virtualboy

For me, blogging on a Sunday is unheard of – the other/better half ensures it doesn’t happen, however, today is a travelling day (and she’s not here!) – I’m off to Athens to attend NetApp Insight 2009 (More on Microsoft and NetApp in another post) so it seems almost ironic that this post is about Microsoft and HP.

Patrick, over on the MVUG blog, pointed me at some very valuable information for those of you building solutions on HP and Hyper-V R2 technologies.  From Patrick’s blog:

HP has just released "HP BladeSystem reference architecture for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 virtualization (Hyper-V)". This document describes reference architectures validated by HP for the deployment of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V (Hyper-V R2) on an HP BladeSystem infrastructure.

The specification provides an outline of Hyper-V R2 and explains how an entire IT infrastructure can be created from HP BladeSystem c-Class components, HP LeftHand or StorageWorks SAN storage, and HP ProCurve switches.

Also oo help you plan your own Hyper-V R2 deployment on HP BladeSystem, the reference architecture provides a bill of materials (BOM) for Small, Medium, and Large configurations.

The document can be downloaded from here.

For me, the nice thing about this document, is that it’s not just about configuring the server hardware.  Instead, this document details information around both iSCSI and Fiber SAN configurations, along with integration from a networking perspective with ProCurve.  Definitely worth a read if you’re working with both of these vendors around virtualisation.

A couple of useful upcoming Academy Live sessions, specifically aimed at Microsoft Partners, and particularly of use to those Partners in the SMB space:

WES27PAL: Virtualization:  Defined.  Building your Virtualization Practice and Solution Offerings

Presented by: Dave Sobel

18th November 2009 – 5pm GMT (Click here to calculate your local time)

Virtualization is becoming mainstream; are you ready with your practice? Learn from Dave Sobel, author of “Virtualization: Defined.  A Primer for the SMB Consultant”, how to build your consulting practice, get trained and offering solutions, and solutions you can start delivering right away.     Learn about server consolidation assessments, Virtual Desktop Infrastructures, and how to deliver high value solutions to your customers.

Register Here

WES33PAL: Virtualizing Windows Essential Business Server 2008 with Hyper-V

Presented by: David Fabritius (Digital One Corporation); Brent Reeser (Star Technical)

23rd November 2009 – 5pm GMT (Click here to calculate your local time)

Virtualization continues to be one of the hottest opportunities in the industry today for businesses of all sizes.  Join us to learn how you can virtualize Windows Essential Business Server 2008 using Hyper-V.  In this session, we will discuss several virtualization scenarios, demonstrate how to deploy and manage EBS 2008, and share some best practices for configuration

Register Here

Picked this little beauty up via the Virtualization Planet blog, and it leads on nicely from the introductory post I wrote a month or so ago around SCE2010.  For those not familiar with System Center Essentials 2010, it’s Microsoft’s IT management solution specifically designed for midsized businesses. From one console, SCE allows you to monitor and manage your servers, clients, hardware, software, and IT services.  With the 2010 release, SCE now includes virtualisation management.  Think of it as the best bits of System Center Operations Manager, Configuration Manager and Virtual Machine Manager, all rolled into one.

I’ve still not had chance to play with it just yet, but it’s definitely on my list of things to do, however, in the meantime, if you want a brief look into what it’s all about, and how it operates, you’d be hard pressed to beat this short video:

All being well, I should get chance to install and configure this over the next few weeks, but time will tell on that one!

Earlier today, I wrote the first in a series of posts about the different options for Site Recovery around Hyper-V.  One thing I completely forgot to include was information about an upcoming webcast!  Doh!  You should know this bit already but…

“Citrix Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V adds new disaster recovery capabilities to Hyper-V with StorageLink Site Recovery technology.  Attend this session to get an up-close view of the new solution.  Product experts from Citrix will demonstrate how StorageLink Site Recovery brings simple disaster recovery controls to Hyper-V administrators while tapping powerful array-based replication services to protect Hyper-V workloads from site-to-site.  This session will also explore how you can use Site Recovery together with Microsoft Clustering and Citrix Essentials workflow orchestration tools to build an automated DR solution for your Hyper-V customers.”

