Want to know how to make your Virtual Machines highly available with the built in Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 and see how easy it is to make a Virtual Machine highly available with SCVMM 2008.
Head on over to http://blogs.technet.com/chengw/archive/2008/06/10/clustered-hosts-and-ha-vms-in-scvmm-2008.aspx
This is a great introduction to SCVMM 2008 PRO by Cheng Wei.
Now that Hyper-V has been around for a month or so I keep getting asked for early proof points and case studies of where Hyper-V is being used in Production.
The case study that really stands out in my mind is an internal one at Microsoft. One of the more challenging systems from a server subsystem utilisation perspective is www.microsoft.com. The site handles 15,000 requests per second, 1.2 billion page views per month, and 280M worldwide unique users per month as well as supporting ~5000 content contributors from within the company. This site has close to 300GB of content consisting of some seven million individual files on each server. Due to this scale and the variety of applications hosted, the site heavily exercises all of the major subsystems - memory, CPU, network, and file I/O – on each server. Based on the load characteristics and the fact that this site is a testing ground for early adoption of Microsoft technology, they expected the production load of www.microsoft.com to provide a great test for Hyper-V.
On June 5th the Operations Team turned up a full sixteen VM cluster hosting www.microsoft.com on Hyper-V. That cluster is handling 25% of the production traffic load and can scale past that to support data center redundancy goals. Microsoft.com has not encountered any performance, stability or availability issues on the virtualised cluster.
The Deployment
The team began the deployment on the www.microsoft.com site with a single server back in March running on Hyper-V Beta. They continued with live load testing and artificial stress load similar to the approach with the MSDN deployment. This single VM was as stable, reliable and performed better with live internet load as compared to the older physical servers in the cluster. With the success of the first VM running www.microsoft.com they decided to expand to an entire cluster of servers. This was also a great opportunity to leverage SCVMM 2008 beta for the first time in production.
At the time the SCVMM 2008 beta required Hyper-V RC0 so in order to use SCVMM and Hyper-V together, RC0 was utilised through the deployment phase. Once the deployment was complete, the servers were all upgraded to Hyper-V RC1.
Using SCVMM they created a “golden” web server image for www.microsoft.com including both the server and content to improve deployment speed as well as configuration control. Previously a new deployment of www.microsoft.com involved 12 hours to sync the 7 million small content files over the network. Utilizing a single content VHD cut this time down to 4 hours.
Limited test hardware available for this first phase so, were only able to deploy one VM per physical server. Clearly this is not an optimal strategy for long term virtualisation given that each server has 8 processors, but it did allow us to move quickly with the hardware they had available. The next stage of the www.microsoft.com virtualization will take place on a SAN based infrastructure allowing us to run multiple VMs per server head.
Current www.microsoft.com Virtualised Environment
| Component | Description |
| Hardware | Dual socket Quad-Core Intel processors
32GB RAM
4x146GB disk drives |
| Virtual machines | 4 Virtual processors
30GB RAM
50GB dynamic VHD – OS 385GB dynamic VHD – Data\Logs |
| Operating system – Parent | Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V RC1 Enterprise version
Reserved 4GB RAM from 32GB total |
| Operating system – VMs | Windows Server 2008 Enterprise version
Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 |
Availability
One of the primary goals is maintaining high availability regardless of where they are in the technology lifecycle. They measure availability in a variety of ways, but one of the baseline tests they use is a 3rd party provided HTTP request from 45 worldwide agents against the www.microsoft.com hosting platform – currently Windows Server 2008, IIS7 and now Hyper-V. The average availability of the platform prior to the Hyper-V based deployment was 99.94% and is running at an average of 99.95% since the deployment of the first cluster. Since this particular measure is an Internet based test, meeting or exceeding previous results means they hit their goals.
Platform availability before and after Hyper-V Deployed to handle 25% of traffic
Performance
The team at Microsoft.com has been very encouraged by the stability, scalability and performance of Hyper-V on the www.microsoft.com site. In terms of performance for this site, overall the results are in-line with previously observed measures while virtualizing MSDN and TechNet. As with those sites they completed comparison testing of the VMs against both the current and new physical servers. The outcome of the current physical servers vs. new VM comparison helped us determine how many VMs running www.microsoft.com they would need to match the current physical server capacity as well as handle projected growth. Given the VM performance on the new servers we’ll consolidate down from 80 physical servers to 64 VMs. Those VMs will initially be deployed onto a total of 40 new physical servers.
