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In this post I’ll talk you through how I have created a Hyper-V Failover Cluster on my single laptop. To build a Failover Cluster you need a SAN.  I use the Microsoft iSCSI target software that ships with Windows Storage Server.  Being a Microsoft employee I have access to the bits, so I have...

This post is an introduction to how I have configured my demo laptop.  I can comfortably run eleven VMs on the one laptop, including a two node Hyper-V cluster, App-V and the four main System Center products (Virtual Machine Manager, Data Protection Manager, Operations Manager and Configuration...

Welcome to the Irish Microsoft Technology Conference 2008 Co-organised with the Irish Microsoft Technology User Group and First Port Jobs, it's an event by the Irish technology community for the Irish technology community. The registration fee (€189) is just to cover costs but it does get you lots...

I'd really like to get to the bottom of this. In the event of a hardware failure , both VMware and Microsoft's Server Virtualisation solutions are equal - the guest machines will be restarted on another physical node. In the event of some planned downtime , we both have the ability to move the guest...

Thanks for your comments on my last post. I've commented myself, but just in case you aren't reading the comments - here's my reply to Kim: So http://itcomparison.com/Virtualization/MShypervvsvi35/HyperVvsvmware35esx.htm is a great comparison of a production product (VMware) and a beta (Hyper-V)....

I was just reading Yankee Group's report - " Virtualization Price War: VMware's Little Big Horn? ", and just had to share this with you (I think it speaks for itself): If you haven't got access to the report (which we didn't pay for - before you ask), just ask & I'll get you a copy. Dave...

Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate zero (RC0) and Release Candidate 1 (RC1) came with Windows Server Virtualisation (and Hyper-V) in them as a Customer Technology Preview (CTP). We've just released a build of Windows Server RC1 with the Beta of Hyper-V in it. This beta has loads of features/functionality...

http://www.virtualization.info/2007/12/patch-tuesday-for-vmware.html Dave

Microsoft has just announced that we are extending the Open Specification Promise (OSP) to the hypercall API within Windows Server Virtualisation. The hypercall API enables partners to develop solutions with Windows Server virtualisation allowing customers to achieve dynamic IT environments. These APIs...

Looks like I've upset a few people. Sorry, that wasn't my intention. I get to talk to a lot of people about a lot of stuff. Virtualisation is one of them, and all I ever hear is VMware this and VMware that (and next to no one knows what Microsoft currently offer - or have coming down the line). I've...

I was reading this article about the up-and-coming ESX Server 3i from VMware. It calls out a bunch on "new features" that we have either been doing for ages, or have announced that we will have in Windows Server Virtualisation (WSV), when we ship Windows Server 2008 - I'm confused (seems like someone...

Last Friday I spoke at an event run by MJ Flood (a local partner). The format was something new to me (and something that I really enjoyed). There was around fifty of us in the room and we all got to listen to the main presentation (PowerPoint slides for half an hour or so explaining Microsoft's Core...

I've been talking about and showing you Windows Server Virtualisation (WSV) for a good while now (it's our new Hypervisor based Virtualisation solution coming out with Windows Server 2008). Well, the cat's out of the bag now - you'll all be ably to 'play' with it as soon as the next public beta of Windows...

Microsoft's new Virtualisation website has just gone live. The content is nothing new - but having it all in one place is pretty neat. This is a one-stop-shop for everything virtual - downloads, white papers, pointers to blogs and events. Covering all of our virtualisation technologies (Virtual PC, Virtual...

As promised, here's some more useful resources about Virtualisation: The Virtual Server Community site looks like it's becoming 'the place to go' for Virtualisation info. The MSPress Virtual Server 2005 Resource Kit isn't out yet (not until the 22nd August), but there are some Sample Chapters available...

So, the Microsoft Windows Virtualisation Product Group's Team Blog is here: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/ (note they spell Virtualisation wrong - well in the American way). There's been some pretty good videos posted recently too: http://www.microsoft.com/emea/itsshowtime/sessionh.aspx?videoid...

VS Community is the new online technical community with a focus on Microsoft virtualization technology. This community has the goal of bringing together the latest industry news, product use guidance, and virtualization project guidelines to assist IT professionals in successfully converting and optimizing...

I've been telling people for ages that they don't need to install IIS just to run Virtual Server (you only need IIS on the machine where you want to run the Administration Web Site). Well, now we've released VMRCplus (an alternate UI for managing Virtual Server). We rarely receive complaints about...

Licensing Virtualisation isn't as hard as you'd think. Basically if it's running you have to be licensed. There's also a lot of FUD out there that would have you believe that Microsoft is 'cheating' to make it more affordable to use our virtualisation stack (this isn't true - the licensing rules are...

Has released! Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 went live yesterday - you can download it for free now. There are a ton of great things in SP1 including support for hardware assisted virtualisation technology (both AMD and Intel), support for Volume Shadow Copy Service (snapshot backups of running virtual machines...

I did this afternoon (well, I was doing admin tasks) - whilst doing that I watched Bob Muglia's keynote presentation from TechEd in Orlando . It is/was very good, so if you do have an hour and a half to spare, I'd recommend it. If you haven't got that long, how about nine and a half minutes? There's...

I've been doing a lot of talks on Microsoft and Virtualisation recently. The topic that seems to get a lot of interest is how we use Virtual Server and Clustering together to provide high availability. Basically Virtual Server is a 'clusterable resource' - which means that any guest virtual machine can...

Big thanks to Robert for pointing out that the link to my Virtualisation slides wasn't working. It is now - you can download the PowerPoint slides from my Virtualisation session here . They're in a 12.5Mb ZIP file. Dave.

Just wanted to post a reference to the great book on Virtual Server 2005 that I mentioned yesterday. The book is called: Professional Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 (Paperback) by B. Armstrong (Author) Some of the chapter titles: · Installing Guest Operating Systems · Creating a Virtual Machine Library...

I've recently delivered two presentations that cover Microsoft's Virtualisation story. The agenda was this: Microsoft’s Virtualisation Strategy Microsoft’s Virtualisation Products: Today Virtual PC Virtual Server SoftGrid (Clustering, Terminal Services, MOM) Microsoft’s Virtualisation Products: Tomorrow...