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Tag: azure

Docker On Windows, Are You Serious? Microsoft’s Hands-on Lab Show’s You How

You have probably heard or read about the availability of Docker on Windows and Azure. Both Docker and Microsoft have turned up the noise on their collaboration. But have you really looked into what these two are up to? If not, now is your chance. Microsoft has put up a great free hands on lab all about Docker, containers and Windows.

In this hands on lab there are modules that feature Docker on Windows Server, Windows Nano Server and managing them with Windows 10. You can use Microsoft’s HyperV or not. It really is a great way to learn about containers, Docker and the Windows platform. You can play with this hands on lab by clicking here or if you prefer to cut and paste here is the link: http://msftdevops.learnondemandsystems.com/?wt.mc_id=AID557152_QSG_BLOG_22879. (Editors note: pop up blockers may stop the lab from loading. If you have an issue try disabling the pop up blocker.)

Here is what the lab covers in a bit more detail:

I took the opportunity to play with the lab myself. While I am far from a developer or even an Ops person, I have to say Microsoft got this one right. Even I could complete it! The lab is supposed to take you 30 minutes but they give you 8 hours to complete. There is a great set of introduction videos that give you a full picture of what you are going to be doing. Here is an example in a still shot:

The lab is actually broken down into several modules that don’t have to be completed in one sitting. The lab requires no set up on your part at all. It runs right in your browser. The lab has you run two different Windows machines, one Win10 and one Windows Server. You can switch and log in right from the browser. The lab also has you log into PowerShell:

It literally gives you the CLI commands that you have to type, tells you when to switch between machines and guides you step by step through each of the several tasks. There is a great info bar on the bottom that has context sensitive instructions that walk you through the entire thing. There is also a sidebar which gives you a great oversight of the entire lab, where you are in the process and options to move around. All in all I thought they did a great job with the UX to make what could be a complex set of tasks easy.

The whole Docker and containers on Windows theme is one has been bubbling up for some time now. While many doubted that it could ever happen, the new Microsoft seems to have made Docker right at home.

From what I have been told there will be similar hands on labs offered for free on the Azure platform and more on containers. We will be working with Microsoft to dig in deeper here, so stay tuned for more soon!

— Alan Shimel

October 31, 2016
NetEnrich Teams with Microsoft to Drive Azure Adoption

IT infrastructure & operations management services provider will offer and deliver Azure deployment services to Microsoft partners in exclusive pilot project. San Jose, CA—March 22, 2016—NetEnrich announces it has been selected as a Microsoft® Technology Partner to deliver services for setup, migration and management of Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery and applications to Microsoft partners and Cloud Solution Providers around the globe. NetEnrich has created a set of white-label services that a partner can incorporate as part of its Azure cloud offerings. The two companies expect to accelerate deployment and management of Azure services while also saving partners significant time and cost.

NetEnrich Teams with Microsoft to Drive Azure Adoption Microsoft Azure revenue and compute usage more than doubled year-over-year, with Microsoft Office 365™ revenue growing nearly 70%, according to the company’s latest quarterly earnings release. As businesses migrate rapidly to Office 365, many also need help moving to Azure, giving Microsoft partners a huge opportunity for new revenue streams. Yet many partners are still not up to speed on the Azure platform and don’t have enough in-house staff, expertise or automation technology to respond to customer demand. NetEnrich, however, has nearly 500 engineers, high competency in Microsoft technologies, deep expertise in automation and all components of Azure, and several years of experience in private and public cloud deployments.

Microsoft partners globally will benefit from a proven, high-caliber service offering, including the ability to begin migration for a customer within 24 hours, round-the-clock support, and management services. Additionally, partners will benefit from NetEnrich’s highly scalable automation platform that enables services for backup, migration and management, speeds time-to-market for partners, and minimizes costly errors during deployment.