WNS160PAL: Site Recovery for Hyper-V with Citrix Essentials

Presented by Jim Schwartz, Gordon Mangione and Barry Flanagan

Demo and discussion topics include:

• Setting up replication services
• Staging remote VMs for DR testing
• Performing fail-over of VMs

When?

Register Here.

I’m going to try to make this a feature that rolls on and on in the future, as it’s an area I’m getting more and more questions about, and there are a number of options out there for Partners and Customers, so trying to centralise the info into one place should make things easier.  I’ll try my best anyway!

Firstly, a bit of background.  Why do we need Site Recovery?  Well, think about it – lots of organisations are virtualising, which means they’re placing more eggs, in fewer baskets, however, at the same time, they are benefiting from features like Live Migration and High Availability to ensure uptime is as high as possible.  What would happen though, if their site lost power?  Well, for a short time, the UPS will keep you going, but before long…the SAN – gone.  Servers – gone.  Switches – gone.  The site is down – even High Availability won’t save you there.  Well, local High Availability won’t.

Multi-site Clustering

A feature of Windows Server Enterprise, since, well, 2003, has been Multi-site Clustering, or, as it has been known, Stretch Clustering, where you’re effectively stretching a cluster over WAN distances.  Problem with 2003 Multi-site clusters, was the requirement, among other things, for a single-subnet environment across the WAN.  In 2008, and subsequently in R2, this requirement no longer exists, but can be used if required.

From here

“The concept behind failover clustering across multiple sites is very simple. Why have separate islands of management for HA and DR? Why not take your HA setup and extend it to another site, thereby obtaining the added protection of geographic distance? Having a single management interface with failover automation provides an easy-to-use solution that gives you the best of both worlds.  Multi-site failover clustering does exactly this. Multiple local nodes provide traditional HA functionality in the event of local server failure. Local application migration (from physical server to physical server) is also available for zero-downtime server maintenance. The cluster is then extended to another site. The process is as easy as adding another node to the cluster. It even works across different subnets, thus eliminating the need for stretched subnets. Multi-site failover clustering can be used to protect key Microsoft Windows workloads such as Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange, DHCP and WINS services, file sharing, print sharing, etc”.

And now Hyper-V.

The key element that the in-box feature does not orchestrate, is the failover of the storage.  Think about it for a second – Site 1 is your active site, and has a SAN in Read/Write, along with nodes actively hosting VMs.  The SAN is being replicated to Site 2, where the SAN is in Read mode.  Site 1 goes BOOM.  What orchestrates the SAN switchover?  What orchestrates the connection of replicated LUNS to standby nodes in Site 2?  These are just 2 of the factors that need to be considered, and factored in, when planning a Multi-site configuration.

No Second SAN?

What about smaller environments, that don’t have the infrastructure, nor the budget, to house a second SAN and associated cluster nodes in another site?  Can they not achieve site resiliency?  Of course they can – there are a number of options available to them, from vendors like FalconStor, DoubleTake, and Steeleye to name but a few.  I’ll focus on a few of these in later parts of this feature series.

For more information on Multi-site clustering, you may find the following resources useful:

• Example, Clustered Service or Application in a Multi-Site Failover Cluster
• TechNet Webcast: Multi-Site Clustering with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (Level 300)
• Checklist: Setting Up a Clustered Service or Application in a Multi-Site Failover Cluster

Essentials for Hyper-V

Before we go into the specifics around Site Recovery, it’s important to expand on what Essentials for Hyper-V actually is, as it’s more than just Site Recovery.  From the Citrix Essential for Hyper-V website:

• Seamless storage integration - Citrix StorageLink™ technology exposes the advanced data and storage management features in today’s storage systems directly to a Hyper-V environment.
• StorageLink Site Recovery - Allows organizations to easily implement and manage site-to-site disaster recovery for Hyper-V virtual machines.
• Automated Lab Management - Enables self service set-up and tear down of non-production Hyper-V virtual environments typically used in development, support and training organizations reducing management complexity, time and cost.
• Stage Management - Streamlines the process of building, testing, sharing and delivering applications, using Hyper-V virtual machines, on-demand into production environments.
• Dynamic Provisioning Services provides simple deployment of workloads to any combination of Hyper-V virtual machines or physical Windows servers from a single golden image.
• Workflow Orchestration enables customized automation of key management processes for Hyper-V virtual infrastructure.

