Archives For Microsoft

2014 in review and looking into 2015

December 30, 2014 — 2 Comments

2014 has been a busy year for me for many reasons but I thought I would briefly summerise some of the highlights for me over the year as well as some musings with regard to the future of the industry.

Events

I have been lucky enough to attend a number of events this year, including BriForum, vForum and IPExpo in London, vForum in Manchester,  the Dell Enterprise Forum in Frankfurt, VMworld in Barcelona as well as a number of VMware User Group events. These events for me offer a great opportunity to meet individuals from the communities and the technical deep-dive sessions at these events really offer a valuable opportunity to get a better understanding on particular subjects from industry experts. I am looking forward to many events in the coming year including hopefully BriForum and VMworld again, I would also like to get a better understanding of Microsoft, Amazon and Google direction in the industry.

End User Computing

This year has been a year of improvement and maturity for end user computing, we have seen VMware acquire AirWatch for $1.54 billion, the aqcuistion of cloud volumes as well as the release of Horizon 6. The subject of end user computing is becoming ever more defined and mature, we should no longer be awaiting the year of VDI and the focus should be firmley around the user. There is no single right answer to end user computing, we should be concentrating on the users, their use cases and needs, what can we do to make our users more productive? This will be a hybrid mix of many technologies from desktop PC’s to VDI, Mobiles and tablets and more. From a user perspective we need to ensure they can easily access their applications and data on whatever platform and wherever they are. From an administrator perspective we need to ensure this can be done in a secure way that will meet the user’s needs, it needs to easy to manage, monitor and upgrade. For me I like to practice what I preach and my business processes and personal life is spread between a mix of devices and operating systems, I use a Mac Book Pro as my main business device but also use an iPad mini, Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 and a Windows 8.1 VDI desktop. For me the device should no longer matter and it doesn’t, but it is imperative that the applications and data are where I need them when I need them.

Applications

We are starting to see the ever growing importance of applications within the IT infrastructure, whilst they have always been important the focus of IT Administrators and consultants maybe hasn’t always been focused purely on the applications but the infrastructure used to run the applications. During 2014 it has become increasingly obvious that this is where the future of the IT industry lies, focusing on not keeping the cogs turning but ensuring our applications are meeting our business needs. Integration and automation not necessarily between infrastructure components but applications will be key in the software defined world, how are you going to get SaaS application A talking to SaaS application B? With the focus on the applications we are seeing growth in the areas that focus on the applications like Docker and Openstack, DevOps is key.

Hybrid Cloud

2014 for me was the year of the hybrid cloud, we saw VMware launch their first and second UK datacenter as well as a number of datacenters across the globe. From a customer perspective vCloud Air offers an easy way to understand how cloud will work within their business, with data residency guarantees that will suit their business needs, the ability to use the same tools they use to manage their existing private cloud as well as the ability to move workloads between private and public clouds when ever required. We have seen customers trial and start to move production workloads to the cloud using vCloud Air.
For me the future of the hybrid cloud is more than simply your private and public infrastructures, SaaS will make a big part of your infrastructure and moving forward will be ever increasing.  We are seeing Office 365 becoming the norm for many Exchange upgrades and new software installations will focus on SaaS first. Until we are able to replace all of our applications with SaaS alternatives, infrastructure is still going to be a key requirement and this is where vCloud Air offers the flexibility that businesses need.

I think it is going to be interesting to see what the next Server OS from Microsoft is going to bring, you would assume that cloud integration will be baked in as standard,  when deploying new roles you will get the choice to decide whether you want to deploy on premise or in Azure.  We will have to wait and see. I think they is particularly going to be a lot of power in a Dropbox alternative baked directly into to the Widows OS, imagine the simplicity of being able to access all your business shares that are on you Windows files servers from any device, anywhere without a VPN or similar technology but the power will have to be in data security.

Shared Storage Choice

As ever a focus this year has been on shared storage, no matter which way the industry is going there is always going to be a growing demand for storage, whilst at present that is largely on premise in the future we are going to see cloud storage options be ever increasing and important to our businesses.

