CloudShare Pro Plus: Awesome Resource!

CloudShare Pro Plus is quite simply an awesome resource to have access to!

In preparing to do some more reviews, I’m very grateful to have been given access to CloudShare Pro Plus resources for a limited period by Chris Riley (@hoardinginfo).

CloudShare Pro Plus

I’ve always relied on having a DEV rig at home for my Virtual Machines but this service is just excellent.

I needed a SharePoint 2007 environment and I couldn’t immediately lay my hands on the disk I had the old VM stored on.

No problem!

New Environment

Log into CloudShare and create a new environment:

New SharePoint 2007 Environment

Clicking to add machine, the environment starts building from a template:

Add from template

In less than the time it takes to make an espresso, I’ve got a configured and ready to use SharePoint 2007 environment:

SharePoint 2007 Enterprise SP2 

OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard with Active Directory and SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard

Spec: 80 GB HD/8 GB RAM

Enterprise features enabled, with configured administrative and service accounts for SQL Server and different roles, configured according to suggested defaults

The environment also came with the full Office 2007 suite along with SharePoint Designer and InfoPath 2007. I literally only had to transfer a couple of files to the server and I was away.

There is no way I could have found my HDD, booted up and had all of this to hand in the same time. I’d have been rooting around to find an ISO of something, downloading files/updates etc.

Easy Transfers

When I say transfer some files to the server, that was also a complete breeze through the use of Cloud Folders. FTP the files from your environment and connect the Cloud Folder to your server. Easy!

It Just Works

And finally, the best part of this all was that it didn’t matter that I was using my Mac to do any of this. Using Safari I was able to do everything I needed and could then either RDP via the web browser or use Remote Desktop Connection.

Other Environments

This is but one example of what CloudShare Pro Plus offers. In addition to the environments I chose from to create the above example, there are over 20 sample environments available in the SharePoint Solutions Showcase:

CloudShare SharePoint Solutions Showcase

Support

Chris has been extremely helpful in terms of supporting my use of the environment. He has always responded quickly to any enquiries or problems that I’ve experienced.

Give it a try!

If you haven’t tried CloudShare out before now, head over to their site and try out the 14-day free trial and see for yourself.

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Tags: @hoardinginfo, Chris Riley, cloud folders, cloud. virtual environment, CloudShare, CloudShare Pro Plus, SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Solutions Showcase, Virtual Machine, VM

Category: CloudShare