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Step-By-Step: Configuring the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target as a Storage Device for System Center VMM

Canadian IT Professionals — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:04:00 GMT

Over the past few months we have made a big deal about the storage features of Windows Server 2012, including how the built-in iSCSI Software Target allows you to build a low-cost software-SAN (storage area network) for small environments, and how that lets you create a Hyper-V Failover Cluster without the expense of an actual SAN appliance. We have also made a huge deal about building a Private Cloud with System Center 2012. What we did not mention is how to add your Software SAN as a Storage Device...(read more)

Windows Server 2012 Active Directory – What’s New?

Canadian IT Professionals — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:54:34 GMT

Hello Folks, Today we will look at some of the new features and enhancements in Active directory with Windows Server 2012. As usual, I suggest you download the evaluation of Windows Servers 2012 and use the info in this post to setup your own lab and start exploring what’s new in Active directory. Let’s get going… Here are the points , In my own opinion, that are the most impactful enhancements of AD Virtualization That Just Works Applying a snapshot to a DC Domain Controller cloning capabilities...(read more)

Is Hyper-V the Best Hypervisor Out There?

Canadian IT Professionals — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:48:13 GMT

Many of you know that used to do a lot of VMware training… primarily for a company called VMTraining. So I was thrilled when they reached out to me recently and asked if I was willing to do a webinar on Hyper-V for their customers… and for anyone else who was interested. While it is not in response to it, the webinar does follow a similar one done recently by one of their senior instructors that put forth that vSphere is the best hypervisor. I have said many times over the past...(read more)

Summer is approaching, don't just plan to work on your tan.

Canadian IT Professionals — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:01:00 GMT

I love this time of year. The days are getting longer, warmer and the deck is calling my name. (these are my feet….) At my house, summer months are very busy. the kids are home, my wife is at home (she’s a teacher) so I tend to hide in my office with the door shut so I can get work done. it’s busy at home but in a lot of IT shops, things slow down a bit. With the majority of Canadian IT pros taking one, two or more weeks of vacation it can feel like some projects slow down to a crawl....(read more)

Step-By-Step: Backing Up SQL Databases to Azure

Canadian IT Professionals — Thu, 16 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

While delivering an CANITPRO Camp not to long ago, an IT administrator shared his story as to why he had decided to move his organization's SQL backup to the cloud. It seemed that his predecessor was very diligent in switching the backup tapes every morning. He insured backups were created daily, weekly and monthly as well and locked the tapes in a fire proof safe at his home nightly. One day the organization he worked for has a massive fire and the server room suffered massive damage. When the servers...(read more)

TechEd North America 2013: Expand Your Network & Earn Certification

Canadian IT Professionals — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:36:00 GMT

TechEd is Microsoft's leading IT Professionals and Enterprise Developers technical conference being hosted on June 3rd -6th in New Orleans, LA. Those who have attended TechEd in the past have always found it rewarding in the aspect of professional development and industry networking. Those who have yet to attend or are on the fence in deciding to attend, here’s a small summary as to what to expect at the event: Connect with Microsoft and industry thought leaders, and fellow attendees that share...(read more)

Step-By-Step: Enabling BranchCache in Microsoft Windows Server 2012

Canadian IT Professionals — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:04:00 GMT

BranchCache enables remote offices to have centralized access to file-shares over the wide area network at faster speeds and using less bandwidth. Included in Windows Server 2012 and in some editions of Windows 8, BranchCache is part of a collection of solutions known as “wide area files services” or WAFS solutions. These type of solutions can be expensive but are included in the box with Windows Server. Content is stored either on servers that are configured to host the cache or on client...(read more)

Step-By-Step: Installing a Replica Active Directory Domain Controller in Windows Azure

Canadian IT Professionals — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Chatter around cloud computing has increased as of late as more organizations are investigating how to harness the power of the cloud. Having an always on, always operational infrastructure based in the cloud provides piece of mind for most. With Microsoft's recent announcement around Price Reductions for Virtual Machines and Cloud Services, Microsoft Cloud Services have been on top of mind of many IT professionals. One concern, highlighted by some IT Professionals, has been the lack of training...(read more)

