What New Years Gift For IT Professionals? The Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide!

Aidan Finn, Damian Flynn, Patrick Lownds and Michel Luescher wrote a reference work about Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.

image

I kindly suggest that you add this to your professional library as soon as possible. Unless you’re part of our IT Pro team, who’ll find a couple of copies on their desk as soon as Amazon can deliver them, you’ll need to ask Santa Claus to bring you one. If Santa Claus doesn’t like you, buy it yourself. For the help you’ll get out of this it’s a steal. You see, I know the authors and a reviser (Hans Vredevoort). And I assure you, reading what these guys have to tell on this subject is truly standing on the shoulders of giants Smile.  Reading this book allows you to tap into their collective brainpower and knowledge on this subject, which is extensive. These guys are part of the Hyper-V community and they live in this stuff!

So if you want to learn about Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V fast and effectively grab this book (pre order it here on Amazon). It’s full of guidance, explanations, examples and scripts to get you going in the right direction from the moment you start working with Hyper-V. This is a career boosting (and protecting) guide for all of us to leverage.

Thank you guys!

I’m Presenting at the Technical Experts Conference 2012 Europe

I’ll be speaking at the Technical Experts Conference 2012 Europe in Barcelona on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and it’s storage and network related improvements and promising new features. Some of you might know that I’m a Microsoft MVP in the Virtual Machine Expertise (i.e. Hyper-V), but these sessions are not marketing or vapor ware. Being an MVP is about sharing knowledge and experiences with you. I’m are early adopter in production from the day the RTM bits became available and we’re already reaping the benefits of those features, so it’s more than just lab work and theory.

TEC2012-Europe-170x40-vVirtualization

I won’t be there alone, as my friends, colleagues and fellow MVPs Aidan Finn (@joe_elway), Carsten Rachfahl (@hypervserver) and Hans Vredevoort (@hvredevoort) will be there as well to present and share their knowledge, which is extensive, I assure you. It’s great to have the chance to come together again and talk about our technology passions.

You can find an overview of the session agenda here

So I hope you can join us for an interesting conference and interactive event where we can discuss your challenges and ways to address them. Trust me when I say that talking to other customers and technologist is a great way to learn, understand the needs and find opportunities. We learn a lot from presenting and talking to you. I’ve attended a lot of conferences in my career now and I still find them valuable. The return on investment for my employers has been great. Motivated and skilled employees can save a business 10 fold the cost spent to keep them that way.

Haven’t heard of TEC  before?

Neither did I before a couple of years, but by good fortune I had the opportunity to attend as a delegate and found it very worth while in both content and networking opportunities. As it turns out The Experts Conference Europe 2012 (TEC) has been running for over a decade now and it delivers level 400 sessions on core Microsoft technologies. It focuses on Active Directory and Identity, Exchange, Virtualization and User Workspace Management.

TEC2012-emailsignature-Europe-v3

TEC Europe is held at the Hotel Rey Carlos in Barcelona from 22-24 October 2012. Quest , as an alliance partner of Microsoft, welcomes program management, product management, development staff from Redmond and a number of field team members to the event every year to support the training requirements of its users. This means two things: It’s a valuable event and, I admit, I’m honored to be invited to speak at this event.

Budgets are tight

A great tip. Quest is offering a discount rate of 850 Euro to delegates who register by 21 September! You can get a discount code for registration by sending an email to [email protected]

Overview Community Speaking Engagements

Below you’ll find a short overview of my speaking engagements in coming months. I encourage everyone to attend the smaller and often les expensive or even free events as they provide a fast way to get up to speed with new technologies. Everyone is welcome and we’re all there to learn. The sessions I’ll be presenting are on are about Windows Server 2012 & Hyper-V, but that should not be a surprise.

TechNet BeLuxThe Belgian Windows Server 2012 Launch Event  Antwerp, October 3rd 2012

On October 3rd I’ll be presenting a session at the Windows Server 2012 Launch Event in the Windows Server 2012 Track. That session is called “Hyper-V over SMB: Remote File Storage Support in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V”.You can register here for this event which is free and open to all.clip_image001

 

Presenting at the Technical Experts Conference 2012 Europe – Barcelona, October 22nd-24th 2012

I’ll be speaking at the Technical Experts Conference 2012 Europe in Barcelona on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and it’s storage related improvements and great new features. Being an MVP is about sharing knowledge and experiences with you so I’ll join up again I won’t be there alone, as my friends, colleagues and fellow MVPs Aidan Finn (@joe_elway), Carsten Rachfahl (@hypervserver) and Hans Vredevoort (@hvredevoort) will be there as well to present and share their knowledge, which I extensive, I assure you. It’s great to have the chance to come together and talk about our technology passions.TEC2012-Europe-170x40-vVirtualizatio

 

Experts2Experts Virtualization Conference (E2EVC) – Hamburg, November 2nd-4th 2012

In joining up with my fellow MVPs Alex Jushin (@e2evc), Aidan Finn (@joe_elway), Carsten Rachfahl (@hypervserver) and Hans Vredevoort (@hvredevoort) to present a master class on Sunday November 4th. Unfortunately this event has already sold out. Click on the link in the title to find out more about E2EVC. It’s a great way to meet up with fellow technologists and learn from each other. Ronnie, Jeff, Florian, Udo … it will be good to see you there! I’m looking forward to it Smile 

image

 

Dell Storage Forum Paris 2012 – Paris, November 14th 2012

On November the 14th I’ll be in Paris, joining the DELL “Fluid Forward Think Tank” at Dell Storage Forum Paris 2012 for an open conversation on our wishes, needs, ideas on the future of storage & technology in our businesses. That might make for an interesting discussion with others from the industry and it provides for a real good way learn from other people their experiences and challenges.image

Very Educational Microsoft TechEd 2012

Hello from TechEd 2012 Europe at the RAI in Amsterdam. I’ve been extremely busy attending sessions, talking to Microsoft employees and vendor engineers. We’ve had some very interesting discussions and I learned a lot and clarified even more. TechEd has once more proven to be an excellent investment of time and I have been able to get a lot of face time with the right people. To me this is important because that helps me tremendously when designing solutions. Sorry for the low quality pictures.

Photo0019

Bob Combs on stage at the TechEd Europe 2012  educating us on NIC Teaming

You know my mantra “options, options options” as this is what gets you a way out of a pinch. However a lot of options also mean you need to make decisions, and not just when dealing with issues but also at design time. Knowledge and understanding is what help to make the correct of the best decision fast. Attending this conference with its tremendous networking opportunities provides for a very nice and effective setting for passionate discussions and deep dives into scenarios. Challenging vendors, interacting with peers, throwing ideas out there and deep diving into the possibilities and drawbacks with each other is great and helps a lot to understand technologies better. You have to thrown what you have learned out there and discuss it to test your understanding of the subject. Don’t be afraid to do so. We all don’t know things, get stuff wrong, etc. Don’t let  fear stop you from interacting with your peers.

Photo0020

Ben Armstrong in action on Live Storage Migration

It is also great to meet up with my community buddies from all over the word again and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to attend these conferences. For me personally these are priceless and the value to my employers/clients is considerable. There is a tsunami of new technology in the Windows Server 2012 stack and learning to put these into context is both fun and useful. These are very interesting times in the Microsoft Infrastructure ecosystem so life is good!