1.
Microsoft Azure & Hybrid
Cloud
Cloud for the partner, by the partner
Aidan Finn, MVP - MicroWarehouse

2.
About
• MicroWarehouse is Ireland’s largest independently owned IT
Distributor.
• Established in 1986, it is completely controlled by the local
management team.
• Comprising of 28 staff, MicroWarehouse sells products from a
focussed Vendor Portfolio to over 500 resellers, offering the
largest local stockholding, aggressively priced and supported
by unrivalled local knowledge.
• Products and solutions sold include PC systems, peripherals,
software and licensing.
Company Headquarters in Park West Business
Park, Dublin
Additional services provided include:
• Total procurement and logistics solutions
• Technical product co-selling
• Vendor promotion and reporting administration
• Pre-sales support
• Software asset management reviews
• E-marketing solutions
Our customers are:
• Retailers (indigenous and multi-national)
• Value added resellers
• Solution providers & integrators
• Software licensing specialists
• Computer consultants.
• Computer System Builders
In partnership with our vendors, MicroWarehouse focuses on a broad base of resellers and
has a proven track record in genuine breadth growth.
With a balance sheet value in excess of €9million, MicroWarehouse is a secure business
100% focussed on delivering value in the Irish marketplace.

3.
About Aidan Finn
• Technical Sales Lead at MicroWarehouse
• Working in IT since 1996
• MVP (Virtual Machine)
• Experienced with Windows Server/Desktop,
System Center, virtualisation, and IT
infrastructure
• @joe_elway
• http://www.aidanfinn.com
• http://www.petri.co.il/author/aidan-finn
• Published author/contributor of several books

4.
Agenda
• Public cloud: Microsoft Azure
• Private cloud: Windows Server & System
Center
• Partner public cloud: Windows Server, System
Center, and Windows Azure Pack
• Throughout: Hybrid cloud … mixing public &
private

5.
Hybrid Cloud
Features & Scenarios

6.
On-Premise SME
• Virtualization – Hyper-V
• Client management – Windows Intune
• Maybe some System Center server/desktop
management in mid-size business

7.
Mid-Large Enterprise
• Private Cloud
– Windows Server
– Hyper-V
– System Center
• Corporate desktop management
– System Center Configuration Manager
• BYOD
– Windows Intune

8.
Hosting Company / Public Cloud
• Fabric
– Windows Server
– Hyper-V
– System Center
• Self-Service
– Service Provider Foundation (SPF – REST API)
– Windows Azure Pack (WAP)

9.
Microsoft Azure/ Public Cloud
• PaaS
• IaaS
– Web services
– SQL
– Blob storage
– Tiered storage (StorSimple appliance)
– Virtual Machine
– Network virtualization
– And more …

10.
Hybrid Cloud
• Some (marketing & media) will have you think
that everything should be in the (public) cloud
• One “cloud” is not right for every service or
service tier
• Use the best elements of each cloud
– In a unified solution designed from the ground up
– Smaller biz will have local virtualization instead of
private cloud

11.
Benefits of Each Cloud
• On premise
– The infrastructure you already paid CAPEX for
– 100% control over service/location/regulation/etc
• Partner public cloud/hosted private cloud
– Large scalability
– Out-sourcing
– Control over location
– Bespoke service
• Microsoft Azure
– Incredible scalability
– Extremely high SLAs
– Global presence
– Years ahead in innovation

12.
Microsoft Azure
Public Cloud

13.
What is Azure
• 1/3 of “The Cloud OS”
– A part of the story, not the whole story
• A public cloud infrastructure based on innovative
designs
• Way beyond enterprise scale – probably hundreds
of thousands of physical servers
• Built on Hyper-V
– Now tell me that Hyper-V doesn’t scale!!!
• Understand the concept of fault domains
– When you build at this scale, dual power, dual
network, etc, make no sense
– Deploy 3 of any one thing to meet the SLA

14.
Managing Azure
• One portal to manage all aspects of Azure IaaS
– https://manage.windowsazure.com
• New portal on the way
– https://portal.azure.com
– Health and subscription information more visible
• PowerShell cmdlets
– Scripting always gives more control
• Microsoft Azure Automation
– Orchestration based on Service Management
Automation (SMA)
• See Windows Azure Pack for hosting partners

