We have created the following TechNet Blog Bling. Send us a link to your bling’ed up site with the Blog Bling you decided to use and we will send you a TechNet Polo Shirt (for Aussies only). Send it through to itproanz@microsoft.com
Being a huge fan of Ferrari, it was good to see Ferrari working with Microsoft in its automotive engineering, design, and development process with HPC Server 2008. "Ferrari is always looking for the most advanced technical solutions, and of course the same applies for software and engineering," said Piergiorgio Grossi, head of information systems at the Ferrari Racing Department.
"We are always scouting new technologies that can give us a competitive advantage. Windows HPC Server 2008 is very promising, and [Microsoft's] long-lasting collaboration with Ferrari will give directions to develop a fast, familiar, high-performance computing platform for our users, engineers and administrators." "The car evolves during the racing season, and we use different packages for different races," said Grossi. "We're working to 2 p.m. Sunday deadlines for each Formula 1 race, and as such our use of HPC Server is quite peculiar -- our servers run 24/7, and reliability and productivity is as important to us as power." Click to view full article
New revamped design The first thing you will notice with the i617T is the glossy black body of the phone and the silver accent on the side, it looks good! It has a QWERTY keyboard which has various quick launch keys for camera, mail and browser. The D-Pad also acts as a spinning jog wheel which is helpful for scrolling through web pages, documents and email. It has all the standard features you expect with a Windows Mobile phone such as Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, 2.4” QVGA Screen, HSDPA Support, 2.0 MP Camera and supports Quad Band. QWERTY Keyboard makes life easier The phone features the new Windows Mobile 6.1 interface which is really fluid. Check out the video below to see the home screen in action. The cool thing you will notice is the ability to access your media from within the home screen. Yes that image on the phone is a Microsoft Surface which is next to my desk, more on that later The i617T also has a slot for a micro SD card which is great to store your media files on, it supports cards up to 4GB. It has a Samsung proprietary connector so you will need to use the supplied Headphone adaptor to listen to your media. The phone supports Exchange server connectivity through Microsoft Direct Push Technology. The low cost of the phone serves as a great first smartphone and also a fleet device for your organisation. It packs all the punch with Windows Mobile 6.1 and its great design. micro SD card slot is perfect for your media storage
Telstra is offering the Samsung i617T for $0 on a $30 Consumer or Business 24-month Phone Plan.
Hyper-V Server is now available as a free download. When to Use Hyper-V Server 2008 Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is a great choice for customers who want a basic and simplified virtualization solution for consolidating servers as well as for development and test environments. Hyper-V Server 2008 only offers the most basic of virtualization features, making it ideal for:
Customers who require richer and more robust virtualization features, such as Quick Migration, multi-site clustering, large memory support (greater than 32 GB of RAM), and more than four processers on the host server, should use Windows Server 2008. Windows Server 2008 provides business continuity, disaster recovery, greater scalability for consolidating large workloads, and flexible and cost-effective virtualization rights (one free virtual instance for Standard Edition, four free virtual instances for Enterprise Editions, and unlimited virtual instances for Datacenter Edition with the purchase of a license of Windows Server 2008). APIs, Specifications, and How-To
Webcasts
Another important announcement at PDC is Windows Server 2008 R2 which will be the next version of the Windows Server operating system. Windows Server 2008 R2 is the first Windows OS platform to go 64-bit only. I'm particularly excited about Live Migration and DirectAccess features. The below is from the Windows Server Division Blog, there are four core technology pillars: First, there’s virtualization. R2 represents our most pervasive move into virtualization yet, including R2’s undisputed marquee feature, Live Migration. Think physical host migrations of running VMs happening in milliseconds—no service or user connection interruptions. With Live Migration, data centers can truly go virtual and largely divorce management considerations between software and hardware, and all managed from inside a single OS frame.
R2’s virtualization also extends to a new Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 R2 (think much better management, beefier resources for VMs and more). And potentially more exciting, Terminal Services is updating its remote applications feature to include a true Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Think desktops and applications wrapped in virtualized packages, managed centrally and deployed to Windows 7 desktop with such tight integration most users will be unable to tell the difference between centrally hosted apps and those installed locally. (And don’t worry, a Web Access feature will let Windows XP and Windows Vista users in on the fun, too.)
Our second area of core concentration is streamlined management. R2 contains a host of new server role-specific management UIs. Even better, these are all built on PowerShell 2.0, which hosts a bunch of improvements of its own. For one, you’ll find over 240 new cmdlets inside the R2 box with more coming from other Microsoft platform products. There’s also a new Graphical PowerShell UI that adds developer-oriented features so you can more easily create your own cmdlets, including syntax coloring and better debugging tools. Add to that a new Active Directory Domain Services management console, enhanced Group Policy functions and a remote-capable Server Manager, and IT administrators have a lot to look forward to with R2.