The initial performance testing showed a 10% CPU overhead in running www.microsoft.com in a virtual machine. This testing was based on sustained live traffic using matching hardware for the VM host and the physical server. Both the physical server and the VM were configured with four processors, 30GB RAM and included matching disk and network subsystems to provide for an accurate comparison.
Based on these results they are ready to fully host www.microsoft.com web servers on Hyper-V and we’re targeting end of June for 50% of the load. As soon as they complete deployment of the new hardware infrastructure in diverse data centers, we’ll complete the full virtualization.
If you would like to see me try to speak to all of this, and about our team’s overall adoption success with Hyper-V in under five minutes you can find a short video noted below.
Also check out our TechCenter for further information about our group’s technology adoption efforts.
I believe overall this is a great way of approaching the virtualsation of a core workload. I would be interested in reading about your experience with Hyper-V.
The increasing use of virtual machines creates new challenges for IT.
Virtual machines that are left offline for extended periods of time do not automatically receive operating system, anti-virus, or application updates that would keep them compliant with current IT policy. An out-of-date virtual machine poses a risk to the IT environment. If deployed and started, the out-of-date virtual machine may be vulnerable to attack or may be capable of attacking other network resources.
The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool provides a way to automate the process of updating virtual machines with the latest OS patches.
The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool is built on Windows Workflow Foundation and the Windows PowerShellTM interface to manage the workflow of updating large numbers of offline virtual machines according to their individual needs. To do this, the tool works with Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 (VMM) and with software update management systems (at present, either Microsoft Windows Server® Update Services 3.0 (WSUS) or Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007). See adjacent figure for information on the flows between the tool and other system components
The tool uses “servicing jobs” to manage the update operations based on lists of existing virtual machines stored in VMM. Using Windows Workflow Foundation technology, a servicing job runs snippets of PowerShell scripts to work with virtual machines. For each virtual machine, the servicing job:
- “Wakes” the virtual machine (deploys it to a host and starts it).
- Triggers the appropriate software update cycle (Configuration Manager or WSUS).
- Shuts down the updated virtual machine and returns it to the library.
The tool works with Windows Task Scheduler to determine when to run the servicing job.
Download it at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501231(TechNet.10).aspx.
Interview with Mike Neil about Hyper-V RTM, including:
- Why Microsoft decided to get into the server virtualization environment.
- Changes between the various release candidates and RTM.
- Challenges encountered along the way.
- Where Hyper-V is heading.
- IT Pro challenges for deploying Hyper-V.
Architectural overview:
- Virtual service provider (VSP) virtual service client (VSC) and VMBus.
- Disk operations within the Hyper-V architecture.
- Comparison of fixed, dynamic, and differencing VHD disks.
Snapshots:
- How virtual machine snapshots work.
- How to properly export a specific VHD/snapshot.
- Limitations with multiple branches of snapshots.
Backing up Hyper-V virtual machines:
- Virtual machine snapshots and Volume Shadow copy Service snapshots (VSS).
- How VSS snapshots function.
- What happens with a backup for VSS and a non-VS aware operating system (e.g. Linux or Windows 2000 Server).
Disks and iSCSI:
- Determine when to use a pass-through disk.
- How iSCSI works and how to use it with Hyper-V.
- Learn some best practices for using iSCSI.
High availability:
- Guest operating system clustering.
- Virtualization platform clustering.
Eat your own dogfood - using Hyper-V at Microsoft IT
- How MSIT does server Virtualization and Hyper-V Part 1.
- How MSIT does server Virtualization and Hyper-V Part 2
The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is an integrated platform with tools and guidance that make it easier for you to assess your current IT infrastructure and determine the right Microsoft technologies for your IT needs. It offers easy inventory, powerful assessment and actionable recommendations for Windows Server 2008, Windows Server Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2, Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid), System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Windows Vista, 2007 Microsoft Office, and SQL Server. The popular Windows Vista Hardware Assessment readiness tool has now been replaced by the MAP toolkit platform.
This automation tool helps IT professionals and consultants like you establish a clearer understanding of your infrastructure, desktop and virtualization needs through network-wide assessment of your assets including desktops, laptops, servers, applications and network devices. Actionable recommendations are provided through the auto-generated migration proposal reports and documents.
In addition, the new MAP user interface also offers a "resource center" where users can download other relevant tools and useful resources such as white papers and technical guidance from Microsoft and other sources from the IT community.
