day by day. Every day new Technology emerges and its really hard to learn all of them at once and make ourselves expertise. So, what would be the best career path to adopt for our future growth in IT as an Experienced candidate? and What about the new IT Pros who have chosen their career as IT and standing at the early stages of their career?

To answer all these questions and lead you to the right direction Microsoft Virtual Academy team has organized the Microsoft Insights 2013 online event this October 29th with an interactive Expert panel discussion on emerging opportunities in technology, the earning potential they represent, and the skills required to excel. Discover the training and resources available to prepare for the next step in your career and a rewarding future.
 

Get yourself Registered Today here :  Microsoft Insights 2013

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Hybrid Cloud is The Future of IT...

Technology is changing as never before and every Organization is planning to adopt the new changes to receive the enhanced benefits with reduced costs and to provide Highly available service to the End Users.
 
Earlier IT Automation and Virtualization were the hot topics in the Market and later when Technology went far beyond and provided these as a service in terms of Cloud Computing along with many other great features that Organizations can acquire from their hosting providers and in turn reduce their IT Infrastructure and Management costs.

Cloud Computing provides Organizations with the flexibility of choosing the right model appropriate to their requirement in terms of Productivity, Information Security, Costs etc. Fewer Major Organizations have already adopted either Public or Private Cloud Model and others are tend to begin their transition soon. We have one more model called Hybrid Cloud Model which offers the customers to have some of the services to be hosted across both in house and Cloud and give us a common platform through which we can  manage both of them seamlessly. In a nutshell we can say we will get benefits of both Private and Public Cloud with Hybrid Cloud. Now this makes  most of the Organizations to decide to move to Cloud soon.

I wrote this post today to show the readers that Hybrid Cloud is gaining popularity and in mere future we could be having most our IT Infrastructure running in a Hybrid Cloud Environment.

Let's get started to explore.

You can check my earlier post Enabling Hybrid Cloud Today with Microsoft Technologies and read the White Papers provided there to understand over Cloud Computing and the benefits of Hybrid Cloud deployment.

I was reading the Redmond Magazine today and came across a recent post which was over the growth of Hybrid Cloud and the future of IT through Gartner's recent analysis.

Read the magazine post here : Enterprises Expected To Move Toward Hybrid Clouds


If you check the magazine it points us to the recent Gartner's News Room announcement, where you can find the information that I was talking about earlier,  Gartner Says Nearly Half of Large Enterprises Will Have Hybrid Cloud Deployments by the End of 2017 you can read the full announcement here

Also you can register yourself with Gartner's website and take a look at the recorded Webinar Hosted by Thomas J. Bittman,VP Distinguished Analyst to get maximum information over Hybrid Cloud and the pros and cons of adopting this Technology and the future of IT and much more in detail.

Access the Webinar here : Hybrid Clouds and Hybrid IT: The Next Frontier

One more similar Survey Report : CIF finds hybrid cloud is the user choice

Additionally, Check out this Microsoft IT Showcase session:  Discussing Microsoft IT's Hybrid Cloud Strategy

Let's be prepared Hybrid will be approaching us very soon...

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Introduction To Windows Azure Training

Windows Azure is gaining more popularity in Cloud Computing and most of the Organizations started to explore Azure and planning their cloud deployment, Microsoft made Azure as a flexible platform that provides extended support far and beyond.


I have written two posts on Windows Azure earlier Window Azure Posters and Introducing Windows Azure for IT Pros E-book and this is third one in the series and it's about the Training course provided on Windows Azure from Microsoft Virtual Academy.

 
Access here: Introduction To Windows Azure Training

Friday, October 11, 2013

Tony's Advice to New IT Pro's

Technology is changing everyday and new opportunities are increasing in various domains day by day and the same way competitions also increases. Being in the IT industry about 5 + years now at the early stages of my career I have seen many drastic changes the way Technology used to be from the day one to till date.


When some new comer is trying to get in to IT Industry he requires few skills handy and we can even call this as a prerequisite to begin their career path and as always it's good to know what these skills are from the Experts and provide it to the new folks once they approach us for advice and guide them appropriately to get them aligned with the Technology at the earliest.

I wrote this Post today in my blog because of the Latest post I saw from none other than our Tony Redmond on his Tony Redmond's Exchange Unwashed Blog in WindowsITPro website. I follow Tony on twitter and read all of his posts here and also on his official Thoughts of an Idle Mind blog. Every time I read his posts I get some rich information in the Technology and it enhances my skills and by same way I tend to share it with others.


This post is a excellent one in which he explains about the Skills that a new IT Pro should acquire once he enters in to the Industry and choose his career path accordingly. I would request all the new IT Pro's and also all the Experienced Technical members who visit my blog to read this information and share it with new aspiring people they know who are about to get in to the Industry to give them a heads-up on what they need to learn and prepare themselves before they face the challenges and start a bright full IT Career.

Read the post here: Skills for new people coming into a Windows infrastructure shop

Once again great Thanks to Tony for this Excellent Motivational article.

Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 On the Way...

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 is reaching General availability next week a week after that Citrix is releasing XenDesktop 7.1 to support the new Window Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 platform.


Microsoft and Citrix are long time partners in the Technology, Microsoft is releasing new products and updates faster than ever with great enhancements along with them now Citrix team is releasing their new products to the Market at the earliest.

You can get More information from the below articles from both Microsoft and Citrix Blogs.

Citrix Support for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 Release

Citrix XenDesktop With FlexCast Management Architecture Adds Support for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1

Click-to-Run Overview

Microsoft continue to Improvise their product standards and Deployment Mechanism over the course of time and they made a drastic change in the IT Environment with the release of their Latest products and the most notable one is the new Office suite. Microsoft made a remarkable change in the way Office Products are deployed from regular MSI based installations to the new Click-to-Run technology in O365, This makes you to stream office installation from the virtualized Environment which in turn reduces the installation time and also users can start to use the application before the installation even completes.


Lets Explore this Today, First review the below TechNet Article to get a Overview of Click-to-Run Technology.

Read here: Overview of Click-to-Run for Office 365 setup architecture

Once you  complete the TechNet Article review the below Ignite Webcast Series from Microsoft O365 Team to know more on this great feature.


Watch here: Office 365 Deployment, Click-to-Run