VIRTUALBOY BLOG
I recently wrote an article all about virtualisation, and it has been published on Microsoft.com! The article was written with our partners in mind, with the aim of giving the reader the opportunity to gain an understanding of what virtualisation is, the forms it can take, and how it can benefit you.
The article covers:
You can view the whole article by visiting this link! Enjoy!
I'm now off to start work on my auto-biography, which should be in shops soon! ;-)
A big thanks goes to Jeff Woolsey, one of the Lead Program Manager's here at Microsoft, for compiling this excellent list of the top 15 questions asked around Virtual Server. Without further ado, lets start with number 15...
15 - Is it true that Virtual Server 2005 R2 EE is now FREE?
Yes, that is indeed correct. Virtual Server 2005 R2 EE has been free since April 2006. We have had more than 340,000 downloads to date. If you are interested in discovering the benefits of virtualisation, through Virtual Server, head on over to http://www.microsoft.com/virtualserver.
14 - I’ve just installed Virtual Server. Where are my virtual machines and operating systems?
Virtual Server is an enabling technology and product. Virtual Server provides the virtualisation layer giving you the ability to run multiple virtual machines on top of a Windows Server host. Once you’ve installed Virtual Server, you must create virtual machines and install operating systems just as if someone gave you a computer with a completely blank hard drive. Virtual Server does not include guest operating systems.
13 - How do you back up virtual machines?
There are two ways to backup a virtual machine. Each method has pros and cons and users can determine which method best suits their business requirements.
Method 1Backup each virtual machine from within each guest operating system. Install the backup software in the guest operating system and backup each virtual machine in the same way you would a physical computer.The advantages to this method are:
The disadvantages to this method are:
Method 2Backup all virtual machines from the host operating system. The second method is to backup the Virtual Server host. You can backup the entire host computer and all virtual machines at once, but this can only be performed on stopped/saved virtual machines. The downside is that this is not a “live” backup. You MUST shutdown or save state the virtual machine to perform the backup. To backup the host operating system without stopping/saving a virtual machine would be like pulling the power code on a physical computer and then making a copy of the HD. The HD might boot next time but checkdisk would certainly need to run and it is likely there is corrupt user data.
Here’s why:
The issue is that when a backup is performed on the host, this operation backs up files on disk but does not include the memory in use by the running virtual machine. For example, if you allocated 2GB to a virtual machine and backed up the host operating system, there is potentially 2GB of virtual machine data not backed up! To safely backup a virtual machine, the entire state of the virtual machine must be backed up which includes:
It is possible that someone could automate this process. For example, a script could be written to save the state of the virtual machines and backup the host operating system, but such a script is not included with the product.
The advantage to this method is that:
IMPORTANT NOTE: Method 2 is not recommended if you’re running a domain controller in a virtual machine. If you are using a domain controller in a virtual machine, always use Method 1. For more information on using a domain controller within Virtual Server, see the following whitepaper: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=64db845d-f7a3-4209-8ed2-e261a117fc6b&DisplayLang=en
12 - How many virtual machines can you run per physical processor?
There is no one size fits all answer to this question. There are simply too many variables. Performance of virtual machines depends on a multitude of factors including, but not limited to:
As a broad generality, we’ve heard of people using anywhere between 1 to 10 virtual machines per physical processor with the average being 4 to 6. (In the case of 10 virtual machines, these were very lightly loaded NT servers.) However, as stated above the number of virtual machines really depends on the multitude of factors above.
11 - Can you run a domain controller within a Virtual Server virtual machine?
Yes. For detailed information on using a domain controller within Virtual Server, see the following whitepaper: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=64db845d-f7a3-4209-8ed2-e261a117fc6b&DisplayLang=en10.
10 - Do we have performance tips for Virtual Server?
Of course! - Visit KB: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;903748
9 - What Microsoft products are supported within Virtual Server?
