For those of you amongst the 14,000 attending TechEd 2007 next week in Orlando, expect to see and learn alot about virtualization.

It all starts with Bob Muglia's keynote on Monday where Jeff Woolsey will reprise his role of virtualization demo dude. Jeff will demo Windows Server 2008 server core installation running an IDS build of Windows Server virtualization, managed by both MOM and System Center Virtual Machine Manager. I'd expect to see VM creation, interop and network load balancing with limited disruption of service. I'm hoping to see V-to-V conversion, from ESX Server to Windows Server virtualization. I'll be watching on Monday, and I expect the webcast to be available from here.

Looking for something a bit more technical? Well I'd recommend the following sessions:

• SVR239 - Virtualization 360: Microsoft's vision and strategy for virtualization
• SVR342 - High Availability for Physical and Virtual Environments with Windows Server 2008
• SVR344 - Running Paravirtualized Linux Guests with Microsoft Windows Virtualization
• SVR241 - Debunking virtualization market myths and misperceptions 

If you're looking for 300-level fun, I'd recommend attending the first-ever, public hands-on lab for Windows Server virtualization. You won't walk away with code (it's not public yet) from this HOL, but you'll walk away with the ability to: configure Windows Server virtualization, create and manage VHDs, create and manage virtual network switches and VMs.

OK, OK that's all well and good, you say. But what about using virtualization to better manage desktops? I'd recommend the following:

• SVR345 - Terminal Services and SoftGrid used together for application delivery
• SVR201 - Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services overview

There are other great sessions, too. But these are a few that interest me and might interest you.

Patrick

Well, it won't be in book stores for another week, but you can now pre-order "Introducing Windows Server 2008" from Amazon.com. MVP and technical author Mitch Tulloch wrote the book with the help of a whole bunch of experts from the Windows Server division. Here's an excerpt from Mitch's post:

However, this is not the case with my book, which is going to be a "keeper" not a throwaway. Why? Because I had the privilege (the very, very intense privilege sometimes) of working closely with almost one hundred members of the Windows Server product team to ensure we "got it right" as far as the technical details of Windows Server 2008 are concerned in this book. These experts—and nobody knows Windows Server 2008 better than the team that developed it—contributed almost 100 "From the Experts" sidebars to my book on various aspects of deploying, configuring, maintaining and troubleshooting Windows Server 2008. The product team also thoroughly reviewed everything I wrote to ensure as much as possible that all the book's content will be as technically accurate as possible, not only as of Beta 3 but also for RTM. So this book is going to be a keeper and if you are eager to learn more about the exciting new features and capabilities of Windows Server 2008, you should pre-order the book today so you can get a copy as soon as it becomes available later this month. To get you even more excited here's a breakdown of the various chapter titles so you can see what topics are covered:

1. Introduction
2. Usage Scenarios
3. Windows Server Virtualization
4. Managing Windows Server 2008
5. Managing Server Roles
6. Windows Server Core
7. Active Directory Enhancements
8. Terminal Services Enhancements
9. Clustering Enhancements
10. Implementing Network Access Protection
11. Internet Information Services 7.0
12. Other Features and Enhancements
13. Deploying Windows Server 2008
14. Additional Resources

This book is the perfect complement to much of the activity starting to pop up from outside Microsoft. We have web hosters using the go-live license of IIS 7.0 on beta 3 to run their operations; ISV partners have customers testing their apps on Windows Server beta 3; there's news of interoperability with key features, like Network Access Protection; we're starting to see new apps from partners that leverage new features of Windows Server 2008; and we'll have the first public hands-on lab of Windows Server virtualization at TechEd-Orlando.

Patrick

With the “official” name of the next Windows server release announced last week at WinHEC (Windows Server 2008….shocker!) and with availability of Beta 3, I figured this was a good time to discuss some of the features as they relate to the storage workload. Some of the pillars of Windows Server 2008 are: security, branch office, virtualization….but there is plenty in there to make life for the “storage aware” administrators easier. True to the model of Universal, Distributed Storage, Windows Server 2008 will bring more enterprise storage features to everyone. A good example is the inclusion “in-box” of the Microsoft MPIO DSM. This is an industry standard solution that brings multi-pathing and load balancing with failover clusters to any users of Windows Server 2008. Storage vendors (iSCSI or Fibre Channel) can add features based on this DSM to integrate with their storage array management schema if desired. Bottom line? Easier multi-pathing for everybody. Connectivity to iSCSI storage will also be simpler in Windows Server 2008 with the iSCSI initiator now “in-box”, no need for separate download and integration in the server console.