Step-by-Step: Protecting your information with Dynamic Access Control

Canadian IT Professionals — Tue, 07 May 2013 06:56:34 GMT

There is a lot of new stuff in Windows Server 2012 Active Directory. Active Directory management enhancements Active Directory Administrative Center Active Directory Recycle Bin management Fine-Grained Password Policy management Windows PowerShell History Viewer Dynamic Access Control Group Policy enhancements Kerberos constrained delegation changes Active Directory deployment enhancements Remote DCPromo and built-in troubleshooting ADPrep integration Improved virtualization support Domain controller...(read more)

Step-By-Step: Adding a Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller to an Existing Windows Server 2003 network

Canadian IT Professionals — Mon, 06 May 2013 02:00:00 GMT

Sharing knowledge amidst social media is a passion of mine. I challenge myself to try and spark a conversation via any of the most widely used social media avenues available. So when a request for a Step-By-Step post on Active Directory migration following the previous Step-By-Step post on DHCP Migration , Pierre, Mitch and I were only too happy to oblige. Before detailing Active Directory migration, we felt it pertinent to showcase how to add a Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller to an existing...(read more)

Step-By-Step: Creating a Windows Server 2012 Active Directory Forest Via Windows Azure

Canadian IT Professionals — Thu, 02 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Anyone who has attended one of our #CANITPRO Camps provided across Canada has been appreciative of the fact that actual hardware is provided to run all labs. Attendees are also appreciative of the amount of hours that Pierre, Mitch, and I put forth in setting up said hardware in every city. This practice however, is slowly coming to an end and we are currently exploring options to utilize "the cloud" to enable attendees to conduct camps on their own hardware. As you know, Microsoft has been showcasing...(read more)

Step-By-Step: Deploying ReFS

Canadian IT Professionals — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:02:24 GMT

Hello folks, In this series, we’ve looked at deploying or leveraging the goodness of Windows Server 2012. we’ve looked at VDI, Data Deduplication, DirectAccess, Hyper-v among others… Today we’ll look at ReFS. It’s part of the Windows Server 2012 Storage Platform. It has been designed from the ground up to meet a broad set of customer requirements, for all the different ways that Windows is deployed. ReFS interfaces with Storage Spaces to automatically fix corruption. We’ve already covered...(read more)

New Technical Product Manager at Provance Technologies

Poshoholic — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:25:34 GMT

Today is my first day working in my new role as Technical Product Manager at Provance Technologies. A little while back Provance approached me to talk about this position, and it seemed like a very natural fit. Rarely have I felt such a positive vibe from a company through the interview process, so I was [...]...(read more)

Step-by-Step: Enabling Data Deduplication on Windows Server 2012 Volumes.

Canadian IT Professionals — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Hello folks, A new feature of Windows Server 2012 called Storage Spaces is designed to change the storage task for enterprises by providing an in-box storage virtualization that can use low-cost commodity storage devices. We’ve covered Storage Spaces a few time already: Storage Pools… Dive right in! Windows Server 2012 IT Camp – Lab #3 - Thin vs. Fixed provisioning… That is the storage management question. for this Step-by-Step we’ll look at Data Deduplication. and...(read more)

Step-By-Step: Migration of DHCP from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012

Canadian IT Professionals — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Mitch, Pierre and I have been delivering #CANITPRO camps for some time now and we are thoroughly enjoying connecting with the IT community across Canada. Many IT professionals we have encountered have enjoyed both version "A", concentrating on Hyper-V, and version "B", centered around Windows Server 2012 tools and management, and have been enthusiastic to learn how Microsoft's latest server offering would better prepare them to support their organization within their own environment. Many attendees...(read more)

Tips and Tricks for Navigating the New Windows 8 User Interface

Canadian IT Professionals — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Hello Folks, This is a re-post of a great article that our friend Mitch Tulloch wrote for the BizTech Information Technology site. We are reproducing it with his blessing. Mitch is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and lead author of several books including “The Windows 7 Resource Kit” and “Introducing Windows Server 2012” ( this one can be for free (get the PDF here )!! ) from Microsoft Press. You can follow him on Twitter at @MitchTulloch or friend him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/mitchtulloch...(read more)

Step-By-Step: Deploying Virtual Desktops with Windows Server 2012

Canadian IT Professionals — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:14:00 GMT