15.
Storage
• Huge capacities of storage at low cost
• Storage is provided in the form of “blobs”
– Think of blobs as multi-purpose buckets
• Resilient:
– Local redundancy: 3 copies
– Geo redundancy: Another 3 copies in neighbouring region, e.g.
Amsterdam
– Zone redundant storage (coming) will keep 3 copies in different
facilities (same or different regions)
• Used many Azure services:
– Application content
– Virtual machine hard disks
– Online backup
– Tiered cross-premise storage

16.
Comparing Cloud Storage
From Aptera Blog
http://blog.apterainc.com/bid/379058/Azure-vs-Amazon-vs-Rackspace-vs-HP-vs-Google-Cloud-Storage-Infographic

17.
Scenario – Web Presence
• Not just dumb web hosting
• Capable of using features & scalability of Azure
– Load balancing
– Auto-scaling
– Start small, with potential to grow immense
• Various plans from free to more feature rich
• A great way for a business to offload a
complex service to an immense global
presence

18.
Demo – Azure Web Sites

19.
Virtual Networks
• Software defined networking (SDN)
• Don’t deploy physical stuff, deploy virtual stuff
– Self-service
– Scalable
– Automated
– More flexible
• Deploy virtual networks & subnets
• 1 public IP address NATed & firewalled
• Define your own private IP ranges
– Can overlap with those of other tenants

20.
Virtual Machines
• Just like you’ve been deploying on customer
sites for years
• Windows & Linux
• From small & basic to incredibly powerful HPC
machines
– From tiny application servers to animation
processing (Pixar), big data, and so on
• Remember: fault domains
– Build fault tolerant services

21.
Demo – Azure Virtual Machines

22.
Scenario – Test/Proof of Concept Lab
• Why spend money on hardware?
• Deploy VMs in Azure
• No long term commitment
• Use the VMs to:
– Prove a concept
– Test out new software or operating systems
– Test/document software upgrades/rollbacks
– Validate procedures
– Test backup/restore
– Training lab for employees

23.
Scenario – Software Test/Dev
• Testers & developers need:
– LOTS of VMs
– Need them quickly – self-service
– Rarely stay powered on for long
• Hard to budget for
• Why buy/install new on-premise h/w?
– Save that investment for production systems
– More predictable

24.
Hybrid Cloud Connectivity
• Connect your on-premise networks with your
Azure virtual networks
• No; you don’t need to put private application
servers on the public Internet
• You can have a private connection between
your site and your services in Azure:
– Site-to-site VPN
– Azure ExpressRoute

25.
Site-to-Site VPN
• Create encrypted tunnel
into Azure virtual
network
• Routing between sites
• Extend your network
into Azure
• A number of supporting
devices, including
Watchguard
Watchguard
XTM
Microsoft Azure
On-Premise
Internet

26.
Demo – Site-to-Site VPN

27.
Azure ExpressRoute
• Add Microsoft Azure to
your WAN
• Service provided by
ISPs, e.g. BT
• More fault tolerant &
scalable
Microsoft Azure
WAN Internet
Branch Offices
Other Data
Centres

28.
Site-to-Site Connectivity
• Extending your network into Azure opens up
new possibilities
• Look at it this way, Azure gives you:
– Endless scalability
– Near-instant on
– Pay-as-you-go
– No long term commitment to deployed resources
– No need to spend CAPEX
– LOTS of possibilities

29.
Scenario – Online Services
• Azure has:
– Superior connectivity to what you or customer can
normally acquire
– HUGE scalability
• Deploy online services in Azure
• Data location:
– Keep on-premise: Maybe for integration or security
– Keep in Azure: Maybe for “big data” analysis
• Grow as required
– See auto-scaling
• Don’t let a computer room artificially stunt
business growth

30.
Scenario: Disaster Recovery
• Replicate databases into Azure VMs
– Active Directory DCs running in Azure replicating
from on-premise DCs
– SQL Server 2014 from on-premise into Azure VMs
– Exchange Server DAG members in Azure

