Ian Hameroff : Windows Server 2008

What? A Bus Tour Across Central Europe?

ianhamer — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:49:28 GMT

Hello world!

I’m being serious.

I’ve just resurfaced after spending nearly two weeks in a “executive keynote demo bunker”, building out a cool demo rig for a big upcoming event (wink, wink). Man, I had a beard and everything, and mostly sustained myself with Starbucks coffee, good humor, and the thousand degree temperatures that come with stuffing a bunch of demo hardware gear in a Building 31 office (READ: no fancy server room HVAC).

Luckily, we were able to squat in our GM’s office (who’s currently on leave), to construct a wicked 3 server, 2 client environment featuring the RTM code of every fan’s favorite, Exchange Server 2010.

But, before we get to that, I think it’s worth bringing you up-to-date on my next pending adventure (and I did choose the word “adventure” on purpose).

Starting November 2nd, from they wonderful Dutch city of Amsterdam, I will be “Getting on the Bus”.

To be clear, I’m not heralding the fact I plan to use the public transportation system in Holland.

I still might, but that’s neither here nor there.

What I am doing, is joining the second week of the two week, 11-city European road show featuring Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Exchange Server 2010.

This is being driven (no pun intended) by our pals over in Microsoft Learning, as part of the whole “Born to Learn” program.

But, wait!

There’s more!

When I say I’m “getting on the bus”, I literally mean I’ll be living on a bus for 5 straight days.

That’s right.

Me, and a team of heavy hitters across Windows, Windows Server, the Certification Program, and (yes!) Exchange, will be doing events during the day, and like any good rock tour of the IT kind, we’ll be boarding the bus that evening to make it to the next city before dawn.

I think there’s a Grateful Dead song that comes to mind here.

“So, what kind of bus is this?” you ask.

This is no mere mortal bus, or even an R.V.

Instead, it comes from the cats over in the U.K. called Jumbocruiser.

We get to spend our travel timing on a Premium Double Decker, model T300, bus, which sleeps up to 16, and offers such amenities as “especially spacious downstairs” featuring “deep and comfortable seats”, and our own personal bunk complete with curtain, video game system, and snappy sheets.

While the video I linked above gives one perspective, fear not.

I’ve just received my new Flip Video camera, which I intend using to provide as close to daily vblogs of “life on the bus”. I also just ordered a cellular aircard for some data link capacity for the times I’ll be starring out the window, watching the German country side go by, and checking e-mail.

Wow, eh?

As I will be terminating my bus journey in Berlin, I feel bit like the Olympic Torch relay for our grand launch at TechEd Europe 2009.

To that end, here’s my tour of scheduled appearance cities (in case you want swing by):

Monday, November 2nd – Amsterdam, Netherlands
Tuesday, November 3rd – Frankfurt, Germany
Wednesday, November 4th – Munich, Germany
Thursday, November 5th – Vienna, Austria
Friday, November 6th – Prague, Czech Republic

More details on the actual events and locations of can be found by visiting http://thebustour.com/thebus/tour-dates.

You can even track our progress through the Live Bus Tracker (powered by Glympse). As I write this post, the bus (a/k/a Career Express) is en route across France, traveling at 60 MPH:

The gang has even recorded a short video of me for their blog, to give you a sense on what the heck I’ll be doing throughout the 2nd week of the tour:

After all of this, I’ll be settling in Berlin for the week of TechEd Europe, and looking forward to getting a chance to catch up with folks over there (especially after the big keynote).

Well, in those immortal words utter for seemingly a million years at the conclusion of every Saturday Night Live guest hosts monologue:

“We’ve got a great show…er…bus tour! Exchange 2010, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are here. So, stick around, and we’ll be right back!”

Cue music.

-- hama

Get Into the “New Efficiency”. I Did!

ianhamer — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:10:16 GMT

Wow!

What a crazy run it has been, as we’ve been ramping for a number of milestones for the big launch.

For example, I’ve spent this week building out a real killer Exchange Server 2010 demo rig for some important, upcoming events. In addition to that, I have been conducting briefings with top tier tech press reviewers, showing off the Exchange 2010 RTM experiences.

Before that, it was all about The New Efficiency, and helping deliver content, presentations, and yes, even a demo or two, as part of this virtual launch event.

What?

You haven’t been up to thenewefficiency.com yet?

