I came across this bug report from RedHat when researching and issue where our newly deployed RHEL 7.4 VMs on Hyper-V would go into a hang state at times during the host backup process. Lots to good work done here to find a potential solution by upgrading to the latest kernel 3.10.0-843.el7.
See the full bug report (Bug 1502601) and process here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1502601
A complementary article to my last blog post here, but this time focusing on how to protect Hyper-V VMs from the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities.
The Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities have admins scrambling for safety, and virtualization presents a particular challenge — one that requires host and VM protection in order to maintain Hyper-V security.
These vulnerabilities are inherent to the hardware architecture of processors in modern CPUs, which forces vendors to search for fixes through software patches. Microsoft Hyper-V admins can start the process of applying these patches by using the following steps to protect their VMs.
…. Read the rest of the article at SearchServerVirtualization.com
There is a lot of information swirling around out there on what to do with the latest Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities. Whereas I can’t tell you how to solve the vulnerabilities for for every Hardware and Operating System combination, I can tell you how to get your Hyper-V environments protected. You might be interested in every fine detail of what is happening or you may want to just find out how to get protected as quick as possible. If you are interested in the latter, then this is the blog to start with. Here are the no nonsense steps that will protect your Hyper-V hosts. I will be making a second post for the VMs running on these hosts.
Windows 2012 R2 and Windows 2016 Hosts
All Associated Files for Fixing and Testing for Spectre/Meltdown can be found HERE:
reg add “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management” /v FeatureSettingsOverride /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg add “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management” /v FeatureSettingsOverrideMask /t REG_DWORD /d 3 /f
reg add “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Virtualization” /v MinVmVersionForCpuBasedMitigations /t REG_SZ /d “1.0” /f
* Other Firmware Modules that I use can be found here: Removed Due to Issues with first version of release firmware. I will include more here once the final revisions have been released.
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AkBgjSJPQpxUnLQwzcraOFu8i5CsuA
For links to your HP or Dell hosts updated firmware for the Spectre/Meltdown Vulnerability, you can check the links below
HP: https://h22208.www2.hpe.com/eginfolib/securityalerts/SCAM/Side_Channel_Analysis_Method.html
Testing:
If it looks like this, with lots of green, you are on the right track. Check back to see if there are any other additions that come out in the next few days/weeks.
Sources for More Information:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/CVE-2017-5715-and-hyper-v-vms
Support Guidance:
When attempting to run the Security Translation Wizard to ensure resources like Local Profiles, Printers, Mapped Drives, Desktop, etc… are migrated over when users start to logon with their migrated user accounts, I ran into an odd error within ADMT.
Unable to access ADMIN$ share on the machine ‘COMPUTERNAME.DOMAIN.COM’. Make sure the share exists and the account running ADMT is a member of local administrators group on the machine ‘COMPUTERNAME.DOMAIN.COM’. hr=0x80070005. Access is denied.
The migration server, with ADMT installed, that was joined to the Target Domain was unable to access some PCs by name using UNC path name i.e. \\ComputerName\admin$, but I could access this location using IP Address and could resolve the name with NSLookup have it respond to PING by name, and remotely connect by name to a RDP to the remote computer. Another anomaly I noticed was that when I went to Computer Management and try to access this machine remotely, the Local Users and Groups section is inaccessible from this server.
Solution:
Turns out, the reason for this was that the Source computer object was still enabled. Once I disabled or deleted the Source computer object, I was immediately able to access the ADMIN$ shares and remote computer managment of the migrated PCs.
![image[15]](https://virtuallyaware.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/image15.png "image[15]")
Recently when working with a domain migration I experienced and issue with Outlook autodiscover working incorrectly for accounts that have been migrated to the target domain. The newly migrated users were keeping their same email addresses and their mailboxes were still hosted on O365 and all the appropriate object identifiers and directory synchronization (different article to follow on how this was done), but Outlook clients were failing authentication since is was trying to use basic authentication. Using the PowerShell command in the Link below to modify the tenant setting in O365, Outlook 2016 clients work pretty much immediately and Outlook 2013 can work with a registry modification. (Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007 can not use Modern Authentication)
Enable or disable modern authentication in Exchange Online
Delving back into all things Active Directory recently with domain migrations and came across this helpful tip of decreasing Intersite replication. No need to wait these days with the speed of the connections between sites.
Source: PC Tech Go: Faster Active Directory Replication – Decrease Intersite Replication Interval to Seconds
The next few blogs posts come from a recent article that I wrote for SearchServerVirtualization.com. Here are some of the excerpts from that article that focus on the files and folders of Hyper-V in 2016
There are plenty of articles about how to use many of the features of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2016, but this articles will give you a deeper look at what is behind some of these features. What is really going on? How does it all work? Sometimes it is something very simple, other times it is a chain of complex steps that give you a view into some of the brilliance of the developers that make it all work. In this article, we are going to look at the Files and Folders that make up a VM, knowing how to locate them, and what function they perform, which will give you a great start at troubleshooting problems if they arise.
