Bigger, fiddly to manage: The second coming of Windows Server 2012 New Windows client, new Windows server seems to be the pattern; and October 18, 2013 saw the release of Windows Server 2012 R2 as well as Windows 8.1. The R2 release is a paid-for upgrade, but uses the same CALs (Client Access Licenses) as Server 2012, mitigating the cost of transition. Microsoft calls Server 2012 a Cloud OS, …
OK, you've just described an example of a smallish business (@ 50 users) being *forced* to hybrid cloud for their email (although I would personally recommend it myself these days for places with decent internet links and where email is not business-critical).
I don't know of many large businesses - i.e. thousands of users - using cloud for anything important (again, any Office 365).
So what is this "most enterprises" wanting hybrid based on? Numbers please?
"The Hyper-V question is not so much whether it has caught up with VMware, but whether it is good enough that the advantages of being built into Windows "
Hyper-V Server is NOT built into Windows and does not include Windows. It is a separate standalone product. It is also totally free.
You can install Hyper-V as a Service under Windows Server if you really want to, but this is not recommended as you run a pointless copy of the Windows OS using up resources and requiring a license....
The only time I would advocate running hyper-v under windows is with an Enterprise version to leverage the extra licences that come with said enterprise version as it works out cheaper*. And then only with the core version.
This was the case with a Windows 2008 R2 install we have here. I have not investigated if this is still true in 2012 because well we won't be upgrading it for a while.
* Your mileage may vary, investigate your own options thoroughly.
"The only time I would advocate running hyper-v under windows is with an Enterprise version to leverage the extra licences that come with said enterprise version as it works out cheaper*. And then only with the core version."
No, You can buy Datacentre Edition licenses for the virtualisation rights. You DONT need to run Hyper-V under Windows to do that....Core or otherwise.
MS have dumped their Enterprise Edition Licenses. Standard Edition Server Licenses now allow you to run 2 VM's. If you run Data Center 2012 R2 on the host, the 2012 R2 VM's are VM aware and smart enough to read the hosts License Key and do not prompt you for licensing.
Yes, with MS holding their hands every step of the way, I'm sure. And at "mate's rates".
With a well-connected internet backbone in the US, it makes sense. For those of us using a couple of tin cans and some string in the nether regions of the world, not so much for business-critical stuff, thanks.
"The US Military"...
...is pretty far from being a profit-oriented, sane, properly-run large business enterprise - as a matter of fact it's pretty much the definition of waste and awful efficiency... with that in mind O365 is certainly a fitting solution.
I would suggest most businesses don't care... many don't understand the systems they are using. The business wants email... they want email on mobile devices, they want to share calandars. They wouldn't care if they were using a local Exchange Server, Office 365 Domino Server or GMail. They want their programs to interact nicely and also want to keep costs down, have support on their email when problems occur... Considering most small/medium businesses don't hire an Exchange Admin, and taking care of emails is just another task for the inhouse IT staff, or the service provider that comes round on a do and charge basis, Office 365 is a nice option and as long as it works, most won't care.
I have seen this same business case going around larger businesses - why deal with all the effort to support email when it can go externall? Don't forget, email support also involves Anti-Malware scanning, long term email archiving (such as Symantec Enterprise Vault), day to day support, SSL Certificates for Web and mobile access. Out-sourcing this to a service provider can save a lot of time, effort and cost for a business.
" Considering most small/medium businesses don't hire an Exchange Admin, and taking care of emails is just another task for the inhouse IT staff, or the service provider that comes round on a do and charge basis, Office 365 is a nice option and as long as it works, most won't care."
And considering Google Apps for Business offers even more, for a LOT LESS, sporting a FAR BETTER RELIABILITY track record anyone can see that Google Apps is actually a much nicer option.
It would be much more easier if it came included with everything necessary to link the boss tablet to AD (iOS/Android) That is a much better selling point than all the other myriad interesting technical improvements, which I'm not sure in themselves justify the new version vs. upgrade status.
Picture yourself trying to explain to non techies what all these means: easier cloud integration, better management, time savings due to PowerShell only to be finally being asked, yes, but will I finally be able to work with my iOS/Android? Answer: "not quite yet", or perhaps "it depends"
Or perhaps I've interpreted the article incorrectly?
