Preparing the Datacenter for a private cloud with Windows Server 2008 R2

This is a module that explains how enterprise data centers are evolving. It addresses industry trends and discusses the evolution toward highly virtualized infrastructures. It reviews the fundamentals of the components comprising private clouds, including servers, networking, and storage. You will learn how Windows Server technologies, along with other products from Microsoft, will enable you to evolve your infrastructure to the cloud. The module will show you how to align with the Microsoft cloud and data center management vision, and how using technologies and tools from Microsoft will allow you to manage the environment. This information will help you to manage both the underlying physical infrastructure and the virtualized infrastructure. You will discover how to deliver common management experiences across private and public clouds. The module will illustrate how to deliver IT as a service on your terms with flexible management policies across your hybrid environments.

Through this module, you will see how to use core Windows Server infrastructure technologies to provision your private cloud and deliver a flexible and cost-effective infrastructure. The module will show you the specifics of configuring a private cloud infrastructure, along with the components and functions that define it such as servers, software, high availability, networking, and virtualization. Through tools such as Windows Deployment Service and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010, you can create clusters to support a highly-available private cloud environment. As well, you will learn advanced networking processes, including configuring firewall rules and virtual networks, and managing the network through group policies. By learning the fundamentals of building and delegating clouds, you will be able to better provision and optimize your virtual and physical infrastructure for your private cloud.

In this module you will learn how to use the various tools from Microsoft to manage your private cloud infrastructure. After completing the module, you will understand the benefits of using the different services available in the core Windows Server platform to deploy and manage your VMs. You will also learn about using other tools such as Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012 to manage your private cloud environment. The module will show you effective management processes by providing a detailed overview of the design principles for private cloud infrastructure. These design principles cover core Windows Server functionality, multisite management, security, high availability, and virtualization. This will enable you to better deploy services to the private cloud, and ensure repeatable and predictable processes while doing so. Overall, this will increase the capabilities and benefits to your organization and to you as an IT professional.