Where do these files live?
For standalone hosts, the default files are found in two different locations.
Configuration files: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V
Virtual Hard Disk Files: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual Hard Disks
For clustered hosts, VM files are located in a different default location. Whereas you can separate VM files into different directories or even volumes, usually these are all stored in the same VM directory with subdirectories under that. In most cases, clusters use a type of shared storage called Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) volumes where VMs live and all nodes of the cluster have access to. Two common methods of creating this type of storage is to have some sort of SAN storage connected by Fiber, ISCSI, SMB etc… or using Storage Spaces Direct (S2D).
When using CSVs for your shared cluster storage, a mount point off of the C:\ drive is created on each node of the cluster that links to each of the CSV volumes. These will be located at:
C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1
C:\ClusterStorage\Volume2
Virtual Hard Disk folder: VHD, VHDX, AVHD, AVHDX, RTC, and MRT files
There are even a Consumer Track sessions at the MVP Virtual Conference coming on May 14th and May 15th. These sessions are just fun and practical given by some of the most influential MVPs in the technical community. Over 5000 people have already registered for the event with content driven by Microsoft MVPs in three main tracks, IT Pro, Developer, and Consumer. I have been highlighting some of my favorite sessions all week. To register for free online conference, just go to this link: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualconference-sessions.aspx
Consumer Track
How to present with your audience’s needs in mind, all within PowerPoint!
Speaker: Chantal Bossé
Moderator: Sandra Johnson
We hear about Death by PowerPoint almost every day. One of the complaints is that the tool is only linear. Well, there is a way to build a flexible or interactive presentation to tailor your message, and meet your audiences’ expectations, all within PowerPoint. In this session, you will learn how to use hyperlinks, custom shows, and triggers to help you build valuable and flexible presentations. A great way to stand out, and stay away from Death by PowerPoint!
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things – The OneNote Edition
Speaker: Kelly Marshall
Moderator: Douglas Spindler
Kelly will share a high level overview of fifteen of her favorite things about the 2013 desktop version of OneNote – including linking, OCR Search, Send to OneNote Tool, Tags, Templates and more. This presentation is a good fit for consumers who are new to OneNote or just getting started and looking to learn more about what tools OneNote can offer them to improve their business productivity.
Delve & the Office Graph – A crash course
Speaker: Paul Olenick
Moderator: Susan Hanley
In this dynamic, demo-rich session Paul Olenick, SharePoint MVP, will provide a crash course on Delve and the Office Graph covering what they are, how they work from a mechanical level, their business impact and pitfalls to be aware of. He will also discuss how to extend the experience to create custom solutions based on the Office Graph. Attendees will leave with a solid understanding of what Delve and the Office Graph are, how they work, how they could fit in their organizations, as well as pitfalls to watch out for. Don’t miss this chance to opportunity to learn everything you need to know about Delve and the Office Graph!
Migrating from an iOS mobile device to a Windows mobile device and how to keep your Outlook data, emails, and contacts intact
Speaker: Jeff Shirley
Moderator: Kelsey Epps
In this session I will show you how to migrate your domain email to hosted Office 365 (no more POP3, and now you get Out of Office replies and OWA!), and then move away from an iOS device (iPhone 4 in my case) which was synced with Outlook 2010. This session steps you through setting up a Windows phone (a Nokia 930 Limited edition that I ordered in from overseas) and connecting it to iTunes for your music. I will then show you the various tricks and tools you need to use to make the migration painless and to keep your existing emails and contacts currently located in Outlook 2010. Finally it’s an adventure syncing everything up so all your devices are on the same page – the IMAP settings for Office 365 were not as simple as one would expect sometimes, and there are lots of little glitches and requirements related to getting your contacts moved.
I’m an uber chic hipster that runs my business on only Apple products; Why would I want Office365?
Speaker: Kelsey Epps & Kanwal Khipple
Moderator: Sean McNeill
The presentation will be a case study form detailing how Office365, Azure and Office can help the client defeat all their technical issues and run their business with help from Azure and Office365. It will detail the products, how to configure services and install applications on Apple devices.
Pivot Table Data Crunching
Speaker: Bill Jelen
Moderator: Chris Smith & Zack Barresse
Pivot tables are one of the most powerful features in Excel. With a pivot table, you can transform hundreds of thousands of rows of detailed data into a one-page summary report in just six clicks. In this session, you will learn the ins and outs of Excel pivot tables. Take a deep dive into features that let you create a true top 10 report, a year-over-year analysis, a dashboard of multiple pivot tables using slicers. Get an introduction to Power Pivot.
