IT Pros ROCK! at Microsoft

Upgrade Your MCITP or MCSA to Windows Server 2012 with this FREE Certification Exam Study Guide for Exam 70-417

KeithMayer — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:45:00 GMT

UPDATE: There's ONLY 10 DAYS LEFT for the Microsoft Learning "Second Shot" exam voucher offer! Be sure to register and take advantage of this offer prior to May 31st, 2013 ... and use this proven study guide to help you quickly prepare for the MCSA Upgrade Exam on Windows Server 2012!

I’ve assembled all of the relevant content from the Windows Server 2012 “Early Experts” Challenge program into an accelerated Certification Study Guide for IT Professionals targeting Exam 70-417, Upgrading Your Skills to MCSA Windows Server 2012.

In this article, I’ll provide a summary of this Study Guide along with the information needed to receive your own copy of this Study Guide for FREE!

Are you SharePoint, Exchange or Lync Certified?

In addition to IT Pros previously certified on Windows Server 2008, the MCSA Windows Server 2012 certification is also very relevant for IT Pros focused on SharePoint, Exchange and Lync solutions. Since SharePoint Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013 and Lync Server 2013 all rely on a strong Windows Server 2012 foundation, you’ll find that the MCSA Windows Server 2012 certification is now a required prerequisite for achieving the new MCSE certifications for SharePoint 2013, Exchange 2013 and Lync 2013.

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Step-by-Step: Build Your Private Cloud in a Month with System Center 2012 SP1, Windows Server 2012, Hyper-V and Windows Azure

KeithMayer — Sat, 18 May 2013 14:27:00 GMT

UPDATED: Including the newly released Step-by-Step guides for implementing Windows Azure Virtual Network Site-to-Site VPN and Point-to-Site VPN hybrid networking in the list of linked resources in this study program.

My fellow Technical Evangelists and I have authored a content series that steps through building your very own Private Cloud by leveraging Windows Server 2012, our FREE Hyper-V Server 2012, Windows Azure Infrastructure Services ( IaaS ) and System Center 2012 Service Pack 1. Week-by-week, we walk through the steps to envision, plan and implement your very own Private Cloud to take your existing data center to the next level and give you the tools and time back in your day for improving IT services and being able to change and shift with your business / IT needs.

In this article, I introduce this series and provide a weekly breakdown of each topic that we've written to help you build your own Private Cloud ...

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Step-by-Step: Build a FREE SharePoint 2013 Lab in the Cloud with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services

KeithMayer — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:30:00 GMT

UPDATE: At the end of this step-by-step article, I've also included a downloadable lab guide and a 130-line PowerShell script for initial provisioning. The PowerShell script helps to reduce the initial configuration time by automating the provisioning of a new Windows Azure Storage account, Virtual Network and Virtual Machines - after running the script, you'll just need to Remote Desktop into each VM to finish the OS and application-level configuration tasks. Hope you enjoy!

Now that SharePoint Server 2013 has been released, I frequently get asked about ways in which a SharePoint 2013 lab environment can be easily built for studying, testing, development, demos and/or performing a proof-of-concept. You could certainly build this lab environment on your own hardware, but due to the level of SharePoint 2013 hardware requirements, a lot of us may not have sufficient spare hardware to implement an on-premise lab environment.

This makes a great scenario for leveraging our Windows Azure FREE 90-day Trial Offer to build a free lab environment for SharePoint 2013 in the cloud. Using the process outlined in this article, you’ll be able to build a basic functional farm environment for SharePoint 2013 that will be accessible for approximately 105 hours of compute usage each month at no cost to you under the 90-day Trial Offer ...

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FREE HANDS-ON TRAINING: You, Your Datacenter and Windows Azure Infrastructure Services [ May 21st in Detroit, MI ]

KeithMayer — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:09:00 GMT

Windows Azure Infrastructure Services launched on April 16th for production workloads, and we're already seeing tremendous interest around Several Key IT Pro Scenarios relating to off-site backup, disaster recovery and running key web application VMs in the cloud, such as SharePoint Server 2013.

On May 21st, we'll be offering two FREE half-day hands-on training sessions in Detroit, MI for extending your Datacenter with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services to support common scenarios. Seating is very limited, so be sure to register today to learn how to master these popular scenarios!

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Guided Hands-on Lab: Extend Your Private Cloud with Windows Azure Virtual Networks and Windows Server 2012 [ 20 Key Scenarios with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services ]

KeithMayer — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:00:00 GMT

UPDATE: I've updated this Guided Hands-on Lab to reflect the new Virtual Network capabilities that were launched with the General Availability announcement of Windows Azure, including support for a Windows Server 2012 On-premises VPN Gateway device.

