Tag: Microsoft MVP

Dec212021December 21, 2021December 21, 20210Commentby Thomas Maurer
Book Azure Arc-Enabled Kubernetes and Servers Extending Hyperscale Cloud Management to Your Datacenter

Book: Azure Arc-Enabled Kubernetes and Servers: Extending Hyperscale Cloud Management to Your Datacenter

Posted in Microsoft Azure

I know many of you want to learn more about Azure Arc and how you can leverage the Azure management and control plane for your hybrid and multicloud environments. Microsoft MVPs and Azure experts Steve Buchanan and John Joyner have authored a book about Azure Arc which I would highly recommend. The Azure Arc-Enabled Kubernetes and Servers: Extending Hyperscale Cloud Management to Your Datacenter book is an introductory guide to using Microsoft’s Azure Arc service.

You can order the book from Amazon (affiliate link)

Welcome to this introductory guide to using Microsoft’s Azure Arc service, a new multi-cloud management platform that belongs in every cloud or DevOps estate. As many IT pros know, servers and Azure Kubernetes Service drive a huge amount of consumption in Azure―so why not extend familiar management tools proven in Azure to on-premises and other cloud networks? This practical guide will get you up to speed quickly, with instruction that treads light on the theory and heavy on the hands-on experience to make setting up Azure Arc servers and Kubernetes across multiple clouds a lot less complex. 

Azure experts and MVPs Buchanan and Joyner provide just the right amount of context so you can grasp important concepts, and get right to the business of using and gaining value from Azure Arc. If your organization has resources across hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, and edge environments, then this book is for you. You will learn how to configure and use Azure Arc to uniformly manage workloads across all of these environments.

Amazon

What You Will Learn

  • Introduces the basics of hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge computing and how Azure Arc fits into that IT strategy
  • Teaches the fundamentals of Azure Resource Manager, setting the reader up with the knowledge needed on the technology that underpins Azure Arc
  • Offers insights into Azure native management tooling for managing on-premises servers and extending to other clouds
  • Details an end-to-end hybrid server monitoring scenario leveraging Azure Monitor and/or Azure Sentinel that is seamlessly delivered by Azure Arc
  • Defines a blueprint to achieve regulatory compliance with industry standards using Azure Arc, delivering Azure Policy from Azure Defender for Servers
  • Explores how Git and GitHub integrate with Azure Arc; delves into how GitOps is used with Azure Arc
  • Empowers your DevOps teams to perform tasks that typically fall under IT operations
  • Dives into how to best use Azure CLI with Azure Arc

Who This Book Is For

DevOps, system administrators, security professionals, and IT workers responsible for servers both on-premises and in the cloud. Some experience in system administration, DevOps, containers, and use of Git/GitHub is helpful.

You can order the Azure Arc book from Amazon.com.


Nov202020November 20, 2020November 20, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Lisa At The Edge Podcast - Thomas Maurer - Career Development & Azure Arc

Lisa At The Edge Podcast – Thomas Maurer – Career Development & Azure Arc

Posted in Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Speaking, Thomas Maurer, Virtualization

This week I had the honor to be on the Lisa at the Edge podcast, where I had the chance to speak with Lisa Clark, who is an EMEA Microsoft Hybrid Cloud Business Strategist at Dell Technologies. In her podcast, we talked about Azure Arc and Azure Hybrid Cloud, as well as career development. You can watch the full episode on here and on YouTube as well as on Lisa at the Edge – Hybrid Cloud & Careers in Tech.

Episode 21: Lisa At The Edge Podcast – Thomas Maurer – Career Development & Azure Arc

Thomas is a Cloud Advocate at Microsoft for Azure focused on Azure and Hybrid and former MVP. Thomas runs a very successful blog jam-packed with useful content on Azure Certification Guides, Windows Server, Azure IaaS, and more. He is a successful speaker and I was extremely lucky to have him on the podcast. In this episode, we talk about Thomas’s career path from apprentice to landing a dream role at Microsoft. We also discuss Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud terminology and then get stuck into the hot topic of the moment: Azure Arc.

About the Lisa at the Edge Podcast

“On the Lisa at the Edge Podcast, you will find all kinds of interesting topics as I speak to amazing people from across the global tech community.