Continuing with this theme of connectivity, there will be a new remote file sharing protocol in Windows Server 2008, Server Message Block 2.0 (SMB 2.0). SMB 2.0 greatly improves the scalability of SMB 1.0; there is now more open files on a server supported as well as a higher number of shares supported. The protocols have been enhanced to reduce the “chattiness” that makes file sharing on a WAN sometimes painful. With SMB 2.0, customer data has shown the ability to download a 300MB file 35 times faster than with SMB 1.0 using a 100 Mbps link (from 24 minutes to 41 seconds). SMB2.0 will also support transactions, symbolic links and client side encryption. All these features are fully functional when Vista clients are used in combination with Windows Server 2008.

To help customers maximize their disk storage assets, the Virtual Disk Service (VDS) in Windows Server 2008 introduces the concept of “Shrink” for volumes and Logical Devices (LUN in SAN parlance). This will be supported on both software and hardware VDS providers. With this feature, it will be possible to re-capture/re-assign disk capacity that is not needed for a certain application anymore (assuming support from the disk array vendors). The other key storage service, VSS is also getting some enhancements. A new utility, called “Diskshadow” is an “in-box” VSS requestor that can create and manage both software and hardware based shadow copies. It offers a command line interface and a script mode. It will support hardware transportable shadow copy to enable off-host backup and data mining. Auto-recovery of transportable hardware shadow copy is enabled and fast recovery scenarios (with GPT disks) are also supported. This is another example of enterprise storage for everyone. A few years ago, this type of functionality was only available in enterprise class storage devices, now you can get this functionality at the server level.

I have chosen to present only a few key point of the storage “story” in Windows Server 2008…there are other relevant features (Storage Explorer, ServerBackup, SAN friendly clustering, better disk alignment tools...) that will be part of a future discussion. With Beta 3 now available, you can now put all these features to test!

Claude Lorenson

[Update: The following sentence: "SMB2.0 will also support transactions, symbolic links and client side encryption" is not correct.  Transaction support and client side encryption will not be available in Windows Server 2008 and therefore are not in the beta 3 release either.]

At some point along the way, you've probably been given this advice about public speaking: (1) tell them what you're going to say; (2) tell them; and (3) tell them what you've said. I've always found that to be good guidance, yet so easy to overlook or disgard because there's so much I want to say.

Similarly, in November 2005, we told customers and partners about Windows Server's transition to 64-bit. We told everyone what we were going to do, here's an excerpt:

As part of its commitment to 64-bit computing, Microsoft has been delivering products that are optimized for 64-bit, including the newly released SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and Virtual Server 2005 R2. To help customers take full advantage of the power of 64-bit computing, products including Microsoft Exchange Server “12,” Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Windows Server “Longhorn” Small Business Server, and Microsoft’s infrastructure solution for midsize businesses, code-named “Centro,” will be exclusively 64-bit and optimized for x64 hardware. In a future update release to Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Server “Longhorn” operating system, code-named Windows Server “Longhorn” R2, customers will see the complete transition to 64-bit-only hardware, while still benefiting from 32-bit and 64-bit application compatibility. For the highest-scale application and database workloads, Windows Server on 64-bit Itanium-based systems will continue to be the premier choice for customers for years to come.

In short, Windows Server 2008 will be the last 32-bit server OS from Microsoft. Onward to 64-bit only. Heck, 87% of all the servers shipping today are x86-64; x86-32 shipments have been declining and are about 7% of shipments.

So this week's WinHEC served as a time to remind customers and partners what we're going to do. Bill Laing showed a roadmap of server products that are already 64-bit only, such as Exchange 2007, Windows CCS, Windows Server virtualization, others, and approximate timeframe for other server products.

Unfortunately, Joe Wilcox and a few others got it wrong and heard that Windows Server 2008 would be the last 32-bit OS from Microsoft ... server and client. Cue Bob Harris pitching Suntory whiskey in "Lost in Translation." While the server team is bullish on 64-bit, the embedded and desktop world isn't near ready for x64 only. So the Vista team cleared up reporter's confusion today.

So as that day approaches -- the "tell them" day -- we'll keep reminding customers/partners of the workloads that benefit from 64-bit. Here's just a sample:

• databases of serveral GB or more in size
• connection-oriented apps, like Terminal Services
• computationally-oriented apps, such as encryption or HPC
• Email server: the Exchange 2007 team saw significant performance gains with the move to x64 only
• Any server with more than 4 GB of RAM is a candidate for x64
• Virtualization: our internal IT team has seen huge performance improvements from x64 host OS

And as a colleague asks me, "do customers really want to deploy a dual-proc, quad-core server with 2 GB of RAM, which leaves each core, on average, with 256 MB of RAM to work with?" My colleague is a big fan of 1 GB per core, which means 64-bit server OS.

Patrick