Category Archives: Education

Join the Private Cloud Roadshow in Brussels (25 April) and Ghent (26 April)

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You will have heard of the Private Cloud concept by now. But a lot of us are still struggling with what it means to us and how we can leverage this concept. Microsoft is aware of this and wants to help us understand Private Cloud better. On top of that I can tell you from personal experience that Redmond also really wants to understand our needs in that regard better.

Recently they announced a free event (1/2 day) to achieve exactly that. Yes, they are proud to present “The Private Cloud Roadshow”. And I’m proud to say that two fellow MVPs and MEET members are delivering the content Smile I included the agenda for you as well as the links to register.

Join experts Kurt Roggen (MVP) and Mike Resseler (MVP) for the Private Cloud Roadshow.

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In this half day you will learn more about private cloud infrastructure setup and how you can monitor this. Learn how to create your private clouds and how to deploy standardized applications or services into these clouds. And as a final session you will learn how you can provide automation in your private cloud.

There are 2 options to attend (same content, different location):

25 April 2012 in Brussels
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26 April 2012 in Ghent
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This TechNet event is free of charge and Microsoft will be giving away one Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone in each location.

Detailed agenda:
13:00 : 13:30 Welcome & Coffee
13:30 : 14:30 Building your Private Cloud Infrastructure
Learn how to build your Private Cloud infrastructure, by dealing with Fabric Management (Compute/ Hypervisors, Storage, Network), which will serve as the basis for the Private Cloud that you will be creating. We will discuss how to deploy, configure and manage each of these different elements in your datacenter.
14:30 : 14:50 Break
14:50 : 16:30 Creating, Monitoring & Operating your Private Cloud
Learn how to create your private clouds and how to deploy standardized applications or services into these clouds. Learn how to monitor your clouds and how to can handle change requests. All this key area’s will be addressed to give you an idea of what is happening in a private cloud after it is up, running, and into production.
16:30 : 16:50 Break
16:50 : 18:00 Automating & Delivering Services in your Private Cloud
Learn how you can provide automation in your private cloud. Discover also how your cloud services can be offered and consumed using different self-service portals and what their differences are.
18:00 : 19:00 Networking & Drinks

TechEd Europe 2012 (Amsterdam, 25-29 June 2012)

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After a sad year of no TechEd Europe in 2011, one of our favorite tech conferences for Microsoft technologies is back in full force. Ladies & Gentlemen, TechEd Europe 2012 will be here sooner than you think.

It’s more than just technical training, it is networking, white board sessions and passionate discussion amongst peers, experts & Microsoft employees who built the products. If you still need more technical content than that take a look at the pre-conference agenda for a full day of expertly delivered education.

No this is not just a commercial, I haven’t missed a TechEd Europe yet this century and for good reasons. If you’d like to read why take a look at this blog post Why I Find Value In A Conference

There will be loads of sessions on all products in the System Center 2012 and Windows 8. In the developer sphere there’s the .NET Framework 4.5 & Visual Studio 2012 to look forward to. Combine this with a lot of experience based guidance on current technologies and you can’t afford to miss out. To avoid disappointment register as soon as possible to join your fellow IT Pros & Developers.

Hope to see you there!

I’m Attending The MVP Summit 2012

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I’ll be attending the MVP Summit 2012 in Redmond from the 27th of February to the 2nd of March. I consider myself very lucky to be able to do so and I’m grateful that my employer is helping me make use of this opportunity. I appreciate that enormously.

So my hotel is booked, my flights are scheduled. It’s a long flight with a lengthy stopover in Heathrow. I actually spend a day travelling to and from the event. But I’m told it’s very much worth the effort Smile and I got some great tips from some veteran MVPs in the community. For newbies who can use some information on the MVP summit take a look at What to expect at your first MVP Summit by Pat Richard.

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I also look forward to meeting so many peers in person and attending all the briefings where we’ll learn a lot of valuable new things about Hyper-V. I cannot talk about them as they are under NDA but there will be many opportunities to provide feedback to the product teams in my expertise “Virtual Machine’” (i.e. Hyper-V). I have a bunch of questions & feedback for the product teams.

From my colleagues I have learned it’s also a good way to help pass feedback from others on to Microsoft. So this is your chance. Take it! What do you like or need in the virtualization products. What should be enhanced and what is hurting you? What works and what doesn’t?  What is missing?

With Windows 8 going into beta by next month don’t expect immediate actions and changes based on your feedback. But if you want to have your opinions taken into consideration you have to let them be heard. So don’t be shy now! Let me know. Sincere & real concerns, along with problems, challenges and feedback on your experiences with the product are very much appreciated.

So, if you have any remarks, feedback, feature requests you’d like to share with the virtualization product teams let me know. Just post them in the comments, send me a e-mail via the contact form or message me via @workinghardinit on twitter. My colleagues tell me the program managers in the virtualization area are a very communicative and responsive bunch. I think that’s true from my experiences with them in the past.

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)