Migrating traditional client/server applications to Windows Azure Virtual
Machines is what Don Noonan does every day. The majority of these workloads
use Active Directory Domain Services as their authentication provider, or in
other words, classic Windows authentication. In this post Don walks us
through the best practices high level architecture and the basic building
blocks of creating a private forest within Windows Azure.
If Active directory is not available, you better be
As we all know, if AD is down so is your app. Imagine setting up a single
domain controller responsible for both name resolution (DNS) and
authentication. You just created another synonym for single-point-of-failure.
At a minimum you should deploy two (2) domain controllers, and they should be
created as part of an Availability Set. This will ensure that at least one
(1) domain controller is al... (more)
If you are like me, I have put off installing Windows Server in Core mode
because frankly seeing the OS in a graphical interface helps me think.
However, we are now living in an age where the remote configuration tools are
so rich and simplified that it’s high time I got around to diving in to the
GUI-less server mode. So let’s get started! You’ve already booted the
server to the new Windows Server 2012 RTM DVD or ISO depending on where you
are installing the server. You will first be presented with this screen,
choose the language and such then click “Next”:
Now we n... (more)
Overview: Disaster recovery scenarios, simple site-to-site replication, or
the Prod-to-Dev refresh scenario are generally what drive IT administrators
to look into virtual machine replication. We want to build our environments
so that in the event something happens in our primary data center, our
critical machines and data will be up and running somewhere else. Our
developers may reside in a different location but want to work with the most
recent datasets available. There are a slew of questions asked about
delivering on results for these different types of requirements.
R... (more)
A little bit of history first. Virtual Desktop computing has been slowly
etching its way into more IT plans year over year. The advantages can be
enormous when isolating the end user into a virtual desktop that looks and
acts like their regular everyday PC. Of course the ROI has been quite
difficult to manage especially when looking at large deployments, and when
performance must be guaranteed to match or exceed the current computing
requirements.
VMware jumped in the VDI ring many years ago mainly through some
acquisitions, and for the first few years struggled to gain momentum... (more)
Thoughts From the Mind of a Previous VMware Admin (aka Game Master)
Do you ever feel like your Windows server is not performing well in the
VMware environment, as if it were a sponsor-less contestant in the arena of
the annual hunger games? As a VMware admin and consultant I witnessed first
hand the fine art of deception for presenting restricted resources to virtual
machines. An application owner or Windows admin would come to my cube or
put in a help desk ticket asking for a new virtual machine. They would
often ask me for an insane amount of resources for this VM because the... (more)