If you need some motivation to visit a pretty cool “virtual launch experience” (that’s what the all the Web 2.0 cats call these things) featuring the line up of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Exchange Server 2010, well, check this out:

That’s right: it’s me!

Among the Exchange 2010 sessions I deliver on such things our integrated e-mail archiving, retention and discovery capabilities, I’m doing the Exchange demo in Chris Capossela’s keynote.

To check out my online performance, in my Microsoft “dress blues”, just go up to http://www.thenewefficiency.com and click on the “Watch the Keynotes” icon:

And, select the “Technologies for the New Efficiency" with Chris Capossela” option. You can watch the whole thing (which I do recommend), or just fast forward to 35:10 to see Chris hand things over to me.

In the demo, I highlight:

Outlook Web App
Integrated IM and Presence
Conversation View and the Ignore Conversation
Voice Mail Preview
Outlook 2010
Personal Archive
Transport Protection Rules, and
Multi-Mailbox Search

It’s a good line up, and I hope you enjoy it. I also hope you’ll explore the rest of the Exchange 2010 content (including my two other sessions).

One fun fact: the Microsoft Studios set used to recorded this demo, once served as set for the MSNBC talk show, the Ron Regan Show. And, they used a bunch of gel in my hair…I swear, it could have stopped a bullet.

More to come on the fun…wait till I tell you about my bus tour of Europe the first week of November!

-- hama

Article Alert: Policy-Driven Network Access with Windows Server 2008

ianhamer — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 04:41:35 GMT

While it has been nearly three months since I moved from the role as product manager for Windows Server networking to the Exchange Server team, I still get the occasional opportunity to strut my old networking stuff.

One such example is a recent article I co-authored with Amith Krishnan (product manager for Network Access Protection) on creating a policy-driven network access solution using a bunch of the new features of Windows Server 2008. The article -- entitled Policy-Driven Network Access with Windows Server 2008 -- appears in the March edition of Microsoft's TechNet Magazine.

Here's the article synopsis:

How do you allow network access to those who need it without sacrificing security? See how new technologies in Windows Server 2008, such as Windows Firewall with Advanced Security and Network Access Protection, let you implement a policy-based approach to help you achieve this goal.

Unfortunately, the online version of article doesn't offer you the opportunity to make comments on the article. So, please feel free to post your thoughts or feedback to this blog posting.

Okay, back to Exchange for me. I'm currently completely week 2 of 3 on the road doing focus groups around our future plans for Exchange Server. Good stuff; albeit exhausting to be traveling across the US, Asia (currently in Tokyo) and then Europe. Yahoo!

-- hama

WS08 RC1!

ianhamer — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:54:34 GMT

Yup.

It went live today.

More details here:

Microsoft and Industry Partners Gear Up for Biggest Enterprise Launch Wave in the Company’s History

Check it out!

-- hama

Broadcom Takes IPsec to Task (Offload That Is)!

ianhamer — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 05:49:03 GMT

Our friends over at Broadcom announced on Tuesday (November 6th) a new super cool, 65nm Gigabit Ethernet controller that will incorporate support for Window Vista's IPsec Task Offload functionality!

As my boss' boss said in the press release:

"Thanks to Broadcom's inclusion of IPsec task offload support, our mutual customers will have even greater flexibility when implementing the IPsec features of Windows Vista and Windows Server® 2008," said Mike Schutz, Director of Security and Access Product Management at Microsoft. "By easing any potential performance tradeoffs, these latest NetXtreme security features will help further the adoption of such advanced Microsoft Windows security solutions as Server and Domain Isolation and Network Access Protection."

Effectively, with IPsec task offload support, many of the CPU intensive work required for hashing packets or encryption (if you're using the encryption options) can be moved to the NIC. This frees up the many CPU(s) for more interesting tasks, like running applications or surfing the web for stuff.

This means there'll be one less reason to not consider using IPsec as the great network security tool I've written about for sometime now!

-- hama

Greetings from the Future (Or, At Least GMT+8)

ianhamer — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 06:41:31 GMT

It's the Saturday following my week here in Kuala Lumpur (aka KL) and TechEd 2007 SEA (aka South East Asia). The week was a good time, and it was great to connect with the local 'softies, MVPs, partners, and of course, the regional customers.

I delivered two sessions, both basically repeats of my sessions at TechEd 2007 USA:

Implementing the IPsec Simple Policy Update for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
Enabling Policy-Driven Network Access

The second of the two was based on my TLC interactive theater session by the same name. However, I re-worked the slides and introduce a pretty neat demo.

