- Microsoft “gets” Small Business
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This week, a new report from Compass Intelligence ranked Microsoft as #1 among the top technology vendors that are effectively serving small businesses.
Stephanie Mehta at CNN Money.com published an article this week that listed the top ten vendors, with Microsoft going from #6 last year to #1. Ms. Mehta goes on to describe that all of the top ten ‘get’ small business and I will leave it to the Microsoft PR folks to talk about the bigger picture on behalf of the company and our entire portfolio of SMB products and services -- but I wanted to offer my personal perspective from within the System Center team.
I started my IT career working for a local PC reseller with 5 employees that serviced small businesses. From there, I went to a larger integrator that worked through the “channel” and “distribution” before starting to work for various backup vendors and eventually Microsoft. I even spent a few years as a self-employed consultant with small business customers, so I’d like to think that I ‘get’ small business and am really proud to see that Microsoft is delivering products and offers that are being appreciated by this key business segment.
Being in the top ten is a great thing, but for me, what is even more encouraging is the uplift from one year to the next says that perhaps we are doing some things right. And one of the things that I think we are doing right, but admittedly I didn’t know about even two years ago, was around helping small and medium businesses (SMB) with managing all of the technology that they have.
I have managed DPM, the backup and recovery product within System Center, for the past four years, but I must confess that I had been much more of a “backup guy” than a “management guy”. So this year, when I began working with System Center Essentials(SCE) – it was a real revelation.
Frankly, I used to think that DPM was one of the hidden gems from Microsoft – but for small/medium businesses, SCE might be even more so.
System Center offers a few powerhouse enterprise management products, such as Operations Manager (formerly MOM) and Configuration Manager (formerly SMS). And as an enterprise customer and implementer, I have had experiences with them since MOM and SMS were both 1.0 products and I was deploying Windows NT. But System Center Essentials really right-sizes several different management technologies and delivers them in a really elegant and unified console for small and medium businesses – designed for organizations with up to 500 PCs and to be managed by an IT generalist instead of infrastructure or management specialist.
Last week, marked my 4th anniversary as a Microsoft employee and seeing offerings like SC Essentials reminds me of one of the main reasons that I joined Microsoft to help drive SC Data Protection Manager – being able to take enterprise class technologies and make them mainstream.
Five years ago, the only way to do disk-based replication with snapshots for fast recovery was to spend tens of thousands of dollars on storage hardware. Today, unified disk- and tape-based protection (DPM) is available as a software solution from the vendor whose data that you want to protect, e.g. Microsoft SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, etc.
Just a few months ago, Windows Server 2008 R2 delivered File Classification Infrastructure (FCI), where the file system natively provides the plumbing to mark files for retention or preservation. This is something that Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) and Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) vendors have struggled with for years upon years – and only the largest of enterprises could afford to attempt.
Only three years ago, smaller companies might have wanted software deployment help (instead of carrying CD’s to each workstation), update management (instead of everyone running Windows Update – or not), and to have insight into why things sometimes break and how to fix them. But until SCE 2007, some of those technologies were not as viable for small and medium businesses. SCE 2007 brought those technologies to mainstream for midsized organizations. And SCE 2010 improves on that by adding virtualization management. Hey, who would have thought midsized businesses would be virtualizing even small offices? It’s just another example of bringing those enterprise technologies to mainstream and even small business.
Please know that I don’t think that we are perfect. There are lots of things that we can do better and I really appreciate it when folks help me understand new areas that can be improved. But I do think we are doing some good things and maybe some of the technologies above are among the reasons that Microsoft moved up in the list of technology vendors that ‘get’ small business. They are some of the reasons that I am most proud to be here.
Thanks for reading.
- The More Things Change…Well, You Know
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Looking back at 2009, the first thought that comes to mind is the old phrase, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” Wondering where this quote came from, I decided to “Bing” it. Of course, the results led me to lots of websites with quotations about change. Here are some other “change” quotes that jumped out at me from my search results:
- “Things do not change; we change” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself” ~ Andy Warhol
- “Nothing endures but change” ~Heraclitus
So, I guess the bottom line is that things change AND they stay the same depending on your perspective and what factors might be driving you or your situation to change or stay the same? I began to realize how easily all of these quotes and these seemingly contradictory perspectives apply to my lessons learned from talking to customers at all the various Microsoft IT summits and events this past year.