Using Access and SharePoint for Travel Expenses and Pulling up Maps
Speaker: Crystal Long
Moderator: Brent Spaulding & Julian Kirkness
Learn how to build a tool with Access to manage information on the road. Track mileage and meals. Use Bing to map your route and show maps for areas you visit. Calculate distance and get expense reports. Access is for anyone who has data to organize. Office 365 lets you get data when you are at home, in the office, and on the road. No matter where you are, your web database can be there too.
Windows 10: Productivity Tips
Speaker: Andrei Marukovich
Moderator: Tom Walker
Do you want to be equally productive in your office using a desktop PC and working with your tablet on a plane? With the enhanced user interface, Continuum feature and Cortana, Windows take makes this goal possible. Join us to learn about Windows enhancements for mobile users, new ways of managing workspace, about Cortana and new features for power users.
Windows 10: Making School Life easier with Windows 10 & Cortana
Speaker: Mark Schramm
Moderator: Jan Hannemann
This presentation will be about Windows 10 making a student’s life more productive and easier. From Cortana’s help with homework to a student being able to easily organize their “stuff” with the new features of Windows 10 from the Start Menu to the Action Center.
Windows Phone 8.1: “Hey Cortana” you make my life easier
Speaker: Mark Schramm
Moderator: Jan Hannemann
This presentation will consist of how Windows Phone 8.1 increases my business productivity in my roles as a small business owner, consultant and Microsoft MVP. It will involve how Cortana makes scheduling so much easier and immediate, also how many of the built in features of Windows Phone are used in my day-to-day business life.
Use your Windows Phone to tap into the Contacts, Calendar (and shared Calendars) and OneDrive
Speaker: Julie DeJong
Moderator: David Scammell
This presentation will discuss how to use Windows Phone to tap into all of the functionality of an Outlook.com account. We will focus on using a Windows Phone to tap into the Contacts, Calendar (and shared Calendars) and OneDrive (and shared files on OneDrive). We will include the mechanics of sharing Outlook.com calendars, OneDrive folders and files, and then how to view and work with those shared items on a Windows Phone.
It’s Not A Windows Phone, It’s MY Windows Phone
Speaker: Atley Hunter
Moderator: Sumeeth Evans
You will find out how Windows Phone fits into your life and allows you to do more faster and be as connected as you want to be.
Windows 10: New Features & New Directions
Speaker: Richard Hay
Moderator: Shawn Keene
By using the latest public build of Windows 10 you’ll learn about the major changes to the user interface compared to Windows 8.1 and how the changes bring back a familiar, yet different, interface which we had in Windows 7. You’ll also learn about the cross platform/device capabilities that Windows 10 will enhance for users to include universal apps, gaming, cloud sync for files and settings and touch first Office apps.
Create Custom Icons in PowerPoint
Speaker: Sandra Johnson
Moderator: Chantal Bossé
Icons are the hottest communications design trend since cave drawings. These effective visual clues can play a strong role in helping your audience understand your story and ultimately influence the success of your presentation. Creating icons using PowerPoint’s built-in Merge Shapes tool can help ensure graphic consistency in your presentation, avoid potentially expensive photography costs, and create universal designs that are easy to recognize and have a high image quality. This session will focus on how to create icons for PowerPoint using native PowerPoint tools.
Ransomware – Key tools for prevention and recovery
Speaker: Susan Bradley
Moderator: Amy Babinchak
Learn how to quickly recover from and prevent the latest threat on the web – ransomware. From CryptoLocker, CryptoWall, it’s estimated that it’s cost it’s victims over $30 million dollars. Learn how to better protect yourself and prevent yourself from becoming its next victim.
Understanding Windows Updating
Speaker: Susan Bradley
Moderator: Amy Babinchak
Every month the largest cloud service in the world updates and services the largest number of systems. Find out how Windows Update works, how to understand its cryptic error messages, how to prevent failures and learn about upcoming changes in Windows 10 and how it handles Windows Updates.
Using Office Mix from Boardroom to Classroom
Speaker: Brian Friedlander
Moderator: Sumeeth Evans
Learn how you take your PowerPoint presentations to the next level with Office Mix- an easy to use free plug-in for PowerPoint 2013. Using Office Mix you will learn how to make your presentations more interactive and is an ideal tool for delivering content over the web. Office Mix is an authoring tool for the flipped classroom and provides new ways for embedding video, simulations, digital ink, and quizzes. Want to know who has accessed and viewed your Office Mix? Not a problem-Office Mix provides you with a complete dashboard with comprehensive analytics. So come learn how you can benefit from using Office Mix in your boardroom or classroom.