“Microsoft is focused on empowering customers to capitalize on the benefits of cloud, and our partners are key to providing the expertise and support they need to plan their strategy and maximize their Azure investments,” says Hyder Ali, CTO for Worldwide SMB, Microsoft. “NetEnrich will provide a valuable service in a predictable and scalable way to those partners seeking best practices and standard approaches to an Azure migration and deployment, which will mean faster time to value for our customers.”

“Most service providers want to ramp up quickly on Azure as it offers many advantages on price, flexibility and features,” says Raju Chekuri, CEO of NetEnrich. “Our 11-plus years of experience delivering highly scalable, infrastructure & operations management services to hundreds of partners – both onpremise and cloud, along with our super-efficient automation tools for migrations, monitoring & management, makes this a reality for partners. We’re excited to help grow industry awareness and adoption of Azure.”

About NetEnrich

NetEnrich combines industrialized services and a proprietary automation platform to deliver next-gen IT infrastructure & operations management services from on-premise to cloud. This new world approach to IT operations reduces costs while mitigating risk, providing control, and driving innovation. NetEnrich has over 150 channel partners and over 1,400 clients spanning SMBs, mid-markets, and enterprises. NetEnrich is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. To learn more about NetEnrich, visit www.netenrich.com.

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Media contact:

Kevin Wolf TGPR

(650) 327-1641

kevin@tgprllc.com

March 24, 2016
Microsoft and Docker provide progress report on Docker for Windows Server

In the fall of 2014 Microsoft and Docker unveiled a new partnership—a commitment to work together to bring native support for Docker containers to the next major release of Windows Server. Earlier this week the two talked about the progress made so far and gave some clues to what customers should expect once the next Windows Server hits the street sometime in 2016.

Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure, was in San Francisco this week at Docker headquarters meeting with his counterpart, Docker founder and CTO Solomon Hykes. The two met to talk about how their collaboration is progressing to bring Docker containers to Windows Server. The two didn’t share many specifics, but did say that the effort so far is achieving established goals and is proceeding according to the schedule they’ve laid out.

What is that schedule? We don’t really know. All Russinovich or Microsoft will commit to officially at this point is 2016. Whenever it arrives, though, it will represent a significant step forward in creating a platform-agnostic environment for developers. Windows developers will be able to integrate Docker containers natively with Windows Server, Visual Studio, and .NET applications.

The CTOs clarified that Docker support in Windows Server won’t allow Linux applications to run on a Windows operating system. Likewise, Windows applications in Docker containers won’t run on Linux. The value of the partnership and the integration of Docker support in Windows server is that developers will be able to leverage the same tools and common platforms for deploying, running, and managing the Docker container environment.

Microsoft Azure already added support for running Docker containers on Linux servers within the cloud platform. Once the new Windows Server hits, organizations will be able to run Docker containers on Linux or Windows and manage it all through Azure. It also enables developers to create application services running on opposing platforms and run it as part of a distributed application spanning both Windows and Linux.

The advantage from a Windows developer point of view is the ability to use the tools they’re familiar with. Developers will be able to use Visual Studio and .NET along with the built-in collaboration and workflow tools, as well as debugging and source-code control. It allows organizations to employ existing development practices and tools for creating and deploying Docker containers.

From a DevOps perspective the integration of Docker containers natively with Windows Server will enable better automation and continuity. DevOps and containers result in frequent changes to the app code and the underlying infrastructure, which is a bit of a culture shock for both traditional developers and traditional IT admins. Straddling the line between the two worlds by incorporating Docker containers and DevOps tools with the familiar Microsoft development platforms organizations are comfortable with takes some of the pain out of that cultural evolution.

Ultimately, the partnership between Docker and Microsoft will lay the foundation for completely platform-agnostic development. The app containers themselves may still require a specific OS to run, but at an organizational level the environment and infrastructure can be viewed and maintained as a holistic whole.