So, 6 technologies in there, each with significant benefits of their own (of which the links above will provide you with more information, but what about pricing and versions?

As you can see, the Express Edition provides the StorageLink technology, which provides Windows administrators running Hyper-V virtual machines the ability to dramatically simplify their storage management processes with quick and easy storage configuration and provisioning for their Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and System Center virtual infrastructures.  Citrix Essentials helps Hyper-V administrators take full advantage of powerful storage-based features like deduplication, thin provisioning, cloning, snapshots and replication.  You can get more info on Express here, but remember, the Express Edition of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V supports up to two Hyper-V servers and one storage array.  If you need more, you’ll have to look at the Enterprise of Platinum Editions, which are priced at $1500 and $3000 per host respectively. At $3000 per Server, it compares pretty favourably with VMware SRM from a pricing perspective, with SRM coming in at $2118 per CPU (inc 1 year Gold S&S), up to $2867 per CPU (inc 3 year Platinum S&S), which, for a typical 2 CPU box, would mean $4216 and $5734 respectively, but remember, for your $3000 per server, you’re also getting 5 other technologies thrown in too…

StorageLink Site Recovery

Now, I’m going to take a large amount of the following information from the Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V website – the point here is, I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here – I just want to try to centralise the Site Recovery related information into one place.

Citrix StorageLink Site Recovery dramatically simplifies the setup and configuration of disaster recovery protection of Hyper-V workloads through direct integration with storage array-based controls for data replication and copy services.  Together, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix StorageLink Site Recovery reduce the cost and complexity of implementing disaster recovery for critical server workloads

What about other benefits?

• Easy setup – Use StorageLink Site Recovery wizards to initiate remote replication between arrays, and designate Hyper-V virtual machines for protection in minutes.
• Reliable configuration – Automate disaster recovery configuration validation with built-in configuration checks to eliminate complex, error prone operations that can otherwise hinder recovery of critical infrastructure.
• Non-disruptive testing – StorageLink Site Recovery includes the ability to stage replicated virtual machines in isolated environments for testing and validation of disaster recovery plans without disrupting ongoing replication.
• Fast recovery – Single-click controls for failover of protected Hyper-V workloads helps ensure fast recovery at remote disaster recovery locations

What about requirements?

The following are the basic requirements:

• At least one Microsoft Hyper-V host at both the primary and secondary locations.
• Replication-enabled storage arrays (See the Citrix StorageLink Gateway HCL for a list of supported arrays).
• A StorageLink Site Recovery-enabled version of Citrix Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V for each Hyper-V host involved in the Site Recovery configuration.
• Network connectivity between the primary and secondary locations with sufficient bandwidth to handle ongoing replication of protected virtual machines.

Once organizations have the basic Citrix and Microsoft components in place, the implementation of disaster recovery protection is very easy:

1. Configure StorageLink Storage Repositories at both primary and secondary locations.
2. Designate a primary storage array and secondary storage array using the StorageLink interface.
3. Map StorageLink Storage Repositories for replication.
4. Use the StorageLink interface to select the virtual machines to be protected.
5. Export the disaster recovery configuration from the primary StorageLink instance.  Then import the configuration to the secondary instance of StorageLink.
6. Once initial synchronization of primary and secondary storage resources completes, Hyper-V workloads are ready for testing and fail-over operations.

Summary & Resources

One key thing to remember, is that the Site Recovery elements described above, apply to a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environment, not R2.  There is an updated version on the way, for the whole of the Essentials for Hyper-V suite, with more information available here.  The release, known as Citrix Essentials 5.5 for Hyper-V, takes advantage of the new R2 capabilities of both Hyper-V R2, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, and you can download the beta here.  I’ve not seen Site Recovery listed in the beta release, so at this time, I can’t confirm it’s in there, although the download page indicates it’s present.