What’s stayed the same in 2009?
I was struck by how many “midsize” customers (customers who typically manage networks with anywhere from 25-250 PCs/laptops and 5-50 Servers) still struggle with effectively managing IT infrastructure to keep their businesses up and running. The reasons for this are still the same: IT department staffing is typically 1-5 people who work as “generalists” supporting multiple locations and are forced to be reactive to IT issues as they come up. Since IT budgets are leaner in this size IT department, they often have to rely on several different “point solutions” or free-ware to do things like monitor servers and deploy patches. In many cases, these customers are still relying on trotting “desk side” to help troubleshoot someone's PC or laptop or deploy a new application. It’s true there are quite a few capable Enterprise IT management solutions out there, but they’re not really priced and built for use by these customers. Based on these conversation, I can see we at Microsoft STILL have to do a better job of getting the word out to customers about our IT virtualization and management solutions which are specifically built for these customers!
What’s changed in 2009?
Compared with last year, I’m seeing a LOT more interest from midsize IT departments in using server 
virtualization as a way to cut power and cooling costs plus consolidate server workloads. Maybe this is also tied to the struggling economy and customers looking for ways to cut IT costs. Heck, why not adopt Hyper-v as your virtualization platform - it’s free. Also, as a mix of physical and virtual servers proliferates, so does the continued need for an easier, integrated way to manage both. As we move into 2010, Microsoft has positioned itself well to help customers make the transition to an integrated and cost-effective solution for creating and managing physical and virtual servers from a single console. System Center Essentials 2010, which is the second generation of our unified IT management solution for midsize businesses, has Virtual Machine Manager functionality built right into. We’ve already started to see customers like Taylor Shellfish Farms in Washington State begin to realize real benefits from using the beta version - check out the case study here.
To round out the end-to-end physical and virtual management solution, Data Protection Manager 2010 supports physical and virtual data protection which includes backing-up Hyper-v server.
The status of that data protection will be integrated into the unified SCE 2010 console via the Data Protection Management Management pack. So, all-in-all, I would say Microsoft is definitely on the right track in bringing the right virtualization and management solutions to market in 2010 to meet the needs of midsize IT departments.
P.S.
The Blog title quote “The more things change…” is from Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr who was a French critic, journalist, and novelist from the 1800s. In French, the quote is: "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.” If any of you are Rush fans, you’ll probably recall this quote in English and French from the lyrics to “Circumstances” off their 1978 release “Hemispheres” – I saw them on that tour in Oslo, Norway and they rocked.
Hope everyone has a great Holiday Season and look forward to blogging in a Happy and Healthy 2010!
David Out
David Mills
Sr. Product Manager
System Center
- The Drive for Efficiency through 2009
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I just had a fantastic conversation with some analysts about Systems Management, and the increasing world of complexity on the client, and in the datacenter. I crossed back through campus on a rare sunny Redmond morning, and found one of the latest CIO.com newsletters had arrived, and there was a link to a similar topic. I thought it might be interesting to share some perspective on these from a System Center lens with you, and reflect on a year where some major global events have occurred, and impacted our customers.
It has been a tremendous year for IT. Global economic challenges have reprioritized, downsized and altered IT strategy. Having less, and doing more have been big trends. System Center has witnessed a unique perspective on this, and has been perceived as a solution for many situations.
The System Center vision for Systems Management recognizes there are some key points on the radar for the IT shop of today. These are:
The article in CIO nails the challenge perfectly. Noone ever said managing IT was easy. As we look around the classic multi site organization of today, the bullets above ring true consistently.
As 1 example, in many parts of the world, (North America excepted) power is costly, and increasing. Here in North America, power is (on a global scale) relatively cheap, and as a result demand is high. 
For the classic datacenter manager who is chasing ‘5 9’s’ (99.999% uptime) and who never sees the utility bill, throwing more hardware into the cabinets has been the easiest way to head for SLA success. That opinion is changing.
