Server and Tools Business News Bytes blog : Hyper-V

Converging on Microsoft: Essential Steps for Securing Hyper-V Podcast

grantkd — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:32:00 GMT

Security in a virtual world is not an oxymoron - You don’t have to compromise security to get the benefits of virtualization. Check out Mike Schutz, Director of Product Management for the Microsoft Windows Server Division, speaking to Converging on Microsoft’s Mitchell Ashley in a podcast interview on the essential steps for securing Hyper-V.

Other Resources:

Hyper-V Security Guide

Security In A Virtual World

Windows Virtualization Team Blog

Frugal Fridays Podcast: Jeff Woolsey talks Hyper-V 2.0

grantkd — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:47:00 GMT

Checkout this week’s installment of the Frugal Friday’s Tech Show podcast with Jason Perlow and Ken Hess, featuring Jeff Woolsey, Principal Group Program Manager in Windows Server Division, focused on Microsoft Virtualization. Click here to listen now and read the Geek Sheet: Virtualizing Free Linux Distributions in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Microsoft expands its contribution track record

grantkd — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:24:00 GMT

This week in San Jose, CA, Microsoft will participate in the 11^th annual O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), where we will announce several open source strategy milestones that highlight the company’s growing contribution to open source projects. Today, Sam Ramji, senior director, Platform Strategy, will announce the contribution of 20,000 lines of code to the Linux kernel community. The code contribution, a Linux device driver, will be published on CodePlex, Microsoft’s open source project hosting web site, and will be immediately available to the Linux Community and customers alike, enabling any distribution of the Linux operating system to be virtualized on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

This news marks significant milestones for Microsoft. First, the Hyper-V Linux device drivers we are releasing are designed so Linux can run in enlightened mode, giving it the same optimized synthetic devices as a Windows virtual machine running on top of Hyper-V. Without this driver code, Linux can run on top of Windows, but without the same high performance levels. Second, this milestone marks the first time Microsoft is directly contributing code to the Linux kernel. Microsoft has made the long term commitment to update and maintain this code over time as the next versions of the Linux kernel are released.

For more information, please check out the following:

· Channel 9 video link, http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/NicFill/Microsoft-Contributes-Code-to-the-Linux-Kernel/

· Virtualization Team Blog: Microsoft and Red Hat Cooperative Technical Support, http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/02/15/Microsoft-and-Red-Hat-Joint-Technical-Support.aspx

· Microsoft Open Source, http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/

· White paper, “Participation in a World of Choice,” http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/

· White paper, “Microsoft, PHP and Open Source: A Pragmatic Alliance,” http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/

Virtualization Saves Microsoft Customers Nearly a Half-Million Dollars Per Year

mdingle — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Microsoft today announced that some business customers around the world have saved on average $470,000 (U.S.) per year through IT projects using Microsoft virtualization software. Microsoft’s business customers have been able to use virtualization to help reduce operations and capital expenses via reduced electrical power consumption and cooling within datacenters, reduced hardware acquisition costs, automation of desktop and server management, and centralized application deployment.

For the full press release, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/feb09/02-09VirtualizationSavingsPR.mspx

To read a guest post from David Straede, president Santa Barbara Web Hosting, please visit the Virtualization blog.

Watch this video to see why the economic crunch is leading many businesses to choose Microsoft’s virtualization solution over the competition.

Cost Savings with Microsoft Virtualization

Get Virtual Now

grantkd — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:15:00 GMT

Today at 9 AM PDT, Bob Kelly will take the stage at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, officially kicking off Microsoft’s five-month long worldwide event series to “‘Get Virtual Now.”

Product milestones will be announced through two live webcast keynotes, available for viewing at the Microsoft Virtual Press Room.

· Bob Kelly- 9:00-10:00 AM PDT

· Bob Muglia and Kevin Turner- 12:30-2:00 PM PDT

News at today’s event:

· Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 will be released within 30 days and be available at no cost via the Web.

· System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 will be released within 30 days.

· Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, released last week, will be included as part of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2008 R2, which is due for general availability in the coming weeks.

· Microsoft demonstrated for the first time a live migration feature of Windows Server 2008 R2.

Partner News:

In separate news releases today, visit the Microsoft Virtual Press Room to learn about announcements from the following partners.

· AMD

· Compellent Technologies, Inc.

· HP

· NetApp

· Sun Microsystems

For more information, please visit the Windows Virtualization Team Blog.

WU-hoo: Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is available via Windows Update.

grantkd — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:49:00 GMT

On the heels of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V’s release last month, customers who have already deployed the x64 versions of Windows Server 2008 can receive Hyper-V from Windows Update beginning today. For new Windows Server 2008 customers, Hyper-V can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/Hyper-V. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V contains everything needed to support customers’ server consolidation, business continuity and virtualized desktop infrastructure projects, and easily plugs into customers’ existing IT infrastructure.

For more information, check out the Windows Virtualization Team blog to read more about Hyper-V and revisit the countdown to Windows Update.

RTM of Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 for Hyper-V

grantkd — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Today Microsoft announced the release to manufacturing of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 for Hyper-V. Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization feature included in select versions of Windows Server 2008, was released last week. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 (or MAP) is a network-wide agent-less tool to help quickly identify the locations of desktops and servers as well as auto-generate upgrade recommendations for multiple products and technologies including server, desktop and virtualization migration scenarios covering:

· Hyper-V virtualization candidates assessment (New in MAP 3.1)

· SQL server discovery and assessment (New in MAP 3.1)

· Desktop Security Center assessment (New in MAP 3.1)

· Windows Server 2008 hardware and device compatibility assessment including server discovery

· Windows Vista hardware and device compatibility assessment including PC discovery

· Office 2007 hardware compatibility assessment

· Microsoft Application Virtualization hardware compatibility assessment

· SNMP inventory reporting

For more on this announcement, visit the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit Team Blog and the Windows Virtualization Team Blog.

To download the MAP 3.1 Toolkit, please click here.

It’s here! Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is available for download…

grantkd — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:23:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft reaches a significant milestone for customers and partners with the release of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization feature included in select versions of Windows Server 2008. Those who have already deployed the x64 versions of Windows Server 2008 can receive Hyper-V from Windows Update beginning July 8, while new customers and partners can download Hyper-V later today (12:00 pm PT). The Windows Virtualization team will be counting down the days to download from Windows Update, so be sure to visit the Windows Virtualization Team blog to see daily spotlights on specific features and benefits of Hyper-V technology, as well as to read about customer stories and see postings from guests.

Since the beta release of Hyper-V in February, more than 250 customers have participated in Hyper-V’s early adoption program. Microsoft’s own deployment and results with Hyper-V is showcased today in Rob Emanuel’s guest blog and video on the Windows Server Division blog, specifically on customers using Hyper-V and partner benefits, visit the Microsoft PressPass site.

Also, check out the new Hyper-V videos on TechNet Edge:

TechNet Edge Interview: Hyper-V Overview with Mike Neil

TechNet Edge Interview: Hyper-V Program managers interview Part 1

TechNet Edge Interview: Hyper-V Program managers interview Part 2

Other Resources:

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

Virtualization Solution Accelerators