Virtualization: Revolution of the evolving datacenter

On the road for MMS and TechEd 2013

hector.linares — Wed, 29 May 2013 01:32:51 GMT

MMS and TechEd season is here and in full swing. MMS in Vegas was a great success and I really enjoyed spending time with customers and partners all week. Next week is TechEd in New Orleans! Make sure to visit the Content Catalog and prepare your schedule for the week.

While updating some info about my session (MDC-B344 on storage management), I noticed many of my colleagues are presenting as well. Here is the list of sessions I recommend you consider attending while at TechEd. Here is the list for TechEd Europe.

Save travels and see you at one or both TechEds!

Simplicity is Key to Private Cloud from Microsoft (cross post)

hector.linares — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:48:28 GMT

Source:http://community.brocade.com/community/brocadeblogs/data_center/blog/2012/04/25/simplicity-is-key-to-private-cloud-from-microsoft

By Sue Hartford, Microsoft Global Alliance Manager at Brocade

Simplicity was a key message in Brad Anderson’s keynote at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas this month. And he’s right on target. Because let’s face it … if the cost and complexity of deploying private cloud are too high, they erase many of the cost benefits of cloud computing.

System Center 2012 delivers on that goal with many improvements to simplify IT’s efforts in building a private cloud, from its simplified licensing (now only two SKU’s which both feature all System Center modules) to simplified deployment of all the technology required to build a private cloud. One example of this is the new System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) load balancer provider that allows IT admins to more easily deploy and provision network and load balancing services from within VMM.

Brocade presents the new ADX load balancer provider to provide integration between the ServerIron ADX series of application delivery switches and VMM. With this integrated solution, IT admins can use VMM to provision both application and network resources from within the VMM console. For example, IT can efficiently manage application resources, automatically provision service requests, and offer the highest application performance and service levels for users in a cost-efficient manner. The result is an agile, elastic application delivery solution for cloud-optimized environments.

Read more about it in the article by Jason Bovberg in Windows IT Pro: http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/system-center/mms-2012-brocades-adx-load-balancer-provider-offers-toptier-performance-142877 or visit www.brocade.com/systemcenter.

FI-B322 - Scripts used during MMS 2012 PowerShell session

hector.linares — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:52:00 GMT

Hello everyone,

For all of those attending MMS 2012, hope you are having a great week!

As promised here is the PowerShell session (FI-B322), script used during the session.

#set script variables
$vmNamePrefix = "COMBINEDDEMO"
#set random number
$global:Rand = (new-object random)
$random = $rand.Next(100,999)
#Get Template by name
($t = Get-SCVMtemplate | where {$_.Name -eq "W2K8R2SP1_Template"}) | fl Name, OperatingSystem, VirtualizationPlatform
#create a copy of the template that you will modify
($template = New-SCVMtemplate -VMTemplate $t -Name ("Temporary" + $vmNamePrefix + "Template")) | fl Name, OperatingSystem, VirtualizationPlatform
##########
#set the OU
(Set-SCVMTemplate -VMTemplate $template -DomainJoinOrganizationalUnit "OU=Test1,DC=contoso,DC=lab") | fl Name, DomainJoinOrganizationalUnit
##########
#get runasaccount which will serve as auto logon credential
($raa = Get-SCRunAsAccount -Name "MMS Build Account") | fl Name, Username, Domain
#set auto logon credential and autologoncount (must be set together)
(Set-SCVMTemplate -VMTemplate $template -AutoLogonCredential $raa -AutoLogonCount 10) | fl Name, AutoLogonCredential, AutoLogonCount
#######
#get unattend settings object
($unattend = $template.UnattendSettings) | Out-Null
#add key/value pairs to unattend settings
#Configuration Pass ID mapping
# windowsPE = 0
# offlineServicing = 1
# generalize = 2
# specialize = 3
# auditsystem =4
# audituser = 5
# oobesystem = 6
#The relevant passes for VM deployment are oobesystem (6) and specialize (3)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/InputLocale”, “0411:e0010411”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/SystemLocale”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UILanguage”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UILanguageFallback”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UserLocale”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/InputLocale”, “0411:e0010411”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/SystemLocale”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UILanguage”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UILanguageFallback”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-International-Core/UserLocale”, “ja-jp”)
$unattend.Add(“6/Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup/AutoLogon/Domain”, “contoso”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-OutOfBoxExperience/DoNotOpenInitialConfigurationTasksAtLogon”, “true”)
$unattend.Add(“3/Microsoft-Windows-ServerManager-SvrMgrNc/DoNotOpenServerManagerAtLogon”, “true”)