I started this podcast at the beginning of lockdown here in Scotland as Covid-19 took over and changed our world. Podcasting and blogging are activities I had always wanted to try but for one reason (excuse) or another, I never got started. I decided lockdown was the perfect opportunity to give it a go! It is a way for me to stay connected to the tech community and learn new skills. I haven’t ruled any topics out and I haven’t stuck to the advice of ‘find your niche’ because that’s just not me! However, there will be a heavy focus on two of my favorite topics: Careers in Tech and Microsoft Hybrid Cloud.”

Learn more about Cloud Computing and Microsoft Azure

I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I did. If you want to learn more about Microsoft Azure and Cloud Computing, check out my blog post, in which I summarized a couple of useful links.


Sep282020September 28, 2020September 27, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
CloudSkills fm Podcast - Azure Architecture with Thomas Maurer

CloudSkills.fm Podcast – Azure Architecture with Thomas Maurer

Posted in Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft MVP, PowerShell, Speaking, Thomas Maurer

Last week I had the honor to speak with Mike Pfeiffer on his CloudSkills.fm post cast, about Azure Archtiecture and much more. This is my second apperance in the CloudSkills.fm podcast, last year I was speaking about Azure Hybrid Cloud Management. In this episode of the CloudSkills.fm podcast, Mike Peiffer and I dive into Azure Architecture. Learn about Enterprise Scale Landing Zones, Azure Bicep, the Well Architected Framework, and more.

CloudSkills.fm podcast Episode 092: Azure Architecture with Thomas Maurer

Thomas Maurer works as a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. As part of the Azure engineering team (Cloud + AI), he engages with the community and customers around the world to share his knowledge and collect feedback to improve the Azure platform.

In this episode, we talk about…

  • Thomas is working with Azure Architecture to make it easier for clients to operate cloud tech
  • Azure Architecture is made up of three main parts
  • Reasons that people have not heard about Azure Arc
  • Cloud Adoption Framework will assist those looking to build their company with Azure
  • Enterprise Scale Landing Zones help plan and set up Azure environment
  • How the automation for the Visio landing zone operates
  • Azure Bicep makes it easier to write and write ARM templates
  • It is still very early on in the development of Azure Bicep
  • Microsoft Learn helps people learn all about Microsoft, not just Azure
  • Microsoft Build provides a 24/7 video platform as a learning resource
  • Advice for those that want to get into content creation
  • Collaborating with others is incredibly important for growth
  • Well-Architected Framework vs. Cloud Adoption Framework at Microsoft
  • It never helps anyone to act like a jerk; be polite
  • Even bad advice provides value if you look at it correctly

You can listen to the episode here: CloudSkills.fm Episode 092: Azure Architecture with Thomas Maurer

About CloudSkills.fm

CloudSkills.fm is a weekly podcast with technical tips and career advice for people working with cloud-native technologies. This show is for developers, IT pros, or anyone making a career move into the cloud. Episodes will be short and to the point and will regularly feature experts who share their experiences.

This show is hosted by Mike Pfeiffer, a twenty-year tech industry veteran, entrepreneur, Pluralsight author, and Microsoft Azure MVP. If you enjoy the show and want more tips delivered to your mailbox every week, subscribe to CloudSkills Weekly at cloudskills.io/subscribe.

Conclusion

It is always fun to speak with Mike and I highly recommend his podcast. I hope you enjoyed CloudSkills.fm Episode 092: Azure Architecture with Thomas Maurer. If you have any questions or feedback, please let me know in the comments.


Feb112020February 11, 2020February 10, 20200Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure 10 Birthday

A decade later: Microsoft Azure at ten – Interview on Nigel Frank

Posted in Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft MVP, Thomas Maurer

Microsoft Azure just celebrated its 10th birthday. I had the chance to be interview by Nigel Frank International about the last ten years, today and the future. Right for the 10th birthday of Microsoft Azure. you can read the full interview here, where Microsoft MVPs, Mark Scholman and Charbel Nemnom together with myself answer a couple of questions like:

  • Did you encounter any skepticism in the early days, surrounding both Azure and broader cloud technology?
  • In the ten years since Azure’s official launch, has the product evolved as you expected?
  • How does each of you view the influence Azure has had on the cloud technology industry?
  • Can you pinpoint any turning points over the last ten years when Azure stood out as something of a game-changer?
  • Finally, what would you like to see next from Microsoft Azure?