What is new in MAP 3.1
- Hyper-V Server Consolidation Assessment
- Enhanced Virtual Machine Assessment
- SQL Server Discovery and Assessment
- PC Security Assessment
- 64-bit installation support (i.e. you can now install MAP on an inventory machine that has a 64-bit OS)
If you are interested in assessing your IT infrastructure and planning to migrate to Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2, SQL Server, Windows Vista, 2007 Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Application Virtualization, you should give this assessment and planning tool a try.
- Download MAP 3.1
- Read more about MAP
- View demos on Team Blog
- Join the MAP's Fan Club and meet other users on Facebook
- View a recent TechNet Edge video interview on MAP and IPD Guides
The Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) series provides guidance for Microsoft infrastructure products, including Windows Server 2008 and SoftGrid. The series is a collection of documents that will lead the reader through a sequence of core decision points to design an infrastructure for Microsoft products. It also provides a means to validate design decisions with the business to ensure that the solution meets the requirements of both business and infrastructure stakeholders.
The IPD documents are designed to be used by the following IT personnel:
- Infrastructure planners and architects who have a firm operational grasp of the technology.
- Partners and consultants who design infrastructure solutions.
- Business managers who want to understand how the technology decisions being made both support and affect the business.
Infrastructure Planning and Design guides share a common structure, including:
- Definition of the technical decision flow through the planning process.
- Listing of decisions to be made and the commonly available options and considerations.
- Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
- Framing decisions in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive alignment with the appropriate business landscape.
These guides complement product documentation by focusing on infrastructure design options.
Each guide leads the reader through critical infrastructure design decisions, in the appropriate order, evaluating the available options for each decision against its impact on critical characteristics of the infrastructure. The IPD Series highlights when service and infrastructure goals should be validated with the organization and provides additional questions that should be asked of service stakeholders and decision makers.
IPD consists of the following downloadable packages:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AD3921FB-8224-4681-9064-075FDF042B0C&displaylang=en
The IPD guides are complimented by the Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool.
Please check this IPD Guide webcast that talks about the Hyper-V and Terminal Services scenario
Hyper-V, a key feature of Windows Server 2008, has now released to manufacturing (RTM) and is available for deployment into production environments. A beta of Hyper-V was included with Windows Server 2008 and this update provides the final release.
Server virtualization, also known as hardware virtualization, is a hot topic in the IT world because of the potential for serious economic benefits. Server virtualization enables multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine as virtual machines (VMs). With server virtualization, you can consolidate workloads of underutilized server machines onto a smaller number of fully utilized machines. Fewer physical machines can lead to reduced costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead, plus the creation of a more dynamic IT infrastructure. To learn more about Microsoft and virtualization, please visit the Virtualization Web site, or the Virtualization TechCenter.
With Windows Server 2008, everything needed to support server virtualization is available as an integral feature of the operating system as Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. With Hyper-V as a role, plus flexible licensing policies, it's now easier than ever to take advantage of the cost savings of virtualization through Windows Server 2008:
Microsoft has now released the final version of Hyper-V, which is now available for download. You can download the update for Hyper-V RTM here and experience the improved stability, usability and performance.
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NTFS,
Windows ServerRecommended disk cluster size for NTFS
During windows installation windows formats the partition based on the geometry of the disk, following table shows what is the recommended cluster size based on the size.
| CLUSTER SIZE | MAX NTFS VOLUME SIZE (bytes RAW) |
| 512 | 2,199,023,255,552 (2TB) |
| 1024 | 4,398,046,511,104 (4TB) |
| 2048 | 8,796,093,022,208 (8TB) |
| 4096 | 17,592,186,044,416 (17TB) |
| 8192 | 35,184,372,088,832 (35TB) |
| 16384 | 70,368,744,177,664 (70TB) |
| 32768 | 140,737,488,355,328 (140TB) |
| 65536 | 281,474,976,710,656 (281TB) |
Once a partition is formatted with a cluster size, the only way to change the cluster size is to format the disk again and specifying the cluster size using format command or from GUI.
NTFS Optimization
If you investigate your storage needs, you can tune some of global NTFS parameters to achieve significant increase of disk performance. Other techniques like disk defrag could help you either.
Define Cluster Size Properly
Cluster is an allocation unit. If you create file lets say 1 byte in size, at least one cluster should be allocated on FAT file system.