$unattend | fl Key, Value
#commit unattend to template
(Set-SCVMtemplate -VMtemplate $template -UnattendSettings $unattend) | Out-Null
#######
#Create new VM config from template
($vmconfig = New-SCVMConfiguration -VMTemplate $template -Name ($vmNamePrefix + "_Config")) | fl Name
#Get VMhost object
($vmhost = Get-SCVMHost -ComputerName "VMMLab1823N2.contoso.lab") | fl Name, VirtualizationPlatform
#Set destination to specific host
(Set-SCVMConfiguration -VMConfiguration $vmconfig -VMHost $vmhost -VMLocation ("C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\VMs\" + $vmNamePrefix) -ComputerName ($vmNamePrefix + $random)) | fl Name, ComputerName, VMLocation, VMHost
#update VM config object with placement recommendations
Update-SCVMConfiguration -VMConfiguration $vmconfig | Out-Null
#create the differencing disk
$VHDService = get-wmiobject -class "Msvm_ImageManagementService" -namespace "root\virtualization" -computername $vmhost.Name
($VHDService.CreateDifferencingVirtualHardDisk(("C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\VMs\" + $vmNamePrefix + "\" + $vmNamePrefix + ".VHD"),"C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\BASEVHDs\W2K8R2SP1.VHD")) | fl ReturnValue
#Update VHD information
(Set-SCVirtualHardDiskConfiguration -VHDConfiguration $vmconfig.VirtualHardDiskConfigurations[0] -DestinationLocation ("C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\VMs\" + $vmNamePrefix) -FileName ($vmNamePrefix + ".VHD") -DeploymentOption "UseExistingVirtualDisk") | fl DeploymentOption, FileName, DestinationLocation
#create VM
($vm = New-SCVirtualMachine -VMConfiguration $vmconfig -Name $vmNamePrefix -StartVM) | fl Name, VirtualizationPlatform, HostGroupPath

#####
#send power state info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key "PowerState1" -Value "1. ON")
#####
#Suspend VM and write KVPs
Suspend-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
#send power state info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key "PowerState2" -Value "2. Pause")
#####
#Save state VM
Resume-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
Stop-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm -SaveState | Out-Null
#send power state info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key "PowerState3" -Value "3. Save")
#####
#shutdown VM and write KVPs
Start-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
Stop-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm -Shutdown | Out-Null
#send power state info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key "PowerState4" -Value "4. OFF")
#####
#start VM and check
Start-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
#use KVP to pass in new IP information
#get basic information
(Read-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -Key FullyQualifiedDomainName | select KVPMAP).KVPMAP
#get multiple values
$info = @{"FullyQualifiedDomainName"="";"NetworkAddressIPv4"="";"NetworkAddressIPv6"=""}
(Read-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -KVPMap $info | Select KVPMAP).KVPMAP
#Pass new IP settings
#get mac address of NIC
Read-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
($nic1mac = $vm.VirtualNetworkAdapters[0].MacAddress)
#build kvp map with new IP information
$NICIP = @{("["+$nic1mac+"]"+"IPAddress")="10.1.1.34";("["+$nic1mac+"]"+"Mask")="255.255.255.0";("["+$nic1mac+"]"+"Gateway")="10.1.1.1"}
#send ip info to VM
(Set-SCGuestInfo -VM $vm -KVPMAP $NICIP | Select KVPMAP).KVPMAP
#cleanup
Stop-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm -Force | Out-Null
Remove-SCVirtualMachine -VM $vm | Out-Null
Remove-SCVMConfiguration -VMConfiguration $vmconfig | Out-Null
Remove-SCVMTemplate -VMTemplate $template | Out-Null

