[AdrianB1]

I got my MCSE exactly 20 years ago; it had a different meaning at that time, S was for System, not Solution. Today the company I work for has close to 100,000 computers in Active Directory and no plan to change that: most of these computers are personal laptops and desktops, there is no move to cloud for these. I have no idea what training and certification the new hires working in the AD and Personal Computing teams will have to pursue, I will have to check but it is definitely not a change in favor of simplicity.

[syshum]

>> most of these computers are personal laptops and desktops, there is no move to cloud for these

While the OS will not move, Microsoft wants you to move to Azure AD and Intune for Management instead of OnPrem AD and Group Policy

They want that monthly per device revenue, and I would not be shocked to see EA CAL and Core CAL prices increased very soon to be more than the Equivalent Cloud Product.

I think past 2019 Versions of Server Products it is about to become VERY VERY expensive for companies to Continue with OnPrem Microsoft products.

better start looking at Directory389 and and FreeIPA..

Edit:

Since I am rated limited (posting too many controversial things)

I will edit my post to say MS has been signalling well since Ballmer left that Onprem is deprecated and will be a second class citizen in their Line Up

This is just further moving down the path of eliminating all OnPrem for Azure, 5-10 years I would say MAX before they end all support for the Server Side of OnPrem, or it will become Azure Stack and the only way to use Windows Services is with a Hybrid Azure, so your OnPrem AD will be a Cached version of AzureAD

[AdrianB1]

Azure AD may be a decent solution if you have people doing Office and other work all day long, not when you have manufacturing plants across the world in places with poor Internet connections, SCADA and continuity plans that don't involve reliable Internet. If you need that, the complexity of having on premise AD and Azure AD is just cost with no benefits.

[jedieaston]

Wouldn't AD be just as painful in that instance, since replication could be interrupted between other sites by connectivity outages and the local domain controller could become out of sync?

[hug]

Yes and no.

An AD DC can be offline for as long as 60 days (by default, since the actual length of time is covered by AD's tombstone lifetime, which is configurable) and recover just fine, assuming you're not to worried about the intrinsic fact that changes at or affecting that site aren't replicated immediately.

And assuming you plug the site back into the network somehow, under your 60 day limit, AD will largely just keep truckin'. If you've got sites that are offline for more than 60 days at a time due to unforseen circumstances, well, maybe those sites need some other solution.

Spotty connectivity is just fine for AD, though, especially if you're designing things properly.

[2J0]

We pushed federation caches over the signalling channel of ISDN2 as late as 2007. ISDN is the most commonly misunderstood and under appreciated communications standard. During the early nineties ISSN acquired a horrible reputation for incompatibility, but the very nature and value proposition of ISDN remains the most adaptable and capable L0/1/2 communications standard that was intentionally designed to adapt to and enable legacy protocols and future transition requirements. This is why the D channel is capable of transfer of user defined packet payloads up to 16kbps. Commonly dismissed as the signalling channel, why was it designated as "D channel " and the commonly presumed data channels, "B channels"?

The myriad problems and factors that assailed practical IDDN adoption in the early days when a working ISDN interface was a genuine wonder not of miracles in configuration but the capability delivered (we ran applications in advertising that had financial trading style requirements for transactions and the fact that advertising copy was delivered via ISDN was the kind of integration that was envisioned originally)

Everyone is confusing me with their apparent over reaction to the connection of cloud to remote sites. This was what CICS was written for fifty years ago. I feel like I'm discussing state secrets every time I mention CICS. Can anyone recall the killer feature of NT3.1? MTS, if you must have it. MTS is why SQLserver was so easily portable to Linux. I suspect about everyone who reads HN might have a ball with some of the desperately not trendy things we are involved in. Like my uncle dusting his suit vests, smiling he only had to wait thirty years for them to return to fashion. This is a universal interval someone who can explain it will deserve a Nobel I'm sure...

[temac]

ISDN is an edge point to point protocol (although used to get on a network). I don't really see how it has to do specifically with anything related to AD vs Azure (a data link is a data link, you could has well have used an analog modem, or a custom solution involving an avian carrier), neither do I see how ISDN should be considered as anything else than obsolete technology in all regards nowadays, no matter the nostalgia factor.

BTW B channel is for "Bearer", and D is for "Delta" or maybe "Data". (Wild hypothesis: maybe it was initially for "Data" at a time when B was seldom used for things other than digitized voice possibly with a bit stolen for in-band signaling)

On my side I consider that ATM was pretty sweet at a time when IP&co was complete garbage (and still somewhat is), but I know who won.

As for CICS, well, mainframe are still not dead. I suspect they won't, because why would they? But the model is not the same as the modern "cloud" stuff, at all levels.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

"It's dead, Jim." I had that stuff with 128Kbit/s|16KB/s at home up to around 2004, and shudder at the thought of having an upgrade or patch release of any application, or OS over that. Apart from that, every telco everywhere is discontinuing service for that, or has already done so long ago. The whole "ecosystem" of line technology is gone, not produced anymore. Only surviving niche are internal installations where some gateway translates whichever VoIP to some internal S0-Bus, and the long obsolete phones.