KB: 897613 Microsoft Virtual Server Support Policy: http://www.support.microsoft.com/kb/897613
KB: 897614 Windows Server System software not supported within a Microsoft Virtual Server environment: http://www.support.microsoft.com/kb/897614
8 - Are additional versions of Virtual Server planned?
Yes. We are working on the next release of Virtual Server. It is called, Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 and is publicly available in beta form today at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualserver.
Some of the key points of this release include:
7 - I’ve heard that Virtual Server 2005 R2 now supports clustering, where can I find more information?
You can find the information by following this link. The document describes a simple configuration in which you use Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 to configure one guest operating system, and configure a server cluster that has two servers (nodes), either of which can support the guest if the other server is down.
6 - Does Virtual Server support Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) in the guest?
No, unfortunately not. Microsoft have publicly stated that this will be providing this feature in our next generation, Windows Virtualisation.
5 - Does Virtual Server support USB?
No, unfortunately not. Again, we have stated publicly that we are working on this feature for our next generation, Windows Virtualisation.
4 - Does Virtual Server support 64-bit hosts and guests?
Virtual Server 2005 R2 adds support for x64 64-bit hosts. Unfortunately, Virtual Server does not support 64-bit guests. We have already stated publicly that we will provide this feature in our next generation, Windows Virtualisation.
3 - What is Windows Virtualisation? When does it arrive?
Windows Virtualisation is virtualisation technology incorporated into Longhorn Server. The current plan of record for Windows Virtualisation is that it ships within 180 days of the Longhorn Server release.
2 - What will I need to run Windows Server Virtualisation? What are the system requirements?
Windows Server Virtualisation has the following system requirements:
To be explicit, Windows Server Virtualisation will NOT run on:
1 - What are some of the key differences between Virtual Server R2 and Windows Server Virtualisation?
Virtual Server 2005 R2
Windows ServerVirtualisation
32-bit VMs?
Yes
64-bit VMs?
No
Multi-core VMs?
Yes, up to 8 core VMs
VM memory support?
3.6 GB per VM
More than 32 GB per VM
Hot add memory/processors?
Hot add storage/networking?
Can be managed by SCVMM?
Cluster support?
Scriptable/Extensible?
Yes, COM
Yes, WMI
Number of running VMs?
64
More than 64.As many as hardware will allow.
User interface
Web Interface
MMC 3.0 Interface
Thanks again to Jeff Woolsey for this information.
Firstly, apologies for the incredibly weak link between a UK Quiz Show from the 1980's, and Microsoft's sparkly new music and entertainment project; Zune. It's still early on a Friday morning - it will get better, I promise!
I posted a couple of weeks ago, about how Microsoft is going to challenge the iPod (Part I and Part II), but since then, a whole host of information has been released, so I thought I'd take the chance to summarise it all here in one convenient place.
So, what do we know so far? Firstly, it's important to understand that Zune describes the brand, not the individual product, backed up by Chris Stephenson who, in this article on CNet News, stated "Under the Zune brand, we will deliver a family of hardware and software products, the first of which will be available this year". The article goes on to discuss some of the features of the devices that will come under the Zune brand, including Wi-Fi connectivity, Hard-Disk storage and also Video capabilities. With Zune, "we're looking to build a community for connecting with folks, all to discover new music and entertainment".
In this article, over at eWeek, analysts say that Microsoft's Zune "May not carry the day" yet they accept, that it is currently too early to tell for sure - only consumers will decide. I, as a consumer, believe that if Microsoft can integrate all the parts together, such as the music service, the hardware and other hardware such as the Xbox, it could pose a serious challenge to the iPod, however, by releasing the device, we will in fact be competing with some of the partners we have worked with on music devices, such as Creative. The article goes on to say that the first of the Zune devices should be available before Christmas this year.
As I mentioned, one of the features planned for the Zune devices, is Wi-Fi connectivity, and this article, over at CNet, goes some of the way to describe the importance of this feature. In an interview with Billboard magazine, Microsoft General Manager Chris Stephenson said "the company is still considering seven or eight "scenarios," including using the Wi-Fi connection for direct music downloads and sampling music from other nearby listeners". That would be an excellent feature - streaming other people's music to see if you like it, then logging onto the web, via Wi-Fi to purchase and download the music yourself!