August 19, 2015
Chef and Microsoft Cooking Up Something Big

Chef and Microsoft today announced a major upgrade to their partnership. After twelve months of work integrating Chef, it is thoroughly integrated not only into the Azure stack, but into the Windows stack as well . This will empower enterprises to work in Azure/hybrid cloud environments using Chef’s best in class capabilities to collaborate on rapidly delivering high-quality software and services.

I had a chance to speak with Ken Cheney, VP of biz dev and Jay Wampold, VP of marketing at Chef. Both Ken and Jay are really pumped by this new chapter in the Chef-Microsoft relationship. Both companies are putting a lot of skin (and cash) into taking this combination to market.

Cheney tells me that Microsoft in what some may think of as very un-Microsoft like fashion has really opened up the code for Chef, allowing them to hook in to Windows, Azure and Linux on Azure in ways that are unlike anything else done before.

Microsoft sees Chef being a big driver in helping companies moving their computing to the Azure Cloud. “Microsoft is excited to extend our work with Chef to help customers rapidly move their workloads into the Azure cloud,” said Jason Zander, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Azure. “Through this collaboration, we are not only enabling faster time to innovation in the cloud, but we are also underscoring Microsoft’s commitment to providing a first-class cloud experience for our customers regardless of whether they are using Windows or Linux.”

Of course few organizations are up and moving their entire IT systems to the cloud. In the overwhelming majority of cases it is a hybrid cloud situation. But with Chef’s integration into Windows servers as well as Azure you can have one tool for both environments.

Besides the nuts and bolts of engineering work, the partnership is also dedicating significant resources to bringing this joint solution to market. From the press release:

Chef will deliver hundreds of hours of DevOps education in Microsoft’s expansive ecosystem across industry events, digital channels, and community meetups. Chef will work with Microsoft to enable their field sales organization to support customers embracing automation, DevOps practices, and Microsoft Azure. Microsoft users interested in Chef and DevOps can already access a wealth of content, new online training tutorial on the Windows platform and a webinar series on Automating Azure with Chef.

The first webinar in the series is 0n March 19^th with Microsoft’s Kundana Palagiri and Chef’s Steven Murawski. This webinar will demonstrate real-world use cases, providing attendees with a step-by-step guide to achieving the benefits of Chef within Microsoft environments. You can register here.

This clearly establishes Chef as the tool of choice for the Microsoft market. Interestingly, Cheney and Wampold shared with me a metric that something like 70% of AWS customers are using Chef as well. I haven’t verified this myself, but assuming they are correct, this and the Microsoft relationship would seem to give them a dominant position in the cloud.

As I discussed with Cheney, starting a partnership with Microsoft does not guarantee a successful relationship with Microsoft. Navigating a company with as complex an organization as Microsoft is not easy. However, the fact that Microsoft is devoting substantial resources in both cash and personnel bodes well for the future of this one. Also Microsoft under Satya Nadella is very focused on the cloud/Azure (as they should be). They are also very interested in fostering more DevOps patterns in the Microsoft world. The Chef partnership helps on both of these.

Chef is riding the wave of cloud, DevOps and automation. According to Wampold, they saw an almost 200% increase in revenue last year. ChefConf 2015 in Santa Clara also promises to be the biggest, best one yet. We will try to cover it live here on devopsy.kinsta.cloud.

February 23, 2015
Microsoft partners with Docker to bring containers to Windows Server

Docker has taken the DevOps world by storm, and that has caught the attention of Microsoft. Now, Microsoft and Docker are teaming up to bring native support for the container technology to the next generation(s) of Windows Server.

Docker is an open platform that enables organizations to run any application as a Docker container. The Docker containers can be implemented across virtually any infrastructure—delivering tremendous agility and flexibility for managing virtual applications. The container concept accelerates software development timeframes, and allows organizations to reduce costs and improve efficiency at the same time. It’s easy to understand why Docker is so popular.