The demo illustrates a few of the Policy-Driven Network Access features of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. In particular, Network Access Protection (using IPsec enforcement), and the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

Here's a snap-shot of my demo environment:

The actual physical setup included two laptops and simple switch. My trusty ThinkPad T60p booted the client side (Windows Vista Enterprise) off of my second hard disk in the UltraBay, and my Acer Ferrari ran the three Windows Server 2008 servers as VMs via Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1. I'm looking forward to trying these out on Windows Server virtualization!

I had also planned on showing our Secure Wireless LAN solution (aka using the built in 802.1X supplicant in Windows Vista, the WS08 Network Policy Server/RADIUS, and EAP-TLS), but the Linksys wireless access point I brought along was only rated for 120V/60Hz. This certainly a disappointment. I mean, no offense to our friends at Cisco, but come on! Almost every piece of technology I own can handle, at the very least 100-240V. Well, thanks to a local colleague, I was able to re-work the demo with a borrowed switch.

The demo was a bit of a re-work of the Security and Policy Enforcement demo I showed at WinHEC. I cut the bits about how AD Rights Management Services integrates with MOSS, blah blah, and focused more on the network controls. Like being able to perform network layer authentications using health (aka NAP Health Certifications) and User credentials (via the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security's "Allow if Secure" filters in conjunction with Connection Security Rules). I plan on expanding the demo even further to include a few more bells and whistles (and a little more time spent on the back-end policy creation).

I'll be speaking to an SBS User Group in Singapore on Tuesday, and I hope to re-run the demo there with these additional bells and whistles.

To close: We had our company meeting on September 6th. This happened to coincide with flight from Seattle to Singapore. Nevertheless, I attempted to get into the spirit of the Company Meeting, by wearing the bright orange (wow!) long sleeved T-shirt our entire team had planned on showing off at the big show, but for me on the airplane:

You can almost see the flag from the Windows Server 2008 logo on my left arm. I attempted to capture the whole of the sleeve by flexing it a bit while using my Palm Treo 750's built-in camera to snap the shot. At the same time, I was trying to avoid making it looking I was trying to show off my "guns" (even though I have been working out at the Pro Club and it would be nice if you did notice!). Talk about team pride!

-- hama

Intel I/OAT w/ WS08 @ 1/10 GigE + More Stuff

ianhamer — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 02:54:46 GMT

I'm back (er, yet again) from another blogging hiatus, and figured I'd share with you a little news around what we're doing in Windows Server 2008 with regards to Scalable Networking.

Here's the news: our pals over at Intel recently launched a bunch of new Ethernet controllers that will "facilitate high traffic flow and optimize I/O performance" at 1 GigE and 10 GigE speeds.

These new controllers (focused on the Intel Xeon-based servers) support Intel's Scalable Networking (aka hardware-based network acceleration) technology -- I/OAT. And, we've been working closely with Intel to make sure that the latest features of I/OAT will be supported in Windows Server 2008 (take it away Henry):

"Microsoft and Intel have worked closely to deliver integrated support for Intel I/OAT in the upcoming release of Windows Server 2008," said Henry Sanders, distinguished engineer and general manager of Microsoft Windows Networking. "Our mutual customers will benefit from the numerous enhancements in these products, resulting in even greater application performance and scalability on their multicore Intel® Xeon® processor-based Windows Servers."

Neat stuff!

And, don't forget that I/OAT support (via our NetDMA features) is just one of many Scalable Networking (or "High Speed Networking" -- as the team seems to really want to call it) features you'll have out of the box with Windows Server 2008. The others include TCP Chimney Offload w/ TOE NICs, Receive-side Scaling (YARSSA - Yet Another RSS Acronym), and IPsec task offload.

We are also giving a lot of thought about what the next full protocol, stateful offload we should deliver (i.e. what will be the next "Chimney Offload" offering). IPsec is a key one for us (especially since you can stack IPsec Chimney Offload on top of TCP Chimney Offload and give your network performance both barrels!

Hey, did you ever wonder where the term "Chimney" came from? I believe our own Jim Pinkerton was the ultimate "father" of the term, but here's a bit of the background:

The term Chimney was coined by thinking of data transfer as smoke and a chimney as the ability to directly move smoke out (and in) without requiring the smoke to move through the intermediate floors (intermediate protocol layers).