"Buying into Microsoft’s entire device management stack today looks brave, especially with Android support still mostly not yet available, beyond ActiveSync"
SCCM is already well proven across tens of thousands of devices, so it's hardy a brave choice. And Android support already shipped last year:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrdogs/archive/2012/10/09/configmgr-2012-sp1-deploy-ios-and-android-apps.aspx
"SCCM is already well proven across tens of thousands of devices, so it's hardy a brave choice. "
Hahaha, suuure - provided you can set aside DAYS and DAYS or a dedicated admin to investigate all the issues that will arise during the trip...
...as always with MSFT: expensive, clunky, unfinished, over complicated yet still falls short many ways.
"Sounds nice - but a lot of these new features aren't much good when you deliberately don't have Internet access on your network (specific security requirements and all that)."
They are designed to work securely without direct internet access to your internal network. For instance here is an example for ADFS using proxy servers: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff803566.aspx
Most functionality will work over VPNs too.
As hard as MS is pushing Office365, I'm surprised they didn't use R2 to launch a simpler way to link on-premise AD with 0365. My understanding is that ADFS can be a bear (we will be using it starting next summer). You'd think since they are the ones producing Server 2012, and they're also the ones producing O365, that they'd either have a one-button-click way to link them, or they'd bake the needed parts of ADFS into standard server so it would already be linked. I wouldn't think it would be that hard for them to do...
"I'm surprised they didn't use R2 to launch a simpler way to link on-premise AD with 0365. My understanding is that ADFS can be a bear "
ADFS is designed as an Active Directory Federation solution for all requirements, so it would be more complex overall to offer multiple product versions. ADFS isn't that complex to setup and requires near zero management once configured....
"or they'd bake the needed parts of ADFS into standard server so it would already be linked"
ADFS is baked into Standard Server. You just select the Role you want installed using Server Manager....
Well, I was just thinking about direct integration of O365 with AD. Something along the lines of creating a new user with
new-aduser -name dave@me.com ...blah blah blah... -includeMSOL me.com
that would create the user in AD as well as creating the MSOL/exchangeonline user. All without needing ADFS as a stand-alone kind of middleware.
I admit, I'm talking out my arse here, and my knowledge of ADFS is vague and limited to what I've seen in a few high-level slides. I'm not planning to start reading up on ADFS nitty-gritty until after Christmas. But my understanding is that it's an after-the-fact thing - it gets notifications of changes in AD and pushes them out to othe federated systems. If I'm wrong about that, please forgive my ignorance.
"The R2 release is a paid-for upgrade, but uses the same CALs (Client Access Licenses) as Server 2012, mitigating the cost of transition."
It astounds me that somebody could write a sentence like that as if it is somehow OK, or even worse, a good thing.
The fact that the CAL's will still work after the upgrade implies that in other cases not only do you have to pay to upgrade the server you also have to "upgrade" such ephemeral things as your CAL's which don't actually exist anywhere outside of the febrile minds of MS marketing suits .
The truth is that the convoluted ways that Microsoft licence their crap is even more costly than the actual costs of the licences themselves, yet people just accept this fact as if there is no other possible way to do business.
The hilarious idea that there are companies out there whose primary business is to help hapless IT monkeys navigate the twisting maze that is MS licence compliance is always a source of mirth to me.
What? You want me to pay you money to figure out how much money I need to pay someone else?
Nice try buddy.
Of course MS are not the only offenders in this regard. Oracle and VMWare, are both just as guilty.
So big changes to tie your data to their servers, cool, so long as the bill is paid, the Cloud providors are in business still today, and or they dont have their machines siezed for breaking some law etc ...
Don't worry about new complexcities it using software, thats what the expensive MicroSoft Certified Crap is about, if u pay lots of cash, they will show you how their easy to use OS, actually functions.
My favourite example of Windows, is stacking glasses on a bar, as u place glasses carefully on top of each, called each one a different "layer" of windows, until you get to the software u actually want to run, I had to change it paper cups thou, it is not stable anymore ...
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