Category Archives: Conferences & Events

My Recommendations For Our IT Pro at TechDays 2012 Belgium

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I’m very busy with storage at the moment and as I’m already doing some other conferences this year we’re giving some other members of our IT the opportunity to attend TechDays 2012. That doesn’t stop me from giving some hints to the junior but very smart & fast learning IT Pro that’s in our delegation (4 developers & 1 IT Pro) and I might as well share those hints with you. The idea of sending him to TechDays is to expose him to a variety of subjects that are related to current and future needs/trends in the industry and in our line of business. It’s not just focused on training. I want him to look at the bigger picture of all parts in the puzzle. It’s about getting some context and tasting the possibilities. It’s also good to see some of our local IT talent (like Mike Resseler and Kurt Roggen) in action. Naturally I leave it up to him to make his own choices, and I hope he does. So here are, in chronological order, my recommendations:

February 14th

10:45-12:00
Monitoring and Operating a Private Cloud with System Center 2012

12:00-13:00 (If you want to lunch & learn)
Manage VM’s and Services across Private Clouds and Windows Azure with System …

13:00-14:15
Take the Spaghetti out of Windows Azure – an insight for IT Pro Techies Part 1 (John Craddock)

14:30-15:45
Take the Spaghetti out of Windows Azure – an insight for IT Pro Techies Part 2 (John Craddock)

16:15-17:30
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012, Fabric Management, creation and consumption of the cloud (Vijay Tewari)

17:45-19:00
Windows 8 Dynamic Access Control (John Craddock)

February 15th

09:00-10:15
Windows 8 Hyper: Availability (Bryon Surace)

10:45-12:00
Discover what’s new in Windows 8 Active Directory (Paul Loonen)

13:00-14:15
The Private Cloud, Principles, Patterns and Concepts (Tom Shinder)

14:30-15:45
Toolmaking for Administrators using Windows PowerShell (Jason Helmick)

16:15-17:30
Windows 8 Disk Dedupe (Speaker: Mike Resseler)

17:45-18:45
What’s new in PowerShell V3! (Jason Helmick)

February 16th

09:00-10:15
Private Cloud Day Session 1- Building your Private Cloud Infrastructure (Kurt Roggen)

10:45-12:00
Private Cloud Day Session 2- Creating & Configure your Private Cloud (Kurt Roggen)

13:00-14:15
Private Cloud Day Session 3- Monitor & Operate your Private Cloud (Mike Resseler)

14:30-15:45
Private Cloud Day Session 4- Automating & Delivering Services in your Private Cloud (Mike Resseler & Kurt Roggen)

16:15-17:30
Private Cloud Day Session 5- A Solution for Private Cloud Security (Tom Shinder)

Microsoft Management Summit 2012

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From the 16th of April until the 20th of April 2012 Microsoft is running animportant conference for anyone who’s involved with systems management in the Microsoft sphere. It is, of cause, the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 (MMS 2012) in Las Vegas (Nevada, USA).

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This is a conference that is held in very high regard and I’ve heard through the grape vines it’s one of the favorite conferences for Microsoft Employees to attend themselves due to its high quality and focus on the System Center suite. I’ve never had the opportunity to attend before and I would like to go.

It’s very likely that the System Center 2012 Suite of products will be officially launched at MMS 2012 and there will be an abundance of learning opportunities in regards to these. As said above, I’d really love to go and I encourage anyone who can make it to attend. Yes, I know it’s in the United States, so for us non US residents that can mean long and expensive travel and we’ll need a budget to stay in Las Vegas for a week. But it’s the only conference of its kind. There is no MMS Europe and such. Although I have to say that with initiatives like “Best of MMS” TechNet events Microsoft & the community make an effort to deliver content and information to a much larger audience, which is great.

If you’re in the target group for this conference and you’re interested take a look here. They even have cost/benefit sheet to help convince your management Winking smile

Now a lot of you are already be playing with the System Center 2012 Betas and Release Candidates but if you’re not  you might want to get a head start by downloading the System Center 2012 Evaluation Products and perhaps even by joining the Community Evaluation Program for System Center 2012 (Private Cloud) and Configuration Manager 2012.

Group Video Interview: What is your favorite Hyper-V feature in Windows 8?

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In 2012 the next version of Windows is one of the upcoming releases by Microsoft we all have our eyes on. We’re all about to start investigating Windows 8, a lot more than today, when the first beta version is released. Hyper-V 3.0 is going to be big especially in combination with other features in Windows 8. Together with System Center 2012  this all makes a very rich & powerful (private) cloud infrastructure.

At the Experts2Experts Virtualization Conference in London (November 2011) I not only presented on High Performance & High Availability networking for Hyper-V clusters (10Gbps goodness) but I also met a lot of peers from the industry like Aidan Finn, Jeff Wouters, Carsten Rachfahl & Ronnie Isherwood.

Carsten Rachfahl is a MVP who’s very much into Private/Public Cloud and is enthusiastic about the new features in Windows 8 like many of us are. He took the opportunity to make a video with all the above suspects on the subject of our most favorite feature in Windows 8. This was released today for all to see and enjoy.

Videointerview_What_is_your_favorite_Windows_8_feature-Didier_Van_Hoye

We had a great time making it.  Luckily for us he’s a good interviewer and we didn’t encounter too many bloopers. Enjoy! And as always, if you have any feedback or questions we’re happy to hear them.

Dell Storage Forum Europe 2012

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If you’re into storage and a happy DELL customer / user like me you might very well want to check out the DELL Storage Forum2012 in London (January 9-12). Don’t wait too long however as time is running out. Compellent has some impressive features and conditions (licensing, modularity, easy of use, PowerShell support, Live Motion & federation, Hyper-V support, Snapshots) that I’m very interested in. It’s those abilities that make a SAN worth it’s money in 2012 and beyond, that combined with a way to get out of the forklift upgrade cycle of storage.

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Storage vendors have a lot of competition going on and are under a lot of pressure from customers to provide better value for money due to operational costs, complex licensing and fork lift upgrades, expensive upgrades and sometime lack luster support. Those vendors that can address these concerns best will be in a good spot when they face competition, not only from the storage vendors but also from software SAN producers and Microsoft with Windows 8 Server. I think Compellent is a viable candidate in this space and I’ll be checking them out extensively. Data growth is a huge issue and affordable storage needs are a big concern for most companies. Vendors know that and I hope they compete on offering better & more affordable solutions rather than banking on the fact customers need them that much they won’t need to change their business too much.