This is a registry partial I stored in he Library. This gets called by the guest OS as part of first logon (in script abov)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit\Favorites]
"OU"="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Group Policy\\State\\Machine"
"GUESTINFO"="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Virtual Machine\\External"
"AUTOLOGON"="HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\Winlogon"

This is the unattend.xml partial stored in Library and used in the template.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <UserAccounts>
                <DomainAccounts>
                    <DomainAccountList wcm:action="add">
                      <Domain>dcmanager.lab</Domain>
                        <DomainAccount wcm:action="add">
                          <Group>Administrators</Group>
                          <Name>mmsbuildaccount</Name>
                        </DomainAccount>
                    </DomainAccountList>
                </DomainAccounts>
            </UserAccounts>
          <FirstLogonCommands>
     <SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
              <CommandLine>regedit.exe /s \\vmmteched\demo\MMSDEMOREGFAV.reg</CommandLine>
              <Description>Add favorites to registry</Description>
              <Order>1</Order>
            </SynchronousCommand>
          </FirstLogonCommands>
     <SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
              <CommandLine>regedit.exe</CommandLine>
              <Description>Launch registry editor</Description>
              <Order>2</Order>
            </SynchronousCommand>
          </FirstLogonCommands>
        </component>
    </settings>
</unattend>

Analyzing Storage Performance using the Windows Performance Analysis ToolKit (WPT) (cross post)

hector.linares — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:16:06 GMT

Excellent post by Robert Smith, PFE:

Introduction

Performance problems, especially as they may relate to the storage subsystem, can be quite difficult to troubleshoot. Enterprise storage technology has come a long way since the SCSI controller with an array of disks. Fortunately, there are some great tools available to help narrow down where to look more closely for storage performance problems. This blog post covers the Windows Performance Analysis Toolkit (WPT), as used for analyzing performance in the storage subsystem.

The facility that enables the analysis I am about to cover is called "Event Tracing for Windows" (ETW). The Performance Analyzer is built on top of the ETW infrastructure. ETW enables Windows and applications to efficiently generate events, which can be enabled and disabled at any time without requiring system or process restarts. ETW collects requested kernel events and saves them to one or more files referred to as "trace files" or "traces." These kernel events provide extensive details about the operation of the system. Some of the most important and useful kernel events available for capture and analysis are context switches, interrupts, deferred procedure calls, process and thread creation and destruction, disk I/Os, hard faults, processor P-State transitions, and registry operations, though there are many others.

One of the great features of ETW, supported in WPT, is the support of symbol decoding, sample profiling, and capture of call stacks on kernel events. These features provide very rich and detailed views into the system operation. WPT also supports automated performance analysis. Specifically, xperf is designed for scripting from the command line and can be employed in automated performance gating infrastructures (it is the core of Windows PerfGates). xperf can also dump the trace data to an ANSI text file, which allows you to write your own trace processing tools that can look for performance problems and regressions from previous tests.

The following information will be mostly about the WPT tool called "Xperf.exe". Xperf.exe is the command line tool used to start, stop, and manage traces. The usage of Xperf.exe is documented thoroughly in the help file included with the WPT titled "WindowsPerformanceToolkit.chm".

Read the full post here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/robertsmith/archive/2012/02/07/analyzing-storage-performance-using-the-windows-performance-toolkit.aspx

SC 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager Storage Automation with the IBM XIV Storage System Gen3

hector.linares — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:53:26 GMT

IBM recently announced support for SC 2012 - VMM storage automation with the IBM XIV storage system using SMI-S.

Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Storage Automation With the IBM XIV Storage System Gen3

This technical white paper reviews key concepts and provides step-by-step implementation examples for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 new storage automation features. Microsoft SCVMM 2012 now provides all administrators, including virtualization, database, systems, storage, etc., the ability to perform a full spectrum of core storage management tasks within a true central administrative interface. Within SCVMM’s graphical user interface (GUI), administrators can discover, classify, allocate, provision, map, assign and decommission storage associated with clustered and standalone virtualization hosts. A close examination of popular IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 enterprise-class storage solutions reveals extensibility and performance improvements which align with the Microsoft SCVMM 2012 new features.

http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102071

SC 2012 VMM: Collecting storage related traces

hector.linares — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:32:00 GMT

SC 2012 VMM ships with a new service called the Storage Management Service which communicates with SMI-S based providers from vendors like NetApp, EMC, HP, and IBM. To help you troubleshoot problems, SCVMM include lots of storage related tracing information in its own logs and whenever possible, the CIMXML output from the providers. In some cases however, you will need to get CIMXML output and trace output from the Storage Management service directly to help you troubleshoot further.

So there are three levels of tracing that you need to keep in mind:

Enable VMM tracing

SCVMM traces will give you the error/exception information. Make sure to collect traces on the VMM server. Hyper-V host traces are only necessary if the failure us on the Hyper-V side (e.g. volume mount issues)

Refer to this KB article for instructions on how to setup SCVMM tracing: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970066

Enable SCX CIM-XML command tracing

Storage Management Service communicates with SMI providers using CIMXML. This output is the raw call and response interaction between the service and the provider. This information is very verbose so collecting this information only when you reproduce the issue will help minimize the noise.

Add registry subkey

W2K8R2/SP1: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Storage Management\CIMXMLLog
W2K12: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Storage Management\CIMXMLLog

Add registry DWORD value LogLevel, value 4
Add registry String value LogFileName and assign it to the full path and file name to use for logging. Make sure the directory exists and that the Network Service account has read/write access
Stop and start “Microsoft Storage Management Service”

Here is a sample of the information contained in the trace:

Traceview ETL

Finally, the Storage Management Service has its own trace output which you collect using Traceview.

Download WDK 7.1 http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=11800
and install on VMM server
Unzip traceview.zip (attached to this blog post) to a local folder where VMM is installed
Copy traceview.exe from WDK folder to this folder
Run traceview.exe as administrator
File->Open Workspace, select scx and click ok

With this tracing will start but you might not see anything in the UI until SCVMM communicates with the Storage Management Service. Refresh a provider to ma

The information in the UI also gets logged to storageservice.etl file in same folder as TraceView.

Windows Server 8: Standards-Based Storage Management

hector.linares — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:51:14 GMT

Great post from Jeffrey Snover

Windows Server 8 is a cloud optimized OS. You’ve probably heard that phrase or similar comments a lot recently since we introduced Windows Server 8 last month (see Bill Laing’s blog post.) Let’s drill in a bit to explain what that really means and why it matters to you. In the past, Windows Server was a great OS for a server and its devices. Windows Server 8 is a great OS for lots of servers and all the devices connecting them whether they are physical or virtual, on-premise or off-premise.

At the BUILD conference, we showcased for the first time all the new capabilities that deliver on this vision including scalability, availability, Hyper-V, networking, manageability and storage.

Whether we are talking classic architectures or private/public/hybrid cloud architectures, one thing is absolutely clear – there is a large and growing appetite for data. Customers’success is predicated on the efficient and effective management of storage. Windows Server 8 is there to help meet that challenge whether the storage is directly attached to a server or is an external storage array. Working with our storage partners, we are delivering a new set of capabilities, APIs and PowerShell Cmdlets.

