Have you ever wondered how Microsoft supports so much scale online for our online services such as Hotmail, Windows Azure, Windows Live, Windows Updates, etc.? “Yes, I have.  You must have a massive datacenter!” Actually, we have many massive datacenters.  “More than 10, but less than 100” is what I am told.  Today in part … Continue reading Cloud on Your Terms Part 20 of 30: San Antonio, have you seen a lot of H2O? Data Center

Have you ever been puzzled by some problem only to find out that it was related to how your network is configured?  “Yes.  All the time.” Of course you have.  And when you add the potential complexities of supporting a Private Cloud in your datacenter, let alone extreme virtualization, the problems may get harder and … Continue reading Cloud on Your Terms Part 19 of 30: All About the Networking

Today in part 18 of our cloud series, John Weston bemoans the mistakes one might make while suffering the effects of datacenter hypothermia.  “What?” I guess Texans don’t work well under 75 degrees Fahrenheit.    Read his post HERE. And if you have missed any of the series posts, check out my summary post for … Continue reading Cloud on Your Terms part 18 of 30: Lessons learned from Private Cloud build out (Stupid cold!)

Today in Part 17, It’s Brian Lewis’s turn to admit some “Doh!” moments and, more importantly, share what he learned from them during our build-out of  our test datacenter in San Jose. So if you don’t think sysprep is all that important, you should read his post HERE.And if you have missed any of the series … Continue reading Cloud on Your Terms Part 17 of 30: Lessons learned from our Private Cloud Build Out

Disclaimer: This is a re-post of my Oct 4, 2011 blog post.  But it fits our series, and it’s my content.  So I am giving myself permission.  Okay.. I feel like sharing this because it’s pretty stupid, but in a geeky-sort-of-way the solution was interesting enough to share. Think Chicken & Egg. (or “Catch-22”).As the … Continue reading Cloud on Your Terms Part 16 of 30: Where should the DC go?