There have been more than 21 million downloads of the Docker platform, and there are over 45,000 “Dockerized” applications available on the Docker Hub Registry, and 13,000-plus Docker-related projects on GitHub. Just last month Docker took in $40 million in another round of investment.

Major names in tech, like Rackspace, Google, and IBM have already pledged their support for Docker. Now Microsoft wants to bring the hot technology to Windows.

Docker Engine for Windows Server will allow customers to create Docker container applications that can run locally on Windows Server, or on virtual Windows Server instances in the cloud on Azure. In a blog post announcing the Docker partnership, Ross Gardler of Microsoft Open Technologies explains, “As part of this announcement, MS Open Tech is contributing code to the Docker client that supports the provisioning of multi-container Docker applications on Azure. This code removes the need for our cross-platform CLI to bootstrap the Docker host. In other words, we have taken a simple process and made it even simpler.

“This development is interesting because Docker has been a really fast moving technology having come out of almost nowhere a year ago to where now it is an incredibly widely supported technology,” stated Al Hilwa, an IDC analyst. “It is a bit of engineering but Microsoft wisely decided that they did not want to leave Windows developers out of the Docker party. This is good for Microsoft because those 45K ‘Dockerized’ applications will be able to run on Windows.”

To be fair, Microsoft isn’t completely new to Docker. Earlier this year it added support for Docker in Azure, but only on Linux. This new partnership launches an open source project to develop a Docker Engine runtime for building, running, and managing Docker containers natively within Windows Server. Docker Engine for Windows Server will be managed as a Docker open source project, but Microsoft will be a major contributor to the community.

The Microsoft blog post describes why Docker’s container technology is so important for the fast-paved development of a DevOps environment. “Containers do not include a full operating system, consequently rapid development and scaling of container-based applications is possible through very quick boot and restart operations. Furthermore, highly efficient creation of modified container images, by virtue of only capturing the differences between the original and new containers, enables improved management and distribution of containerized applications; the resulting images are both small and highly portable across almost any platform.”

Hilwa summed up with some thoughts about the new strategic vision of Microsoft. “What is even more interesting is that the work on the Docker engine in Windows is being done in open source—really showcasing the new Microsoft attitude towards open source (e.g. the open sourcing of Roslyn a few months ago). I really think we are seeing a faster and more open Microsoft, one that is more willing to integrate and collaborate with competing technologies without a lot of hesitation.”

October 16, 2014
Microsoft bridges the gap between Azure and DevOps

DevOps can be easy for a startup. Many of the concepts and principles of DevOps come quite naturally to a fresh company just getting started. It’s a different story, however, for large, established enterprises trying to wrap their arms around this DevOps thing. For IT admins working in Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, though, things just got a lot easier thanks to the integration of Chef and Puppet Labs.

Many organizations are heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. IT teams and administrators are familiar with Windows domains, Active Directory, Hyper-V, and Azure. They know how to write scripts and leverage PowerShell to get things done, but they’re much less familiar with the core principles of DevOps, or common DevOps automation tools like Chef and Puppet Labs.

One of the driving forces of DevOps is the ability—or perhaps necessity—to automate those tasks that can be automated so IT resources are freed up to focus on more important tasks. Deploying and configuring virtual servers and applications is necessary, but it can also be tedious, and it is a task that can be easily automated using DevOps tools.

The arrangement also works the other way. Smaller companies that are already familiar with, and invested in DevOps may need to scale to a platform like Azure. They should be able to build on what they’ve started, and continue to use the tools they’re familiar with as the company migrates to Microsoft’s Azure.

One of the main attractions of Microsoft Azure is the degree of flexibility, choice and control it gives customers. Microsoft Azure’s partnership with Puppet and Chef allows customers to choose from an array of existing technologies and communities to easily deploy, configure, automate and manage their VMs.