Windows Server 8 introduces a new WMI-based API called the Storage Management API (SMAPI) and corresponding set of PowerShell Cmdlets. These provide storage management primitives to manage direct attach storage on the OS as well as external storage arrays. The PowerShell Cmdlets replace tools like diskpart and diskraid. The API is comprised of a WMI object model along with the corresponding set of methods and properties. Storage partners plug into the new API either by:

Implementing the SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) industry standard for storage management called SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative –Specification)
Implementing a new provider model called the Storage Management Provider (SMP)

Read the rest here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2011/10/14/windows-server-8-standards-based-storage-management.aspx

SCVMM 2012: Live from SNIA SMILab Plugfest – Creating 50 VMs using SAN based Rapid Provisioning

hector.linares — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:54:00 GMT

Today is the 4th and final day of the SNIA SMILab plugfest. One of the tests we use to validate SMI-S providers with SCVMM is to create 50 VMs in parallel using SAN based Rapid Provisioning. We do this in two modes: 50 all at the same time or 50 in batches of 10 (so 5 batches). I kicked off the former test and was able to create 50 VMs on Dell Compellent array. I will not cover details on time elapsed or maximum scale. I will leave that for a bigger more detailed blog post.

Here are a few screen shots:

50 VMs on 3 hosts

List VMs on one of the hosts

Logical units (writeable snapshots)

50 create VM jobs

This test was run using VMM 2012 RC

SCVMM 2012 Quick Tip: Finding which storage arrays a Hyper-V host can see

hector.linares — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:19:00 GMT

SNIA SMI Lab kicked off the 4^th and final plugfest for 2011 this week. Microsoft is here along with several storage partners. Earlier today, we started testing VMM 2012 with a SMI-S based storage provider and we tried to allocate a LUN to a host group that contained a Hyper-V host. This operation succeeded with the following warning 26130:

The recommended action tells me that zoning might not be correct. So I check host properties and notice that the host cannot see any arrays. This means either the iSCSI initiator is not logged into any targets and there is no zone created on the FC switch that includes the host and array WWNs.

I can also access this information using VMM PowerShell. In the SNIA SMI lab, the Hyper-V host is connected to multiple arrays using both FC and iSCSI. Using VMM cmdlets, I can figure out if the host is properly zoned to array and/or logged into target of array and get detailed information about the target names and port WWNs using PowerShell:

#establish connection to VMM server

Get-SCVMMServer localhost | Out-Null

$arrays = Get-SCStorageArray

#collect FC endpoints from array object

$FCarrayendpointaddress = @()

foreach($array in $arrays){

foreach($FCstorageendpoint in $array.StorageEndpoints){

if($FCarrayendpointaddress -notcontains $FCstorageendpoint.Address){

$FCarrayendpointaddress += $FCstorageendpoint.Address

}

#collect target endpoint address from array object

$iSCSIarrayendpointaddress = @()

foreach($array in $arrays){

foreach($portal in $array.StorageiSCSIPortals){

foreach($iSCSIendpoint in $portal.StorageEndpoints){

if($iSCSIarrayendpointaddress -notcontains $iSCSIendpoint.Address){

$iSCSIarrayendpointaddress += $iSCSIendpoint.Address

}

$vmhost = Get-SCVMHost | where {$_.Name -eq "MSSCVMMHost1.msscvmm.com"}

#collect discovered FC portwwns from vmhost object

$vmhostportwwn = @()

foreach($hba in $vmhost.FibreChannelHbas) {

foreach($fibreport in $hba.DiscoveredFibrePorts)
{

$vmhostportwwn += $fibreport.PortWWN

}

#collect target names vmhost iSCSI initiator is logged into

$vmhosttargetnames = @()

foreach($hba in $vmhost.InternetSCSIHbas){

foreach($target in $hba.Targets){

$vmhosttargetnames += $target.targetname

}

#compare endpoints exposed to vmhost using portwwn information

$FCexposedendpoints = @()

foreach($portwwn in $vmhostportwwn){

if($FCarrayendpointaddress -contains $portwwn){

if($FCexposedendpoints -notcontains $portwwn){

$FCexposedendpoints += $portwwn

}

#compare targets exposed to vmhost using hba target name information

$iSCSIexposedendpoints = @()

foreach($targetname in $vmhosttargetnames){

if($iSCSIarrayendpointaddress -contains $targetname){

if($iSCSIexposedendpoints -notcontains $targetname){

$iSCSIexposedendpoints += $targetname

}

#output results

"FC arrays zoned to: " + $vmhost.Name

if($FCexposedendpoints.Count -eq 0){

"`tHost cannot see any FC arrays"

