TechNet Event Questions and Answers from Columbus, OH (2/25/2010)
Thank you for everyone that attended the TechNet event in Columbus, more importantly thank you for not booing me when I showed the picture of me holding my book. I hope everyone enjoyed the event and I hope to see you next time I am in Columbus and remember if you have a user group you want me to come visit, just let me know! Here are the questions I had the event and as always please comment or contact if you have any further questions for me.
Q:Where can I learn more about boot to .vhd?
A: My buddy Keith did some great posts that will step you through the process:
- Good overview of boot to .vhd: Dual Boot from VHDS using Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
- Also here is another great article, about bitlocker: Windows 7 dual boot revisted with bitlocker
Q:Where can I get the steps for lite-touch deployment that was shown during the event?
A: The step-by-step guide used to help create my demos for the event can be found here: Lite-Touch, High-Volume Deployment
Q:How do you configure the PowerShell ISE with modules loaded in?
A: The PowerShell ISE is a GUI based environment for you to use PowerShell in. You can also customize the profile for the ISE so it will load your modules and settings.
Take a look here for more information: How to Use Profiles in Windows PowerShell ISE
Q:What are some Hyper-V recommendations for Small Business Server (SBS)?
A: There is some great information here: Virtualization and Windows Small Business Server 2008
There is also a great post here: SBS 2008 and Virtualization
Q: What are the pricing models for Azure?
A: You can learn more about the pricing offers for Azure here: https://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/
Q: How is Azure billed?
A: Windows Azure Compute is billed hourly. Take a look at the pricing FAQ here: https://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/faq/#pricing I thought this was an applicable question from the FAQ:
How are Windows Azure Compute hours metered?
Windows Azure compute hours are charged only when your application is deployed. When developing and testing your application, developers will want to remove the compute instances that are not being used to minimize compute hour billing. Please note that suspending your deployment will still result in compute charges since the compute instances are still allocated to you and cannot be allocated to another customer. Compute hours are billed based on the number of clock hours your service was deployed multiplied by the number of compute instances.
All compute hours are converted into small instance hours when presented on your bill. For example, one elapsed hour of a medium compute instance would be presented as two small compute instance hours at the small instance rate of $0.12 per hour on your bill. This table describes how each of the compute instance sizes correlates to the number of small compute instance hours:
Compute hours are billed based on the number of clock hours your service was deployed multiplied by the number of equivalent small compute instances included in your deployment. Partial compute instance hours (prior to conversion) are billed as full compute hours for each clock hour an instance is deployed. For example, if you deploy a small compute instance at 10:50 AM and delete the deployment at 11:10 AM, you will be billed for two small compute hours, one hour for usage during 10:50 AM to 11:00 AM and another hour for usage during 11:00 AM to 11:10 AM. For other compute instance sizes you deploy, your hours will be converted into the equivalent small instance hours by multiplying by 2, 4 or 8, depending on the compute instance size deployed. In addition, each time you delete your deployment and redeploy your service, you will be billed a minimum of one clock hour for each compute instance deployed. However, any instances deployed for less than five minutes within one clock hour will not be charged.
