Tag Archives: azure

ExpressRoute for Office 365 Now Available for Secure and Fast Cloud Connections

Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute is now available for Office 365 in addition to pure Azure Cloud deployments. Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365 enables organizations to establish a private, managed network connection to Office 365 as an alternative to connecting over the Internet.

This direct connection offers you more predictable network performance, an SLA for guaranteed availability and additional data privacy. As more organizations depend on Office 365 for document collaboration (SharePoint/OneDrive/PowerBI) and communications (Skype – Video and Voice), they will come to depend more and more on the network connectivity they have between their users and Office 365. Pricing is based on port speed and starts at $300/month for unlimited data (metered data plans also available), including two redundant connections.

As always, the Atidan team is available to assist with Azure and Office 365 solutions and security. office365@atidan.com

Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365 - Atidan

Express Route Partners and Peering Locations

Case Study from Microsoft

Today we’re pleased to announce that Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365 is now generally available from these network operators:

  • British Telecom
  • Equinix
  • Tata Communications
  • TeleCity Group
  • Verizon

Connecting your network to Office 365 using Azure ExpressRoute

Depending on your network configuration, here’s how you can work with network operators offering ExpressRoute for Office 365 to establish a connection between your network and Office 365:

  • If your organization already uses Azure ExpressRoute, your network operator can simply turn on the connectivity for you. Since use of Office 365 generates additional network traffic, you should discuss the requirements for additional bandwidth with your network operator.
  • Organizations using IP VPN technology for a WAN provided by a network operator can ask the network operator to add Office 365 as a node on your WAN. Once Office 365 connectivity is added, Office 365 services appear as if they are on your WAN—like an offsite datacenter.
  • ExpressRoute can also support large or point-to-point network connections. If you have a large broad network, then you may already have a network connection in a co-location facility where Azure ExpressRoute is available. You should work with your network provider to identify the best way to connect to Azure ExpressRoute.

For more information, read about ExpressRoute for Office 365 here and watch this episode of Office Mechanics:

Frequently asked questions

  1. Where in the world is ExpressRoute for Office 365 available?
  2. Your users can connect from anywhere in the world that your network operator provides access. Each network operator connects to the Microsoft network at specific locations. They can provide networking from the user location to the Microsoft network connection. You should discuss the options with your network operator. The locations where they will connect to Microsoft’s network are listed here.
  3. How do organizations purchase ExpressRoute for Office 365?
  4. Organizations interested in purchasing ExpressRoute for Office 365 should have an Azure subscription and should discuss details of the connectivity with an Azure ExpressRoute partner.
  5. Are there any Office 365 services that Azure ExpressRoute cannot provide a connection to?
  6. Today connectivity is available for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Skype for Business Online, Azure Active Directory, Office 365 Video, Power BI, Delve and Project Online. Services that ExpressRoute does not provide connectivity to include download of Office 365 ProPlus installation files, Yammer, Domain Name Service and Content Delivery Network servers.
  7. Is QoS supported on Azure ExpressRoute?
  8. Yes. QoS is supported for Skype for Business Online over Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365.
  9. Does Microsoft provide tools to test for network performance issues?
  10. Yes. We have the Office Client Performance Analyzer (OCPA), which was recently updated to add a number of new performance test metrics. Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365 may be a solution to network performance problems experienced by users. OCPA can be downloaded from the Office 365 admin console here.

How Does The Cloud Change The Way We Do Business?

“Crawl, walk, run” is what we are advising clients of all sizes when it comes to the cloud. Atidan is helping to deliver a variety of cloud services including backup, test/development servers, production servers, application and mobile services, advanced security solutions and much more. Contact us for a no obligation analysis and briefing to find out your best path to the cloud.
 