According to a Microsoft spokesperson Puppet Labs and Chef complement and extend Microsoft technologies such as Resource Groups and PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) to offer more options for customers to migrate existing or deploy new applications to the cloud. The partnership offers Microsoft the ability to support Linux and UNIX environments, and also alleviates the concerns that organizations already using Puppet or Chef will have about abandoning their investment. Now, they can continue to use their Puppet modules or Chef recipes in Azure.

Luke Kanies, CEO of Puppet Labs believes the integration of Puppet Labs and Azure will help Microsoft IT admins by making it easier to deploy applications across any platform or cloud environment. Kanies explained in a press release, “Our goal is to help you automate the configuration and ongoing management of your machines and the software running on them, so you spend less of your time firefighting and running simple scripts across a thousand machines, and more time getting great software in front of your users.”

I spoke with Kanies about the difference in dynamics between a small company and a large enterprise. He told me that in a small company it’s much easier to communicate and coordinate resources, and the cost of failure of any particular project is much lower. For a large, established enterprise, however, there is assumedly a large base of existing customers, and there is more fear and worry about possibly disrupting normal operations.

I also had a chat with Ken Cheney, VP of business development for Chef. His philosophy mirrors a lot of what Kanies described. Cheney told me that emerging companies have the luxury of starting from ground zero with a clean slate. There aren’t yet any established processes to navigate. The challenge is trying to transform an organization with established processes, and a team of existing developers over to a DevOps mentality. Integrating DevOps into Azure helps organizations to meet that challenge.

DevOps adds an element of speed and simplicity that makes it easier for larger enterprises to be more agile. Using tools like Puppet Labs and Chef enables IT admins to add speed as a core requirement for infrastructure projects without disrupting or conflicting with other requirements—like security and stability.

Ultimately, the new alliance illustrates Microsoft’s commitment to empower Azure customers with the best-in-class configuration and automation tools by embracing the technologies, communities and ecosystems that developers know and love. Combining Azure with powerful and popular platforms like Chef and Puppet Labs bridges the gap between traditional IT and DevOps—enabling old school IT admins to embrace DevOps, and DevOps startups to mature and evolve into larger enterprises.

April 15, 2014
Microsoft’s DevOps Gambit and devopsy.kinsta.cloud’s Business Directory

Last week was a big one for Microsoft in DevOps. At the Build conference they unveiled several new features and functionality in both Azure and Visual Studio Online to make give them more DevOps chops and DevOps friendly.

At just about the same time they announced partnerships and integrations with both Chef and Puppet Labs to bring even more DevOps to Azure. That is an awful lot of DevOps functionality in a short period of time.

Frankly it is to be expected though. In doing my research for devopsy.kinsta.cloud prior to launch, I had a chance to speak to some folks at Microsoft about DevOps. Frankly they were frustrated. They thought they had a great story around DevOps and had not been able to attract the DevOps community to what they had available. Microsoft, much like IBM at one time owned the developer market. In fact the sheer number of developers who still develop in Visual Studio and code for .Net and other Microsoft platforms, is pretty amazing.

Now you don’t just have .net folks on Azure anymore. The platform now supports Node.js. Java. PHP and more. It blends both IaaS and PaaS, allowing users to slide between them almost seamlessly.

In the meantime DBMaestro announced it was bringing DevOps for database to MS SQL server. This is the same teamwork functionality that DBMaestro already delivered to Oracle users.

In addition to these announcements Microsoft also released some metrics that show just how scalable and quick the uptake has been on Azure and Visual Studio Online. Ultimately the answer will be do enough developers think Microsoft gives them what they need to build great applications on a great platform. This will determine whether Microsoft becomes a competitor to Amazon and Open Stack in the public Cloud.

But they are making their play. Whether you love them or hate them, it is never smart to bet against Microsoft. The numbers they announced last week show they can gain critical mass pretty quickly.

There are some good background stories on this at Redmond Mag, eWeek and TechWeek Europe. We will have a full feature story here on devopsy.kinsta.cloud shortly.