That was that. What was your point again in this context?

[2J0]

Please let me make the connection from active directory wan replication, as far as what I believe is the objective of ramping up the azure ad services capability and capacity: making a global computing grid with current and next generation Xbox consoles. This isn't a polished presentation, I'm genuinely sorry I can't manage better, but this is a proper long line strategy. (Also you could imagine a phone product fitting into this end scenario, at least I can)

I suspect that pushing the world off local machines and licenses is not a bad thing for the security of systems generally.

But consider the flatness of the stock during Ballmer's tenure.

By literally cutting the supply of people who can maintain off net machines, Nadella is pushing the license revolution about the hardest he can.

I hold two not necessarily complimentary theories about the stock under SB: flat stock suits a relentless acquirer such as SB, who iirc became the largest non founder shareholder by committing his net worth to his employer stock and sticking to this policy in every remuneration review. I believe SB laid some of the best foundations for growth to ever be implemented by any internally promoted business leader in a direct majority positive personal wealth correlation position at the time of appointment. Many CEOs have become one to one linked to their employer success but only after options awards and bonus schemes created that equity correlation. Ballmer was all in. I beseech you especially if you're not favourable to the man by reputation, to look at SB more closely. I experienced a Damascene conversation and subsequently I discovered I admire Ballmer's dedication and principles as much as they surely desperately needed smoothing with greater sensitivity to the constituencies that are the still neglected bedrock of economic and technological capability and development in America (much less so in Europe unfortunately) because we just can't respond to any proverbial chair throwing, it's not in the geek career handbook, sorry Steve, but I at least know that you truly tried and can guess how much it means to you still. ---- Equally Ballmer could have suppressed the stock by his relentless investment in long term economic growth. Windows Mobile is the best known calamity. Not necessarily for the mobile ecosystem, but for the social and political relationships that ownership of Nokia could have created. Such transatlantic opportunities are not necessarily seen in every generation.

I think Ballmer takes credit but SN was the trigger puller on the XboxOneX architecture that enticed Dave Cutler from retirement to bootstrap W10 on the 1X. This puts workstation class 3D hardware in homes for under three hundred dollars, last offers I saw. The next model is even more attractive. But at launch the 1X was almost five times the component value and packaged how very few are capable of producing. Powerful workstations in ubiquitous distribution is a stepping stone to the next technological transformation in this lifetime I hope to see and even participate in.

Can you now appreciate why I've digressed so much?

Hundreds of millions of workstation class consoles presents the most important network and remote tenant support challenge that I think I will see in my life.

If by reaping the financial benefits of pushing sites to cloud and subscriptions, Nadella can afford to extend Intune to domestic demand on the scale of the consoles market, the hardware will support a new era of possibilities. I certainly didn't think the adapter for the Xbox to use the switches and controls you bring, was by any means facing only the challenges of physical disability. I have forever since been thinking about my garage door opener being replaced with a simple relay and I have sufficient trust in my wan access to my console to be completely comfortable with this. (Plus of course further security doors before you enter our home)

How do you prefer to heat your home? I prefer to be paid for running azure jobs that are modelling for local transport conditions and micro climate forecasts. Rackfill not landfill, is the future for hardware my company hopes to speed into reality. Miniaturisation is plenty for the data created by our lives exception being sensor data and video capture of later value in review. But I expect to see de duplication of scenery behind multiple channels of capturing cameras, after dimensional data extraction, which is easy to control the storage facility for, over neighbourhood 5G networks (see STH for latest Celeron 5G targeted chips, the most interesting news I'm surprised HN hasn't leaped upon) for simultaneous multi deca gigabit ptp mimo is upon us probably before a full traditional interval technological generation (I think the important tech generation interval is halved and halved again in the last decade alone and therefore I believe that Moore's Law is now manifest in the periodicity of development having become challenged by other limits nevertheless the technology advances just not by virtue of inherent value or capability but external factors. If Moore's Law can be restated to apply for the interval of development continuing the capability exponential growth, please allow the currying to be noted as Kirby's Second Law, my first being explaining is losing, a admonishment probably rather than immutable law but it is very hard to find ways it is inapplicable. Hence my second law could be written, laws return in guise too thin to deceive but too importantly to be obvious (we are too preoccupied with the effect of force unknown ") I had better write that much better.. please please don't take me too seriously in fact please don't take me seriously in the first place, as Feynman offered the seeker of physics profundity his advice "physics doesn't matter, love does" I'm ashamed every time I consume my listeners attention without being able to make some token of value beyond the time taken. Time is beyond the gift of the gods. Its waste is in this incredible epoch I believe is the only crime that is important to punish with meaningful actions.