We have seen the growth of many next generation storage vendors such as Nimble and Pure Storage, we have see the hyper-converged market become ever matured with Nutantix and Simplivity alongside the launch of VMware Evo:Rail and the announcement of Evo:Rack.

For me Nimble Storage has been really standout and we have seen some great reactions from customers when deployed in their infrastructures, it brings together simplicity and high performance with large capacity at a suitable price. Next year I am going to be interested to see how the adoption of Hyper-converged infrastructures grows, particularly with Nutantix and Evo:Rail / VSAN solutions within my customers.

Data Protection

As ever we have seen Veeam build upon their fantastic backup and recovery product with the release of V8, this see’s improved methods of recovery and replication amongst other new features. Next year I would love to see them be able to offer a product that allows you to back up your VMs no matter if they are on premise or in the cloud with vCloud Air, Azure or Amazon EC2. But for me the biggest challenge moving into a SaaS world is data protection. Many people seem to forget about data protection when moving their applications and data to the cloud, but is this correct? Should we be trusting these important assets with one provider, who ever they maybe, or is having 3 copies of your data ever more important? I think the challenge of data protection in the cloud era is having a platform that will allow you to backup, protect and recover your data from a variety or resources to a different set of resources. Let’s say you are storing important business information with SaaS provider A, what happens if they go bust or have a massive data breach or business continuity issue? Maybe you are taking a regular dump of data to a CSV file or similar, but what use is this to your business unless you can convert and recover your data to SaaS provider B? Without global standards between similar providers this is where protecting SaaS applications will become difficult and in my opinion a big challenge for our industry. Maybe until this is solved outside of the main players like Microsoft and Google etc companies will choose to turn to IaaS solutions and protect their data in a more traditional way or will they just take the risk and trust the providers?

Personal Achievements

I have really enjoyed taking part in a number of industry interview opportunities this year, I love sharing a my thoughts and visions for the industry as well as getting to discuss these subjects with others. I have presented at a number of events including the UKVMUG and my companies own events with a record number attending our most recent VMware event that is growing year on year. The biggest challenge for me this year has been working on a second book, this time with co-author Peter von Oven, we are nearing the end now and are hoping that our book Mastering Horizon 6 will be published prior to April by Packt publishing. my biggest achievement was to be made a director of the company I work for, I will be concentrating on pre-sales and operations for my business and this gives me a great opportunity to continue learning and evangalising about technology as well as getting involved with the internal processes and procedures within the business and understanding how modern applications will help our business. I am looking forward to helping the business grow and be better known within the technology industry as well as working on some exciting projects.

That’s all for now, there are so many more areas I could talk about, 2015 is going to be an exciting year for many reasons. I hope to be able to catchup with many of you in the new year.

Happy new year.

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In Azure, Backup, briforum, Cloud, Google, Horizon, Microsoft, Nimble, Nutanix, Storage, VCHS, Veeam, VMUG, VMware, VMware View, Windows Servers , , , , , ,
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Microsoft Surface RT the ideal business tablet / View Mobile Client?

February 24, 2013 — 4 Comments

It seems most people that blog about the Surface RT end up being cut down in flames for a biased opinion either towards Apple, Google or Microsoft, so I wanted to start out by talking about my use cases and the devices I own.

By many I am seen to be an Apple Fan Boy, I have owned every iPhone since the 3G, I use my Mac Book Pro daily, I also own an Apple TV and an iPad one, however I also own a Google Nexus 7 a Samsung Galaxy S2 and use my Windows 8 laptop on a regular basis.

I am going to focus this blog post on my use case for my tablet devices, I am very much classed as a business worker, by day I’m attending meetings, traveling, creating and editing documents, installing and configuring hardware, to be honest in the evenings my use case changes very little as I’m usually working on something in the lab or replying to email or blogging etc. Both the iPad and Nexus 7 are fantastic devices for consuming content such as Music, films, books games etc but I have always been somewhat disappointed by the ability to create content in my work life. Whilst it is possible with the iPad with the larger screen typing on screen is less than ideal and carrying a separate Bluetooth keyboard seems counterproductive (I may as well just carry an ultrabook) a big gripe for me with the iPad is even if I have a fantastic desktop experience using solutions like VMware View the fact I am unable to connect a mouse of any kind makes a VDI solution on my iPad have limited usefulness.

