Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Today we announced the general availability of SQL Server 2016, the world’s fastest and most price-performant database for HTAP (Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing) with updateable, in-memory columnstores and advanced analytics through deep integration with R Services.

Software applications can now deploy sophisticated analytics and machine learning models in the database resulting in 100x or more speedup in time to insight, compared to deployments of such models outside of the database.

“Both industry analysts and customers recognize the breadth and depth of Microsoft’s capabilities in data, intelligence and the cloud. Microsoft is the only company recognized as a leader across data platforms and cloud by Gartner in both vision and execution in database, business intelligence, advanced analytics, data warehouse, cloud infrastructure and cloud application platforms, and the furthest in vision and ability to execute within the Leaders Quadrant  in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Operational DBMS.”

Read the announcement & details of the product on the SQL Server blog:

• SQL SERVER BLOG: “SQL Server 2016 is generally available today
  ”https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/06/01/sql-server-2016-is-generally-available-today/
• SQL SERVER SITE:
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server/

Our next group of Azure Active Directory Premium webinars will start June 7th.  Please note, we are running these on Tuesday/ Wednesday/ Thursday this month.

These webinars are free of cost and are currently held monthly with new sessions being added.  They are 1 hour which includes an anonymous Q&A session with our Engineering Team.

To stay apprised of these and other events, visit:

• Azure Active Directory Premium Customer Training Webinars
  https://info.microsoft.com/AADP-Webinar-CLE_AADP-Main-Landing-Page.html

Yesterday at Citrix Synergy in Las Vegas, Citrix chief executive Kirill Tatarinov said the following:

“We will see some really incredible introduction of technologies as a result of this renewed partnership,” he said.

“Probably most exciting, we’ve been working together to enable XenDesktop VDI to help you deliver Windows 10 desktop as a service from Azure cloud.”

Strangely, most of the media didn’t pick up on that.  Perhaps they aren’t aware that Windows client OS has never been available in cloud-based virtual desktops… until now.

This means for the first time, via the partnership between Citrix & Microsoft, it will be soon possible to license, provision & deliver a full & complete Windows 10 virtual desktop experience to any Citrix receiver through Microsoft Azure & XenDesktop VDI.

(Note: Amazon Workspaces does not serve Windows client desktops. They serve Windows Server-based desktops with numerous caveats.)

Here’s more on this from Microsoft CVP Brad Anderson himself:

Also, here’s Brad Anderson via the Microsoft In The Cloud blog:

“Building out (and then maintaining) the infrastructure or farms for centralized apps and desktops can be really daunting.  Why not let Microsoft and Citrix do this for you?  This request has come up from a lot of our customers.  In fact, one of the most common requests has been for Citrix to offer managed services that Citrix maintains and operates.  Moving forward, Citrix will deliver “as-a-service solutions” hosted in Azure for all of their customers.

Also, later this year, Citrix will offer customers who have purchased Windows Software Assurance on a per-user basis the option to host their Windows 10 Enterprise Current Branch for Business images on Azure through its XenDesktop VDI solution. This will be an industry first!  This means you can deploy virtual apps or desktops and accelerate Windows 10 adoption for those customers who are using Microsoft Cloud solutions.“

• Microsoft and Citrix Partner to Help Customers Move to the Cloud
  https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/in_the_cloud/2016/05/24/microsoft-and-citrix-partner-to-help-customers-move-to-the-cloud/
• Video Recap: Big Announcements at Citrix Synergy 2016
  https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/in_the_cloud/2016/05/26/video-recap-big-announcements-at-citrix-synergy-2016/

Azure DevTest Labs provides developers and testers a self-service sandbox environment to quickly create Dev/Test environments while minimizing waste and controlling costs. Check out this video to see all the benefits you can get from Azure DevTest Labs. More information can be found at http://aka.ms/dtl. 

Here’s part of the GA announcement:

Today, we are very excited to announce the general availability of Azure DevTest Labs: your self-service sandbox environment in Azure to quickly create Dev/Test environments while minimizing waste and controlling costs.

