Copying files is an excellent issue: at some point I suggested either on the PowerShell blog or their feedback site that PowerShell should have the ability to copy files via remoting (essentially what you mention, you can remote into a box via powershell and need to copy a file from your local machine onto the remote box).

The response I got from someone at MS was quite telling, it went something like "please tell me more why you would ever want to do this, when we have existing folder sharing technology in windows". I gave up, if they seriously don't understand why that is NOT the answer to situation, gee...

I looked at Azure to see how these things work there. Here is my current understanding: blob and table storage in Azure Storage is automatically geo-replicated between regions. If you don't want that you can reduce your storage cost by about 30%. VM disks are stored in Azure blobs, so if a region goes down you should actually be able to create a new VM in a different region and attach the SAME disc you had attached to the VM in the region that went down.

For the SQL datbases they provide a sync service that can replicate your database automatically between different regions (or even a local database).

I have no clue how reliable all of this is, but at least in theory it looks as if it might be quite a bit easier to do full geo replication across different regions on Azure.

Anyone with actual experience?

I bet this is the mysterious project Dave Cutler has been working on lately!

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms-dave-...

Speaking of Cutler, if you haven't read it, I highly recommend the book "Show Stopper!", which describes the early days of Windows NT.

http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Micr...

The title on HN is incorrect. Only the mathematics department is canceling their subscriptions, not the whole university.

Is a system that has Windows Update switched on, i.e. is up to date with security patches, at risk? That might be a cheaper way than to buy their software...

It seems to me that if you use up to date versions of the MS software stack there are numerous defenses built in that would render this attack completely moot. The fact that they don't say anything about which software versions are at risk makes this look like one of the typical sales promotion efforts of security firms rather than good info.