Xbox Music, the cloud and your Bieber collection
Speaker: Marques Lyons
Moderator: Sumeeth Evans
This is a session that offers tips, tricks, and insight about the Xbox Music service. Learn how OneDrive and Xbox Music let you take all of your favorite music with you on any Windows device, running Windows 8.1 or later, for free. Plus, get information about Xbox Music Pass (aka expanding your horizons) and ways you can help influence future versions of the service.
Virtual Tour of Microsoft’s Security Response Center
Speaker: Douglas Spindler
Moderator: Susan Bradley
Last November MVPs were invited to tour Microsoft’s Security Response Center, (MSRC). The MSRC works with security researchers, tech and non-tech companies and law enforcement agencies from around the world to investigate security incidents, to advance Microsoft product security and protect the public from Internet crimes. I will take you on a virtual tour of the MSRC and share the vital work that’s being done at the MSRC and tell you about some the crimes the MSRC has investigated. Microsoft and the MSRC are working to create a safer society for us by not only investigating the well-publicized types of cybercrime, identity theft, financial fraud, etc., but the MSRC also works on counterfeiting, human and drug trafficking and technology crimes which harm society and quality of life. See how Microsoft and its partners are fighting on a global scale and you will walk away as I did saying, “Thank you Microsoft!”
My expertise falls more in to the IT Pro Track, but there is a whole lineup of Developer Track sessions in the MVP Virtual Conference coming on May 14th and May 15th. Over 5000 people have already registered for the event with content driven by Microsoft MVPs in three main tracks, IT Pro, Developer, and Consumer. I have been highlighting some of my favorite sessions all week. If you are a developer, come learn about what passionate MVPs are doing. To register for free online conference, just go to this link: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualconference-sessions.aspx
Developer Track
10 New Things for Developers on Windows 10
Speaker: Colin Melia
Moderator: Mark Schramm
It’s in the title. If you didn’t have time for Build or you just want to get a summary of 10 new features for developers from the new and/or updates APIs, tools SKUs and/or languages, from devices to the cloud, this is your chance to get on board.
A Brief History of OWIN
Speaker: Ryan Riley
Moderator: Cameron Taggart
You may have noticed some strange changes in your ASP.NET project templates, especially with respect to security. You may have noticed some similar changes in the presentations about ASP.NET vNext. Those changes are related to a specification for building composable .NET web applications, and its name is OWIN. There’s a lot of confusion surrounding the Open Web Interface for .NET, or OWIN, and how it relates to Microsoft’s web platform. How and why did OWIN come about? Why should you care? How can you help? Find answers to all your questions, and learn some of the more curious twists and turns of the OWIN story straight from the source.
A Lap around ASP.NET vNext!
Speaker: Samidip Basu
Moderator: Shayne Boyer
Change is in the air for ASP.NET developers as vNext ushers in a new era. Let’s talk – ASP.NET 5 | Open Source | .NET Frameworks Changes| ASP.NET Runtimes | WebForms | MVC 6 | C# 6.0 | VS Tooling | Omnisharp.NET | Homebrew | Yeoman | CLI & Sublime Text | Docker.
Cross-Platform Localization for Mobile Apps Using .NET
Speaker: Chris Miller
Moderator: James Montemagno
When doing a native application, of course you want to hit the major platforms: Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. By using the .NET Framework on each platform, you can share much of the code and get the globalization and localization functionality that comes with .NET. By building the application for Windows Phone first or concurrently with iOS and Android, you will be able to leverage some powerful tools from the .NET stack to make localization much easier to code.
Detecting Facial Expressions with Azure Machine Learning and Kinect for Windows
Speaker: Dwight Goins
Moderator: Gian Paolo Santopaolo
This session is about learning how to use Microsoft Azure Machine Learning with the Kinect for Windows in order to detect facial expressions. This session will cover an introduction to Machine Learning, and different algorithms used to detect data patterns. The algorithms discussed will be nearest neighbor, probabilistic learning, decision trees, and neural networks. It will also cover an introduction to the Kinect for Windows device, explaining the features and capabilities of the device and SDK. The session will show basic demos and data coming from the device. The session will then drill down into HD Face and describe the data which is generated from Face and HD Face tracking. Lastly the session will show a demo and provide steps on how to incorporate Azure Machine Learning features into a Windows 8.1 Kinect enabled application to detect facial expressions in real time.
DevOps: What Is This Puppet You Speak Of?