As my iPad is getting older now (it’s an iPad 1) I was in the market for a new 10″ device, I was looking at the Nexus 10, the iPad 4, the Asus Transformer amongst others. I had ruled out the iPad at an early stage because of the limitations I mention above and to be honest because of the lack of innovation since the original iPad, I have never felt there has been a killer feature that would have me upgrade such a device to a newer one as yet. I also like the idea of having a tablet that had the ability to attach a keyboard and mouse as I would really like the ability to treat this device as a thin client into my View desktop when traveling. Whilst I do love my Nexus 7 I felt that the Nexus 10 and other Android devices wouldn’t offer me the software to create the content I wanted without having to use my View desktop all the time, I was keen to have the ability to work both online and offline. This really left me with the choice of looking at Windows devices.

One of the things I like the most about tablet computing is the simplicity and constant performance, going back to a full Windows device did not appeal to me and this is what led me to look at RT. A quick search online will find you a bunch of mixed reviews for devices like the Surface RT and the Dell XPS10 however most of these are trying to compare these devices to the likes of the iPad that offer a personal consumer experience, hands up now if that is the kind of device you a looking for e,g. play some games, browse the web then buy yourself an iPad you won’t be disappointed. With a little bit of further digging I started finding some business users talking about their love for the device my main requirement for the device was as follows.

  • Ability to create and read email
  • Ability to create and edit Microsoft Work documents
  • Ability to create and edit Powerpoint Presentations
  • Ability to create and edit Excel Documents
  • Evernote
  • Dropbox
  • VMware View Client
  • RDP Client

With my use case clearly defined and fully understanding the functionality of Windows RT it seems that a device with Windows RT would suit my use case down to the ground, this also meant I could avoid going down the full Windows install route for a simple continuous experience, longer battery life and maybe a cheaper point of entry.

Looking at the devices on the market I had considered the Surface and the Dell XPS 10, one of the main reasons I chose to go with the Surface was that I was fully able to test the device in my local John Lewis store where as this wasn’t the case with the Dell, for me hands on experience with a device prior to purchasing was important, also for me the touch keyboard on the surface appealed as I could get the mouse and keyboard functionality without any real further weight or girth.

So a week ago I decided to buy the Surface RT, now I fully understand that at present I am still in the honeymoon period and I will certainly be blogging if my experience changes.

So far I have used the Surface at home, in the office, on the plane and as my only device during a short business trip to Ireland. I have found that the ability to create documents and blog posts with Word on the device has been no different to using a Windows 8 laptop, the keyboard takes a bit of getting used to but it is more than adequate. The USB support has allowed me to pair my wireless RF mouse with ease and also my Logitech Slide Presenter with ease. Adding our work based HP printers has been hassle free although as yet I haven’t been able to add my home Kodak MFP. The Mail applications within Windows 8 is somewhat limited without the ability to create new folders but does the job I need, although I would love Outlook on the device.

The current third party vendor support is currently a bit poor with both the Dropbox application and Evernote applications falling short of where I would like them to be. I have found the Evernote application has been good enough to not need to switch to Onenote or similar but I am now embracing Skydrive as an equivalent to dropbox for my needs on the device, hurry up and get a Horizon Workspace application out VMware!

One of the huge wins for me on the device is the ability to utilise VMware View and RDS to create a full desktop experience, whilst I am spending 80%+ of my time consuming applications directly on the Surface there are some times the need to use a legacy desktop application, an example of the is Visio. I have found that using the View Client has allowed me to connect to a View desktop and consume these applications with ease and it offers an experience equal to using the view client on a laptop rather than a tablet (from the point of view of usability not functionality as the View client for RT is currently preview only)

I have also extensively used the remote desktop app and the built in mstsc functionality to connect to my lab servers and install a complete View and Horizon Workspace environment without any issue at all. This has been made all the more easier by having the ability to connect a second screen via HDMI.