More and more we are seeing limitations in datacenters on capacity driven by not just physical space, but by power and other HVAC limits. Today’s Administrator needs to do a lot more with the same, or less resource. We are also seeing higher numbers of RFP requirements for new management capabilities, like power - as a ‘must have requirement’. IT organizations are looking at utility bills as a place to gain efficiency. System Center responded to this with an announcement regarding power management scheduled for an early 2010 release.
Another trend this year was the mobile workforce. Today’s workforce is working in new ways and in new places. Ensuring secure well managed mobile productivity requires dialed in synchronization between infrastructure, devices and the business. New clients like Windows 7 assist in a big way, but when unmanaged the risks remain as high as the costs. System Center takes advantage of a deep understanding of Windows client technology, and utilizes new features like BitLocker, Windows Firewall and Power Management; and at the same time brings the end user experience the benefit of server advancements like BranchCache and Direct Access.
With BrancCache enabled, clients can benefit from shared cache on clients and servers around the network. System Center supports this model, and takes updates, applications and OS deployment traffic to a new optimized level through bandwidth optimization.
With DirectAccess, users have secure web based access to network resources. This always on connection reduces the need for VPN tunnels, and provides an always on connection experience. To the IT Administrator ‘always on’ means ‘always managed’. ‘Always managed’ means ‘always secure’.
A final comment about 2009 is the upward trend of Virtualization. While many organizations are expressing interest both on the client and in the datacenter for Virt, there are different use cases for both. In the datacenter, a trending focus on delivering the service is something System Center has positioned for a couple of years now, and in that service there can be a mix of both physical and virtual resources. The concept of 1 console managing both estates is uniquely a System Center strength. Sending 1 patch out to both your physical and virtual services is a tremendous time savings. Unmanaged virtual estates are actually proven to be more costly than keeping things physical. It has been argued this year, that Virtualization in the datacenter places even more emphasis on management.
On the client side, desktop Virt has gained visibility in a few ways. Application Virtualization is a way to simplify client application management. The next level of desktop virt is presentation virt, historically known as terminal server or remote desktop. Finally the world of VDI has gained interest, but the costs, bandwidth dependency and datacenter load have impacted large scale adoption. Has Virt entered the client space? Absolutely.
So, for 2010, I could make a few predictions:
- Sustainable IT will continue and enter IT strategy like never before. Gaining efficiency from power savings will accelerate this interest. It will hit both the end user, consumer, and the enterprise.
- Mobile Secure working will increase. Users will trend towards remote working whether it is due to office space downsizing, corporate strategy or unique situations like H1N1 presented.
- Social networking will grow and become integral to both the traditional worker, and the IT department. It will grow across different services, devices and security models.
- Clouds will expand. No comment on the weather, but from the consumer to the small business, to the enterprise. Individual, Private and Public clouds will gain foothold, adoption and be mixed between physical, virtual - on premise and off premise facilities. All will drive a focus on management.
Thank you for your time, I would love to hear what you think.
Jeff Wettlaufer
Sr. Technical Product Manager
System Center
- What’s a CP-901 and how did I get here?
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Hello - my name is David Mills and I’m a Senior Product Manager on the Microsoft System Center marketing team. I’ve been with Microsoft for almost 10 years now and for the past four years, I’ve been involved in product planning and technical product management focused on the IT Management needs of midsize businesses. But, before I get too deep, I thought I’d use this first post to tell you a little bit about me and how I got here – I’ll try not to put you to sleep.
I started my professional life as a Naval Flight Officer, which may seem completely unrelated to where I am now, if it weren’t for the CP-901. The CP-901 was an amazing example of computer technology which put the “C” in the U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3C Orion aircraft. The “C” model designation meant this baby was “computerized” – oh, yeah! If the stars and planets were aligned and I crossed my fingers, I harnessed the power of the CP-901 to process, track and manipulate all the tactical data I needed to successfully carry out my mission. With a full 64k of ferrite core memory, whirring reel-to-reel tapes, and an occasional kick from my steel-toed flight boot, this refrigerator-sized beast helped me manage my tactical environment using a single, easy-to-use, giant, green monochrome display. If the CP-901 wasn’t on-line, then I just had to make do with what I had – LTN-72 inertials, Omega system, stopwatch, plotters…I think that’s where my love of, and struggle with, technology first began.