On NTFS if file is small enough, it can be stored in MFT record itself without using additional clusters. When file grows beyond the cluster boundary, another cluster is allocated. It means that the bigger the cluster size, the more disk space is wasted; however, the performance is better.
The following table shows the default values that Windows uses for NTFS formatting:
| Drive size (logical volume) | Cluster size | Sectors |
| 512 MB or less | 512 bytes | 1 |
| 513 MB - 1,024 MB (1 GB) | 1,024 bytes (1 KB) | 2 |
| 1,025 MB - 2,048 MB (2 GB) | 2,048 bytes (2 KB) | 4 |
| 2,049 MB and larger | 4,096 bytes (4 KB) | 8 |
However, when you format the partition manually, you can specify cluster size 512 bytes, 1 KB, 2 KB, 4 KB, 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB in the format dialog box or as a parameter to the command line FORMAT utility.
We know that if we format the partition manually, you can specify cluster size 512 bytes, 1 KB, 2 KB, 4 KB, 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB in the format dialog box or as a parameter to the command line FORMAT utility.
So to proceed with the best practices we must determine average file size and format the partition accordingly.
On Volumes, having cluster size more than 4 KB compression is not supported
Some Microsoft white papers on disk subsystem performance and SAN recommendations:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/storage/indextecharticle.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/fileconsol.mspx
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/b/5/5b5bec17-ea71-4653-9539-204a672f11cf/LocFileSys.doc”
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/subsys_perf.mspx
Windows Server 2008 Improvements that Benefit Exchange
Windows Server 2008 includes a number of improvements and enhancements that can directly benefit servers running Exchange 2007 SP1. There are many benefits to running Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008. Just to name a few:
- Support for multi-subnet failover clusters When running in a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster, Exchange 2007 SP1 includes support for geographically dispersed clusters for failover across two subnets. This support includes both Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) environments and Single Copy Clusters (SCC).
- Faster log file shipping Cluster Continuous Replication and Standby Continuous Replication are two forms of log shipping that use the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol to copy log files from a source storage group to a passive or target storage group. Windows Server 2008 includes SMB version 2, which provides a significant increase (around 30-40%) in SMB-based file copying throughput and performance.
- Reduced downtime for hardware maintenance Windows Server 2008 enables a variety of core hardware components to be added, removed or replaced without requiring system downtime. These processes are often referred to as "hot add", "hot remove", "hot replace" because the system remains active and continues providing service and data access while the hardware maintenance is occurring. Dynamic hardware partitioning in Windows Server 2008 includes support for hot add and replacement of processors and memory, as well as hot pluggable PCI Express cards. Of course, support for this is available only with the appropriate hardware. If you're not sure if your hardware is capable of running Windows Server 2008, you can download the Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool to securely inventory your existing servers and generate a migration report for Windows Server 2008.
- Near-zero downtime when fixing NTFS corruption In Windows Server 2003 and earlier, fixing NTFS corruption required taking the server offline to run the Chkdsk utility. The downtime associated with this process can be significant, particularly when the volume being checked is quite large. Windows Server 2008 includes a feature called self-healing NTFS, which attempts to correct corruptions of an NTFS file system while the system is online, and without requiring Chkdsk to be run. With self-healing NTFS, the file system is always available, NTFS corrects all detected problems while the system is running, and Chkdsk does not have to run in its exclusive mode except in extreme conditions.
- Greater scalability for Client Access servers that provide Outlook Anywhere services Windows Server 2008 includes a Next Generation TCP/IP stack that removes the RPC Proxy Service TCP connection limits imposed by Windows Server 2003 and earlier versions of Windows. Specifically, the RPC Proxy Service, the Windows component that enables RPC over HTTP, now supports per-IP address connection-limits. Whereas the RPC Proxy Service in Windows Server 2003 supports a maximum of 65,535 connections, regardless of the number of IP addresses assigned to the server, the RPC Proxy Service in Windows Server 2008 supports a maximum of 65,535 connections per IP address.
- Easier deployment Windows Server 2008 includes Exchange 2007 installation dependencies, such as Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0, Windows PowerShell, and .NET Framework 2.0. As a result, you don't need to separately download these prerequisites in order to deploy Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008. Instead, you can quickly install them from the new Server Manager MMC console in Windows Server 2008, or install them from the command-line version of Server Manager.
- Support for IPv6 Windows Server 2008 includes support for IPv6, and Exchange 2007 SP1 supports IPv6 on Windows Server 2008 when used in tandem with IPv4. For more information, see IPv6 Support in Exchange 2007 SP1.