I will attempt to keep this blog post up to date with any new findings but for me I couldn’t be happier with the device I have chosen.

p.s. 3rd blog post today created on the Surface, who would have thought of using Word to write and publish blog posts on a tablet would have been possible and functional!

In Microsoft, VMware View
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Bloggers roundtable discussion with Microsoft’s Zane Adams

November 22, 2010 — 1 Comment

I was recently lucky enough to be invited to a bloggers roundtable discussion with Microsoft Azure and middleware general manager Zane Adams. Zane previously held the position of senior director of virtualization strategy at Microsoft.

I was looking forward to learning more about Azure and Microsoft’s strategy as being a bit of a VMware fan boy I probably didn’t know as I much as I should have.

If you would like to learn more about Azure I can recommended taking a read through the material on their resources page of their website http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/resources/default.aspx

I was joined with several other bloggers including Chris Dearden www.jfvi.co.uk and Chris Evans www.thestoragearchitect.com and a number of Microsoft employees including Microsoft Evangelist Andrew Fryer http://blogs.technet.com/b/andrew/ we had 1 hour of Zane’s time, the discussion was started by Zane with some background, the cloud vision and Azure. Chris and I were both particularly interested in the future of the IT Pro and Partners.

Zane Adams has been with Microsoft for around 12 years, starting off in Marketing, moving onto high performance computing, virtualization then his current role in Azure. Zane believes all of his previous roles have been in preparation for his current role at Microsoft. Cloud will shift the way we think about computing, the next generation in 5 – 10 years will not think of IT in the same way we do today. Virtualization was big this is bigger, Zane feels like he has won the lottery being able to play a such a significant part in this historical change.  The reasons for moving to cloud isn’t just opex and capex, Zane uses the example of an airline being able to introduce remote check in for passengers, not only gives them an advantage of allowing the customers to check in quicker but gives better customer services. When the airline wants to introduce this they could do it by investing in an infrastructure that is sized for all seasons, by using Azure they need only pay for what they use.

A lot of large companies were saying to Microsoft they want Azure but they want it on premises, in June / July Microsoft announced Azure appliance in partnership with Dell, HP, Fujitsu, the infrastructure is still managed by Microsoft but on your premises, this first customer will be Ebay, then it will be rolled out. It still the cloud just running at your data centres rather than at Microsoft’s, it will still be managed by Microsoft the same as Azure in the cloud, this will also give partners the opportunity to have Azure data centres.

Microsoft are doing more than just purchasing large amounts of servers to get bulk discounts, Microsoft want 1 admin to 4-5000 servers, this only comes through innovation, automation, self healing, the fabric controller is what delivers this. Software is the key in cloud computing.

Zane used to be an IT Consultant, when he was doing consulting there was massive changes in IT. In the last 10 years who knew about virtualization and the wide spread use of SANs, people that work in IT are used to the change, cloud is going to be a big change, there are still going to be developers, developing, there still are going to be IT admins especially in huge data centres. There is going to be a consulting role working with customers on strategy, connectivity interconnectivity and interoperation between clouds and applications. This isn’t going to happen over night, this is a journey, roles will change along with the journey. There will still be the necessity for local data centres especially in large organisations.

Onto a few of the questions

Gabrie (Via Email) – With SQL Azure what kind of SQL database can it hold, can I move my existing DB straight into Azure. There are a number of tools that will allow you to move your existing data into SQL Azure. There is a limit of 50Gb per database at the moment, so if you database is bigger than this it will need to be shard into smaller databases. There are also tools for non MS-SQL data imports.

(Unknown) What happens when you need replication of data for DR perspective, this may not be available now and maybe on the road map, but road maps are very short in the cloud, you will be able to select that you want a replication of your data, you don’t have to worry about how that is completed, that’s the beauty of the cloud.