Speaker: Rob Reynolds
Moderator: Keith Dahlby
You keep hearing about DevOps and how awesome it is. And you’ve heard of Puppet, but wonder if it has something to do with Jim Henson. Puppetizing? What is this Puppet you speak of? Come find out…
Fireside: Cooking with Open Source
Speaker: Jeff Paries
Moderator: Morten Nielsen
Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board. C# is a simple, modern, general-purpose, object-oriented programming language. The Fireside project blends the two technologies into a remote temperature monitoring system for grilling/cooking, using XAML to present a clean, intuitive user interface.
How To Create A Global Leaderboard For Unity 3D Using Azure Mobile Services
Speaker: Chad Carter
Moderator: Kevin Griffin
Want to learn how to create your own global leaderboard using Azure Mobile Services? Then don’t miss this session where Chad Carter, lover and maker of games, will dig into what is needed to create services using Azure Mobile Services that can be utilized in many game frameworks. For this talk, Unity 3D will be used to consume the leaderboard and display the high scores.
Introduction to AngularJS in an Office 365 context
Speaker: Sebastien Levert
Moderator: Vincent Biret
Every developer hears about AngularJS and all the magic it does for you applications. In order to kickstart you AngularJS journey, this session is an introduction to the AngularJS concepts applied to any Office 365 development. Different workloads will be targeted (Mail, Calendar, Files) and the Office 365 API will be our main datasource. We will also cover SharePoint Online specific data access (Office 365 API, REST, CSOM and Search) to meet your current development needs.
Microsoft Band: Project Online Task Updates from your Wrist
Speaker: Christine Flora
Moderator: Chris Miller
In this session, we will create an app that will send Project Online task assignment notifications to a Team Member’s Microsoft Band. Additionally, I will demonstrate how to submit Task Updates via the new Microsoft Band keyboard functionality.
Mongo Baseball.NET
Speaker: David Hoerster
Moderator: Sam Nasr
You like baseball, you like Mongo and you like .NET. Why not put them all together and achieve a zen-like state of being completely in touch with your data! This session will walk through some familiar and not-so-familiar baseball statistics and how you can crunch them using Mongo’s aggregation pipeline. We’ll talk about Mongo’s aggregation pipeline, the different components of the pipeline, and how they can be used together to calculate some SABR metric statistics. This talk will be mostly code and will alternate between the Mongo shell and code using the C# driver.
Native iOS Apps using Swift for Office365
Speaker: Sahil Malik
Moderator: Michael Crump
That thing in your pocket is a 64 bit super computer that can talk, sing, help you communicate, close your garage door, spy on your dog, or you for that matter, provide location based information, take pictures, video, and so much more. No wonder teenagers around the world are hitting app lotteries. And if you thought iOS with a billion devices on the market was a big deal, the other big deal is Office 365. With numbers equally, if not more impressive, and with inroads into every enterprise that matters, what happens when these two waves collide? Bigger than fusion. You can ride this wave, but you need the right skills. The skills to write native iOS apps using Swift for Office 365. This session will cover what you need from scratch to finish, including Azure AD, basics of Office 365, and end with writing a fully functional app. Expect to see some code.
Node.js for .NET Developers
Speaker: David Neal
Moderator: Alvin Ashcraft
Node.js is a compelling platform that is quickly spreading from startups to the enterprise. As a .NET developer, why should you learn Node.js and where do you start? You will come away from this talk with the evidence and tools you need to be a productive Node.js developer. We’ll walk through creating, debugging, and deploying a Node.js project to Microsoft Azure using the Node.js Tools for Visual Studio. We’ll also look at popular frameworks and modules, and other learning resources.
One XAML UI to Rule them All with Universal Apps and Xamarin.Forms!
Speaker: Greg Levenhagen
Moderator: Lwin Maung
Mobile apps are here to stay! We’ve seen a lot of technologies come and go that promised a write-once, run-everywhere scenario. Xamarin has been around for a while and allowing developers to use C# with native UI, but they’ve added XAML support for the UI with Xamarin Forms. This allows a single codebase for mobile apps to target iOS, Android & Microsoft Universal Apps.
Resolving Conflicts in Collaborative Occasionally Connected Mobile Apps
Speaker: Michael Perry
Moderator: Bryan Hunter
In collaborative apps, a change made on one device appears on another. Data flows seamlessly across devices. But those devices aren’t always connected. And even when they are, users don’t want to wait for a network connection before they can see or work with their data. So data needs to be stored locally, and synchronized in the background.
Roslyn for Normal Developers: It’s Not Just for Compiler Geeks!