To run Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 you will require Exchange Server 2007 SP1 no other version of Exchange Server, including the released to manufacturing version of Exchange 2007, is supported on Windows Server 2008. Also remember that since Exchange 2007 SP1 is a 64 bit version only you will require x64 version of Windows Server 2008.
Let's look at things to know when running Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008
In-Place Upgrade of Operating System
It is NOT possible to do an in-place upgrade from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008 when Exchange 2007 RTM or Exchange 2007 SP1 is installed. You must first uninstall Exchange, Windows PowerShell and other components (assuming the system is a standalone server and not clustered), and then upgrade the operating system from 2003 to 2008, or you must perform a migration by using the Move-Mailbox functions or database portability to migrate from your existing server to a new server.
Exchange-Aware Backups on Windows Server 2008
Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows Server 2008 does not include a backup utility that supports the Exchange ESE streaming backup APIs. The Windows 2008 backup application, Windows Server Backup, cannot be used to take backups of Exchange.
Exchange still includes the ESE streaming backup APIs, but the absence of an Exchange-aware backup application in Windows may come as a surprise to many. Another change we made that may also affect you is the removal of remote streaming backup support on Windows 2008.
This leaves you with two choices for taking Exchange-aware online backups when running Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows 2008:
- Move to a Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)-based backup application. You can use Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 or a third-party backup application that supports Exchange-aware VSS-based backups of Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008. Windows Server Backup in Windows 2008 is a VSS-based backup application, but there are additional requirements for Exchange backups and restores beyond using the VSS Framework; for example, checking the database and log files for corruption during backups is not part of the VSS Framework and it is not performed by Windows Server Backup.
- Use a Third-Party application that supports ESE streaming backups using a local backup agent on the Exchange server. Because the ESE streaming APIs remain in Exchange 2007, you can still use them to backup Exchange. But to do that, you must use a third-party backup application that runs a local agent on the Exchange server so that the streaming backup is made locally, and not remotely. You cannot take remote streaming backups of Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows 2008 with or without a third-party product. Any streaming backups that are performed must be performed locally on the Exchange server. An ESE streaming backup application that uses an "agent" locally on the Exchange server to remotely backup Exchange is considered a local streaming backup and not a remote streaming backup because the application’s agent component is running locally on the Exchange server.
Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODC)
Windows Server 2008 introduces the concept of read-only domain controllers (RODCs) and read-only global catalog servers (ROGCs). RODCs and ROGCs provide a way to deploy an Active Directory directory server more securely in locations that require fast and reliable authentication services but cannot ensure physical security for a writable domain controller. For more information about RODCs, see AD DS: Read-Only Domain Controllers.
Microsoft Exchange does NOT uses read-only domain controllers or read-only global catalog servers because all versions of Exchange require the ability to write configuration information to Active Directory. Microsoft Exchange works in environments that include read-only domain controllers or read-only global catalog servers, as long as there are writeable domain controllers available. Exchange 2007 effectively ignores read-only domain controllers and read-only global catalog servers, and Exchange 2007 requires a writable directory server in the Active Directory Site containing Exchange 2007 servers or users.
Cross-Operating System Feature Support
Some Exchange 2007 SP1 features require the same operating system in order to use them. For example, Standby Continuous Replication (SCR), a new type of log shipping in SP1 that can replicate data from a source to multiple targets, requires that the source and all targets run the same operating system. This means that you cannot have a source running Windows Server 2003 that replicates to a target running Windows Server 2008.
Another example is management of cluster continuous replication environments and single copy clusters. Windows Server 2008 represents a clean break from the Cluster APIs included in earlier versions of Windows Server. Because the Cluster service does not allow you to use the cluster management tools for remote administration of failover clusters across different operating systems, you cannot use the Exchange management tools for remote administration of failover clusters across different operating systems.
Meeting the Prerequisites
Once you're ready to deploy Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008, you'll want to first make sure you've met all of the necessary pre-requisites. One important pre-requisite to keep in mind is the installation option for Windows Server 2008. I am referring to the "Server Core" installation option and the "Full" installation option for Windows Server 2008.
Windows Installation Options and Exchange Server 2007 SP1
The Server Core installation option is a new for Windows Server 2008. A Server Core installation provides a minimal environment for running specific server roles that reduces the maintenance and management requirements and the attack surface for those server roles. To provide this minimal environment, a Server Core installation installs only the subset of the binaries that are required by the supported server roles.
