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Today I finished my diploma thesis. The focus on my projects over the last semester was Microsoft Private Cloud and the topic or the task I got was “Microsoft Private Cloud: From VMware to Hyper-V”. Now I will present this project tomorrow at the KTSI open day 2012. So if you are interested in how you can migrate from VMware to Hyper-V you should not miss this event: www.ktsi.ch
My college Stefan Roth (Private Cloud Architect at itnetx) wrote a blog series about how you can monitor you Cisco UCS with System Center Operations Manager 2012.
He covers how you can setup the UCS Emulator for your test environment and how you install and deploy the UCS Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager.
Finally checkout his blog (http://blog.scomfaq.ch) about Microsoft Private Cloud solutions focused on SCOM.
I am still working on my diploma thesis and this is another comparison between Hyper-V and VMware.
This time it is about scale, in the TechEd session “VIR311 – Compete to Win | Part I: Comparing Core Virtualization Platforms” from Matt McSpirit (@mattmcspirit) did some great work comparing the two hypervisors. I know scale is not everything but Microsoft made huge improvements to Hyper-V 2012.
| System | Resource | Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate Hyper-V | VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.0 | VMware vSphere 5.0 Enterprise Plus |
| Host | Logical Processors | 320 | 160 | 160 |
| Physical Memory | 4 TB | 32 GB | 2 TB | |
| Virtual CPUs per Host | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | |
| VM | Virtual CPUs per VM | 64 | 8 | 32 |
| Memory per VM | 1 TB | 32 GB | 1 TB | |
| Maximum Virtual Disk | 64 TB | 2 TB | 2 TB | |
| Active VMs per Host | 1024 | 512 | 512 | |
| Cluster | Maximum Nodes | 64 | N/A | 32 |
| Maximum VMs | 8000 | N/A | 3000 |
Check out my Blog post Hyper-V 2012 – Hey I Just Met You And This Is Crazy for more information about the latest version of Hyper-V.
Last week I took the Microsoft Private Cloud Exam 70-246: Monitoring and Operating Private Cloud with System Center 2012 and got with this the MCSE: Private Cloud certification. I also did the beta exam 70-410: Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012.
Now to my experience with the this exam. First of all you can see that Hyper-V is one of the new key features in Windows Server 2012 and you will get a lot of questions about Hyper-V. I got something round 45 questions. The question do pretty much match the list on the exam site. And I would recommend that you check out the new TechNet articles about Windows Server 2012. But I am sure it is much easier to pass the exam if you have worked with the new release of Windows Server 2012. Download the evaluation versions of Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate and test the new features.
You as mentioned on the exam site you should check out the following topics:
You can get more information on the official Microsoft Certification site for exam 70-410: Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012.
Besides my job as Private Cloud Architect I am also a part-time tech student. Now I just found a cool blog post from Tony Tai about how Office 365 compares with Google Apps if you use them as a student.
I use the Windows Live services like Hotmail and SkyDrive for my private stuff and Office 365 at work and also for my school work which is a perfect match for me.
Yesterday I passed the Microsoft exam 70-246: Monitoring and Operating Private Cloud with System Center 2012. And I can now finally call myself a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert for Private Cloud or MCSE: Private Cloud.
The new (reborn) Microsoft Certifications MCSA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate) and MCSE (Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert) were first shown at the Microsoft Management Summit this year.
At the moment there are the following certifications public
For the MCSE: Private Cloud you have to do the following
Now I am not the first one here in Switzerland who passed these exams, for example Marcel Zehner and Michel Lüscher did the exams at exams at MMS 2012 in Las Vegas and they got the results last week. Congrats guys 
Recently I have worked with the latest release of Windows Azure and the second Community Technical Preview of System Center 2012 SP1 App Controller. App Controller provides a common self-service experience that can help you easily configure, deploy, and manage virtual machines and services across private and public clouds. And you can get more information about System Center App Controller on Microsoft TechNet.
Now in this blog post I will show you how you can connect your System Center App Controller to Windows Azure. For this I used Windows Server 2012, System Center 2012 SP1 CTP2 of App Controller and Virtual Machine Manager and I also used the latest preview version of Windows Azure. This post also works for the RTM products of System Center 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, but the screenshots look maybe a little different.
I used:
It also works for:
Now here is how you do it:
First you have to install System Center App Controller on a machine. If you install the 2012 RTM of App Controller this is just wizard and the installer will configure all IIS requirements for you. If you install System Center 2012 SP1 CTP2 version of App Controller you have to install the IIS requirements by yourself.
This are the features you have to install in the IIS Role.
| Name (for use with the Add-WindowsFeature command in PowerShell) | Display Name (displayed in the wizard in Server Manager) |
| NET-Framework-Features | .NET Framework 3.5 Features |
| NET-Framework-Core | .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0) |
| Web-Mgmt-Console | IIS Management Console (under Web Server (IIS), Management Tools) |
| Web-Static-Content | Static Content (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Common HTTP Features) |
| Web-Default-Doc | Default Document (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Common HTTP Features) |
| Web-Http-Errors | HTTP Errors (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Common HTTP Features) |
| Web-Http-Logging | HTTP Logging (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Health and Diagnostics) |
| Web-Request-Monitor | Request Monitor (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Health and Diagnostics) |
| Web-Http-Tracing | Tracing (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Health and Diagnostics) |
| Web-Stat-Compression | Static Content Compression (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Performance) |
| Web-Filtering | Request Filtering (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Security) |
| Web-Basic-Auth | Basic Authentication (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Security) |
| Web-Windows-Auth | Windows Authentication (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Security) |
| Web-ISAPI-Filter | ISAPI Filters (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Application Development) |
| Web-ISAPI-Ext | ISAPI Extensions (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Application Development) |
| Web-Net-Ext | .NET Extensibility 3.5 (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Application Development) |
| Web-Asp-Net45 | ASP.NET 4.5 (under Web Server (IIS), Web Server, Application Development) |
You can use the following PowerShell commands to install all the requirements:
Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Features Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core Add-WindowsFeature Web-Mgmt-Console Add-WindowsFeature Web-Static-Content Add-WindowsFeature Web-Default-Doc Add-WindowsFeature Web-Http-Errors Add-WindowsFeature Web-Http-Logging Add-WindowsFeature Web-Request-Monitor Add-WindowsFeature Web-Http-Tracing Add-WindowsFeature Web-Stat-Compression Add-WindowsFeature Web-Filtering Add-WindowsFeature Web-Basic-Auth Add-WindowsFeature Web-Windows-Auth Add-WindowsFeature Web-ISAPI-Filter Add-WindowsFeature Web-ISAPI-Ext Add-WindowsFeature Web-Net-Ext Add-WindowsFeature Web-Asp-Net45
After you have installed you need to export the certificate on the App Controller server to add it to your Windows Azure Management Certificates. You have to export the certificate twice, first as DER encrypted binary (.cer ) which you have to import into Windows Azure and once as Personal Information Exchange (.pfx) which you will need in App Controller to connected to Windows Azure.