31.
Scenario: Services Resiliency
• Some services must:
– Be on the Internet
– Remain highly available
• Deploy these services in Azure
– Use Availability Sets to span load balance instances
across “fault domains”
– Span regions, e.g. Dublin & Amsterdam
• Service will remain online even if:
– Your computer room goes offline
– There are host/rack faults in Azure

32.
Scenario: Reliable Office 365 Single-Sign On
Microsoft Azure
On-premise domain
controllers
ADFS clusterDomain controllers
Active Directory
Replication
Single-Sign
On

33.
Will Azure Steal My Job?
• I have thought about this for some time
• The cloud OS focuses on service
• Azure gives you VMs with operating systems
– Operating systems … just like on-premise are just the
starting point
• Someone has to:
– Design
– Project plan
– Engineer
– Configure
– Maintain
– Upgrade and so on

34.
What’s in Azure for Partners?
• Do the work:
– Design
– Project plan
– Engineer
– Configure
– Connect
– Maintain
– Secure
– Upgrade and so on
• Optionally, purchase blocks of Azure and resell it
to customers
• And let’s not forget the on-premise/hybrid cloud

35.
Windows Server & System
Center
Private Cloud

36.
Storage
• Microsoft continued to
develop block storage (SAN)
in WS2012 and WS2012 R2
– ODX, TRIM, UNMAP, virtual
fibre channel
• Microsoft’s “cloud server
specification” to Open
Compute Project shows a
path forward
– Software-defined storage
– Scalable & transparent
failover
– High performance
– Lower cost

37.
Hyper-V over SMB 3.0

38.
Storage
• Storage Spaces:
– Uses Just-a-bunch-of-disks (JBOD)
– Aggregates disks and does disk
fault tolerance (role of SAN
controller)
– Can do HDD and SSD tiered
storage
• JBOD trays
– Connected via SAS adapter/cables
with MPIO for fault tolerance
– There is a special HCL category for
Storage Spaces supported
hardware
• DataON Storage
– DNS-1640 (24 x 2.5”)
– DNS 1660 (60 x 3.5”)

39.
Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V
• Actually more up-to-date than what Azure is built on!
• So many improvements in WS2012 and WS2012 R2:
– Live migrate at record breaking speeds
– Huge scalability (host, VM, cluster, network, storage, …)
– Software-defined networking (SDN)
• Hyper-V Network Virtualization
– Virtual Switch Extensibility: Example: Cisco Nexus 1000V
– Designed for service-centric uptime-concerned customers
• I could talk for hours on this … but let’s move on to
building private clouds

40.
Demo – Live Migration

41.
System Center 2012 R2
• Microsoft’s systems/service/cloud
management suite
• Yes – System Center licensing rules it out of
small business
• No – You don’t need System Center to build
virtualization
• But – Mid-large business should deploy System
Center

42.
Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)
• The single biggest missed opportunity by
consultants
• Either:
– Not installed
– So little configured that it might as well not be
there
• VMM is much more than just a VM console
(such as vCenter)
– It is the fabric manager of a cloud

43.
Demo – VMM

44.
Hyper-V Recovery Manager

45.
App Controller
• A cloud portal for self-service users
• Connect it to:
– VMM-managed clouds
– Microsoft Azure
– Partner clouds based on Hyper-V & System Center
• Give users a central point to deploy & control
VMs and services in all clouds
– Empower the users (delegated admins, application
management, devs, testers, etc)
– All under the watchful eye of IT

46.
Demo – App Controller

47.
Orchestrator
• A consulting opportunity nearly 100%
overlooked by Irish partners
• An tool to automate time-consuming and
repeatable procedures
• Can be used:
– Stand alone
– By other elements of System Center
• Uses “integration packs” to glue together
actions in many infrastructure elements:
– System Center, Active Directory, Exchange, etc

48.
Demo – Orchestrator

49.
Operations Manager
• Monitor & report on infrastructure, OS,
applications, and services
– Health, availability & SLA
• Also can monitor Azure:
– You deployed resources
– VM guest OS and services
– Online presence availability
• See also:
– Global Service Monitoring (GSM): Monitor service
availability from Azure data centres around the world
– System Center Advisor: Best practice analyser from the
cloud