As you probably already know, Exchange 2007 is the first application that leverages and integrates with the Windows PowerShell. As you may also already know, much of Exchange 2007 is written in managed code that uses the .NET Framework. Neither Windows PowerShell, nor the .NET Framework can be installed on the Server Core version of Windows Server 2008. As a result, the Server Core version of Windows Server 2008 cannot be used to host Exchange 2007 SP1. Instead, you must use the Full Version installation option.
After you've installed Windows Server 2008, you must install other prerequisites before you can install Exchange 2007 SP1. Instructions for installing these prerequisites can be found here.
Known Incompatibilities
One known Exchange-related incompatibility with Windows Server 2008 is the downloadable Messaging API Client and Collaboration Data Objects 1.2.1 package. Currently this tools package operates on Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP. We're working on validating these tools against Windows Server 2008 and expect to have an updated version released.
Migrating to Windows Server 2008
Our official guidance and procedures for migrating Exchange 2007 from the Windows Server 2003 operating system to the Windows Server 2008 operating system can be found in this month's Exchange Server TechCenter Feature Article, Migrating Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2003 to Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008.
For More Information
I was recently watching a movie Step Up 2 The Streets and this got me thinking about how customers that I talk to want to Step up their IT infrastructure to the next level to given them edge in the market that they play in.
As a Technology Specialist for Windows Server I tend to spend a lot of time talking to Enterprise customers in Australia regards their IT Infrastructure. The conversation revolves mainly around how Microsoft and it's integrated platform can help them Step Up to the next level in their IT Infrastructure maturity. There are models that I use to understand the current status of the customers IT Infrastructure, specifically The Infrastructure Optimisation Model.
What is The Infrastructure Optimisation Model
The Infrastructure Optimisation Model helps customers realize dramatic cost savings for their IT infrastructure by moving from an unmanaged environment towards a dynamic environment. Security improves from highly vulnerable in a Basic infrastructure to dynamically proactive in a more mature infrastructure. IT infrastructure management changes from highly manual and reactive to highly automated and proactive.
Microsoft and partners can provide the technologies, processes, and procedures to help customers move through the infrastructure optimization journey. Processes move from fragmented or nonexistent to optimized and repeatable. A customer's ability to use technology to improve their business agility and deliver business value increases as they move from the Basic state up the continuum toward a Dynamic state, empowering information workers, managers, and supporting new business opportunities.
By working with Microsoft and using this model as a framework, an enterprise can quickly understand the strategic value and business benefits to the organization in moving from a "basic" level of maturity (where the IT infrastructure is generally considered a cost centre) towards a more "dynamic" use, where the business value of the IT infrastructure is clearly understood and the IT infrastructure is viewed as a strategic business asset and business enabler.
This leads to a Dynamic IT discussion. At Tech•Ed 2007, Bob Muglia (Senior Vice President, Microsoft Server & Tools Business) took Microsoft’s commitment another step further, introducing the company’s comprehensive strategy for Dynamic IT for the People-Ready Business (Dynamic IT). Building on the company’s Dynamic System Initiative and ongoing Application Platform efforts, Dynamic IT is Microsoft’s long-term strategy to provide customers with critical technologies to enable IT and development organizations to become more strategic to the business.
“Our customer promises reflect the most important things we have heard from customers about their top priorities as they look to make IT a strategic asset for their businesses,” Muglia said. “Dynamic IT is our long-term technical approach to help customers ultimately realize those promises.”
Dig deeper into Dynamic IT vision from Microsoft and you will find that Virtualisation is a key enabler of the Dynamic IT vision. In order to achieve Dynamic IT, companies need a virtualisation strategy that mobilizes and manages the resources of the entire infrastructure, both virtual and physical, to meet fast-moving business demands. The right virtualisation strategy - applied within an effective licensing structure - can enable IT to deliver faster and more reliable service, free up critical resources to address larger business goals, reduce costs, and ultimately achieve competitive advantage through business agility.
How do you plan for a Virtualised IT Infrastrcuture?
Microsoft recently announce The Microsoft® Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator (MAP) which makes it easy for you to assess your current IT infrastructure and determine the right Microsoft technologies for your IT needs.