After 8 years on active duty in the military, the end of the Cold War, getting married and the birth of my son, I decided to try my luck in the “civilian world” (insert montage here). Fast forward another decade and time spent on the road as a software training consultant, and I still find myself fascinated by, and working with, computer technology. But, even with all the advances in computer technology we still have a need to more efficiently use and manage that technology to successfully complete our missions.
I think this sets the stage nicely for the types of topics I look forward to blogging about on this site. As our customers in midsize businesses look for better ways to harness the power of and manage their IT environments, Microsoft is creating System Center virtualization and management solutions that help them more successfully complete their businesses “missions.” Besides, kicking the CP-901 with a steel-toed flight boot gets really, really old.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing more thoughts and hearing back from you on what you think and what you want to know more about.
David Out
David Mills
Sr. Product Manager
System Center
- Looking Back (and Forward) – It all Seems to be About Unified Management
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December is a great time to look back at the year as a whole:
Most things are winding down, so it is nice to appreciate what happened so far
And yet, there are some projects that we are in the home stretch for. So with all of my travelling obligations over, it is a time to buckle down for four weeks of high quality output.
2009 for me seems to be around “Why managing virtualization really is (just) managing servers”.
The year started about two weeks early for some of us in System Center with the finalization of Service Pack 1 for System Center Data Manager 2007. The bits were complete in the last days of December, so we started off January letting people know about it. One of the key features in DPM 2007 SP1 was support for protecting Hyper-V hosts.
DPM had already been backing up Virtual Server 2005 R2, as well as SQL, Exchange and SharePoint – but everyone was looking for Microsoft’s backup solution for Microsoft’s newest hypervisor.
We put together quite a bit of material around Hyper-V protection with DPM, which you can check out at www.microsoft.com/DPM/virtualization
But for the short version, here is a podcast on the Hyper-V protection feature within DPM 2007 SP1
Certainly, it was important that Microsoft’s backup solution be able to protect Microsoft’s hypervisor – but candidly, the reverse was also true.
It was important that Microsoft’s hypervisor had a Microsoft backup solution. Because as Hyper-V established itself as a viable hypervisor for enterprise class environments, it was being compared with other hypervisors that also offered backup solutions. In some of those other hypervisors, the backup solution required an expensive SAN, or additional Windows heads, or third-party backup software on top of it. DPM didn’t. DPM doesn’t require a SAN or any other components. In fact, one of the DPM 2007 SP1 features enabled you to run the DPM service on the Hyper-V host itself, so that you could have a single physical asset doing the virtualization and the protection of itself. More on that will come in a future post on my blog.
But one of the things that we heard clearly was that many customers didn’t want to manage their virtualization platforms one way – and the rest of their servers another way. So, above and beyond the fact that DPM was providing a superior backup solution for its hypervisor, it was providing the same capabilities with the same interface and same agent to Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange Servers and SharePoint Servers. (click on each one for more information).
And recently, as the year is winding down – some other folks have started to recognize what DPM 2007 brings to the Microsoft Virtualization story:
Virtualization Review - Readers Choice (Nov’2009)
Redmond Magazine’s – Hyper-V Backup explained
As the year continued on, I had the opportunity to begin managing a second product besides DPM – System Center Essentials.
SCE 2007 took many technologies and components from the enterprise management products of System Center, and right-sized them into a single unified interface and solution for mid-sized businesses.
It offers server and client monitoring, similar to Operations Manager – and uses the same Management Packs
It deploys patches and new software deployments, courtesy of technologies from Windows Update Services
It manages mid-sized businesses with the same vision that our other System Center products deliver to the enterprise. In some ways better, since it uses a single interface. In other ways, not as well – because SCE 2007 didn’t offer anything for virtualization. It put our midsized customers back into the world of managing physical assets one way, and their virtualization assets separately. To meet the customer demand, we began offering a bundle that included SCE 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008.
But we knew we could do better – so the next version of SCE, System Center Essentials 2010 (currently in public beta) also includes technologies from Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.
Again, it comes down to our customers asking to manage their physical assets and their virtual assets the same way. And SCE 2010 does a really great job of that.