Speaker: John Robbins
Moderator: Jamie Dixon
You have no doubt heard about Roslyn, the new C# and VB.NET compilers in Visual Studio 2015, and you are probably wondering what they mean to you as a normal developer especially since you don’t have a PhD in Compilerology. In this demo only session you’ll see that no matter the type of .NET development you are doing, Roslyn will quickly become one of your favorite tools. You’ll learn how to leverage Roslyn analyzers and code fixers to fix problems in your team’s code as its being written. You’ve dreamed about having super smart editors that find the bugs before you check in and Roslyn is the answer!
Supercharge your Development with Azure Websites
Speaker: Steve Michelotti
Moderator: Niraj Bhatt
Azure Web Sites brings a whole new level of power and simplicity to cloud computing. This demo-heavy session will show numerous features that allow you to deploy your site in a matter of seconds. Whether you are building a completely custom app or deploying from one of the numerous templates provided (such as WordPress), you’ll be up and running in no time. Want to use Node.js or PHP and deploy from Git? No problem! Azure Web Sites gives you the power of elastic scaling while still providing streamlined development and an effortless deployment experience. This presentation will also cover features including monitoring, custom domains, working with SQL databases or more!
Surviving in an Async-First Development World
Speaker: Stephen Cleary
Moderator: Vidya Vrat Agarwal
Cloud-first? Mobile-first? You know what that means: Async-first! Is the world of async/await passing you by? No need to worry with this catchup session! Join async guru Stephen Cleary for a down-to-earth introduction to the new async and await keywords. No previous expertise required! We’ll cover just what you need to know as a developer: where async helps (and where it doesn’t), how it works (without unnecessary details), and best practices to get you started on your async adventure!
Windows 10 and Spartan
Speaker: Chris Love
Moderator: Ryan Hayes
Learn about development opportunities with Windows 10 and Spartan!
Here is the full IT Pro Track Session list for the MVP Virtual Conference is coming on May 14th and May 15th. Over 5000 people have already registered for the event with content driven by Microsoft MVPs in three main tracks, IT Pro, Developer, and Consumer. I have been highlighting some of my favorite sessions all week, but here are the rest in the IT Pro track. It is shaping up to be a great event. To register for free online conference, just go to this link: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualconference-sessions.aspx
IT Pro Track
Deploying Highly Available SQL Server in Microsoft Azure IaaS
speaker: David Bermingham
Moderator: Joseph D’Antoni
SQL Server always on AG and FCI still form the under pinning of SQL Server availability in Windows Azure, but there are a few things you need to know before you jump in with both feet. In this session you will learn how to leverage Azure Fault Domains, Upgrade Domains and Internal Load Balancers to ensure the high availability of SQL Server deployments within the Azure cloud. Hybrid cloud configurations will also be introduced as a disaster recovery solution for SQL Server deployments.
Dynamics CRM MVP Ask the Experts
Speakers (Panel): Donna Edwards, Christopher Cognetta, Alex Fagundes, Shan McArthur, Matt Wittemann
Moderator: Donna Edwards
This will be an interactive discussion featuring Microsoft Dynamics CRM MVPs. The panel will not only share their knowledge but also respond to product and project related questions. We are looking forward to helping you with any challenges you face from technology and infrastructure, to features and tools, through implementation and professional development. This session is your opportunity to ask those pressing questions and get real-time answers from CRM product and industry experts.
Power BI as a Self-Service BI Platform: Architecture, Use Cases, Strengths, and Shortcomings.
Speaker: Melissa Coates
Moderator: Rafael Salas
Power BI is Microsoft’s newest solution to facilitate self-service business intelligence. In this session we will discuss which components of Power BI are associated with cloud services, SharePoint on-premises, and client applications such as Excel and Power BI Designer. With an emphasis on the newly overhauled Power BI Preview, we will discuss and demonstrate the key elements of the system, its strengths, its limitations, and how Power BI can fit into an organization’s data delivery platform.
A pain-free migration to Office 365
Speaker: J. Peter Bruzzese
Moderator: Naomi Moneypenny
Migration to Office 365 is a painful experience in many cases due to legacy archive data issues, throttling and bandwidth barriers, professional services fees and more. In this session we will reduce the pain through improved planning and clearly identification and elimination of those pain points. Migrations are always going to being taxing but there are ways to make them less so. I’ll show you how.
Azure Test Labs: From Zero to Hero
Speaker: Garth Gorling
Moderator: Colin Smith
In this session, I will take the participants on a journey as we create a training lab in Azure. The session will start with an introduction to Azure. We will look at the various interfaces available to leverage the power of the cloud. Once we have covered some of the core concepts that Azure relies on we will move on the more in-depth technical aspects and setup a virtual network. Basic Azure networking will be covered and a fully functional network will be built quickly and easily. The next phase of our Azure discovery journey will be populating the network. We will look at ways to create virtual machines by using the gallery and quick create. We will create two virtual machines and look at ways of adding machines to the network created at the beginning of the learning adventure. The session continues as we move into application of the learning. Here, we will promote one of the virtual machines created previously to a domain controller and will then join the client machine to our newly created domain. This is the core focus of the MCSA: Windows Server 2012 R2 exam and once we have built out this environment it can be used for much of the learners needs as they study for exams or just learn and play with some cutting edge technology.