What is desktop virtualization? Its many things to many people. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Session Virtualization RemoteApp In this post we will only cover what desktop virtualization is and what components, needs and challenges are addressed by desktop virtualization. The Microsoft Virtual Academy has a great jumpstart session on VDI. here is the overview recording.(see the link at the bottom of this post for the entire session) VDI gives you the ability to store and offer full virtual...(read more)

Windows Server 2012: Roles & Features

Canadian IT Professionals — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:00:00 GMT

A colleague asked me earlier today if I knew off the top of my head how many roles and features there are in Windows Server 2012 , and I had to admit that I did not know. As Albert Einstein once said, why memorize what you can reference. However as a quick exercise I decided to not only count them, but type them up into an article for Kalvin… and for all of you! NOTE: I included all of the sub-roles and sub-features as well for all except for the Remote Server Administration Tools, which...(read more)

Step-By-Step: Installing Oracle Linux 6 U3 on Hyper-V 2012 with LIS 3.4

Canadian IT Professionals — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:00:00 GMT

Everyone runs Windows… okay, that is not entirely true, but by 2012 it is the rare datacentre that does not have any Windows running. I have been crisscrossing the country and indeed traversing the globe telling people how wonderful Hyper-V and Microsoft’s virtualization story is as good as or better than it’s competition, whether that be VMware or KVM or whoever else. That often brings up the question from my audiences: ‘Okay, so Hyper-V and System Center are great for managing...(read more)

Video card with Sound card.

SMSUG.ca — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:50:48 GMT

For full details please see http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmgrreporting/thread/c42ba8cf-02a5-4e2e-8d20-39b05a4a5740 select distinct R.Netbios_Name0 as 'Name' , R.User_Name0 as 'User' , CS.Manufacturer0 as 'Manufacturer' , CS.Model0 as 'Model' , BIOS.SerialNumber0 as 'Serial' , SD.Name0 as 'Processor' , RAM.TotalPhysicalMemory0 as 'Memory' , VC.Name0 as 'Video Card' , VC.VCRam as 'Video Card RAM'...(read more)

Step-By-Step: Extending USB storage into Hyper-V via Windows-To-Go

Canadian IT Professionals — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:32:00 GMT

Those who attended one of the Windows 8 #CANITPRO Camps earlier this year were privy to seeing the setup and enablement of a Windows-To-Go USB key as one of the presented demos. What makes this offering compelling is the fact that one could literally walk up to any computer, plug in your USB key and boot up into your work environment. There is a new option available with the introduction of Windows-To-Go ( WTG ) USB drives to extend the USB storage into VMs via leveraging the firmware present on...(read more)

Next up: Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver!

Canadian IT Professionals — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:30:00 GMT

Wow… Calgary was a blast, and after three great sessions it is great to be home… temporarily. The next two weeks are a whirlwind of craziness. First up, I am presenting two sessions on System Center in Toronto on Monday. At the end of the day I hop into my car to head to the airport to catch my flight to Edmonton. Tuesday and Wednesday I am presenting sessions on Windows Server during the day, and Tuesday evening I am doing a session on virtualization for the Edmonton Microsoft User...(read more)

Video Card Details v2

SMSUG.ca — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:28:44 GMT

Price Reductions for Virtual Machines and Cloud Services

Canadian IT Professionals — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 12:00:00 GMT

One of our influencers in Montreal Alexandre Brisebois, wrote this article on Tuesday. With his permission we are re-publishing it here, without any changes. Merci Alexandre! -M Earlier this month Amazon cut prices on Virtual Machines and I compared both Windows Azure and Amazon yearly pricing for Windows Virtual Machines . At the time Microsoft had not made any announcements about changes to their pricing and I was trying to imagine how they would react. Today Microsoft announced a 33%...(read more)

Windows Server 2012: More than Just Virtualization

Canadian IT Professionals — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:00:00 GMT

Since it was in pre-release I have been evangelizing Windows Server 2012 . I have gone from sea to shining sea talking about it at Launch events, at Partner showcases, in IT Camps, at user groups talking about how much better it is than Windows Server 2008, but more importantly I chiefly discuss the improvements to Hyper-V over previous versions, and how it (and System Center 2012) compares to VMware’s vSphere 5.1 and vCenter Server. While all of that is true, to say that virtualization is...(read more)