The World According to Mitch

A couple of weeks ago Microsoft released Microsoft iSCSI Software Target for download, and I was thrilled.  I immediately decided to write about it, but before publishing what would end up the first of three articles, I decided to ping my buddy Rick Claus, IT Pro Evangelist for Microsoft Canada, and ask him if he wanted the articles for the CanITPro Blog (http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro). 

The first article, entitled All for SAN and SAN for All,  was published on April 7th.  It was simply an overview of SAN technology, and why having a software SAN that was supported by Microsoft was hugely important.

The second article, Creating a SAN using Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3, goes through creating the target (LUN).  I included explanations and screen shots, but stopped short of creating a cluster.  We simply create the LUN and then connect to it with the iSCSI Initiator.

The title of my third article was changed without anyone asking or telling me.  I had originally called it At Last… Redundancy for All! but I have to settle for a more descriptive Creating HA VMs for Hyper-V with Failover Clustering using FREE Microsoft iSCSI Target 3.3.  Fortunately that is all that was changed, and it went live this morning (Monday April 18), eleven days after the first in the series.

There was a bonus to this series too… Microsoft Canada sends out the TechNet Flash every week, with the top piece normally being an editorial from one of the IT Evangelists.  Last week they invited me to write 150 words introducing the technology and linking it to the articles.  If you’ve ever spoken to me, sat through one of my presentations, or read my blog (duh!) then you will know that I am not a man of few words… but my original submission was exactly that!  It was then extended by 30 to expand on a thought, but it was cool nonetheless.  I am told it is the first time the ‘top page above the fold’ piece was given to a community member, and I am very excited about that! 

I hope the pieces help you, and I look forward to hearing your comments and feedback!