How big is the Microsoft Azure Cloud?

The Microsoft Azure Cloud is huge….very huge!! We could also say H-y-uuuuuuu-ge!!! This blogpost by Microsoft explains the current size and it’s still growing very fast!!

Here are some facts about Microsoft’s Cloud Infrastructure that powers Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Xbox Live, and many other services:

  • The Microsoft Cloud is made up of more than 100 datacenters worldwide.
  • The Microsoft Cloud serves over 140 countries.
  • The Microsoft Cloud is comprised of MILLIONS of servers, and growing!
  • The Microsoft Cloud is built with the latest hardware innovations to maximize efficiency.
  • The Microsoft Cloud is connected by enough fiber to stretch to the Moon and back 3 times!
  • Microsoft processes Millions of network requests per second backed by high availability infrastructure.
  • Everything is monitored 24x7x365
  • The Microsoft global infrastructure is 100% carbon neutral.
  • Microsoft has built one of the most connected networks in the world so you don’t have to.
  • Microsoft Azure is used by 85% of Fortune 500 companies.

Microsoft is also aiming to increase that figure to 50 by 2018!!

Cloud-Azure

 

 

How to: Create a VM within a few second in Hyper-V 2012 R2

In some cases I’ve to create multiple VM’s within my Hyper-V environment. You can choose to create and configure each VM manually, but you can also use PowerShell. Now you can see how powerfull PowerShell really is! I’ve created multiple VM’s within a few seconds and ready to rock! I’ve created the following script. The only thing you’ve to do, is changing some variables 🙂

In this example the script will create a new VM named RES-MGN01. The VM will be configured with 2 GB, using Dynamic Memory. The VM is using a differencing disk (VHDK) with a Windows Server 2012 R2 sysprepped parent VHDX, placed on an SSD disk (P: drive) in my server. The virtual switch the VM is connected to, is named NIC – WAN.

$VMName = “RES-MGN01”
$VMMemMaxBytes = 2048MB
$VHDXName = “OS.vhdx”
$VMMemStartup = 512MB
$VMMemMinBytes = 512MB
$VMPath = “E:\”
$VHDParent = “P:\Hyper-V Parents\TMPL-W2012R2DC\Virtual Hard Disks\TMPL-W2012R2DC.vhdx”
$VMSwitchName = “NIC – WAN”

New-VM -Name $VMName -Path $VMpath$VMName -Generation 2 -SwitchName $VMSwitchName

Set-VM -Name $VMName -DynamicMemory -MemoryStartupBytes 512MB -MemoryMinimumBytes $VMMemMinBytes -MemoryMaximumBytes $VMMemMaxBytes

New-VHD -ParentPath $VHDParent -Path $VMPath\$VMName\$VMName\$VHDXName -Differencing

Add-VMHardDiskDrive -VMName $VMName -Path $VMPath\$VMName\$VMName\$VHDXName

Add-VMDvdDrive -VMName $VMName

Start-VM -Name $VMName

2014-01-14_11h48_41    2014-01-14_11h49_20    2014-01-14_11h50_27

2014-01-14_11h51_18    2014-01-14_11h52_12