Me – Authentication in cloud, how will authentication in the cloud work when there are multiple vendors, are users going to have to end up authenticating with each application. Zane, it will be a journey, with Fabric Azure services OAuth and ADFS are already supported. Already in the CTP you are able to connect your on premise identities to your applications you write in the cloud, so there is no need to authenticate after login of your desktop with the Azure based applications. There is a Windows identity framework inside the federation services that allows other vendors to tie into authentication using standard protocols such as OAuth.

Chris Dearden – Whilst cloud looks cheap in the short term over a long term period it doesn’t look so cost effective over private cloud. You need to ensure you are looking at the complete picture not just the cost to purchase a server, this includes administration, power etc etc. There will be times when cloud isn’t cost effective at the moment and there will be times where it is. It need’s to be monitored and as it progresses tweaks to the costs maybe made.

(Unknown) In the early 90’s a lot of application providers were trying to do a similar thing, what makes Microsoft think this is going to work where it didn’t before – Microsoft aren’t the only people backing this, Google, Amazon, VMware etc are all in. Previous models were about scale and not software and IP, the industry was going ahead of the curve in the 90’s. The cloud revolution that is happening now is bringing invention, automation, cost savings all together to offer a complete change in IT.

Craig Stewart – VirtualPro (Via Email) – How does Microsoft’s vision of the cloud compare to it’s competitors – Most competitors are taking today’s technologies, taking a bunch of servers filling data centres and selling it as a service (IaaS), not all but most. Microsoft is taking a billion dollar approach writing operating systems and application models from scratch and then scale out and combine with purchasing large amounts of hardware etc. Then there are companies like Google that are taking the platform as a service approach, they are unable to offer a service that is end to end. There are already over 5million people programming on Windows and a migration to Azure is a natural progression. Microsoft aren’t just IaaS they are PaaS as well it is elastic and scalable. Very few competitors are investing the same in data centres as well as IP, some are not even investing in data centres. Microsoft also have a very wide offering with Office Online, Exchange and CRM online etc etc no one else have a breathe as far a Microsoft.

Chris Evans – What sort of Software has Microsoft been working on that allows the environment to scale that end users can’t do them selves. – Zane I’m not really the best person to ask, Fabric Azure is a key part that manages things from cooling to the containers etc. Software has written software to handle all elements, failover etc, the innovation we have in Azure will end up in Windows Servers, SQL server etc. Innovation is faster in the cloud, boot from VHD came from the cloud. Some innovation in Azure won’t make sense on premises so won’t by bought into the end user products. Some elements from the Windows Azure app fabric are now available in the Windows Server app fabric in CTP and we will see more of this happening as time goes on. We are a software company and pushing these technologies out to customers is what we are about.

As a consumer of cloud service, the anxiety of how cloud is built, what speed are my spindles etc will go away, if you are still thinking about that you are still in the infrastructure world. When you plug in something to the electricity you don’t think how many generators are close to my house etc, the same will happen with cloud.

Conclusion

As i didn’t really know a lot about Azure prior to the round table discussion it was very eye opening as to the path Microsoft are taking to the cloud, I think ultimately PaaS makes  sense as to the way we are going to see the Cloud reach it goals over the next few years (which vendors will be the winners is yet to be seen), with developers able to build on the platform and consumers able to consume said applications in the cloud, it will scale without you being concerned over the underlying infrastructure and allow you to pay for what you need.

There will for a long time be a reason to have IaaS, in my opinion it offers companies maybe smaller companies the easiest way to move to the cloud as there is no need for your application to be we-written for you on a PaaS especially where the applications aren’t written in house, In longer terms there will still be the need for IaaS where PaaS may not offer a solution that is bespoke or customisable enough to allow the facilities you need and this is where IaaS will allow you to create you own bespoke solutions.

It certainly is an exciting time in the IT industry and it is going to be interesting to see how it finally pan’s out. I think the Azure platform will make sense for a lot of people looking to move specific elements into the cloud, by offering the tools you are already used in your environment. I think there are still a lot of questions to be answered and a lot more innovation before we see the cloud as mainstream within IT, but it is obvious that cloud is happening and it will be interesting to see how all the different solutions pan out.

The whole session was recording, I will let you know if this ends up online.

In Azure, Cloud, Microsoft
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