In terms of resources available:

• Citrix Essentials for Microsoft Hyper-V Beta Download
• Documentation
• Essentials for Hyper-V – How it works
• Essentials for Hyper-V – Product information
• View a Demo

After a short holiday break, here’s a quick post to ease back into the blogging :-)

A couple of months back, I chatted about the beta release of the Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for DirectAccess and gave a brief explanation of the user experience that I have, at Microsoft, using DA.

Fast forward to October, and in the UK, at Wembley Stadium, we held the Microsoft Partner Network Event 2009, and I was on the Windows Server 2008 R2 pod, showing some of the technology, and answering any questions and queries (hello if you were there!).  Now, if I had a pound ($1.64 by today’s exchange rate) for every question I received about DA, I’d have been significantly better off by the end of the day!  The first thing you’ll think is, surely all of those questions were about ‘how does it work?’ – to that I answer, no, most of them were concerned with requirements, and integration, and, ‘are there any resources available?’.

Fast forward again to present day, and the finalised resources are starting to flow:

This IPD guide provides actionable guidance for designing a DirectAccess infrastructure. The guide’s easy-to-follow, four-step process gives a straightforward explanation of the infrastructure required for clients to be connected from the Internet to resources on the corporate network, whether or not the organization has begun deploying IPv6.

The guide covers four key steps in the design process for DirectAccess:

• Aligning the project scope with the business requirements.
• Determining whether IPv6, Teredo, 6to4, and IP-HTTPS connectivity will be supported for Internet-based clients.
• Assessing the need for IPv6/IPv4 network address translation service and ISATAP for internal communication.
• Determining the number and placement of servers, the certificate services requirements, and location of CRL distribution points.

If you’re a Microsoft Partner, and you want to get on board with (potentially) the most requested ‘better together (7/R2)’ feature in the new wave of technology, then I would strongly recommend downloading the IPD Guide – it’s free, and all it will cost you is a bit of your time.

Get it here.

Remember a couple of years back, just before Windows Server 2008 launched? Well, for me, I knew this was going to be one of my focuses for that particular financial year, however, I also knew very little about 2008 as a technology!  I was a Windows-Client boy!  At that time, I was looking for a definitive resource that would provide me with some solid foundational knowledge about Windows Server 2008, without going into the deep technical side straight away.  I found that resource, in the form of the ‘Introducing Windows Server 2008’ book, which I purchased when over at our internal technical conference in the US.

Fast forward (or should that be, FlashForward?) to present day, and R2 is here.  Wouldn’t it be great if that same type or resource was available, for all those of you wanting to get up to speed on 2008 R2?  Yeah it would!  What about if it was free, as an eBook? Even better! :-)

In terms of the contents:

Chapter 1    What’s New in Windows Server R2    1
Chapter 2    Installation and Configuration: Adding R2 to Your World    9
Chapter 3    Hyper-V: Scaling and Migrating Virtual Machines    25
Chapter 4    Remote Desktop Services and VDI: Centralizing Desktop and Application Management    47
Chapter 5    Active Directory: Improving and Automating Identity and Access    65
Chapter 6    The File Services Role    91
Chapter 7    IIS 7.5: Improving the Web Application Platform    109
Chapter 8    DirectAccess and Network Policy Server    129
Chapter 9    Other Features and Enhancements    147

Introduction

Windows Server 2008 R2, or simply R2 for short, is the second release of Windows Server 2008. It isn’t a completely new release, but rather adds additional features and refinements to the existing release. In this book, we focus on the new features and refinements in R2. We assume you have at least a general knowledge of Windows Server, and that you have some familiarity with Windows Server 2008, although we don’t assume you’re actively running Windows Server 2008. Where an R2 feature is a refinement of a feature that was new in Windows Server 2008, we provide background on the Windows Server 2008 feature to provide context.

Who This Book Is For

This book is targeted primarily at Windows server administrators who are responsible for hands-on deployment and day-to-day management of Windows-based servers for large organizations. Windows server administrators manage file and print servers, network infrastructure servers, Web servers, and IT application servers.