This article excerpt, by Stewart Parkin, originally appeared here: http://bit.ly/1AM21pt 
How has the cloud revolution enabled businesses to be more efficient and cutting edge? Let’s count the ways. There are many.
Effective and Inexpensive
First of all, the cloud has made businesses more cost effective by allowing them to store unlimited amounts of data inexpensively. Companies don’t have to spend exorbitant amounts of money to access cloud technology. A major capital expenditure is not necessary to access cloud based applications. This cost saving allows businesses to be more efficient and streamlined. This is just one of the many benefits of what the cloud has to offer.
Performing Varied Functions
For example, customers can have instant access to information and services using only a laptop or using their smartphones. The cloud allows them to perform a variety of functions online ranging from shopping, reading, participating in discussions, and many more, all in one place. Cloud technology essentially offers the end user a one-stop portal. There is no need to flip through the yellow pages of your old phone company.
Mobility
The same is true for a company’s employees. They can have instant access to company files and information allowing them to interact with the home office, suppliers and customers. The data they need can be accessed instantly in one convenient place on the web, saving them time and making them more efficient.
In fact, access to cloud-based applications also allows employees more mobility and freedom. While traveling the globe, all they need is access to the Internet via a laptop or their smartphone, or just have to pop into an Internet café to access their data in the cloud. Their data and important documents and files can be safely stored and accessed in the cloud, allowing them to travel without worries, with peace of mind.
Instant Access
Collaboration is a breeze thanks to the cloud. Businesses can share information with their suppliers and employees, allowing them to access important data instantaneously. Sharing information, ideas and data has never been so easy.
Improved Technology
In addition, the cloud has helped businesses in a variety of other ways, including compliance and risk management, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, E-commerce, help desk and support services, document management, disaster recovery, and supply chain management. All of these tasks have been made easier thanks to the advent of the cloud. As the technology keeps improving, there will be many more ways in which the cloud can help companies become more efficient.
So, for these and many other reasons, the cloud has changed the way we do business. What’s there not to like? The cloud has changed the way we do business for the better.
Contact Atidan today at azure@atidan.com to find out more about our cloud solutions!

SharePoint Server 2013 Dev/Test Environments on Microsoft Azure

SharePoint Server 2013 Dev/Test Environments on Microsoft Azure

*Written by Joe Davies, Microsoft

Are you in need of a SharePoint Server 2013 dev/test or proof-of-concept environment? Check out these four options:

  • Basic configuration for an Internet-facing farm (3 servers)
  • High-availability configuration for an Internet-facing farm (9 servers)
  • SharePoint 3-tier configuration emulating an intranet farm (5 servers)
  • SharePoint intranet farm in a hybrid cloud (6 servers)

Basic configuration for an Internet-facing farm

Here is the basic, Internet-facing farm.

TCP80Use this configuration as an Internet-facing test farm using a cloud-only Azure virtual network. This farm is not connected back to your organization network through a site-to-site VPN connection.

You can deploy this in two ways:

In both cases, you specify very few configuration settings and let the template or the Preview Portal perform the computer and farm configuration for you.

For information about the new Azure Resource Manager, see Azure Compute, Network & Storage Providers under Azure Resource Manager

High-availability configuration for an Internet-facing farm

Here is the high-availability, Internet-facing farm.

Web1Like the basic configuration above, this configuration is for an Internet-facing test farm with a cloud-only Azure virtual network. This farm is not connected back to your organization network through a site-to-site VPN connection.

These methods can save you a lot of configuration time, but you will need an Azure subscription that supports 9 servers and 19 cores.

SharePoint 3-tier configuration emulating an intranet farm

With the SharePoint 3-tier farm in Azure Test Lab Guide (TLG), you build a simple 3-tier farm, complete with a client computer. This is an Azure-based alternative to building a SharePoint test lab with on-premises computers or virtual machines.

Cloud ServiceUse this configuration as an intranet test farm using a cloud-only Azure virtual network. It emulates an intranet farm relative to the CLIENT1 computer, rather than from your organization intranet. Unlike the SharePoint Server Farm configurations previously described, there is no Internet access to the resources of the SharePoint farm.

The advantage to this configuration is that you can use a set of existing SharePoint TLGs to configure permissions, authentication, profile synchronization, and social networking. For more information, see SharePoint Server 2013 Test Lab in Azure.

SharePoint intranet farm in a hybrid cloud

With SharePoint intranet farm in a hybrid cloud, you build a simple two-tier farm, complete with a simplified on-premises organization network containing a domain controller and client computer.

DC1Use this configuration as an intranet test farm using a cross-premises Azure virtual network. It emulates an intranet farm relative to the CLIENT1 computer on your simplified on-premises network. There is no Internet access to the SharePoint farm.

The advantage to this configuration is the inclusion of a site-to-site VPN connection and the ability to experience the performance and administration of an emulated intranet SharePoint farm relative to your location on the Internet.

Note that you can also build this using the simulated hybrid cloud. Here is the result.

Hybrid Contact the Atidan Azure cloud team at azure@atidan.com for additional information and a no obligation briefing!