Well, that's enough trivia and fun facts for today. Time to get back to planning for the big global launch in February and getting WS08 out the door!

-- hama

Only 232 More Shopping Days Until the 2008 Global Launch Wave!

ianhamer — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:21:05 GMT

Well, I'm back from my blogging hiatus post-TechEd, etc. I only hope my loyal readers haven't found more interesting things in the far reaches of the Internetterweb to fill the void I have left over the last few months. I know things like Live Earth and the video of Michael Moore taking CNN's Wolf Blitzer to task are just minor substitutes for my blog postings.

Okay, enough of that.

Great news went out on the wire this morning via Kevin Turner's (COO of MSFT) keynote address to the 2007 Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, CO:

In anticipation for the most significant Microsoft enterprise event in the next year, Turner announced that Windows Server^® 2008, Visual Studio^® 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2008 will launch together at an event in Los Angeles on Feb. 27, 2008, kicking off hundreds of launch events around the world.

That's right Window Server 2008 fans, our "brand new day" is set for February 27th in Los Angeles. Yup, we'll be launching a wide range of new server software offerings like Windows Server 2008, the next release of Visual Studio, and a new edition of SQL Server.

Pretty cool, eh?

To help you keep track of those important shopping days, checkout this cool Launch Wave Countdown Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget. There's even a version you could added to your website as a public service to those who do not yet have Windows Vista installed.

Well, I'll be back on the blogging trail, so watch out! However, I must admit that Michael Moore thing was pretty neat <g>.

-- hama

Tech·Ed 2007 - Day 5: IPsecapalooza 2007 (recap)

ianhamer — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 22:53:32 GMT

Day 5 (which was yesterday) was rough one. I'd been fighting a cold for most of my visit here in FLA, and it came back to haunt me during my last session Thursday afternoon.

I did a spiel about how you can simplify your Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 based Server and Domain Isolation deployments with the nearly a year old Simple Policy Update. Although it started off well, my energy level did slump a little bit towards then end, which likely explains this comment from one participation:

"speaker was to [sic] mono toned and was hard to keep focused."

Yup, I was a bit out of it, but I do appreciate all the feedback and the decent evaluation scores. Next time, I'll be sure to chug my Emergenc-C before coming down to TechEd 2008 (or whatever conference).

Nonetheless, we discussed why you should even think about IPsec to help address all that craziness today's world of networking has brought on. I did a quick demo of Server and Domain Isolation, and closed with a bunch of stuff on the Simple Policy Update.

After the session, I did about a 30 minute stretch at the booth and went back to the hotel to rest.

Before I left, I was notified by one of my "booth babes" (it might have been Sean (again)) that my Server and Domain Isolation collateral had the wrong URL (i.e. a typo) on the front side:

Ugh.

Good news, the link on the backside (http://www.microsoft.com/sdisolation) does work. Or you can just click on this one.

Changing subjects for one moment: I'm at the Yellow TLC (a near-ghost town) with less than 10 minutes left before the show floor closes. We're almost done with TechEd 2007!

-- hama

Tech·Ed 2007 - Day 4.5: Tolly Group White Paper Published!

ianhamer — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 19:56:29 GMT

So, I've talked a lot about this white paper that the Tolly Group published in my Networking Session on Tuesday. Well, it is now up and ready for download from our TechNet Networking site!

Here's the direct link:

Enhanced Network Performance with Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

Here's a little excerpt to tantalize your interest:

"Just upgrading client PCs to Microsoft's Windows Vista can yield throughput and time-to-completion improvements of up to 2.5X over Windows XP. Complete migration of servers to Windows Server 2008 can yield throughput and time-to-completion improvements of up to 3.5X over Windows XP/Windows Server 2003."

Don't forget to check out the recent article that John Fontana published that talks about this report:

Microsoft-sponsored study says Vista improves TCP/IP performance

Okay, time to prep for my afternoon session on the IPsec Simple Policy Update for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

-- hama

Tech·Ed 2007 - Day 4: TLC Fun! (Recap)

ianhamer — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:42:45 GMT

Once more, I'm plagued by horrifically poor bandwidth on the hotel network.

After having dinner with Sean (aka Seanv6) at the Bahama Breeze, and dodging some hardcore downpours with lots of loud thunder and nearby lightening to boot, I returned to my humble temporary abode to check email, surf for interesting tidbits to kick-off my Thursday afternoon IPsec session with, and -- YIKES! -- discover 89 kbps download rates.