They use graphical administration tools as their primary interface but also use Windows PowerShell commandlets and occasionally write Windows PowerShell scripts for routine tasks and bulk operations. They conduct most server management tasks remotely by using Terminal Server or administration tools installed on their local workstation.

What This Book Is About

Covering every aspect of Windows Server 2008 R2 in nine chapters and approximately 200 pages is clearly an impossible task. Rather than try to cover everything, we’ve focused on what is new and important, while giving you the context from Windows Server 2008.

Chapter 1 - “What’s New in Windows Server R2” Provides a brief overview of all the new features and capabilities of Windows Server 2008 R2.

Chapter 2 - “Installation and Configuration: Adding R2 to Your World” Covers minimum system requirements, basic installation and configuration of R2, and what is involved in adding an R2 server to an existing Windows Server network. Configuration of the Windows Server Core installation option, added in Windows Server 2008, is covered, along with the steps required to add a Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controller to an existing Windows Server network.

Chapter 3 - “Hyper-V: Scaling and Migrating Virtual Machines” Covers the new Hyper-V features of Windows Server 2008 R2, including dynamic storage management and Quick Migration of clustered virtual machines (VMs). Covers creation and management of virtual machines using the Hyper-V Manager console, Windows PowerShell, and the Failover Cluster Manager console and discusses the features of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

Chapter 4 - “Remote Desktop Services and VDI: Centralizing Desktop and Application Management” Covers Remote Desktop Services (the new name for Terminal Services) and the enhancements of Windows Server 2008 R2, including Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), which uses the new RD Virtualization Host capability of R2 to provide desktop virtualization. R2 also includes an all-new Remote Desktop Services provider for Windows PowerShell.

Chapter 5 - “Active Directory: Improving and Automating Identity and Access” Covers the new features of Active Directory (AD), including an AD Recycle Bin, a new set of Active Directory Windows PowerShell cmdlets, and improvements in daily AD administration.

Chapter 6 - “The File Services Role” Covers the new File Services features, including BranchCache, Distributed File System–ReadOnly (DFS-R), and the File Classification Infrastructure (FCI).

Chapter 7 - “IIS 7.5: Improving the Web Application Platform” Covers the features of the new version of Internet Information Services (IIS), including the new Windows PowerShell management features.

Chapter 8 - “DirectAccess and Network Policy Server” Covers the Network Policy Server (NPS) and the new DirectAccess feature that allows Windows 7 computers to be transparently connected to internal network resources from anywhere without requiring a virtual private network (VPN) connection.

Chapter 9 - “Other Features and Enhancements” Covers the enhanced version of Windows Server Backup included in R2, including the Windows PowerShell commands for backing up. Also covered is the new BitLocker To Go capability, which provides an important new protection for removable volumes such as backup disks.

Download the PDF here (11mb)!

22nd October was a pretty significant day for Microsoft.  As most of you will be aware, it was the day Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 were launched, and both are monumental releases for a number of different reasons.  Windows 7 is a fantastic opportunity for Microsoft to drive the love back into the client OS after Vista, and in Server 2008 R2, there are enough Enterprise-class features and capabilities, for this to be classed as a major release, not the minor release suggested by the R2 naming…

Anyway, for you management fans, another product had a significant release on the 22nd; System Center Configuration Manager 2007, hit SP2.  Why’s that significant?  Well, how about this:

• Full Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 support that enables customers to deploy and manage their Windows 7 client and server based systems.
• Version 2 of the Intel AMT integration that includes the addition of updated firmware support along with support for key new features such as wireless profile management and 802.1x.
• BranchCache support that enables customers to significantly reduce WAN utilization in branch office scenarios by leveraging new technology in Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Greater 64-bit support that includes Remote Control, App-V, and the 2007 System Center Operations Manager agent

You can grab SP2 here.

Combine SCCM, with the free Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010, and you’ve got a very powerful platform for deployment within your infrastructure.

A couple of weeks back (seems like ages now, but I’ve been moving house so I have an excuse!!) I blogged about Service Manager, and how it could be the next big thing in automating IT processes, workflows, and more, within an IT environment.  At the time, All I provided was a video and a link to an online virtual lab.