} else{

"`tExposed endpoints:"

foreach($array in $arrays){

foreach($FCstorageendpoint in $array.StorageEndpoints){

if($FCexposedendpoints -contains $FCstorageendpoint.Address){

"`t`t" + $array.Name + ": " + $FCstorageendpoint.Address

}

"iSCSI arrays logged into from: " + $vmhost.Name

if($iSCSIexposedendpoints.Count -eq 0){

"`tHost cannot see any iSCSI arrays"

} else{

"`tExposed endpoints:"

foreach($array in $arrays){

foreach($portal in $array.StorageiSCSIPortals){

foreach($iSCSIendpoint in $portal.StorageEndpoints){

if($iSCSIexposedendpoints -contains $iSCSIendpoint.Address){

"`t`t" + $array.Name + ": " + $iSCSIendpoint.Address

}

Sample output will look like this

FC arrays zoned to: MSSCVMMHost1.msscvmm.com

Exposed endpoints:

EMC VMAX-1SE: 50000972C006251C

EMC VMAX-1SE: 50000972C0062518

iSCSI arrays logged into from: MSSCVMMHost1.msscvmm.com

Host cannot see any iSCSI arrays

If you only need to know which array (by name) the Hyper-V host is exposed to (iSCSI and/or FC), you can also do this:

#establish connection to VMM server

Get-SCVMMServer localhost | Out-Null

$vmhost = Get-SCVMHost | where {$_.Name -eq "MSSCVMMHost1.msscvmm.com"}

$arrays = Get-SCStorageArray -VMHost $vmhost

foreach($array in $arrays){

$vmhost.Name + " is can
see array: " + $array.Name

}

Sample output will look like this

MSSCVMMHost1.msscvmm.com is can see array: EMC VMAX-1SE

In the VMM console, you will see this:

Windows 8 #bldwin - Haters are gonna hate (bye bye iDevice)

hector.linares — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 05:02:36 GMT

Some of these comments I have seen on FB and Twitter are just silly. For those that think "this is too much change"... did you even watch the key note?

1) The new Metro UI is an optimized experience for touch. You still have access to the traditional desktop experience. The user is in control of their experience. The developer is in control of optimizing the experience they want their customers to use

2) The new WindowsRT runtime live SxS with the traditional API stack. You don’t have to compromise either way. You can optimize for both.

3) You still have full keyboard and mouse access to Windows

4) A core fundamental is backwards compatibility. So whatever worked in Win7 will continue to work Win8

5) The experience changes in Windows do not boil down to a simple UI skin. There are fundamental changes made to the entire OS (Kernel up) to optimize for different form factors, hardware devices, battery life, peripherals, etc

6) did you see the HW lineup? Low-end to super high-end... same OS, same experience, optimized for the hardware available.

So either a) You did not watch the keynote (if that is the case then you should do so ASAP http://www.buildwindows.com/) or b) you simply hate Windows and don’t care for any of this (then just say it and stop pontificating how "This is too much of a change" and "it will be a long time for people to adopt") or c) you are paralyzed by change

For those in the b) bucket... did you have the same negative feedback for Apple when they introduced all their new constructs, dropped flash support, locked out all hardware vendors? If yes, then great... at least you are fair. If not, then you will soon be in the minority. Keep enjoying shelling out $500 - $1000 dollars every 9 months to get your iDevice fix.