I normally travel with one of them Linksys Wireless-G Travel Routers, which provides a bit of wireless freedom even if the hotel doesn't offer such. Turns out that the hotel has both wired (including a "bank pen like attached CAT-5 cable -- see picture below) and wireless.

I went through every possible iteration of connectivity options, and actually discovered that my private WLAN yielded better transfer rates than being plugged in directly on the hotel's copper, or using their WLAN.

Amazing!

Sean shared similar frustration, and we both wondered why a conference town like Orlando doesn't have more than "two-cans with string" type network access to the "Internets".

This morning was a little bit better:

Anyhow.

Yesterday afternoon I delivered my "Enabling Policy-Driven Network Access" TLC Interactive Theater session (formerly known as Chalk Talks), to a great audience. The session was (more or less) a mini-breakout, and it appeared to be well received. We talked about a long list of built-in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista network security functionality that can help you embrace more policy-driven network access.

The topics included:

Windows Firewall with Advanced Security (aka the new Windows Firewall)
IPsec enhancements
Server and Domain Isolation
Secure Wireless LAN
Network Access Protection

If you attended the session, but would like a copy of the presentation deck (which is not up on CommNet) please contact me.

We also had a little fun yesterday with the Virtual TechEd Security Track folks. Brian Seitz shot a video of (approx. 10 minutes) me and Rodrigo (our MVP) talking about Server and Domain Isolation on the show floor, and Rodrigo's experience deploying the solution at his university in Brazil.

Check it out:

Video: Ian Hameroff at TechEd

You can see more cool stuff like this up on Brian's blog at: http://brianseitz.spaces.live.com.

For fans of my session from the Tuesday (SRV310 - Deploying High Performance and Scalable Networking with Windows Server 2008), here's an article that talks about the Tolly Group performance report that will be posted to MSCOM very shortly (I promise!) that John Fontana from Network World posted yesterday afternoon:

Microsoft-sponsored study says Vista improves TCP/IP performance

Okay, time to get sorted and over to The O.C.C.C.! I have one more session this afternoon SEC309 - Implementing the IPsec Simple Policy Update for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. Here's the abstract:

Common IPsec-based scenarios, like Server and Domain Isolation, require the configuration of an IPsec policy that contains rules for protected and permitted traffic. For some enterprise deployments, the IPsec policy rules can require hundreds of IP filter definitions that must be maintained over time. The Simple Policy Update for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 changes the behavior of IPsec negotiation so that the IPsec policy rules can be simplified, in some cases drastically reducing the number of required IP filters and their ongoing maintenance. This session dives into what these changes are and how they can be applied to both existing and new deployments of Server and Domain Isolation.

Don't forget to stop by the show floor (aka the Yellow TLC) and say hello!

-- hama

Tech·Ed 2007 - Day 3: My First Session (Recap)

ianhamer — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:37:48 GMT

Technically it is day 4 for me, but I had a little trouble posting yesterday evening since just about all the bandwidth in my hotel was consumed. I ran the handy Speakeasy Speed Test a bunch of times and it was barely making it over 300 Kbps on the download side.

Wow!

It's slightly ironic since I presented on the topic of "Deploying High Performance and Scalable Networking with Windows Server 2008" earlier in the day. BTW, thanks to everyone who attended (nearly 460 people) and for the great evaluation feedback. Before I get to the feedback, here are a few tidbits on what I presented:

I started off with a little quiz for the audience. I flashed on the screen a photo that my wife recently took of a sandwich board sign that sits in front of the local downtown Ramada hotel in Seattle. See if you can workout what's the weird bit about this sign, I'll give you 30 seconds:

Well?

Nice job!

As you can see Max's restaurant may boast both the best breakfast in Seattle and that it is available all day long, but only between the hours of their operation (which happens to be 7a until 130p).

After that little bit of fun, I dove into my session which discussed our new TCP/IP stack in Windows Server 2008 (and Windows Vista), with a specific focus on the features that help improve performance and scalability. This included:

TCP Receive Windows Auto-Scaling
Compound TCP (CTCP)
Wireless improvements
Hardware offload and acceleration
Policy-based Quality of Service (QoS)
IPv6 (yup)

We had a good bunch of questions both during and after the session. And, if you didn't attend TechEd 2007, I'm happy to send you copy of the deck.