Now however, you can start to get your hands dirty with it, as the public beta 2 is available for download.  Firstly however, let’s expand on what Service Manager actually is.  I’m going to take this directly from the Microsoft site:

Microsoft System Center Service Manager is an integrated platform for automating and adapting your organization’s IT service management best practices, such as those found in Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). It provides built-in processes for incident and problem resolution, change control, and asset lifecycle management. Through its configuration management database (CMDB) and process integration, Service Manager automatically connects knowledge and information from System Center Operations Manager, System Center Configuration Manager and Active Directory. Service Manager delivers integration, efficiency, and business alignment of the datacenter IT services by:

• Optimizing processes and ensuring their use through templates that effectively guide IT analysts through best practices for change and incident management.

• Reducing resolution times by cutting across organizational silos, ensuring that the right information from incident, problem, change, or asset records is accessible through a single pane.

• Extending the value of the Microsoft platform through automated generation of incidents from alerts and the coordination of activities among System Center products.

• Enabling informed and cost-effective decision making through its data warehouse, which integrates knowledge from disparate IT management systems, delivering out-of-the-box reporting and flexible data analysis through SQL reporting services.

Resources:

• Take a test drive: Service Manager virtual lab
• White Paper [PDF]: Orchestrating People, Process, and Technology
• White Paper [PDF]: Efficient and Responsive Support for End Users
• White Paper [DOC]: Driving Efficiency and Reliability in the Data Center
• Visit the SMSM forum
• Service Manager blog
• Demo: Managing Applications with Service Maps in System Center Service Manager 2010
• Demo: Service Manager 2010 - Self Service Portal Feature
• Demo: Managing Compliance with Service Manager 2010

So, where can you get it?

Right Here.  Make sure you check out the Service Manager 2010 Beta 2 System Requirements – they’re quite hefty – you’ve been warned!

For those of you who have been baffled by my title acronyms, WDS is Windows Deployment Services, which is a role of Windows Server, that enables network based deployment scenrios, and acts as a platform for the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, and System Center Configuration Manager.  SCOM on the other hand, is System Center Operations Manager, which is focused on monitoring a number of different aspects of an infrastructure, such as hardware, software, storage, and applications to name but a few.

These IPD guides, (of which I’ve blogged about previously) now include the features and functionalities of Windows Server 2008 R2 around WDS, and also, in a separate guide, System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2.  The guides outline the critical infrastructure design elements that are crucial to a successful implementation of these deployment and operations products.

The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Windows® Deployment Services guides the reader through the process of designing a Windows Deployment Services infrastructure in a logical, sequential order. Following the six steps in this guide will result in a design that is sized, configured, and appropriately placed to enable rapid deployment of Windows operating systems, while also considering the performance, capacity, and fault tolerance of the system.

The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager outlines the critical infrastructure design elements that are crucial to a successful implementation of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. The guide takes the reader step-by-step through the process of designing components, layout, and connectivity in a logical, sequential order. Identification and design of the required management groups is presented in simple, easy-to-follow steps, helping the reader to design and optimize management infrastructure.

Download the IPD Guides for Windows Deployment Services and System Center Operations Manager at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/ee382254.aspx.

Infrastructure Planning and Design streamlines the planning process by:

• Defining the technical decision flow through the planning process.
• Listing the decisions to be made and the commonly available options and considerations.
• Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
• Framing decisions in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive alignment with the appropriate business landscape.

Useful reading I’d say!

A couple of weeks ago, I highlighted an improved service for Microsoft Partners and Customers, known as Pinpoint.  For those of you not familiar with what Pinpoint is, have a quick read of the previous post, and come back (we’ll wait for you!).

If you’re a Microsoft Partner, and you’d like to know how to put yourself even more in the shop window, and how to make your business rank higher in the Partner search results, then this could be the webcast for you.

Profiling and optimising solutions in Pinpoint - 8th October 2009 15:00 (GMT) – Use invitation code AAEF4C

Best of luck!

