Rob Costello : Virtualization

Exchange and Virtualisation

robcost — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:46:45 GMT

A lot of people are talking about the updated support policy on virtualisation support for Exchange 2007. If you missed it check it out here...

Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments

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Virtual Machine Library

robcost — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:05:45 GMT

How cool is this, ever wanted to find all the Virtual Machines we have for download for you to try out Microsoft products like Exchange, Biztalk, Vista, ILM etc etc. Well here is the one address you'll need to find all our VHD goodness...

http://www.microsoft.com/vhd

Technorati Tags: Virtualisation

Hyper-V Release Candidate

robcost — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:43:05 GMT

The Windows Virtualization Product Team have announce the Release Candidate of Hyper-V. Check out there post here...

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2008/03/19/hyper-v-release-candidate-is-here.aspx

From the article updated features include...

· Improved usability:

Partial localization support for Japanese and German.

Hyper-V Release Candidate is partially localized in Japanese & German. This means that when Hyper-V is enabled on Windows Server 2008 Japanese or German many of its text strings will appear properly translated. In other cases, text strings may still appear in English. Hyper-V will be fully localized in numerous languages at Hyper-V RTM...

Ability to enable Hyper-V RC on international locales.

The Hyper-V Release Candidate can now be enabled on international locales. (As opposed to previous versions which could only be enabled on an EN-US locale).

However, Hyper-V Release Candidate is only partially localized for Japanese and German. Thus, if you enable Hyper-V Release Candidate on any other language (such as Spanish, French, or Italian) it will appear in English. Hyper-V will be fully localized in numerous languages at Hyper-V RTM...

· Additional Guest OS support:

Hyper-V RC now includes support for Windows Server 2003 (x86) SMP

Hyper-V RC now includes support and integration components for Windows Vista SP1 (x86) and Windows XP SP3 (x86)

· Improved performance:

Hyper-V RC includes performance fixes for scalability and throughput for workloads

Hyper-V VMs using pass-through disks will see a substantial performance improvement over previous versions

Installing Hyper-V VMs via network (RIS/PXE/WDS) is greatly improved over previous versions

...and lots more...

Technorati Tags: Hyper-V,Windows Virtualization,Windows Server 2008

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Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 RTM!!!

robcost — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:58:06 GMT

Today we announced that Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 have RTM'd (Released To Manufacturing). Cool hey?

You can get the round up from the respective teams blogs here...

Server 08 - http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2008/02/04/windows-server-2008-rtm.aspx

Vista SP1 - http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/02/04/announcing-the-rtm-of-windows-vista-sp1.aspx

I'm really excited about the Windows Server 2008 release, especially with Hyper-V now not far from release too. NAP, TS Gateway, Server Core, this is a very big release!!!

For all the Windows Server 2008 goodness, check out the product site here...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/default.mspx

Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2008, Vista SP1, NAP, Server Core

Windows Server Virtualization Preview FAQ

robcost — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:05:13 GMT

Jeff Woolsey has post a great FAQ on the new Windows Server Virtualization preview in Windows Server 2008 RC0.

Check it out here...

Virtualization CTP FAQ

Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2008, WSV

Windows Server 2008 RC0 available

robcost — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 04:22:00 GMT

Big news today, as Release Candidate 0 of Windows Server 2008 is out, and with it, the very first public release of Windows Server Virtualization (codenamed Viridian) as a customer technology preview.

With Windows Server Virtualization CTP, you will have the first chance to experience how you can leverage the scalability of hypervisor-based platform and features, including multi-processor guests, large memory allocation (more than 32 gigabytes per machine) and integrated virtual switch support.

To get you up to speed, there are some short demos here...

Windows Server 2008 Virtualization Webcast Express
Take a ten minute tour of Windows Server 2008 and the new virtualization capabilities. We’ll look at installation and setup, administrative tools, x64 guest support, multi-processor guest support and the new device virtualization architecture.
Everything you need to know about System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 in 10 Minutes
Come take a fast paced ten minute ride with Keith Combs as he does the whirlwind tour of SCVMM, the Library, Self Service Portal, PowerShell, and System Center Operations Manager 2007 with the Management Pack for Virtual Machines.
Undo is undone
Come take a ten minute tour of virtualization snapshot management in System Center Virtualization Machine Manager 2007. Undo disk and parent/child differencing disk technologies will be discussed and demonstrated as we look at the new way System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 manages state.

Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2008, Virtualization, Windows Server Virtualization, SCVMM

New Windows Server Virtualization Video

robcost — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:07:22 GMT

Keith Combs has put together a great screencast video demonstrating the cool new features of Windows Server Virtualization, which will be available as a new role in Windows Server 2008 (actually it will RTM after Server 08 is released, but it's very close).

Check out the full post here...

Windows Server 2008 screencast - Virtualization 10 Minute Tour

Or the video is available for download or you can stream it off the web here...

Video for download: http://keithcombs.members.winisp.net/screencast/WSvTour.wmv
Streaming video: mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/inetpub/keithcombs/ws2008/WSvTour.wmv

For more information on Virtualization tools from Microsoft...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualization/default.mspx

Technorati Tags: Virtualization, Windows Server Virtualization, Windows Server 2008

System Center Virtual Machine Manager RTM's

robcost — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 03:42:34 GMT

Some huge news today, as we've just announced that System Center Virtual Machine Manager has Released To Manufacturing. How cool is that hey?!?!?!

Check out the full post on the Windows Virtualization Nation Blog here... http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2007/09/06/system-center-virtual-machine-manager-huge-announcements.aspx

Some major points from the announcement:

SCVMM will manage Virtual Server and Windows Server Virtualization.
Licensing information is included.
A workgroup edition is available for managing 5 physical machines with UNLIMITED virtual's.
In our next set of releases will be adding support for non-Windows virtualization environments – specifically VMWare and Xen.

For all the details of System Center Virtual Machine Manager check out the product site here... http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/default.mspx

Technorati Tags: System Center, Virtualization, Virtual Machine Manager, SCVMM