MAP is a powerful inventory, assessment, and reporting tool that can securely run in small or large IT environments without requiring the installation of agent software on any computers or devices. The data and analysis provided by this Solution Accelerator can significantly simplify the planning process for migrating to Windows Vista®, Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Server® 2008, Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid), and Windows Server virtualization technologies including Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator expands upon the assessment features included in the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Solution Accelerator. These features include Windows Vista assessment, Microsoft Office 2007 assessment, and non-Windows device inventory, using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator performs three key functions; hardware inventory, compatibility analysis, and readiness reporting.
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Get the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator
Windows Search 4.0 lets you perform an instant search of your computer. Windows Search 4.0 helps you find and preview documents, e-mail messages, music files, photos, and other items on the computer.
The search engine in Windows Search 4.0 is a Microsoft Windows service that is also used by programs such as Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Office OneNote 2007. You can use this search engine to index a program's content and to obtain instant results when you search in a particular program.
Windows Search 4.0 includes the following improvements:
- Support for the Encrypting File System (EFS)
- Reduced affect on Microsoft Exchange when you index e-mail in online mode, and there is no local cache (.ost)
- Support for indexing online delegate mailboxes
- Support for client-to-client remote query to shared indexed locations
- Improved indexing performance
- Faster previewer updates for Windows XP
- Per-user Group Policy settings
- Windows software updates for Watson errors
Support for the following new enterprise Group Policy objects:
Computer policies
- Prevent adding Universal Naming Convention (UNC) locations to index from Control Panel
- Prevent customizing indexed locations in Control Panel
- Prevent automatically adding shared folders to the index
- Allow for indexing of encrypted files
- Disable indexer back-off
- Prevent clients from querying the index remotely
- Allow for indexing of online delegate mailboxes
- Prevent adding user
- Specified locations to the All Locations menu
- Enable throttling for online mail indexing
Per-user policies
- Prevent adding UNC locations to the index from Control Panel
- Prevent customizing indexed locations in Control Panel
- Prevent indexing certain paths
- Default indexed paths
- Default excluded paths
To download Windows Search 4.0 Preview, click on the appropriate link for your version of Windows:
Special Coverage: Windows Server 2008: Inside Windows Server 2008 Kernel Changes
Dive in to our detailed tour of key changes in the Windows Server 2008 kernel that improve reliability, performance, and scalability. Find out how Windows Server 2008 makes better use of thread pools, streamlines recovery from hardware failures, improves virtualization with Hyper-V, and more. Mark Russinovich
Special Coverage: Windows Server 2008: What's New in Active Directory Domain Services
Windows Server 2008 introduces some substantial enhancements to Active Directory Domain Services. Take a close look at how read-only domain controllers and Windows Server Core improve security in your environment, how the new Server Manager and revamped backup simplify management, and how the new auditing tools help ensure compliance. Gil Kirkpatrick
Special Coverage: Windows Server 2008: Getting Started with IIS 7.0
IIS 7.0 is packed with new features—too many to include in a single article. The new version builds on the solid, securityfocused design you got with IIS 6.0, providing enhancements that greatly improve the manageability and extensibility of the platform. Get an overview of some of the most important changes in IIS 7.0. Isaac Roybal
Special Coverage: Windows Server 2008: Policy-Driven Network Access with Windows Server 2008
How do you allow network access to those who need it without sacrificing security? See how new technologies in Windows Server 2008, such as Windows Firewall with Advanced Security and Network Access Protection, let you implement a policy-based approach to help you achieve this goal. Ian Hameroff and Amith Krishnan 62 Configuring Roles with Server Manager A DNS server need not be a print server. One approach Windows Server 2008 takes to improve security and manageability is to simplify server roles so you can easily install only the tools and services you need, and nothing more. Here's an introduction to using Server Manager for configuring roles and simplifying deployments. Ian Hameroff and Amith Krishnan
Special Coverage: Windows Server 2008: Configuring Roles with Server Manager
A DNS server need not be a print server. One approach Windows Server 2008 takes to improve security and manageability is to simplify server roles so you can easily install only the tools and services you need, and nothing more. Here's an introduction to using Server Manager for configuring roles and simplifying deployments. Byron Hynes
Special Coverage: Windows Server 2008: Deploying Windows Server 2008 with System Center
It used to be that server administrators would install Windows Server manually using the CD or DVD and then spend several hours configuring the server. With the release of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and the new Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, server administrators can now use the same tools that desktop administrators have been using for years to automate deployments. Tim Mintner
Special Coverage: Windows Server 2008: Auditing and Compliance in Windows Server 2008
Auditing change is now a core responsibility for IT departments. It is an essential part of understanding and managing systems and data in a distributed environment. This article discusses common challenges, the landscape of compliance and regulation, some of the basics of auditing, and how you can create a comprehensive auditing strategy. Rob Campbell and Joel Yoker
Like many large organizations, Microsoft has a geographically dispersed work force. With more than 78,000 employees in 78 countries worldwide, Microsoft faces continual challenges with making corporate information easily available to workers from remote locations and with ensuring that important internal company information is as secure as possible.
