In July, we held our Worldwide Partner Conference and our COO, Kevin Turner, gave a great speech. This post from ZDNET is really interesting, addressing more than just virtualization but also where Microsoft in several areas.
There’s been a lot of great news out lately on Hyper-V but I want to highly an important security related item. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V has just received Common Criteria Certification at EAL 4+ assurance. This certification is vital for many virtualization users, especially government agencies). You can access the PDF of the certification document here.
I’m back on my blog. Sorry but I’ve been out on vacation (Disneyland for three days with a three year old is not the best for rest). :)
Coming up at the end of the month, I’ll be at VMworld 2009 in San Francisco. For anyone else going to the show, what sessions are interesting you? Go ahead and leave some comments. I’m looking to fill out my schedule this week!
DailyTech has a great article, an interview with Nissan on how they are using Virtualization and why they picked Hyper-V over VMware. There are some great details on their implementation and I think the final quote sums up what we keep saying
"For other companies considering virtualization, but unsure of the costs and benefits, Matt Slipher suggests, "Make your own judgement. Get your tools and test them. We got [competitive offerings] and tested them... [For us] Hyper-V was less of a learning curve."
I often get asked for examples of using Hyper-V for large scale applications. Well, the Microsoft Windows Server Custom Engineering announced that is helping build the world largest Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), using Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, managed with System Center Virtual Machine Manager. This PKI will issue hundreds of millions of certificates for Certificate Authorities around the world. Check out the article to see the details and a couple screenshots! Also, don't forget to follow my twitter: edwinyuen
While I was out on vacation, I missed out on a couple of case studies that were published about Microsoft Virtualization. One of the great case studies that came out was for the University of Miami. This is a large university that used VMware and the System Center family of products. They looked at using Hyper-V and the integration with System Center products like Data Protection Manager, Operations Manager, and Virtual Machine Manager.
UM went with the Server Management Suite Datacenter (SMSD), which gives them both Virtual and Physical management at a low, per host cost. I think these quotes sum up the reasons why many companies are going with Microsoft:
“Microsoft virtualization solutions cost us 60 percent less than VMware. They help us save money today while giving us the capabilities needed to operate even more efficiently and cost-effectively as time goes on,”
and
“Most competing products that we owned or evaluated charge per-virtual-machine licensing fees, multiplying the cost advantage that SMSD provides. For instance, the agent cost for the backup solution we used in the past cost us much more than what we’re paying now. SMSD is 65 percent cheaper, and we get the added benefit of all the great System Center products for that price.”
Great news! Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 is now RTM and the GA will be available on October 1st. A new feature added post RC is support for vSphere 4. For more information, see this post. If you want to get started now, you can download the 180 day eval right now!
TechRepublic posted an article last week about Desktop Virtualization and it’s adoption. TechRepublic asked their CIO Jury and also their panel of IT leaders “Is your IT department strongly considering a deployment of virtual desktops?”
Of the CIO Jury, only three of the 12 CIOs said yes. As the article writes:
But, most CIOs aren’t buying the hype or jumping on board with desktop virtualization. TechRepublic’s CIO Jury has indicated that the vast majority of IT leaders have no plans to adopt desktop virtualization, although there is a minority group of IT chiefs that are enthusiastic about it.
The article goes on to cite some quotes from the IT leaders panel why or why not they are doing Desktop Virtualization.
The point that I’m trying to make is not that Desktop Virtualization is good or bad, right or wrong. My concern is that the Desktop Virtualization discussion is too often framed as an all or nothing discussion, you either you have to do it or you won’t. Either you are for it or against.
In the real world, we should all evaluate whether Desktop Virtualization is something that benefits our organizations. If it does, then Desktop Virtualization is something to do, at whatever scale works best. It doesn’t have to be EVERY desktop or ZERO desktops.
As with any technology, it’s just part of an overall IT strategy to benefit administrators and users. After all, isn’t that the whole point of using technology?
What are your thoughts on this post? Have a question? Let me know via comments or reach me on Twitter @edwinyuen. If you are going to VMworld 2009, I'll be at the show, in sessions and in booth #2422, ready available to answer questions.
Good morning everyone. It’s day one of VMworld. I plan on going around the show, trying to get into some sessions (I spoke to several other attendees on the way day and no one seemed to have a confirmed session today :( ).
One of the key things I’m doing this year is using Twitter to keep send out updates all day. My twitter account is @edwinyuen and you can look at it by going to http://twitter.com/edwinyuen.
Here’s the great part. If you sign up to follow me, or any of our other Microsoft Virtualization experts on Twitter during the show, you win a chance for a brand new ZuneHD. That means even if you aren’t actually at VMworld, you can still get updates on the show and get a chance to win. Just go to our VMworld Virtual Events page at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/events for more information (and to see a little intro video by me :) ).
If you’re at the show, I’d love to meet everyone. Here is my schedule today or just get me by twitter! Good luck to everyone!
1130a-1230p - V13229 Introduction to VMware vSphere – Room 304 100p-200p - V13760 Overcoming the Hidden Challenges of Virtualization – Room 303 300p-400p - V12644 Designing a Virtualization Infrastructure for the Small Environment – Room 304
Don’t forget about our tweet-up at the The Thirsty Bear: 661 Howard Street, at 5pm-7pm!
The first day of VMworld is closing down for me. The best word I can use to describe the mood was grumpy. There was grumpiness about the lines, the self-paced labs, the lines. Did I mention the lines? Still, everyone was actually in pretty good spirits.
I lined up for the V13760 Overcoming the Hidden Challenges of Virtualization session 50 minutes ahead of time and there were already 30 people ahead of me. We waited and met a lot of nice people in line. Everyone agreed with the frustration of the session registration process, how everything seemed to be full, even for those registered VERY early. I was still a little disturbed that once they let all the registered attendees in and started letting those of us in line in, the room was almost half empty. How was registration full?
Still, I go into the session and it was a nice, high level overview of virtualization challenges by Scott Key of Citi. There were two interesting observations that Mr. Key made that I wanted some responses to from those of you in the blogsphere.
I wonder, what are everyone’s experiences out there? Is that the ideal setup or just what has evolved with Virtualization? How does this impact the integration with non-virtualization related groups? Let me know either with comments or tweets to my twitter account @edwinyuen. Don't forget to sign up and follow me on twitter for a chance to win a ZuneHD.
If you are at the show, come up and say hi. I’d love to meet everyone. You can’t miss me! I’ll be wearing the fluorescent green shirt with my twitter name on the front and Follow me! Twitter on the back. On to day two!