Again, I’ve lifted this from the SCE blog, and again, I’ll weigh in once I’ve pulled it down, and had the chance to try this bad boy out!  This one could be a little gem for the SMB space, who want the advanced capabilities provided by Hyper-V, but want to wrap around it, a comprehensive set of management tools, designed with SMB in mind.  From the SCE blog:

“For those of you who were with us for the release of System Center Essentials 2007 a little over two years ago, you know that this is Microsoft’s IT management solution specifically designed for midsized businesses. From one console, SCE allows you to monitor and manage your servers, clients, hardware, software, and IT services.

Over the last two years, we’ve been getting some great feedback from customers using SCE 2007, investigating ways to improve on the existing features AND address a new trend we’ve been seeing with customers’ virtualising server workloads. Based on all this input, the engineering team has invested a lot of work into making the following updates in this next release”

• Integrated server virtualization management support, built on VMM 2008 R2 technology, including easy template-based creation of new virtual servers and live migration
• Adjusted licensing limits to allow for management of virtual servers
• Rewritten setup for an easier, intuitive installation
• Built-in automatic Microsoft Update subscription maintenance
• Provided flexible computer grouping
• Added additional software distribution target criteria

This really is one of those technologies where you need to get your hands dirty with it, and that’s certainly something I’ll be doing over the next few weeks, when I get the chance.  SCE was a powerful technology before, and that was just with a combination of bits from SCOM/SCCM – now with SCVMM included, it’s becoming even more of a compelling solution for the SMB space…

Grab it here.

View a video of the new stuff, here.

I’ve pinched this straight from the release documentation, so apologies for that.  I’ll weigh in with my opinions once I’ve pulled it down and played with it, which, up to now, I haven’t had the chance to do.  Key thing for me in this release is that it provides backup capability for Hyper-V VMs sat on Cluster Shared Volumes.

DPM 2010 Beta builds on the success of DPM 2007 as the Microsoft backup and recovery solution for Windows customers in four significant areas:

1. Continuous data protection of Windows application and file servers to seamlessly integrated disk, tape, and cloud—with support for a growing list of Microsoft technologies, such as:

• Windows Server from 2003 through 2008 R2
• SQL Server 2000 through 2008
• Exchange Server 2003 through 2010
• SharePoint Server 2003 through 2010
• Dynamics AX 2009
• Essential Business Server 2008 and Small Business Server 2008
• SAP™ running on SQL Server

Along with new workloads and support of the latest generation of Microsoft application servers, these platforms are gaining several new protection and recovery capabilities. Some enhancement examples include:

• SQL Server database administrators will see up to 2000 databases protected by a single DPM server and will get a self-service restore capability so that authorized DBAs can restore data themselves. Also, you will be able to protect entire instances of SQL Server, where all new databases will be automatically protected.
• SharePoint administrators will also see new content databases be automatically protected and will no longer need a recovery farm for Office “14” servers to do individual item recovery from DPM 2010.

2. Robust and flexible protection and recovery for the following Microsoft virtualization environments:

• Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
• Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V
• Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V
• Hyper-V Server 2008 and 2008 R2
• Protection of Live Migration-enabled servers running on CSV in Hyper-V R2 - DPM 2010 is LiveMigration aware and seamlessly protects a VM after it migrates to another node of the Hyper-V R2 cluster to another without manual intervention.
• Flexibility to protect virtual machines from Windows guests or from the hypervisor host
• Host-based backups will now enable single-item restores from within the VHD - DPM 2010 Beta supports item level recovery (ILR) which allows you to do granular recovery of files and folders, volumes and virtual hard disks (VHD) from a host level backup of Hyper-V VMs to a network share or a volume on a DPM protected server.
• Ability to restore virtual machines to an alternative host - DPM 2010 Beta supports alternate location recovery (ALR) which allows you to recover a Hyper-V VM to an alternate stand-alone or clustered Hyper-V host.

