If you are interested in getting started with Cloud technologies, or perhaps you’ve been working with, let’s say Azure for a while but you haven’t done any certifications yet, have a look at these free foundation courses. I’ve included URL’s to the free (official) training materials, an additional training resource, which is pretty extensive, and all three Exam codes to with it, so you can start planning your exam as soon as you feel you’re ready to go.
Continue ReadingVersion 2.0 of the Cloud Services Cheat Sheet is now live. Get it here!
About two months ago I published an updated version of the Cloud Services Cheat Sheet, the amount of (positive) feedback has been overwhelming, to say the least. Again, I have added and updated multiple columns including Big Data/Warehousing and Ping/latency times (visuals included) to the various European Data centers (from all three vendors) next to a few smaller updates. Note that I performed two separate Ping tests, one using standard ICMP and a second one using HTTP requests.
Continue ReadingMicrosoft Windows Virtual Desktop and Liquidware – better together
Average time to read: 4 minutesDuring Microsoft Ignite Microsoft announced their Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) offering, available on Microsoft Azure exclusively. It provides users with a full, multi-user Windows 10 experience virtualized in the Cloud and always up to date and available on every device.
FULLY UPDATED: Cloud Core Services Cheat Sheet
Average time to read: < 1 minuteHere you go, a fully updated sheet with help from the community – thank you! If you feel there is still something missing, do let me know. I cannot promise an update right away, but I’ll keep collecting feedback and get it in there eventually. I’ve added a (connection) protocol section (thanks Rachel) and updated 10 other fields (over 20% new content). Again, it’s not meant as a ‘like for like’ comparison sheet, it’s more of a ‘this is what to look for on a per-platform basis to get you started’ kind of thing. So, no this one is faster, better, cheaper etc…
Cloud Core Services Cheat Sheet. Compute, Networking, Storage, and Databases
Average time to read: 2 minutesThere are hundreds, if not thousands of different cloud services to choose from, it can be quite overwhelming. Where to start? Also, while each cloud vendor offers the same services and/or functionality (there are differences, of course) they all use slightly different naming conventions, which can be very confusing. That’s why I thought it would be helpful to list a bunch most used Cloud services (25 in total), on a per platform (AWS, Azure, and Google) basis, listing their main purpose/use-case and accompanying service names. This way you’ll know where to start and what to look for, hopefully. The primary focus lies on Compute, Networking, Storage, and Databases services – the building blocks of (Cloud) life.
The need of doing User Environment Management on (all) your digital workspaces… and not just virtual
Average time to read: 5 minutesThroughout the years I have had the pleasure of visiting dozens of companies to talk about their ‘digital workspace’ challenges. Projects ranged from thousands of users/machines to just a few hundred. Some of these challenges were related to physical desktops, some to virtual, some were on-premises, some were cloud-based. I’ve worked for retail companies, financial, travel, in healthcare, etc. No matter their branch and/or size, they all dealt with the same types of issues.
Innovation and making progress! Liquidware – you’ve heard about them before, right?
Average time to read: 5 minutesEven though I’m no longer employed by Liquidware, I still very much like the technology and people involved. In today’s post, I want to highlight some of the major product updates they have launched throughout the last couple of months – it’s pretty impressive. If you are going to be at E2EVC (Amsterdam) next week, make sure to stop by their session, I’ve picked up a glimpse and it’s going to be good. It’s on Saturday at 10:50 and goes by the session name: Go Hybrid. Applications, Profiles, and Data accessible via On-prem and Cloud. Presented by David Bieneman – Co-Founder and CEO of Liquidware.
The future looks bright for User Environment and Workspace Management
Average time to read: 5 minutesProfileUnity is hot, there’s no denying. Everywhere I go partners and (potentially new) customers keep asking for demos, and as soon as I show them a thing or two they are eager to get their hands dirty. In fact, the number of trial licenses I have been handing out throughout the last couple of weeks must be some kind of a new internal record (I’ll make sure to check). Seriously, the demand for a future stable, easy and straightforward to use User Environment and Workspace Manager product has been higher than ever before.
The results are in — The state of public cloud services, survey. Downloadable .PDF report included
Average time to read: < 1 minuteA couple of weeks ago I launched the first ever ‘The state of public cloud services – the 2016 community edition’ online survey. It included a short textual introduction followed by 35 questions in total and a few fun ‘quotes’ in between. While it turned out to be a bit more work then I anticipated beforehand, I am very satisfied with the final outcome. Below you will find the final report in a .PDF format, free for everyone to download.
13 reasons that MIGHT prevent companies from successfully leveraging public cloud services
Average time to read: 7 minutesCloud computing seems to be the holy grail, at least that is the impression I get when I scroll down my Linked-in and Twitter timelines. Don’t get me wrong, like everybody else I’m also excited about everything that is going on around ‘the cloud’ and the potential it brings to the table, never mind the type of public cloud service used. I mean, no upfront investments, flexibility, burst capacity (up and downscaling) at our fingertips, ease of management and maintenance and so on, what’s not to like? But, ‘the cloud’ is also just getting started, it isn’t ‘mature’ and/or seen as proven technology by many – there are still a bunch of reasons why companies might wait to leverage (public) cloud computing in general, go hybrid or perhaps won’t join the cloud movement at all, at least not for the first couple of years. I just wanted to put this out there and see what you guys think.