Regardless of the Wi-Fi connection, Gartner analyst Michael McGuire believes "the key will be how easy or difficult the gadget is for consumers to use. For example, designing an interface that enables downloading music from a catalog without using a keyboard is tricky" This is an excellent point, but if you look at the new interface in Windows Media Player 11, and how much of an improvement it was from Windows Media Player 10, you can begin to see how much Microsoft are putting into the user interface, and how intuitive it really is.
If Microsoft could squeeze a Media Center, or Media Player 11 style interface into the Zune products, perhaps with some kind of touch screen or hand writing functionality into the device, I believe that it would be the most intuitive portable entertainment device on the market. Microsoft would not be the first company to produce a wireless music device; MusicGremlin recently hit the market with a player that can download subscription music content wirelessly. But, as with all Microsoft products, there is always some scepticism; "It's very easy to create a wireless device," he said. "It's very difficult to make it work and connect in the way that a lot of people envision".
Speaking of how much Microsoft is putting into the project, this article over at CNet, details that Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment and Devices Division, thinks "of this in the hundreds of millions of dollars of investment over several years. It is something that is going to take time. This is not a six-month initiative". Bach goes on to say "Microsoft is not abandoning its partner-oriented PlaysForSure program, even as it looks to build its rival Zune approach. PlaysForSure continues as it is today. We're going to continue to support that".
As time grows closer to the end of the calendar year, and the launch of the first Zune device, more concrete details have been released. You can read about them in this Twice article. The article states that the device will arrive in 3 colours, and will be priced at $299 (hopefully this price will be around £160 in the UK / 234 EURO). "Retailers said the player would incorporate a 30GB hard drive. One said the unit’s display screen would be larger than Apple’s iPod models. The retailers were pleased with Microsoft’s feature-per-price package". It is important to note that Microsoft had not yet responded to confirm these details.
The most recent news, and an excellent feather in the Zune cap, is the announcement that EMI Group, the world's third-largest music company, said it had signed a deal to provide preloaded music videos on Microsoft's soon-to-launch Zune digital media player. The news dispels speculation in media reports this month that Microsoft would have to delay the introduction of Zune's video capability until after its launch, which is expected to be in time for Christmas.
So, to summarise:
What a long post! Hope you get this far!
On my regular travels around the web, I stumbled upon a brilliant resource for information around Windows Vista; Tom Archers's blog.
One of his more recent posts, from June 2nd, gave a Q&A on a new feature in Windows Vista, namely ReadyBoost. Now, you may be thinking, what is ReadyBoost? Essentially, ReadyBoost is a Windows Vista feature that allows you to use a USB key, or, a number of popular memory cards, as virtual memory in order to enhance performance. It is important to mention, that currently, memory cards are only supported when used internal card readers.
Tom's post goes on to give an excellent FAQ, provided by Matt Ayres, all about ReadyBoost. Some of the ones that I found particularly interesting include:
Q: What's the smallest ReadyBoost cache that I can useA: The smallest cache is 256MB (well, 250 after formatting). Post beta2, we may drop it another 10 MB or so.
Q: Isn't this just putting the paging file onto a flash disk?A: Not really - the file is still backed on disk. This is a cache - if the data is not found in the ReadyBoost cache, we fall back to the HDD.
Q: What happens when you remove the drive? A: When a surprise remove event occurs and we can't find the drive, we fall back to disk. Again, all pages on the device are backed by a page on disk. No exceptions. This isn't a separate page file store, but rather a cache to speed up access to frequently used data.
Q: How much of a speed increase are we talking about?A: Well, that depends. On average, a RANDOM 4K read from flash is about 10x faster than from HDD. Now, how does that translate to end-user perf? Under memory pressure and heavy disk activity, the system is much more responsive; on a 4GB machine with few applications running, the ReadyBoost effect is much less noticable.
