In just a couple of weeks, we will have another webcast on Server Manager. One of the key points that will be presented during the webcast is Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT). RSAT is the new version of the Win2k3 Admin Pack and will be available as a web download so you can install the Win2k8 administration tools on a Vista SP1 computer. More details about the webcast can be found below. 

TechNet Webcast:  Managing Windows Server 2008 with Server Manager (Level 200)

Tuesday, December 11, 2007 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Abstract:  Windows Server 2008 has significant improvements in server manageability with a one-stop administrative solution called Server Manager. This streamlined management tool enables IT administrators to complete setup of Windows Server using the Initial Configuration Tasks page, and configure and manage server roles and features with prescriptive wizards, a unified management console, and a command-line interface. In this session, we present and demonstrate the configuration and management capabilities of Server Manager and introduce some new features of Server Manager in Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 1 (RC1), including integration of the virtualization role and remote server administration tools.

To Register:  http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032358383&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista are introducing some of the biggest changes to our networking stack in recent memory.  From the server side, I think this is one of the biggest overlooked features of Windows Server 2008.

To that point, earlier this year we released the Tolly Group Whitepaper that showed the how the improvements to our TCP/IP stack and SMB 2.0 Protocol gave us a 3.5x time-to-completion improvement over Windows Server 2003.  The paper really is a good read and it has some good technical details of what the exact improvements are that allow this to happen.  (receive window auto-tuning, SMB File handles and buffer sizes, etc)

One of the better reports that I have seen on the networking improvements came across my inbox this morning, and it came from our MSN group who is dogfooding Windows Server 200 RC0.

Here is what they are seeing:

<paste from email>

First set of tests is to transfer 10.793 GB ( a collection of 10 VirtualEarth Stitch files) from TK2 Datacenter to BLU Datacenter and from BLU Dataceneter to TK2 Datacenter.

a. In windows 2003, from TK2 to BLU, it took 5 hours, 40 minutes and 13 seconds. Transfer rate observed was 567813 Bytes/sec. From BLU to TK2, it took 6 hours, 6 minutes and 26 seconds. Transfer rate observed was 527182 Bytes/sec.

b. In LH RC0 build, from TK2 to BLU, it took 7 minutes and 45 seconds, Transfer rate observed was 25062249 Bytes/sec. From BLU to TK2, it was 8 minutes and 10 seconds, Transfer rate observed was 23712912 Bytes/sec

The improvement observed was ~45 times faster over windows 2003

</paste from email>

Cool, huh?

Ward Ralston

Before heading off for a few days of turkey, college football and family, a post from Mauricio Freitas caught my eye this evening. Mauricio is an admin for Geekzone, which he describes as such:

Geekzone publishes news, reviews and articles on technology topics. We also have some busy forums.

Geekzone is now one of the top 15 New Zealand websites in number of unique browsers

Geekzone is now live on WS08 RC0 and IIS7, after trialing the migration to SQL05 and WS08 in Virtual Server 2005 R2. Very cool. I'll be interested to read Mauricio's future posts of the deployment. Heroes happen in New Zealand.

Patrick

Arrived back to Redmond late yesterday from Reno where I was attending Supercomputing 2007 conference. I suspect SC07 will be best remembered for the power outage that hit the convention center and most of downtown Reno, and Ashlee's stellar headline.

While I was in Reno, there were lots of colleagues in Barcelona making all kinds of announcements, from Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V to System Center, at Microsoft's IT Forum. I'm told there were 50+ journalists at a panel session on virtualization, and from the looks of all the news this week, IT reporters either attended Oracle Openworld or IT Forum (except the aforementioned Ashlee Vance).

One Microsoft news item that went overlooked, despite the news of Oracle VM hypervisor, Sun xVM hypervisor, VMware Server 2.0 beta  and Hyper-V (did I miss one?), was the Server Virtualization Validation Program. You can read a bit about it in this news release, read comments non-MS people here and Alessandro's post. 

So what is this program? Customers who have valid Windows Server licenses or support agreements can call for support to either Microsoft or the vendor that has provided them the validated server virtualization solution. Whichever company is contacted first will try to resolve the customer's issue, and in the absence of a solution will, via TSAnet, pass on the information to the other company to help solve the problem.

For those of you who know WHQL [Windows Hardware Quality Lab], think of it as WHQL but for server virtualization software. The program will be open to any vendor who creates/sells/services server virtualization software can test and validate that Windows Server 2008/2003/2000 runs as expected as a guest OS. Along with this validation comes mutual technical support for the Windows Server OS running in the non-Microsoft VM. Given this week's news by Sun and Oracle, this program just became a bit more important to customers.

In hindsight, perhaps most interesting quote is from Sun's Marc Hamilton, VP of Solaris marketing:

 “As a result of our participation in the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program, customers and partners who wish to virtualize Windows instances under Sun’s xVM infrastructure will be able to do so with even greater levels of confidence. Sun will support Windows virtualization in our xVM server and allow Windows to do the same for Solaris. This will enable customers to run both Solaris 10 and Microsoft Windows Server operating systems on the same hardware and safely consolidate their applications. With Sun xVM Server, Windows guests will be able to leverage Sun technologies like Predictive Self-Healing and ZFS for the first time.”

And as Andrew Dugdell pointed out, this program will alter Microsoft's official support policy for "Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software." An example of tha change can be seen in the newly posted Knowledge Base article 944987, which reads:

Microsoft has established a joint support relationship for non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software with the following vendors:

• Novell

The change for Novell customers is part of the technical collaboration agreement announced last November. I would expect to see other vendor names added to KB 944987 once they have validated software.

Following are some additional details on this program ... I spent equal portions of time this week gambling and looking for details on this program.

• The program will be available in June 2008. I'm told that's when the timeframe of the next WHQL test suite.
• The program is open to Itanium-based server virtualization software - since they'll host Windows Server, too
• Validated server virtualization solutions will be posted to a public website dedicated to the program.
• As with everything at Microsoft, there will be an early adopter/beta program.
• This program applies only to Windows Server OS - not MS applications. Of course, this may change prior to June 2008 because each product team sets their own support policies.
• Yes, VMware was briefed (multiple times I'm told) on this program. Since they've harped on this point in the past, I'd assume their customers would want them to participate. I guess they chose not to provide a quote along with everybody else.

Patrick

It's time to register for a December 5 online meeting (Live Meeting) covering Windows Server 2008 certifications and the transition path for MCSA and MCSE 2003, plus relevant study resources and Q&A session with certification planners. The sesson is offered at 7:30am PST and repeated at 5pm PST.

Patrick