Our Web concentration largely represents updates to IIS 7.0. The Web server is better than ever with new PowerShell management support, bennies gained from new failover clustering updates, and a number of popular IIS Extensions that have been rolled up into this release, including WebDAV and an updated Administration Pack to name just two. New reporting capabilities, better deployment options and more flexible deployment options with support for technologies like SilverLight and PHP—it’s a brave new IIS world in R2.
Last and definitely my favorite is the enterprise workloads pillar. Yes, this covers the heavy-iron features I love so much, like failover clustering, new reliability features and updates to enterprise storage (more iSCSI enhancements, management and more). But it also covers the end-to-end network experience for enterprise users—and that means a very cool Better Together story with Windows 7. Live Migration is getting a lot of spotlight attention, but I think DirectAccess is might be the sleeper feature of R2 and Windows 7. With DA, remote computing essentially becomes invisible for end-users. Using technologies like SSTP and IPv6 combined with way-easy management UIs in Windows Server 2008 R2, admins can build remote computing policies that let users plug into any network, anywhere and see their local network resources—completely secure, no clunky VPN required. As long as there’s an outward network connection, DA takes care of everything in the background and automatically. Awesome. And that’s just one R2-Windows 7 synergy out of many.
For more information check out the Windows Server 2008 R2 Reviewers Guide
The HTC Touch Diamond is one of the first Windows Mobile 6.1 devices to hit Australia and its exclusive to Telstra. The first thing you notice is the nice size of the device, its really slim and light! As you start it up you will notice the 2.8” VGA 640x480 Screen. You are greeted with the HTC TouchFlo 3D interface which is actually quite slick. TouchFlo 3D Interface is Slick
I was surprised to learn how much the Diamond packs in features, it supports HSDPA (7.2Mbps) data speeds, Wi-Fi, GPS, A2DP Bluetooth, FM Radio, Mobile Office Applications, 3.2MP Camera and an accelerometer. Slim The Diamond uses a modified version of the Opera Web Browser and it renders web pages really well. I’m use to viewing “mobile” version of web pages but now its good to see I can actually view full sites from my mobile. The Cricinfo website There is no slot for external storage but the Diamond has 4GB of internal storage which is quite sufficient. It plays MP4 and WMV video files and a variety of unprotected audio formats. Although it doesn't have a standard headphone jack, you can use the supplied headset which has a mini-USB connection. You can get yourself a headphone adapter if you want to use your own headphones. Music on the go Im using the Direct Push Technology for my email, contacts, calendar and tasks over the air with Exchange Server. It also supports POP3 and IMAP accounts so you can configure your other email accounts with the phone. The following is a picture I took at the recent Australian Motorshow with the Diamond. It has up to 4x zoom and you can also record videos. There are 6 capture modes – photo, video, panorama, MMS video, contacts pic and picture theme. The 3.2MP Camera takes some decent shots. This is the new Ferrari California. Although it is a Touch Phone I am still using the Stylus for a few things but I’ve always been a bit of a stylus guy. HTC has done a great job with this phone and if you would like to get your hands on one check out Telstra’s offer on the phone.
Jeffa has released a Screencast on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. A nice little tour all in 10 minutes and 57 seconds. Check it out below:
Full story here http://www.itnews.com.au/News/85969,paclib-performs-vmware-analysis-but-chooses-microsoft.aspx The analysis involved monitoring PacLib’s servers for a month, according to IT manager David Furey. “They came back with a proposal of about $25,000 in installation costs and another $25,000 in software costs,” Furey told iTnews. “You’ve got to question whether it’s worth paying $50,000 for that. I know the VMware camp go on about features like VMotion, but for $50,000 I could pay someone to move my virtual machines for me.” “To us, it looked like we weren’t losing any performance or benefits of virtualisation but we were saving a lot of money,” Furey explained. “It just didn’t make financial sense to spend all that money [on vmware], when if we want to add more Hyper-Vs, it’s $49 per server.” Hyper-V has let PacLib group consolidate its 16 physical servers to 4 Dell Poweredge 2950 Servers. There are still 16 servers running but the other 12 are virtual instances.
The Azure Services Platform just got announced at PDC 2008. The Azure Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.
Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future. Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. Infrastructure management is automated with a platform that is designed for high availability and dynamic scaling to match usage needs with the option of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Azure provides an open, standards-based and interoperable environment with support for multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and XML. Microsoft also offers cloud applications ready for consumption by customers such as Windows Live, Microsoft Dynamics, and other Microsoft Online Services for business such as Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. The Azure Services Platform lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.
Register for Azure Services Azure Services Whitepapers Azure Services Datasheet Case Studies
As announced on the Windows Vista Team Blog, Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta will be made available to a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers at the end of October. No final date has been set for release. In addition to previously released updates since the launch of Windows Vista SP1, Windows Vista SP2 contains changes focused on supporting new types of hardware and adding support for several emerging standards:
Here are some resources on Windows Vista from TechNet Springboard: How (and Why) to Get Going on Windows Vista Adoption Deployment Stories and Case Studies Five Ways Windows Vista Makes Deployment Easier Answers to Common Deployment Questions