RunAs Radio

Richard talks to Stephen Foskett about building data centers for virtual servers. The conversation ranges over how virtualization has evolved from consolidating servers in data centers into the newer concepts of private cloud, where being able to move and/or duplicate a virtual machine quickly becomes paramount. Stephen focuses on the challenges around data in these scenarios and how traditional disaster recovery techniques for data migration are inadequate. In 2012 Stephen will be doing a series of seminars on building virtual infrastructure - check them out for more information!

Richard talks to Clint Huffman about understanding the health of IIS7. Clint points out some awesome resources for taking care of IIS7, especially learn.iis.net. Don't miss Clint's Blog Post on IIS7 PowerShell Scripts, how to TroubleShoot Failed Requests Using Tracing in IIS7 and where to get the IIS Log Analyzer. There's more to talk about here, but this is a great start on the toolkit for keeping IIS7 healthy!

Richard talks to Jeremiah Peshcka about how DBAs can work with Object Relational Mapping (ORM). ORMs are tools used by developers to speed development of object-oriented applications that use databases by automating the process of connecting application objects to database objects. While speed is good, crap is bad, and DBAs often struggle with the results of the ORMs generated data structures and queries. Jeremiah talks about how DBAs can work with developers to make better databases and queries, what tools can help out and how everyone can benefit from ORMs. Check out Jeremiah's awesome blog post on DBAs and ORMs.

Richard talks to Rodney Buike about how System Center 2012 facilitates the construction of private clouds. This is where System Center all comes together - utilizing Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Service Manager and Orchestrator to create effective private cloud infrastructure in your own data center. Rodney talks about how each of the System Center components work together to simplify the deployment of services - beyond the individual VM and into a suite of VM, networking rules, storage, etc. Each of the System Center products bring something to the table in this scenario. You should already be using them for their core purposes, now take it to the next level!

For the first show of 2012, Richard talks to Dana Epp about his eight rules of security. Dana wrote the original blog post back in December of 2003, you can read it here. The rules are technology agnostic, and revisiting them reminds us that they are still right, there's just new ways of implementing them. Have a read and think again about what you're focused on for your security!

Richard talks to Mark Minasi about the events of 2011 that happened and didn't happen. The conversation starts with Windows 8 and the Build conference - is it going to succeed? The debate drills into the role of the tablet in the enterprise. Next topic is IPv6. 2011 is the year that IANA ran out of IPv4 addresses, but the world didn't end. When will IPv6 ascend? Finally, Mark and Richard chat about the Kinect and the next generation of user interfaces. What a great year - and 2012 looks awesome. Happy New Year!

Richard talks to Todd Lamothe about how to use Windows Server 2008 to secure WiFi. No, this doesn't replace encryption, it just adds to it - with WPA2-RADIUS to have your access point communicate with the Network Policy Service in Windows 2008. Now every user on your WiFi connection is specifically associated with an active directory account. Todd talks through the challenges of certificates, configuration and how to integrate the service with a firewall to get a complete end-to-end view of what your users are doing on the wireless network.

Richard talks to Mitch Garvis about System Center Essentials (SCE). SCE brings the power of System Center Configuration Manager, Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager to the small-to-medium business. It limits to 50 servers (physical and virtual) and 500 workstations - plenty for lots of businesses! Mitch digs into a few tricks of the trade for being successful with SCE - check out his blog post on installing System Center Essentials. SCE is the tool you wish you knew about, now have a listen and you will!

Richard talks to Tony Redmond, formerly of Hewlett-Packard, about the state of affairs for Office 365. At the time of the interview Office 365 had been shipping for only five months. Tony talks about the outages suffered by Microsoft and Google for their cloud offerings, noting that Microsoft is still in the early days of learning how to run a massive multi-tenancy infrastructure. He also compares Gmail and Outlook/Exchange, as well as recognizing that Outlook and Exchange are not the same product from the same team - that they have different goals and don't always get along. The discussion wraps up with where we can expect Exchange to go in the future, and how important hybrid cloud implementations are and will be.

Richard talks to Steve Syfuhs at TechDays Toronto about IT Pros providing security services for developers using Active Directory Federated Services. IT and development talking to each other willingly? Perish the thought! But in truth, Steve makes it clear that ADFS provides a great wrapper for developers to access active directory or any other service that has security claims that an application might require. Azure depends on it, even Office 365 can take advantage of ADFS. Steve discusses how IT can work with developers to make the jobs of both groups easier.