I did run a little over time, but the majority of the attendees were good sports and stayed as I rapidly finished up that last few slides.

Here are some the comments from attendees (thanks!):

"Excellent Presentation: I really benifited [sic] technically by attending this session! Great information, I can tell that the presenter put alot [sic] of time into preparing this session!"

"Ian ROCKED! It is difficult to get people excited about a network stack but he did it. I was hoping for more demos but the data/tests he discussed did include real-world info and that was good."

"Ian's session was enjoyable. He made it interesting and kept the presentation going at a fast pace. He had a way of taking highly technical designs and statistics and simplifying them so we could understand the benefits. He went over by 10 minutes and almost everyone stayed in the room waiting for him to finish. Thanks Ian."

"A lot of information to go over in a short amount of time."

There was also some good constructive feedback on the need for some more demos, a different description for the session, and improving the room layout. Thanks for that feedback! It really helps me do a better job with my future presentations (which one of mine is about to start!).

TechEd 2007 Security Track Goes On-line

ianhamer — Wed, 30 May 2007 02:20:55 GMT

Guess what?

TechEd 2007 is next week!

Yup.

And, to help make your TechEd experience even better, my pals over in the Trustworthy Computing Group have launched a brand new "TechEd Security Track 2007" site off of Microsoft.com. Check it out at: http://www.microsoft.com/security/teched/default.mspx

What's neat is you can listen to me blather on about the BillG keynote at WinHEC, the recent NAP/TNC announcement, and a preview of what to expect at TechEd from the networking and network security folks (like me). Check out my little "In Their Own Words" podcast...I'm the one right between Ali Parker and Mike Howard.

Back here at the Redmond Ranch we're prepping all systems for TechEd and also enjoying 74+ degree weather. And yes, the sky is sunny and the clouds are far and few between. What a day!

Anyhow, I hope to see you at the big show next week! You can find us in the Yellow TLC in the security section.

If the opportunity to meet me isn't thrilling enough, perhaps having a chance to rap with one of our leading network security MVPs, Rodrigo Immaginario from Brazil, is the deal maker. Rodrigo has extensive experience with our Server and Domain Isolation solution, and is working to deploy Network Access Protection (NAP). He's also worked with the full range of new networking functionality in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

-- hama

Windows Server 2008 Network Security Webcast

ianhamer — Sat, 26 May 2007 01:07:37 GMT

The next few days in the US is Memorial Day weekend, also known as the unofficial start to summer. The means there will be plenty of barbeques, parties, and a Monday off.

Well, if you find yourself without something to done during this extended weekend, why not checkout this 90 minute TechNet webcast Amith Krishnan (NAP product manager) and I recorded back on May 17th:

TechNet Webcast: Windows Server 2008: Advancing Network Security (Level 300)

Here's the abstract of what was covered:

Among the long list of enhancements and innovations coming in Windows Server 2008 are a number of networking advancements and policy-driven network security features. In this webcast, we discuss the next generation of networking features in Windows Server 2008 and the network security solution scenarios these features enable. We examine the new Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, Server and Domain Isolation, and Network Access Protection (NAP). Discover how you can use these new networking innovations to provide your users with a more secure, reliable, and cost-effective connection experience.

We answered a bunch of questions on the call, but happy to answer any more you might have after watching the replay.

Enjoy, and have a great extended weekend!

-- hama

Summer Reading List for Windows Server 2008

ianhamer — Thu, 24 May 2007 21:32:24 GMT

Just a week after we unveiled the official product name for what was once called Windows Server Code Name "Longhorn", one of our loyal MVPs published a book on Windows Server 2008:

Mitch Tulloch has been working on this book with the gang over here on the Server team for many months and it's now ready for pre-ordering!

Here's what Mitch said about the interaction with the WinServer product team:

"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."

Here's the list of major topics covered (with key ones highlighted):

Introduction
Usage Scenarios
Windows Server Virtualization
Managing Windows Server 2008
Managing Server Roles
Windows Server Core
Active Directory Enhancements
Terminal Services Enhancements
Clustering Enhancements
Implementing Network Access Protection
Internet Information Services 7.0
Other Features and Enhancements
Deploying Windows Server 2008
Additional Resources

I'd recommend submitting your order today. Hey, what a great thing to do while you're waiting for your copy of beta 3 to download!

-- hama