50.
Demo – Operations Manager

51.
Data Protection Manager
• Backup infrastructure
• Back to:
– Local disk (can be replicated)
– Local tape
– Duplicate DPM server in DR site
– Azure Online Backup

52.
Azure Online Backup
• Uses blob storage in Azure for automated off-site
backup storage
• Two Microsoft backup tools are supported:
– Windows Server Backup (built-into the OS)
– System Center Data Protection Manager)
• Data is encrypted, compressed, etc before being
uploaded
– Only you can decrypt the data (“trust no one” or TNO)
with a secret passphrase or long random string
• Traffic can be throttled
• Automated off-site backup
– No tape management, no duplicate DPM, etc

53.
Demo – DPM

54.
My Demo Lab
Internet

55.
Scenario: Sell Online Backup
• Resell Azure storage blobs for online backup
• Small business:
– Use Windows Server Backup to run backup jobs to
Azure
• Mid-large business:
– Use DPM or a partner product to duplicate backup
data from on-premise to Azure

56.
StorSimple
• An iSCSI appliance that provides tiered
storage:
– 1st tier: On-premise SSD
– 2nd tier: On-premise HDD
– 3rd tier: Azure blob storage
• NOT a SAN replacement
– Consider for “working set” data
– Example: File or archive server
• Built & shipped by Xyratex
– An ODM owned by Seagate

57.
What Did You See In Those Demos?
• One consistent platform
• One management system
• One hybrid cloud
• The Cloud OS

58.
The Cloud OS
Single-sign on
ADFS DC VM
Hyper-V Hyper-V
DC VM
Windows Azure Active Directory
Global Service
Monitor
Archive VM
StorSimple
System Center Virtual
Machine Manager
System Center Data
Protection Manager
System Center
App Controller
System Center
Operations Manager
System Center
Advisor
Hyper-V Hyper-V
Hyper-V Recovery Manager
controlled Hyper-V Replica
System Center
Orchestrator

59.
Windows Server & System
Center
Public Cloud

60.
Windows Azure BY The Partner
• You cannot deploy the actual Windows Azure
• But you can build your own Windows Azure to
use as a hosting company (public Cloud):
– Windows Server Hyper-V: Compute
– System Center: Fabric, and management
– Service Provider Foundation (SPF): REST API
– Service Management Automation: Automation
– Windows Azure Pack (WAP): The cloud portal

61.
Windows Azure Pack
• A clone of the Microsoft
Azure portal
• A free download
• Customizable & extensible
• Enables partners to set up
public clouds that are
comparable to Microsoft
Azure
– Single experience for
shared customers

62.
Scenario – Partner Public Cloud
• Develop a public cloud based on Windows Azure Pack
• Provide bespoke services to customers that Azure
cannot
– Granular hardware engineering
– Hardware access
– Personal contact
• Provide customers with the same experience as Azure
• Enable a hybrid cloud where customer gets the best of
each cloud:
– Private cloud: 100% customer control
– Partner public cloud: Outsourced cloud with bespoke
services
– Microsoft Azure: Huge scalability & global presence

63.
Hybrid Cloud – The Best Of All Clouds
System
Center
Hyper-V Farm
Service Provider
Foundation
Windows Azure
PackHosting Partner
Microsoft Azure
System Center
App Controller
System Center Virtual
Machine Manager
Hyper-V
Azure Portal
Honest Bob s

64.
Scenario – Compute Stamp for SMEs
• Very little variety between SME’s core IT infrastructure
• Standardise this into a set of templates
– Upload into Azure gallery as usable items
• Deploy per customer:
– Active Directory domain controllers
– ADFS cluster
– File server cluster
– SQL Server (multi-instance if required) cluster
– RDS session host farm
• Can optionally automate power down of components
outside of core hours to save money
• Centrally managed by partner
• Globally accessible by customer

65.
Wrapping Up

66.
The Cloud OS Is Unique
• No company other than Microsoft has:
– Offerings for public, private, and partner cloud
– The same experience at cloud computing
– A single consistent platform
– The same focus on service, not virtual machines
• This is a partner driven model
– Microsoft Azure by itself is just some (really) nice data
centres
• The message is hybrid cloud
– Make all 3 components available because customers
will want choice