BYOD with Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite
Speaker: Jason Milgram
Moderator: Justin Harris
Join us and learn all about Microsoft’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) solution. People want access to corporate applications from anywhere, on whatever device they choose—laptop, smartphone, tablet, or PC. We’ll talk about how to support BYOD across all popular platforms: Windows, iOS, and Android. Improve efficiency and simplify administration with no infrastructure required, how to manage PCs and mobile devices in one place, and protect corporate assets with configuration policies and remote wipe.
Microsoft Surface in the Enterprise
Speaker: Colin Smith
Moderator: Garth Gorling
The Microsoft Surface has been steadily increasing its penetration into the enterprise workplace. In order to get the most productive use of the devices, end users, line of business units, and IT departments all have to adapt and make changes to existing processes, procedures, and work styles. This session will cover some of the common challenges organizations will face in trying to make the best use of Microsoft Surfaces and provide some potential solutions.
Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Automation with PowerShell
Speaker: Trevor Sullivan
Moderator: Anil Desai
Are you using the Microsoft Azure cloud today? Do you love automation? Does your business require rapid elasticity? You’ll want to be sure to come to this session, where we will discuss provisioning and management of cloud resources in Microsoft Azure, using the Windows PowerShell automation platform! We’ll talk about the Azure Service Management and Azure Resource Manager APIs, and some of the key concepts to the automated building of infrastructure services on Azure. Be prepared for a session packed with architectural and technical information!
What is new in Skype for Business
Speaker: Evan Zaleschuk
Moderator: Michael LaMontagne
With the recent release of Skype for Business, this session will outline what is new and what has changed in Skype for Business from the previous version of Lync 2013. We’ll talk about changes such as: Skype Look and Feel, Cross Platform Support plus Conversation History across devices, Connectivity to Skype, SQL Always On, Native Video Interop , Call Via Work… and more. We will then look into two popular topics in more detail, SQL Always On and Connectivity to Skype and Federation.
Modern IT: DevOps to ITIL
Speaker: Nathan Lasnoski
Moderator: Annur Sumar
Are you confused about how the DevOps movement fits into traditional ITSM practices? You aren’t alone. In this session, we’ll demonstrate using technology in the process lifecycle from development to operations using practices from DevOps and ITIL. You’ll learn practical skills to implement these practices within your own organization. Understand the impact on configuration management, controls, releases, and automation. We’ll talk about the modern lifecycle of development and operations and its relationship to tools like Visual Studio Online, Azure, and System Center.
Azure Remote App for your Line of Business Applications
Speaker: Adnan Cartwright
Moderator: Elias Mereb
This session gives an overview of utilizing Azure RemoteApp for Mobility and BYOD scenarios where IT can enable users to access corporate data and applications while ensuring compliance. Whether you are running your business entirely in the cloud or in a hybrid deployment, learn how Azure Remote Desktop app end users can access corporate applications from a variety of devices and platforms including iOS, Mac OS X, and Android, in addition to Windows and Windows RT.
Troubleshooting Hyper-V Performance Issues – Black Belt Notes from the field
Speaker: Dave Kawula
Moderator: Marcos Nogueira
In this session we will cover common techniques for troubleshooting Hyper-V Performance issues. These ticks, tricks and techniques have all been used in the field and will be of immense value. Dave has developed a great approach to troubleshooting from the ground up with Hyper-V, and this demo-centric session will deal with common questions like “Why is my server so slow?” During the performance troubleshooting process, we first look at the Host Server, Network Configuration, Storage, and Operating System, followed by troubleshooting the actual guests (VM’s). This unique presentation will showcase PowerShell scripts that will be used to break the environment and simulate real world scenarios for active participation and troubleshooting. At the end of this session you will be on the road to getting your very own Black Belt in Hyper-V Performance Troubleshooting.
Automating Service Delivery with System Center 2012 R2
Speaker: Pete J. Zerger
Moderator: Chris Ross
In this session targeted to IT decision makers and IT Pros new to System Center, learn about the capabilities Microsoft System Center brings to the service delivery lifecycle in heterogeneous and hybrid cloud environments. Key topics will include: Server, Client and Application Management, Automated Deployment and Self-Service Automation, Integration with 3rd party management platforms, Monitoring, Security and Data Protection. For organizations that already own System Center, learn the “Why not System Center?” method to identifying where System Center fits in your environment.