Originally titled Windows Azure upon its official launch in February 2010—a moniker that would change to Microsoft Azure some four years later—the cloud platform has changed the face of computing on a scale previously unimagined.

A decade on, the service has arguably developed beyond recognition, expanding and adapting at regular intervals to help businesses of all shapes and sizes. The freedom to build, deploy and manage applications on a global scale is just one consequence, with 95% of Fortune 500 companies putting their faith (and trust) in the product.

To mark the platform’s tenth birthday, we sat down with Azure Stack consultant Mark Scholman, Microsoft Senior Cloud Advocate Thomas Maurer, and Cloud Architect and ICT Security Expert Charbel Nemnom—three Microsoft MVPs who have used Azure in all of its guises on a daily basis—to talk about the journey so far and the future of cloud computing.

I am looking forward to the next ten years of Microsoft Azure, especially since I am now part of the Azure team. And if you want to learn more about Microsoft Azure, check out my blog post about learning Microsoft Azure in 2020!

  • Azure Architecture Center – The Azure Architecture Center contains guidance for building end-to-end solutions on Microsoft Azure. Here you will find reference architectures, best practices, design patterns, scenario guides, and reference implementations.
  • Cloud Adoption Framework – The Cloud Adoption Framework is the One Microsoft approach to cloud adoption in Azure, consolidating, and sharing best practices from Microsoft employees, partners, and customers. The framework gives customers a set of tools, guidance, and narratives that help shape technology, business, and people strategies for driving desired business outcomes during their adoption effort. This guidance aligns to the following phases of the cloud adoption lifecycle, like Strategy, Plan, Ready, Migrate, Innovate, Govern, and Manage.
  • Azure Migration Center – Get all the tools and resources you need to migrate your apps, data, and infrastructure at your own pace, with confidence.
  • Azure Architecture Framework – A successful cloud solution requires to focus on these five pillars of architecture excellence: Cost, DevOps, Resiliency, Scalability, and Security. The Azure Architecture Framework helps you to build on these pillars.
  • Azure Reference Architectures – The Reference Architectures are a set of recommended architectures for Azure. Each architecture includes best practices, prescriptive steps, and a deployable solution.
  • Architectural decision guides – The architectural decision guides in the Cloud Adoption Framework describe patterns and models that help when creating cloud governance design guidance.
  • Cloud Operating model – Establish an operating model for the cloud
  • Azure Hybrid – Learn about Azure Hybrid Cloud with features and services like Azure Stack, Azure Arc, and many more.
  • Azure Security – Learn about Azure and security
  • Azure compliance – Get an overview of compliance in Microsoft Azure, with more than 90 compliance offerings
  • Azure pricing – learn about how Azure pricing works and how you can save costs and get the best value at every stage of your cloud journey.

I hope you enjoy the interview. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments.


Nov072019November 7, 2019November 7, 20190Commentby Thomas Maurer
CloudSkills FM Azure Arc and Hybrid Cloud Management

CloudSkills.fm Podcast – Azure Arc and Hybrid Cloud Management

Posted in Blog, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Speaking, Thomas Maurer

This week I am at Microsoft Ignite 2019 in Orlando, where we launched great new products and services like Azure Arc. I was honored to be part of a CloudSkills.fm Podcast episode with Microsoft Azure MVP Mike Pfeiffer. CloudSkills.fm is a weekly podcast with technical tips and career advice for people working in the cloud computing industry. This show is for developers, IT pros, or anyone making a career move into the cloud.

CloudSkills.fm is a weekly podcast with technical tips and career advice for people working in the cloud computing industry. This show is for developers, IT pros, or anyone making a career move into the cloud. Episodes will be short and to the point and will regularly feature experts who share their experiences.

This show is hosted by Mike Pfeiffer, a twenty-year tech industry veteran, entrepreneur, Pluralsight author, and Microsoft Azure MVP. If you enjoy the show and want more tips delivered to your mailbox every week, subscribe to Cloud Computing Weekly at askmike.io/subscribe.

In this episode, we were talking about the new Hybrid Cloud announcements at Microsoft Ignite 2019, like Azure Arc, Azure Stack, and the new Performance Monitor in Windows Admin Center. Check out our episode right here.

