With end of extended support for Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 quickly approaching within the next year, Microsoft has announced a program that will provide an additional 3 years of extended support if these workloads are migrated to Azure. Since this announcement in July, customers have been trying to figure out the most efficient way to migrate these workloads to Azure while preventing any security or compliance issues.
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On July 12, 2018, Microsoft announced new options for SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 end of support. End of support is quickly approaching:
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Firewall capabilities fall short in cloud environments like Microsoft Azure due to the fact that Azure and other major public cloud providers offer limited access to their API’s. This creates a problem for enterprises as they look to security independent software vendors (ISVs) to enhance their security capabilities in the cloud the same way they would in the data center.
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In part one of our blog, Key Considerations for an Azure Deployment, Corey Roberts, Daymark’s Director of Managed and Cloud Services, addressed some of the common questions clients have regarding migrating workloads to Azure. Now he moves on to talk about benefits, application performance, and how to best prepare for an Azure deployment.
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Microsoft’s Azure cloud has emerged as a leader in the public cloud market. It provides the agility, scalability, security and cost-efficiency today’s enterprises need. In this 2-part blog, Corey Roberts, Daymark’s Director of Cloud and Managed Services, answers the common questions clients have before, during and after an Azure deployment.
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Planning a move to Office 365? You’re not alone. Given the compelling benefits of the cloud, many of our customers are planning for, or are in the process of, migrating from on-premises Exchange to Office 365.
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Leveraging the cloud for the agility and scalability today’s businesses demand has become the norm for most organizations. Microsoft Office 365 is a frequent choice for a businesses’ first cloud-based application. But what’s it really like once the decision is made to move to Office 365?
In this blog, Daymark Cloud Consultant, Steve Caprio, shares his experience of deploying Office 365 at a Massachusetts community bank with over a dozen branch locations. This was the bank’s first enterprise cloud application and Steve offers a candid view of the migration’s motivation, key security and compliance challenges, buy-in from senior management, end user experiences, and more.
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The Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas was buzzing all week with activities surrounding VMworld 2017. Here are my takeaways on VMware’s many announcements:
VMware on Amazon Web Services: The big announcement was VMware’s GA release of cloud services for Amazon Web Services (AWS), both running on vSphere code on bare metal, and native services protecting and managing EC2 instances. The key thing to remember is AWS is just the start. This is the initial release and they will add on new features and functionality as they go. VMware's future aim is to add Azure and Google to this list as well, providing the same level of VMware service and functionality across all the major cloud vendors.
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It’s become an industry joke that every year is the “Year of VDI.” While promising to be the be-all and end-all solution to everyone’s IT woes, it’s never really lived up to the hype. Sometimes the issue is cost; other times it’s concerns about performance. And there’s also the problem of familiarity -- why break away from something you’re already comfortable with? Not to mention that supporting a VDI environment falls in that weird gray area between infrastructure and end user support. Nobody that has worked on VMware environments for the last 10 years is particularly interested in troubleshooting Microsoft Office issues again. But there is a convergence of improved technologies and market forces creating a perfect storm as to why you should begin seriously considering implementing VDI in your environment, if you haven’t done so already.
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When organizations are evaluating public cloud platforms, they frequently compare the market leaders: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. There is no shortage of published content comparing the pros and cons of each of these platforms, but I think research by Stack Overflow, an online knowledge sharing community for developers, provides some interesting and unbiased insights.
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