3. Industry-leading Windows client protection:

• Protection of Windows XP through Windows 7
• Centralized policy management from DPM 2010, but backups occur while laptops are online or offline by managing policies within the local VSS client/backup tools
• Restores can also be done while online or offline—from the local repository or the DPM media
• Intelligent and customizable filtering to ensure the right data gets backed up

4. Scalability, reliability, and manageability:

• Up to 100 servers, 1000 laptops, or 2000 databases protected by a single DPM server
• Significant auto-protection, auto-healing, and reduced alerting for a more “fire and forget” experience
• Enhanced disaster recovery options for long-distance data protection and business continuity initiatives

This list is a partial representation of the full feature set planned for DPM 2010. Test out it yourself by downloading DPM 2010 Beta.

There’s even more information to be found over at the DPM Blog.

Definitely worth a look if you’re thinking about a backup technology to protect CSV based VMs, among other things!  Enjoy!

For those of you ‘not in the know’, the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit is a free tool that makes it easier for Microsoft customers and partners to quickly identify what servers, workstations, and network devices are in their IT environment. This agentless and scalable toolkit has the ability to discover all computers within Active Directory and workgroup environments. It performs key functions that include hardware and device inventory, hardware compatibility analysis, and generation of actionable, environment-specific IT proposals for migration to most major Microsoft technologies.  What else does it do?

• Windows 7 & Windows Vista Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment
• Windows Server 2008 R2 & 2008 R1 Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment
• Virtualisation Candidates Assessment for Hyper-V R2 & Hyper-V R1 Server Consolidation
• Integration with the Microsoft Integrated Virtualisation ROI Calculator
• Inventory of VMware Server Hosts and Guests
• User Interface and Proposal Customisation for Partner co-branding
• Enhanced Usability and Improved Inventory Performance
• 2007 Microsoft Office Readiness Assessment
• SQL Server Instance Discovery
• Desktop Security Assessment for Anti-virus and Anti-malware Programs Installation
• Forefront Client Security/NAP Readiness Assessment
• Online Services (Exchange Online) Assessment
• App-V Infrastructure Readiness Assessment
• Power Savings “Green IT” Calculator

Loads of stuff!  For free!

Well, here’s the latest gossip – IBM have worked with MS to bring to market an IBM-specific version of MAP…

This release, based on the MAP Toolkit platform, was developed by IBM at the IBM Center for Microsoft Technologies to accelerate the adoption of server virtualization hardware including IBM System x and BladeCenter together with Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualisation technology.  Now customized for IBM, the MAP Toolkit allows more specific recommendations of IBM server hardware.  Example are shown below (click to enlarge)

Key Features

• Quickly and easily take inventory of customer server environments, determine which servers are underutilised, and generate a plan for a virtual datacenter based on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V software
• Recommend IBM System x and BladeCenter servers as the ideal choice for customers’ virtualised environments
• Calculate potential savings and produce quantifiable benefits unique to each customer’s IT needs prior to deployment with Microsoft Virtualisation ROI Calculator integration
• Eliminate manual network assessment and virtualisation planning and help customers choose the right infrastructure the first time
• Auto-generate reports and proposals to speed the planning process.

Get MAP Toolkit Now

• Download the MAP Toolkit for IBM version (or learn more here)
• Download the MAP Toolkit (Generic Version)
• Get the Infrastructure Planning and Design guidance for Hyper-V virtualisation

The Infrastructure Planning and Design team has released two updated virtualisation guides: Windows Server Virtualisation (Hyper-V) and System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

These guides, updated to reflect the features and functionalities of Windows Server 2008 R2 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, outline the critical infrastructure design elements that are crucial to a successful implementation of these virtualisation products.

The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Windows Server Virtualisation takes the reader through the process of designing components, layout, and connectivity in a logical, sequential order.  Identification of the Hyper-V server hosts required is presented in easy-to-follow steps, helping the reader to design and plan virtual server datacenters. The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager assists readers in the design and implementation of SCVMM architecture, thus enabling centralized administration of physical and virtual machines. Identification of the VMM server instances required is one of the simple, seven-step design processes presented in this guide.

• Get the Hyper-V IPD info and download files from here
• Get the SCVMM IPD info and download files from here

For any consultant offering services around Microsoft Virtualisation, I’d say these are two pretty useful guides to have in your back pocket when working with customers.