Although the vast majority of Microsoft employees have individual personal computers available from which to access company resources, the following two situations frequently occur at Microsoft:
- Staff members need to access internal company resources from home or from a remote location.
- Staff members who are involved in meetings or presentations at remote locations require quick access to internal company resources.
These resources may include any of the following:
- Documents that are located on internal servers at Microsoft.
- Internal business programs that are available only from inside the corporate network.
- Personal workstations that contain important files or programs. For example, developers at Microsoft often need to connect to their individual workstations from remote locations to access programming tools or code.
To meet these requirements, Microsoft maintains a Windows® Terminal Services environment. This environment enables staff members to log on to the Microsoft corporate network and then access terminal servers that are running various internal business applications.
Read more about it at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc304366.aspx
Terminal Services presentation virtualisation accelerates application deployments and enables any client to run any application. Terminal Services instantly web-enables rich applications to efficiently connect remote workers from managed or unmanaged devices. By using Terminal Services users can keep critical intellectual property secure and radically simplify regulatory compliance by removing applications and data from the desktop.
View the webcast at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032368950&CountryCode=US
There are two update packages for the Hyper-V Release Candidate.
Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB949219)
This package includes the following items:
• The updated version of the Hyper-V Manager console and of the Virtual Machine Connection remote connection tool for x86-based versions of Windows Server 2008
• The updated version of the Integration Services for x86-based versions of Windows Server 2008
To install the latest version of the Integration Services for x86-based versions of Windows Server 2008, you must install this package in the virtual machine and on computers that are running the x86-based version of Windows Server 2008.
Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB949219)
This package includes the following items:
- • The updated version of the Hyper-V role
- • The updated version of the Hyper-V Manager console and of the Virtual Machine Connection remote connection tool for x64-based versions of Windows Server 2008
- •The updated version of the Integration Services for the following operating systems:
- •Windows Server 2008, x64-based versions only
- •Windows Server 2003, x86-based versions and x64-based versions
- •Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), x86-based versions only
- •Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), x86-based versions only
To install the latest version of the Integration Services for x64-based versions of Windows Server 2008, you must install this package in the virtual machine and on computers that are running the x64-based version of Windows Server 2008.
To install the latest version of the Integration Services for Windows Server 2003, for Windows Vista SP1, and for Windows XP SP3, click Insert Integration Services Setup Disk on the Action menu in the Virtual Machine Connection dialog box.
Note On a Windows Vista-based computer, the updated Integration Services are listed in Programs and Features as KB949757.
Requirements for the update
- •The release version of Windows Server 2008 must be installed on the computer.
- •The "Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB949219)" package requires an x86-based version of Windows Server 2008.
- •The "Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB949219)" package requires an x64-based version of Windows Server 2008.
How to obtain the update
The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB949219), 32-bit versions
Download the Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB949219), 32-bit versions package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7464B44-821D-4A7C-9D9C-7D74EC14437C)
Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB949219), 64-bit versions
Download the Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB949219), 64-bit versions package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DDD94DDA-9D31-4E6D-88A0-1939DE3E9898)
Note You must install the "Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB949219)" package on a computer that is running the Hyper-V role before you can apply the package to the Windows Server 2008 virtual machines.
You can find the Hyper-V Manager MMC here, there's versions for both x64 and x86.
These tools allow you to manage and interact with an installation of Hyper-V from your Vista computer in exactly the same manner that you do on a full installation of Windows Server 2008. Note that you need to have SP1 installed on Vista in order for this to work.
Also be aware that installing the Hyper-V management tools will create a shortcut for our MMC snap-in the "Administrative Tools" folder - which is not displayed under Vista by default. You need to enable this folder under the start menu properties to have it displayed.
Also note that you will need to enable WMI between your computer (per this article: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa389290(VS.85).aspx).
Vista x64 Edition: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=450931F5-EBEC-4C0B-95BD-E3BA19D296B1&displaylang=en
Vista x86 Edition: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BC3D09CC-3752-4934-B84C-905E78BE50A1&displaylang=en