CloudSkills.fm

CloudSkills.fm

046: Azure Arc and Hybrid Cloud Management In this episode I chat with Thomas Maurer, Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, about the new Azure Arc service and how to get started with hybrid cloud management. Azure Arc – Cloud-native Management for Hybrid Cloud New Performance Monitor for Windows Server Mastering Azure with Cloud Shell

It was a pleasure to meet Mike in person and be part of his fantastic podcast. So listen in and let me know what you think!


Oct102019October 10, 2019October 23, 20190Commentby Thomas Maurer
Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI MVPDays

Speaking at the Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI MVPDays

Posted in Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft MVP, Speaking, Thomas Maurer, Virtualization, Windows Server

I am happy to let you know that I will be speaking online at the Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI Day. The Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI is an online event, organized and presented by Microsoft MVPs as part of the MVPDays. MVPDays was founded by Cristal and Dave Kawula back in 2013. It started as a simple idea; “There’s got to be a good way for Microsoft MVPs to reach the IT community and share their vast knowledge and experience in a fun and engaging way”.

The Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI MVPDays is a full-day online event on October 23. you can find out more here. In my session, I will be speaking about Azure hybrid management services and how you can connect your Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI environment with Microsoft Azure.

MVPDays

Hybrid Management Technologies using Azure Stack HCI

Windows Server, Azure Stack HCI and Windows Admin Center not only provide you with great hyper-converged solutions but also enable you to connect to Azure Hybrid Cloud services. In this session, Thomas Maurer will show you how you can connect Azure services like Azure Site Recovery, Azure Backup, Azure File Sync, Azure Monitor and many more to your on-prem Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI environment.

As soon as it is available you can watch my session here:

And you will find the full MVPDays online event here.

If you want to know more about it check you the following blog posts:

I hope you will join us at the Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI MVPDays. Let me know if you have any questions.


Jul052019July 5, 2019July 5, 20190Commentby Thomas Maurer
IT Career Energizer Episode Thomas Maurer

Part of the IT Career Energizer podcast

Posted in Awards, Certification, Microsoft, Microsoft MVP, Speaking, Thomas Maurer

I had the chance to be part of Phil Burgess IT Career Energizer podcast. IT Career Energizer podcast helps those who want to start, develop, and grow their IT careers. Guests share their experience and advice, which will help others in their careers. It was great to talk to Phil as discuss some exciting highlights, like becoming a Microsoft MVP in 2012 and being part until 2019 when I joined Microsoft. We also discussed the challenges in my career and where I faced some difficult decisions, as well as some exciting times coming up in the IT industry.

When you listen to the I.T. Career Energizer you’ll hear from individuals from around the world.  Each guest gives their own perspectives on career development and their views on the future of technology. My guests include programmers, business analysts, project managers and testers to name but a few.

Phil did almost 200 episodes until today, and I am proud and happy to be part of it. You can listen and subscribe to the podcast on itcareerenergizer.com.


Jul032019July 3, 2019July 3, 20190Commentby Thomas Maurer
Altaro Azure Security Center Webinar

Free Webinar: Azure Security Center: How to Protect Your Datacenter with Next Generation Security

Posted in Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Speaking, Thomas Maurer, Windows Server

I am happy to announce that I will be speaking in a free webinar together with Microsoft MVP Andy Syrewicze about Azure Security Center. The Altaro webinar called Azure Security Center: How to Protect Your Datacenter with Next Generation Security will be focusing on Azure Security Center, and how you can protect your Cloud and Datacenter Infrastructure. The webinar will be free and it will be held twice on Tuesday, July 30th, 2019. You can save your seat by filling out the form here.

Webinar presented live twice:

  • Session 1: 2pm CEST – 8am EDT – 5am PDT
  • Session 2: 7pm CEST – 1pm EDT – 10am PDT

Save your seat!

Free Webinar

Azure Security Center: How to Protect Your Datacenter with Next Generation Security

Azure Security Center: How to Protect Your Datacenter with Next Generation Security

Security has always been a fundamental concern of IT admins and now more than ever, in the age of the cloud datacenter, you need to ensure your workload security is ahead of the curve.

Join Thomas Maurer from the Microsoft Azure Team, alongside Microsoft MVP Andy Syrewicze, for a value-packed webinar that will show you how to batten down the hatches, even when your workloads are hosted in the public cloud! You’ll learn:

  • Azure Security Center Introductions
  • Deployment and first steps
  • Best Practices
  • Integration with other tools
  • And more!