Best Practices for Virtualizing and Managing SharePoint 2013 with System Center Windows Server 2012
Speaker: Marcos Nogueira
Moderator: Dave Kawula
SharePoint 2013 is now a company standard, but what is supported, sensible, or even practicable? How do we go about monitoring and managing SharePoint? In this session, we discuss the virtualization path and best practices using Hyper-V for high availability and why virtualization makes sense. With the foundations in place we take a deep dive on how we can monitor SharePoint Farms, the availability of each role and how we can profit from a combination of the Health Service within SharePoint 2013 and the wealth of what System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2 can offer to make the management experience an easier one. We also look at advancements we can make outside of the box by directly integrating the Hive for exceptions. What will we learn? How to effectively manage and monitor our SharePoint farms of any size. Why not make a complex task fun, with measurable results.
Migrating from VMware to Hyper-V for VMware Professionals
Speaker: Andrew Syrewicze
Moderator: Rob McShinsky
Many IT Pros in the industry have begun their virtualization training with VMware, but as the market shifts in other directions, a lot of administrators are finding themselves managing multi-hypervisor environments. Many businesses are now in the process of migrating some or all of their virtual workloads to the Microsoft Hyper-V platform for a number of reasons including, cost savings, scalability, and ease of management. While managing a Hyper-V cluster is somewhat similar in concept to ESXi, there are some fundamental differences. This session will cover Hyper-V clustering, management differences, and the migration of VMs from ESXi to Hyper-V. The entire session will be geared towards VMware administrators who are looking to broaden their horizons by adding Hyper-V know-how to their toolbox.
Healthy SQL III
Speaker: Robert Pearl
Moderator: Jason Brimhall
Are your SQL Servers Healthy? Are all the SQL Servers you manage running optimally and have the high availability that is expected? How do you know for sure? Have you checked on the health of your SQL Servers lately? What is a Health Check, and how do we perform one? If you are a DBA, then you ought to know! Robert Pearl talks about the importance of regular health checks of your SQL Server(s). We will talk about the need to create a baseline and provide some time-tested ways to determine if your SQL Servers are healthy and prove it to your managers, clients and even your IT auditors. Using various tools and scripts, and native SQL Server features, you will come out of this session feeling much better.
PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) – Custom Resource Development
Speaker: Craig Martin
Moderator: Brian Desmond
PowerShell DSC is a great configuration management system built into Windows, and very extensible to cover systems that need configuration management but lack the DSC resources. Come see demonstrations of custom DSC resources, and sharing of lessons learned including handy techniques for making the DSC resources great.
Securing Your Azure Data Center
Speaker: Eric D Boyd
Moderator: Marcin Policht
With security breaches being a daily news story, and businesses suffering significant losses as a result, the topic of security is more important than ever. And the public cloud brings this conversation to the forefront. From my experience helping customers develop applications and migrate workloads to Azure, there are three major areas of concern as it relates to security, 1) Access 2) Data 3) Visibility and then there’s the bonus conversation regarding regulatory issues and compliance. In this session, you will learn how to manage and control access to your Azure data center, both external and internal. Next, you will learn how to secure the data in your Azure data center from internal and external threats. Then, you will learn how to audit and monitor activities and traffic in your Azure data center. And finally, we will explore how Microsoft operates and manages the data centers, and how Azure helps you with compliance.
Just Enough Explanation of JEA, Windows’ New “Just Enough Administration” (JEA) Tool
Speaker: Mark Minasi
Moderator: Sean P Kearney
Most of us who’ve run networks for more than about two days have learned “the principle of least privilege,” a short way of saying, “when you create an account to administer service ‘X’ (Exchange, SQL, a file server, SharePoint or whatever), don’t create that account as a domain administrator, create it with only the privileges and permissions that it needs… no more.” It’s a wise intention, but a hard one to follow in the Windows world. But that’s changing. PowerShell mastermind Jeffrey Snover’s team recently released an experimental toolkit they call JEA, short for “Just Enough Administration.” Aimed for implementation on servers from 2008 R2 and later, JEA lets you create custom-made administrative accounts with finely-tuned, purpose-built capabilities. Even better, you set this stuff up from a central location with Desired State Configuration, Windows’ relatively new group-policy-for-servers-but-even-better tool. (And of course, anyone using a JEA endpoint is logged from start to finish.) Securing modern server management seeks to isolate, restricts and tracks administration tasks in a role-based fashion. Third party tools or hundreds of hours of scripting might accomplish that… but why waste that time and money? Attend this session with Windows automation guru Mark Minasi and understand JEA’s pieces, see how to set it up and customize it for your needs.
VirtuallyAware 