There is also an excellent resource over at the Microsoft website, on the Windows Vista Performance Enhancements page. It gives a great description of how to actually configure and use ReadyBoost.
Unfortunatly, I've only got a tiny USB stick (careful!) weighing in at 128Mb, so not quite up to the minimum size at present, so I haven't used this myself, but for anyone running Vista, who may have less RAM than is optimum, buying a cheap SD card or USB stick may be a great way to really 'ReadyBoost' your system :-)
With High Definition gathering momentum, I think it is important to clarify where Windows Vista stands in this space, as over the past few days, there has been some confusion about what will or won't be possible with Vista and High Definition disk formats.
Basically, a couple of days ago, it was highlighted on the internet, that 32-bit Vista would not support either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray - it would only be supported on 64-bit hardware running 64-bit Vista. The reasoning behind this? "At a session during TechEd 2006 in Sydney Thursday, Microsoft's Steve Riley asserted that because 32-bit versions of Windows must support unsigned drivers being loaded into the kernel, the company could not ensure that HD movies would be copy protected".
However, a day later, Microsoft took the chance to clarify the situation. As it stands, according to Nick White, Vista Product Manager:
"The real deal is that no version of Windows Vista will make a determination as to whether any given piece of content should play back or not. The individual ISV providing the playback solutions will choose whether the playback environment, including environments that use 32-bit processors, meet the performance requirements for playback of protected High Definition content"
For those of you like me, who haven't embraced the world of High Definition yet (give me chance! ;) ), it's good to know that standard DVD support will be included in the Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, which means consumers will not need to purchase third party software to play movies as they do with Windows XP. So for the time being, I can be safe in the knowledge that the impeccable Windows Media Player 11 will play my standard format DVD's. Great stuff!
If you are running Windows Media Player 10, and haven't tried Windows Media Player 11 yet - what are you doing! It's currently in the beta and is available for download! Go do!
Just hours after a posted a huge post summarising all things Zune, there has been a big announcement about the manufacturer of the device.
Over on the BBC's website, it states that "Microsoft has confirmed that Japanese firm Toshiba will make its portable media player - "Zune" - to be released before the end of the year. Toshiba's filing with the Federal Communications Commission showed the Zune will have a 30-gigabyte hard-disk drive and wireless connection", confirming what was stated in my previous post. Toshiba has used Microsoft's software in its products for a long time now, dating back to its first laptop in 1985. The company has also made portable media players and handheld computers using the slimmed-down Windows CE operating system.
There is even more information available over at CNet News, which states that "Microsoft's forthcoming Zune player is shooting to be the life of the party, allowing users to create mobile social networks and stream music to nearby friends or strangers, according to a government regulatory filing".
The articles goes on to say that Zune owners can act as their own DJ, sending streaming music content to up to four other devices and with the device's wireless networking abilities turned on, people can send and receive photos, as well as "promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists.
"As regards the DJ feature, people have the option of turning the feature on or off, as well as of choosing whether to stream to any nearby Zune user or only to people on their friends list. If the DJ setting is on, people don't need to do anything else to allow others to listen to their music. The music sent is the same as what the DJ is listening to; if they stop listening, the stream is interrupted"
The article also goes on to mention the draft user manual, which details that the device supports both the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards. and comes with a 30GB hard drive, a 3-inch screen and an FM tuner, along with a USB 2.0 connection to synchronize with a PC.
"Sync your music, movies and pictures," reads one page from the manual.
You can find even more information over at Engadget, which includes a number of pictures of the internals of the Zune device. Sweet!
A big thanks to a colleague of mine from the Morrocan sub, Ahmed Hakkoum, who informed me of this pair of beauties available for download, for no cost to yourself (you can purchase the paperback version of the first document), from the Microsoft download website:
Both documents are in PDF format, so you'll need the relevant reader software.