Blog written entirely by Joe Davies at Microsoft http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/06/08/sharepoint-server-2013-dev-test-environments/

Tapping Cloud Computing’s Full Potential

Even Atidan’s Cloud forward clients have only just begun to scratch the surface of possible opportunities. The power of the cloud is now within reach of even the smallest of companies and can change the way business views technology. Enhanced reliability, performance, security and a drastic reduction in physical infrastructure brings many benefits. Please contact the Atidan cloud team today for a no obligation analysis and briefing  Azure@atidan.com
This article excerpt, by Louis Columbus, originally appeared here: http://onforb.es/1zDfn6M 
Enterprises are realizing only 35 percent of the value from their workloads already in the cloud. Leading enterprise cloud adopters have migrated nearly two-thirds of their workloads to the cloud, yet the average company has only 18 percent there.
Up to 50 percent of the value of cloud investments is predicated on streamlining and improving company operations.
These and other insights are from the recently published Bain & Company study, Tapping Cloud’s Full Potential. A downloadable version of the study is available here (8 pp, free no opt-in). Bain & Company interviewed 428 companies and found that enterprises that are focused on getting strategic value from their cloud investments aim to migrate at least 50 percent of their workloads to the cloud.
Key take-aways from the study include the following:
• Only 35 percent of the value from workloads in the cloud today is being realized, leaving 65 percent of their value untapped. Enterprises have the potential to gain much greater value from the workloads they already have in the cloud. This figure from the study shows current realized value versus potential value.
• Bain advises enterprises that want to lead their markets to take a “cloud first” approach to initiating new IT workloads. Taking a cloud first approach requires redefining how new IT operational models scale to support and accelerate emerging and existing business models. This graphic illustrates this point.
• Bain found that putting workloads on public or hybrid clouds delivers more value in the form of bigger cost savings, greater flexibility, more scalability and better built-in services. Bain cites enterprises that moved development to IaaS and PaaS clouds from Amazon Web Services (AWS) reducing downtime by 72 percent and improving application availability by 3.9 hours per user per year.
• Change management is essential for any enterprise to realize the full value of their cloud investment. Bain found that no matter how much effort is put into planning, piloting and implementing cloud technologies, up to 50 percent of the value of cloud investment is predicated on streamlining company operations first. Change management strategies endorsed and evangelized by senior executives is critical for cloud-based systems and platforms to succeed.
• Enterprises that take an agile development approach and tighten the integration between development and infrastructure with DevOps practices increase the probability of cloud project success. Bain sees enterprises that standardize their development platforms, leverage automation tools and take advantage of self-service options for stakeholders succeed with their cloud initiatives.
• Investments in virtualization pay off. Bain also found that well-run IT organizations with 60 percent to 75 percent of their traditional server environments virtualized are able to migrate faster than those that are less reliant on virtualization.

Utilizing Azure Cloud for SharePoint With Always On SQL Server

Atidan is pleased to deploy Microsoft’s Azure Cloud architecture for SharePoint with SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups.Utilizing best recommended practices documented by Microsoft, the Atidan team creates SharePoint 2013 Server farms deployed in an Azure cross-premises virtual network. This blog article shows some of the main steps we take and contains links to the latest information and reference.

Atidan team makes this process easy by managing the entire process from architecture,POC, test and into production. We utilize System Center (SCOM) to monitor all Azure operations and keep watching your critical infrastructure in the cloud. Many options are available to provide security, reliability, performance and to meet your budgets. Contact us today to find out about our “Azure Cloud Jumpstart” solutions!

SharePoint with SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups in Azure guides you through the end-to-end process to:

  • Understand the value of the SharePoint farm in Azure IT workload.
  • Create a proof-of-concept configuration or a dev/test environment for SharePoint application development.
  • Configure the production workload in a cross-premises virtual network.

The result of this process is a functional, high-availability intranet SharePoint farm that is accessible to on-premises users.

site to site VPN

The end-to-end configuration of the production workload consists of these phases:

These phases are designed to align with IT departments or typical areas of expertise. For example:

  • Phase 1 can be done by networking infrastructure staff.
  • Phase 2 can be done by identity management staff.
  • Phases 3 and 5 can be done by database administrators.
  • Phase 4 can be done by SharePoint administrators.

To make the Azure configuration foolproof, Phases 1 and 2 contain configuration tables for you to fill out with all of the required settings. For example, here is Table V for the cross-premises virtual network settings from Phase 1.

table

To make the configuration of the Azure elements as fast as possible, the phases use PowerShell command blocks and prompt you to insert the configuration table settings as variables.

Please contact us at azure@atidan.com for additional information about our Cloud Services!