We’ve been hearing from a lot of customers about all kinds of challenges they’ve been facing in their Dev/Test environments. With the power of cloud, some problems have started being solved such as the hardware maintenance cost. On the other hand, there are still a few problems many customers have to deal with day to day, especially:

• The delays in delivering environments to developers/testers that are introduced by the traditional environments request model;
• Time-consuming environment configuration;
• Production fidelity issues;
• And the high cost of the cloud resource management in order to optimize the resource usage.

Here’s a brief video intro to Azure DevTest Labs:

Read more at the announcement here:

• DEVTESTLABS BLOG: Announcing General Availability of Azure DevTest Labs
  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devtestlab/2016/05/25/announcing-general-availability-of-azure-devtest-labs/

Here’s where to get started:

• SITE: Azure DevTest Labs
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/devtest-lab/

Amgen’s Tour of California, a cycling tour, is using Microsoft Band 2 on 10 of their riders and tracking each rider’s measurables for analysis, with the goal of ultimately having a better understanding what it takes health-wise to complete an event like the Amgen Tour.

Welcome to our new Microsoft Band blog! Each day we will analyze rider data recorded from the previous day’s stage. We provided wearable wrist units to 10 of the 144 riders in the race to track metrics such as speed/distance (via GPS), heart rate, calories, UV exposure, and sleep patterns. During the course of the week we hope to provide insight on physical requirements it takes to complete a challenging 8-day stage race such as the 782-mile Amgen Tour of California.”

• AMGEN TOUR OF CALIFORNIA: Microsoft Band Blog
  http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/competition/microsoftband/
• GEEKWIRE: “How professional cyclists are using the Microsoft Band to give fans new performance insights”
  http://www.geekwire.com/2016/professional-cyclists-using-microsoft-band-give-fans-new-performance-insights/

Cloud computing is uniquely susceptible to the perils of myths. In this research, Gartner writes, “From a consumer perspective, ‘in the cloud’ means where the magic happens, where the implementation details are supposed to be hidden.”

To address this and other misperceptions that surround cloud, Gartner offers a top 10 list of cloud myths—covering important workloads like dev-test as well as issues such as security, scalability, and hybrid capability—to clarify how the cloud actually works for the enterprise.**

Get the report here:

• WHITEPAPER: Gartner Research -The Top 10 Cloud Myths
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/gartner-top-10-cloud-myths-2015/

The Azure Cost Estimator is a locally installable tool (.MSI) which will scan your environment and tell you what can be moved to the cloud and the anticipated cost.  

The Azure Cost Estimator has been designed keeping in mind the need to provide the IT manager of next generation organizations the ability to quickly assess running cost of the existing on-premises workload on Azure.

About the tool

1. The tool provides real world machine hardware usage
2. It recommends appropriate Azure instance to match the scanned workload
3. It also generates 31-day cost estimates of running such an Azure instance

Features

1. The tool supports
   1. Microsoft technologies (Hyper-V, SCVMM)
   2. VMware technologies (vCenter, ESXi)
   3. Physical environments (Windows, Linux)
2. Support to A series, D-series and G-series Virtual Machines
3. Support to all regions apart from US
4. Price conversion in 24 currencies with the latest prices.
5. It is able to export to Excel/.csv that can be used for discussions with Systems Integration partner or a Microsoft representative
6. Create Cost Estimates and My Scenarios from the available Services
7. Cost Estimates can be generated using Scan tool results
8. Support for IP Range Feature in the Scan Your Environment Functionality
9. Import and Export functionality in "Scenarios"
10. Updated Sample Scenarios
11. New services added in tool – Unlimited Data Plan, Metered Data Plan, Data Catalog, Data Lake Store, Data Lake Analytics, SQL Data Warehouse, IoT Hub, Application Gateways, Active Directory B2C, Active Directory Domain Services, Dev Test Lab, Service Fabric, Security Center
12. No data is sent to Microsoft at any time. All report and profile information resides on the machine where the tool is installed

Value Proposition

1. Can be Installed and a profile scan completed within 15 minutes (can be deployed on a Windows client)
2. Enables a comparison with on-premises running costs (e.g. hardware, power, cooling, building, security, and systems management among others)

This should make comparisons between different scenarios much easier for individuals calculating total costs.  (Note: No information is captured by Microsoft.)

• DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Azure Cost Estimator Tool (12.1MB)
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43376

UPDATE 5/23/16:
I found a great support article entitled, “Fix OneDrive for Business sync problems” that goes over issues you may have when syncing files using the old “longtime” OneDrive for Business sync client.  It should be used to augment what I wrote below around SharePoint doc library syncs that “won’t stop”.

• SUPPORT: Fix OneDrive for Business sync problems
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Fix-OneDrive-for-Business-sync-problems-e12c6a8b-4bbe-4391-9c23-1a52b55a1967?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

—————

ORIGINAL POST:
So you’ve installed the old OneDrive for Business sync client to ensure that you can synchronize files and folders from SharePoint sites.  And you’ve happily synched several repositories and everything’s looking great, right?

What if you see the old OneDrive for Business client’s icon in the systray and it just won’t stop synching or appears to continuously attempt to sync an unresolved file?

BACKGROUND:
Sometimes the OneDrive for Business client gets hung syncing a file if you open, edit, or otherwise modify the file while it’s being synced from your client to the SharePoint site. 

This can also happen if you are synching with the SharePoint site, and you disconnect your computer or otherwise halt the sync process while changes are being uploaded to the SharePoint site.

Both of these sync issues are completely resolved with the next-gen sync client for OneDrive however, that doesn’t matter since the next-gen sync client doesn’t YET work with SharePoint document repositories.  (It will when we release an updated version of the OneDrive sync client in Q3CY16)

RESOLUTION:
The way to fix this is a bit of a workaround but it does fix the issue.  At least until the next-gen sync client is updated to also sync SharePoint document folders:

1. Determine what file is causing the conflict/hang.  Go to your SharePoint folder and identify which folder is the source of the perpetual sync.  Navigate the folder to find the file that is specifically causing the issue
2. If the file is an Office document, open the file and save it under another file name in the same directory.  Then delete the old file.  This will eliminate the conflict and your old OneDrive for Business sync client will stop attempting to sync.
3. If the file is non-Office-based, move the file locally & wait for the file’s disappearance to resolve.  Move the file back to the SharePoint folder, and this should resolve the conflict.  There is a chance that this won’t work, and if this is the case, rename the file before moving it back to the SharePoint folder.

Note: Be careful if you share the file with others.  Make sure they aren’t using the same file at the same time so as not to remove it from the SharePoint site while they are using it.

OneDrive for Business may not display sync icon overlays on files and folders. This includes the status for items that are syncing, items that synced, or items that did not sync.

A successful sync icon overlay contains a green circle with check mark, as shown in the following screen shot to the right.

FIX:
To fix this problem automatically, download the CAB below. In the File Download dialog box, click Run or Open, and then follow the steps in the easy fix wizard.

• This wizard may be in English only. However, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.
• If you’re not on the computer that has the problem, save the easy fix solution to a flash drive or a CD, and then run it on the computer that has the problem.

DOWNLOAD:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/C/7/1C7D7C26-C23F-46F7-90B0-06A28C4416EA/MicrosoftEasyFix20152.mini.diagcab

…

According to the dialog box, the fix involves giving the sync overlay graphics priority when displaying the graphics for the icon.

For more information on this, visit:

• SUPPORT: Sync icon overlays are missing from OneDrive for Business synced items
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3079213

Are you lost when it comes to understanding the avalanche of cloud services that Microsoft offers in the Platform-as-a-Service & Infrastructure-as-a-Service space?

INTERACTIVE MAP FOR AZURE PLATFORM
Fear not!  Enter the Interactive Map for the Azure Platform!  This map provides an overhead view of all services and allows the viewer to click into any service for not just a short-and-sweet definition of the service, but also:

• Overview
• Pricing
• Documentation
• Limits

For example:  Interested in knowing what Azure offers as for Content Delivery Network services? (CDN)

Click on it and get the following balloon.  (See photo on the right)

LINKS FOR OTHER KEY REFERENCES
There are also links at the bottom that remind you where to go for:

• Guidance
• Status
• Service Updates
• Support Options
• SLAs
• Supplemental Terms of Use for Azure Previews
• Preview Services

To check out this interactive map of Azure Platform services, visit:

• Interactive Map: Azure Platform
  http://azureplatform.azurewebsites.net/