With the industry’s transition to the cloud, we’ve seen a number of workloads migrate to service provider datacenters and public clouds like Azure. While many IT Pros are comfortable in dealing with core services in this manner, many find themselves at a loss when it comes to securing these next generation deployments. Pair that with an overly eager bad-actor community, and you have a recipe for disaster. However, new tools are designed to enhance existing security paradigms and help you sleep at night, such as Azure Security Center. Are you concerned about the strength of your Azure workload security? Struggling with where to start? We’ve got the webinar for you!

Taking advantage of the latest in security tools will ensure your organization stays one step ahead of the bad guys, and we’re here to help you get started!

See you there!

As mentioned, we will give you an overview of how Azure Security Center and strengthen your security posture and protect against threats with Azure Security Center. I will also show you features like Azure Just-in-Time VM access and many others.

I hope that you join the webinar and if you have any questions, let me know in the comments.


Jan152019January 15, 2019September 3, 201929Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Joining Microsoft

Joining Microsoft

Posted in Awards, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft MVP, Speaking, Thomas Maurer

Today is a great day! I’m excited and proud to announce that as of February 1st, 2019, I’m joining Microsoft. I will join the Microsoft Azure Engineering (Cloud + AI) team as a Senior Cloud Advocate. After being a Microsoft MVP for seven years and working very closely with Microsoft in the last couple of years, this is a great new opportunity and an exciting time ahead.

Microsoft Cloud Advocate

Microsoft Azure Cloud Advocate

The Microsoft Cloud Advocate Mascot by Ashley McNamara

My role is part of the Microsoft Developer Relations group and more specific the Cloud Advocates. I’m joining the AzOps team of Rick Claus, which many of you know from Channel9, Microsoft conferences and his overall work at Microsoft. Our team is focused on the IT Ops and IT Pro community. This allows me to do what I love most, which is being an advocate for customers in the Azure product group, sharing knowledge and engaging with the community.

We are advocates for the IT community within Microsoft. Using the products, listen to customers, and help the product teams to prioritize their work. We develop tools to help use the products, we write documentation and tutorials, and we build connections between the community and the engineering teams.

Our team’s charter is to help every technologist on the planet succeed, be they students or those working in enterprises or startups. We engage in outreach to developers and others in the software ecosystem, all designed to further technical education and proficiency with the Microsoft Cloud + AI platform.

A large part of our mission is to make Microsoft Azure the best platform to run your applications and services, as well as making migration to the Microsoft Azure ecosystem simple. Our team looks for common pain points and works with the product teams to address them. In other cases, we build the missing pieces like tools and documentation.

My focus is going to be on the Azure and Microsoft hybrid cloud strategy. Besides the Azure services, this will include products and services like Windows Server and Azure Stack, which will help to bring that consistent cloud experience to life, so our customers can make the best out of the Intelligent Cloud and the Intelligent Edge.

If there’s anything, you would like us to improve reach out to our team or me. We listen to your needs and consider your feedback in our future developments.

Read More

Jan022019January 2, 2019March 6, 20190Commentby Thomas Maurer
Windows Insider MVP Award 2019

Windows Insider MVP Award

Posted in Awards, Microsoft, Microsoft MVP, Windows

I am proud to share with you today, that I received the Windows Insider MVP Award from Microsoft, for my contributions in the Windows community in the past year. The Windows Insider MVP award is an additional award to the Microsoft MVP award. It was created and announced in 2016, and is focusing on Windows and Devices for consumers. It is an honor to be awarded for my work and contributions in 2018.

Congratulations! Thank you for your contributions to the Windows community, we are excited to welcome you as a Windows Insider MVP. This award is a token of our appreciation, your leadership and passion help make Windows the best yet. We look forward to collaborating with you and all of our Windows Insider MVPs as we continue to strengthen the Windows Insider MVP (WI MVP) Program.

Working with the Windows community to share the latest an greatest about Windows 10 is just a lot of fun. The Windows Insider team as a fantastic job with enganging with the community and work with people all over the world, to make Windows better.



  • About Thomas Maurer

    Thomas Maurer

    My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Program Manager & Chief Evangelist for Azure Hybrid at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team (Cloud + AI) and engage with the community and customers around the world. Opinions are my own.

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