The first of the 2 documents is written by Katherine Murray, who herself is a blogger. You can read Katherine's Technology Blog over at BlogOffice. In the document, Katherine gives an introduction to the 2007 Office System, gives guidance on Preparing and Producing Professional Results and discusses Communicating and Collaborating. A very useful read indeed.
The second of the 2 documents is a Special 2006 TechEd Edition, published by Microsoft Press, which contains over 200 pages of sheer SharePoint Server and SharePoint Services joy! Highlights of the book include chapters on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Building Solutions with Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Creating Workflows: The Missing Piece of Office Productivity. If SharePoint is your thing - this is the book for you!
A couple of days ago, in a publicly available invitation, Microsoft offered help to Mozilla, (who oversee development of the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird email client) to ensure compatibility between their products, and Windows Vista.
The article goes on to say that "Microsoft is committed to evolving our thinking beyond commercial companies to include open-source projects". Personally, I believe this is a great move from Microsoft. We accept that not everyone wants to use Internet Explorer, and at the same time, we know that choice is important, so if people want to use other browsers, we want to ensure those browsers work with our software and systems. The article states "it remains to be seen whether Mozilla and the open-source community will respond positively" yet, on the 24th August, Mozillla accepted the invitation.
Mozilla have already been doing some testing on Vista, and have been working to ensure that they take advantage of the new 'Default Program' infrastructure in Vista. Default Program is a new feature Microsoft has added to Vista to avoid the problem of applications taking over common functions, such as playing music or browsing the Web, from each other. Rather than letting competing applications fight, it will give the user a single interface for deciding which programs should do which jobs. I believe this a great addition to Vista, and really simplifies the task of deciding what programs you want to perform specific tasks.
In the Default Programs window, you can either set all the defaults for a program, i.e. for Windows Media Player 11, you can use the program to open all file types and protocols that it can actually open, or alternatively, you can go into selecting the individual defaults that the program should open. If need be, you can override the Default Program for a particular file type, by right-clicking on the file in question, and selecting 'Open with' and selecting your program appropriately.
As an interesting final point...
"Both Microsoft and Mozilla appear keen to bury the idea that the two are warring tribes when it comes to open source. This recent move by Microsoft to openly welcome Mozilla and its browser, even though Firefox is the principle competition for its own Internet Explorer, appears to be part of a new trend for the company"
Speaking of browsers, Microsoft has just released the RC1 of IE7, which you can download from here.
On March 7th, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Apptimum Inc, a company which provides award-winning products that automatically transfer customers’ applications to new computers. Microsoft plans to use the acquired intellectual property and technology assets to provide Windows customers with the tools they need to simplify the transfer of their applications to their new computers.
According to this article on eWeek, Alohabob is due to be included in the first Release Candidate of Vista, scheduled for later this quarter. In the article, Jim Allchin, the co-president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, states that "Migrating applications and files from one computer to another using Windows has long been a tedious and time-consuming process, but that is now a thing of the past as Alohabob will make the application transfer experience easier and faster for customers".
Jim also went on to say that he has in fact been using the product, and managed to move all his applications from one computer to another in just 30 minutes. This speeds up the build of a new machine dramatically, as much of the time spent with a build is reinstalling up to the same point you were at before the rebuild. I personally, as a regular new-build tester of Vista, would welcome this ability to quickly move all my applications that were previously on an old build and place them on a new build. Bring on Alohabob!!
The article on eWeek goes on to talk about whether Jim beleives Vista will ship on time, his views on his own departure in January 2007 and the 12 principles to guide development of the Windows Desktop platform.
Should you be after even more information, you can read the announcement that Microsoft have acquired Apptimum Inc, or visit the Alohabob homepage.
Off the usual track, but still, this is quite a cool one! Microsoft takes a light-hearted swipe at itself, talking about Small Business Server, in a Da Vinci Code style!
The movie talks about the importance of patching, installing updates, getting the green check of software health and more...
You can stream the video here.
Interested? You may want to check out the Top 10 Reasons to Use Windows SBS over at Microsoft.com, and for more information on the world of Small Business, visit David Overton's blog.
Enjoy.