Clive Watson's Weblog

After the success of the last one, the second UK user group is next week. I got to meet some of you at the last one, hopefully some new faces will attend this time.  The idea is to hold this at different venues around the country (and not just Microsoft offices in the future, volunteers are needed to host, let myself or the organisers know if you can help!), so on Monday we will be in Reading.  Also remember there is LiveMeeting access so if you can't make it in person you can virtually attend :-)

http://www.mvug.co.uk/

Location:

Microsoft, Reading, UK

Date and Time:

Monday 10th November 2008

1800 – 2130

Agenda:

1800-1830 - Arrivals

1830-1930 - Baldwin Ng Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team (inc MAP)

Virtualization Solution Accelerators – how these tools can jump-start your Hyper-V and App-V project

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.2 – multi-product tool for assessment and planning (DEMO)

1930-2000 - Food

2000-2100 - Andrew Driver

Introduction to SCDPM 2007

SCDPM 2007 Architecture

Using SCDPM 2007 with Hyper-V

SCDPM 2007 Best Practices

2100-2130

Question and Answers

Registrations:

Register here or email meeting@mvug.co.uk 

Then on Tuesday I'm at the Microsoft Messaging and Mobility User Group (MMMUG) in London

http://www.mmmug.co.uk/

MMMUG November Meeting

Date: Tuesday 11th November (the website currently says September but that is wrong)

Venue: MS London - Cardinal Place

Don't be fooled by the title of these two sessions from Taylor (especially the "Enabling Test Automation...." one).  There is so much more to see and learn, for instance in the first link there is VHD boot, VHD add of disk as well as the Q&A. I've not finished watching the 2nd video yet but I expect good things from that as well.

http://blogs.msdn.com/taylorb/archive/2008/11/02/hyper-v-pdc-recordings-posted.aspx

As today's observant people may have noticed I've been in the office and have caught up with my email and seem to have gone on a blog post frenzy (at least for me anyway).  I hope these posts help....

Clive

Ok...so in the last 3 weeks I've been asked this numerous times (and to save emailing it again!), the article you need is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888794/en-us.  I guess just recently we've seen a step up in the workloads being virtualized and the increase in requests for workload specific guidance reflects this.

SQL

Microsoft has made changes to its licensing and support policies for Virtualization. 

• Best Practices using SQL Server2008 and Hyper-V

• Support Policy Changes

• SQL Server 2005 Support for Hyper-V

• Licensing and Recent  Changes

SQL Blog SQL Server Virtualization Blog 

Regards,

Clive

Mark speaks about new kernel constructs in Windows 7 and the dismantling of the Dispatcher Spin Lock and redesign and implementation of its functionality into separate components. Resulting in Windows 7 being able to scale to 256 processors, along with Boot from VHD and other OS enhancements.

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/

Mark Russinovich: Inside Windows 7

http://blogs.technet.com/mapblog/ for all the news and features, in brief the new additions are:

• SQL Server Database Instance Discovery (NEW!)
• Microsoft Online Services Needs Assessment and Survey (NEW!)
•  Forefront Client Security/NAP Readiness Assessment (NEW!)
• Power Savings Calculator (NEW!)
• Virtualization Infrastructure Assessment (e.g. reporting the mapping of hosts by guests) (NEW!)

Map has been used by over 510,000 customers and partners already!

So try it here

If you encounter this error (and haven't seen the workaround on other blogs), please make sure you have these updates installed on the Hyper-V hosts:

Hyper-V QFE (KB956589)

BITS QFE (KB956774)

Regards,

Clive

Well done the SCVMM team, SCVMM has just RTM'd - see http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/default.aspx for details including an evaluation download!!

Here is what Zane has to say: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2008/10/21/system-center-virtual-machine-manager-2008-rtms-and-what-i-m-hearing-from-customers-and-partners-about-microsoft-s-virtualization-solutions.aspx

Silverlight demo of SCVMM 2008.