This month, my fellow IT Pro Technical Evangelists and I are authoring a new articles series on 20 Key Scenarios with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services. You can catch the full series at http://aka.ms/CloudTop20. In today's article in this series, we'll discuss extending our On-premises Datacenter into a Hybrid Network Infrastructure with Windows Server 2012, Windows Azure Virtual Networks and Site-to-Site VPN Tunnels.

Windows Azure Virtual Networks offers the power to open up several cross-premises use case scenarios, including Active Directory Disaster Recovery, SQL Database Replication, Windows Server 2012 DFS-R File Replication, Accelerated Cloud File Services with BranchCache, Hybrid Web Applications and MORE! But … we need to configure the Virtual Network FIRST … which is what this Guided Hands-on Lab is all about!

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38 IT Pro Technical Events – May & June 2013 – US Heartland and Online

KeithMayer — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:30:00 GMT

There’s LOTS going on in May and June for IT Pros in the US Heartland!

Below is a list of my upcoming events, most of which are FREE or low-cost opportunities for you to attend to learn about IT Pro news, topics and resources! Be sure to check back weekly as we add new events to the list ...

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Step-by-Step: Accelerating the Cloud with “BranchCache” in Windows Server 2012 [ 20 Key Scenarios with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services ]

KeithMayer — Mon, 06 May 2013 09:00:00 GMT

This month, my fellow IT Pro Technical Evangelists and I are authoring a new articles series on 20 Key Scenarios with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services. You can catch the full series at http://aka.ms/CloudTop20. In today's article in this series, we'll discuss accelerating content on cloud-based web and file servers using Windows Server 2012 BranchCache. Once implemented, this solution can dramatically improve the user experience when accessing content servers in the cloud across high-latency, low-bandwidth Internet connections.

Traditional file sharing protocols, such as Server Message Block ( SMB ) in Windows Server 2012, are primarily designed for low-latency, high-bandwidth scenarios commonly found in Local Area Networks ( LANs ). When attempting to move file server workloads to the cloud, many IT Pros find that the unpredictable latency and limited bandwidth related to most Internet connections can make it challenging to deliver file services from the cloud in a reliable manner.

In this Step-by-Step article, I’ll walk through a configuration that leverages the BranchCache feature available in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 Enterprise. Once implemented, BranchCache can solve cloud networking challenges by implementing a Wide Area File Services ( WAFS ) solution that caches frequently accessed data locally, either in a Distributed Cache across local clients or on a local Hosted Cache Server.

Lab Scenario: BranchCache Accelerating Content Access from the Cloud

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Get Certified at Microsoft TechEd as an MCSE on Windows Server 2012 or Private Cloud … and MORE!

KeithMayer — Mon, 06 May 2013 02:12:00 GMT

TechEd is our premier technical conference for IT Professionals and Enterprise Developers, and this year Microsoft TechEd 2013 North America will be in New Orleans, LA on June 3rd-6th. I’ll be speaking at sessions to help IT Pros prepare for MCSE certification on Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft Private Cloud.

In this article, I provide links to my sessions and other resources to help you get started in your TechEd experience ...

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Step-by-Step: Tired of Tapes? Backup your SQL Databases to the Cloud! [ 20 Key Scenarios with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services ]

KeithMayer — Fri, 03 May 2013 12:00:00 GMT

In today's article in this series, we'll discuss backup of SQL databases and logs to the Windows Azure cloud as an alternate off-site backup strategy to using tape. I think every IT Pro I’ve ever met hates tape backups … but having an offsite component in your backup strategy is absolutely necessary for effective disaster recovery.

One of the new features provided in SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 2 is the ability to now backup SQL databases and logs to Windows Azure cloud storage using native SQL Server Backup via both Transact-SQL ( T-SQL ) and SQL Server Management Objects ( SMO ).

Backup to cloud storage is a natural fit for disaster recovery, as our backups are instantly located offsite when completed. And, the pay-as-you-go model of cloud storage economics makes it really cost effective – Windows Azure storage costs are less than $100/TB per month for geo-redundant storage based on current published costs as of this article’s date. That’s less than the cost of a couple SDLT tapes! You can check out our current pricing model for Windows Azure Storage on our Price Calculator page.

In this article, I’ll step through the process of using SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 native backup capabilities to create database backups on Windows Azure cloud storage ...

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Become a Hands-on “Early Expert” on Windows Azure Infrastructure Services

KeithMayer — Thu, 02 May 2013 20:02:00 GMT

Windows Azure Infrastructure Services officially launched in April for supporting production Virtual Machine and Virtual Network workloads. Master the skills for leveraging Windows Azure as part of a hybrid cloud infrastructure and showcase your new knowledge to others in the "Early Experts” Cloud Quest … best of all, this program is completely FREE to all participants! Get the details in this article ...

Become an “Early Expert” on Windows Azure Infrastructure Services!

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