On another note, here at devopsy.kinsta.cloud we have put up our DevOps business directory in beta. Over the next few weeks we will pretty it up, but right now we are testing the functionality. We have populated the directory with some companies, but need more. Listing a company is free and if you list your company this week, we will upgrade you to the deluxe listing free ($99 value).

You can add long and short descriptions, logos, files to download, contact info and more. The directory over time will we hope become the source for finding DevOps related companies.

Look for more devopsy.kinsta.cloud features and events over the coming days and weeks.

April 8, 2014
Google Starts Cloud World War I, DevOps Wins

No matter the outcome, a cloud pricing war will leave DevOps the winner

By now you probably saw the news and all of the buzz about how Google dropped its drawers eh, pricing on its cloud hosting. This is of course a direct shot at Amazon’s AWS. It’s about time someone with big enough stones (and a big enough data center) took on Bezos and his band of merry cloud makers. But the real winner in all of this may in fact turn out to be DevOps.

Of course this is just the first salvo in what promises to go down in history as Cloud War I. Amazon is not going to stand still. They are perfectly willing to compete on price and in fact part of the AWS mystique is that it is the most cost effective solution (cheapest) out there.

This will not be just a tit-for-tat move though. In announcing the price cuts Urs Hölzle, VP of TI at Google said, “”We think cloud pricing should track Moore’s Law, so we’re simplifying and reducing prices for our various on-demand, pay-as-you-go services by 30 to 85 percent.” That means we are going to see cloud prices drop as the speed and power of chips goes up. That is good news! You can see Hölzle’s complete presentation including a cameo by SnapChat’s Bobby Murphy below (be warned this is about 1 hour and 20 minutes long).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qokEYBNWA_0]

Of course this begs the question, what about the other cloud providers. How long can Rackspace sit up on its OpenStack perch before diving into this fray? What about Microsoft’s Azure? Redmond wants its piece of the cloud pie, does new CEO Satya Nadella have the stomach for this fight? Can they afford not to? The fact is that Microsoft has the girth and arsenal to compete here. Maybe Google starting this war is the opening they need to climb out of the tech cellar and be relevant again. Cisco just announced a billion dollar initiative to become a cloud powerhouse as well. As big as a billion is though, that is penny stakes in this game I am afraid.

Here is another one to watch, IBM’s SoftLayer. Fresh off of a 2b+ acquisition and pledging another billion in cloud dollars, IBM via SoftLayer has the profile to be a winner in this war as well. They also have IBM’s minions out pushing the solutions. In fact Microsoft and SoftLayer/IBM may have the channels to win this thing in the long run (OK maybe not).

So where does this leave DevOps? Think Switzerland. From a DevOps perspective it really doesn’t make a difference which cloud provider emerges dominant. The cheaper and more attractive cloud becomes the more it will drive better DevOps tools, DevOps culture and philosophy.

Of course there are those that say that if PaaS becomes the dominant cloud platform (and I think it will), that could spell trouble for DevOps. As if somehow PaaS doesn’t need DevOps. I say poppycock to that too. Maybe you won’t configure servers in a PaaS environment (and I am not conceding that either), but there will be plenty of places along path that will call for automation, continuous delivery, continuous monitoring and continuous management. PaaS does not obliviate DevOps.

That is not to say that applications are not king. Applications are driving the cloud, DevOps and everything else tech today. A large reason why Google is so goo-goo over Cloud is because it drives more Android apps. I think we will see more DevOps tools and practice around application development, configuration, management and monitoring. New Relic is already on it. Anything related to Docker stands to do as well as munition and tank manufacturers did during WW II.

So buckle in as it may get rough out there as these tech giants battle for cloud supremacy, there an will be winners and there will be losers. It won’t be just the cloud providers either. Wars create opportunity and those willing to take the chance will gain the most.

But for DevOps it is all good. It is like we have a stash of chocolate and gold while we make watches here in Geneva. The war rages on around us but we need at the end of the day no matter what we win.

March 26, 2014