...Attend a real-world event (in the UK)

Virtualisation has gained much attention across organisations looking to address these challenges, improving the efficiency of their IT operations and enhancing their responsiveness to changing conditions. Originally focused on consolidating resources in the data center, virtualisation now has applications across the IT spectrum, driving down costs and improving agility.  Microsoft provides a comprehensive, end-to-end toolset for creating, provisioning, managing, and securing both virtual infrastructure and physical infrastructure.

Virtualisation Unplugged, will replicate the format of the successful Exchange Unplugged which is a Microsoft + Partner per event model. These events will set out to drive awareness and educate about on the Microsoft Virtualisation strategy and give them the information they need to go back to the office to make this actionable.

Agenda:

08:45 Registration

09:30 Keynote – The Importance of Green IT

10:00 Building your Virtualised Environment with Hyper-V

11:00 Break

11:15 Managing your Virtualised Environment with System Center

12:45 Lunch

13:30 Partner Presentation – “Why Microsoft Virtualisation?”

14:00 Virtualising your Desktops (VDI) and Applications (MDOP)

15:00 Break

15:15 What’s new in Terminal Services 2008?

16:00 Ask the Experts

16:30 Close

For more details and registration:

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/virtualisationunplugged/default.mspx

This is the Software + Services PDC - but what else will be talking about, what surprises are in store? There are 20 Windows 7 sessions...I'll keep you posted on other topics and content.  Believe me this isn't to be missed!!!

For a heads-up take a look at this video

www.microsoftPDC.com

I hope to see many of you at this event on Tuesday, details are here http://www.mvug.co.uk/ 

Location:

Microsoft, Victoria, London

100 Victoria Street

Auditorium No 1

Date and Time:

Wednesday 24^th September 2008

1800 – 2100

Hopefully you've seen this announcement by now - if not take a look.  Personally I'm looking forward to the Green/Power calculations:

Source: MAP blog

Our team is pleased to announce that we are opening the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.2 Beta Program for registration.

In this new release, we will offer an extended set of functionalities that will include:

1. SQL Server migration assessment - advanced features including instances inventory and SKU/version identification
2. Microsoft Online Services survey-assessments for onboarding/migration
3. Green IT/Power Management calculations
4. Server virtualization assessments including Host/Guest relationship inventory of existing physical/virtual environments

Please join the MAP Toolkit 3.2 Beta Program today.  We plan to release the beta downloads in October 2008.

Bob Muglia showcases the Hyper-V Live Migration platform. Bellevue, Wash., Sept. 8, 2008.

You can view the video here

Thanks to Julius for the below link (under Biztalk 2006 R2 guidance!)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768535.aspx

This is useful if you want a list of Hyper-V perfmon counters to monitor for CPU, Disk, Network and Memory

Some of you may remember a free tool that you could use to configure Windows Server 2008 core (basically a simple GUI that allowed you to setup the system), unfortunately this tool was removed from the web.

This *new* tool is uncomplied code (Script based) so you can even include your own additions in required.

Its available at : http://www.codeplex.com/CoreConfig

This Tool is a collection of scripts which will help provision and configure a Base Windows 2008 Server Core installation, The Server Core Configurator enables you to do all those 'little jobs' via a GUI, quickly and easily!

Product Licencing
Networking Features
DCPromo Tool
ISCSI Settings
Server Roles and Features
User and Group Permissions
Share Creation and Deletion
Firewall Settings
Display Settings
Add & Remove Drivers
Screensaver Settings
Windows Updates (Including WSUS)
and so much more...

Thanks to Andrew Auret / Tony Ison (colleagues in Microsoft UK for this tool).

If you like it, leave me a comment and I'll pass these on to Andrew and Tony.

http://www.virtualizationfeed.com/rss.aspx how did I manage without this RSS summary before? 

Well done to VMware for achieving SVVP yesterday and joining Novell on the supported list: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2008/09/03/The-Validated-Hypervisor.aspx