In fact, we just released a podcast highlighting the SCE 2010 virtualization management features.
And speaking of 2010, while we are in public beta for SCE 2010, we are also in public beta for DPM 2010. Their beta’s came out within a day of each other and chances are that their RTM’s will be fairly close, as well (hint, hint).
And like 2009 started with our customers eagerly anticipating DPM 2007 SP1’s protection of Hyper-V, we have heard even more anticipation for DPM 2010’s protection of Hyper-V R2.
Full support for protecting Hyper-V R2, including Live Migration scenarios that use Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)
Individual item-level recovery from Hyper-V host-based backups
Alternate host recovery
To read even more on Hyper-V R2 backup – check out my friend John Kelbley’s blog also on the BIEB site.
There is more, but the point is that the year seems to be ending the same way that it began … eagerly anticipating Microsoft management (SCE) and protection (DPM) of Microsoft Virtualization platforms that not only do those functions for the virtual parts of your infrastructure, but deliver the same and unified functionality to the physical parts of your infrastructure.
2009 was great … 2010 looks to be even better.
Happy Holidays, y’all … and thanks for reading
- TechNet Webcast: Technical Overview: System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 and R3 (Level 200)
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This morning I am delivering a webcast on Technet regarding some exciting new releases in our System Center product lineup. I hope you can join us. Here is the link to the event. 
Jeff Wettlaufer
Sr. Technical Product Manager
System Center
- Thank You for Your Time……
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Good morning everyone from a dark and raining Redmond, USA. My name is Jeff Wettlaufer and I am excited to join you here on the ‘Because It’s Everybody’s Business’ blog.
Like many of you, I have been in the IT industry for a number of years, and have enjoyed a passion for technology throughout. I have been with Microsoft for about 10 years, both in the UK and here in Redmond. My time in Redmond has mostly been in the System Center team (~4 years now) where we produce a powerful collection of configuration and performance management tools. It has been an incredible 4 years being a part of a product group that is growing like the System Center business. It is even more exciting to look ahead at the stuff in the pipes. The short term ahead of us is jammed with new market shaping capabilities across a number of areas that are especially important to you.
You guys have a lot on your plate. Your success is measured in ways that even a few years ago did not exist. As you strive to do more with less, centralizing your workflows, management technologies, admin consoles, investigating virtualization and improving workload strategies have all become massive accelerators to saving you cost – direct and indirect. I want to help you do that.
Our team has been active on the ‘social networking’ scene for a few years, and personally I have been blogging for both work and family for quite a while. If you haven’t seen our System Center team blog yet, check us out here, it’s a very active blog, with a lot of passionate contributors.
I am really pleased to be given a chance to connect with you here on this blog, and I am really looking forward to sharing news, updates and stories about our management and security division through the BIEB site. I hope you find my contributions valuable. If there is some topic or capability you would like me to dive on, let me know. This site is for you guys, its your valuable time you are spending reading our posts, and I want to make sure you find it worthwhile.
I don't want to assume anything, you guys know your business, your challenges, and where your pain points are. Let’s work together on helping you succeed, grow, gain agility and streamline your costs.
Thank you for your time.
Jeff Wettlaufer
Sr. Technical Product Manager
System Center
- Welcome from Jason Buffington: Who I am and What I Do Around Here
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Hello, my name is Jason Buffington and I am really excited to be part of Microsoft’s new initiative – Because It’s Everybody’s Business (BIEB).
As my backgrounder, I have been a “backup guy” for most of the last 18 years:
- For the last four years (as of December 5), I have been at Microsoft, driving System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM)
- Before Microsoft, I was with NSI Software, now Double-Take Software, for 9 years
- I spent a few years with Cheyenne Software doing ARCserve, before Computer Associates bought it
- I have been at various resellers/channel partners – including running my own small consultancy
- And along the way, I was an MCSE, MCT, Disaster Recovery Planner and Microsoft MVP.
During my time at Microsoft and DPM, I have been privileged to pick up a few other products. For two years, I also had the chance to influence our Storage Solutions and the file services role of Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2. And starting a few months ago, I began working with System Center Essentials (SCE).
But at heart, I have always been a “backup and recovery guy”.
That is the reason why I like BIEB … because it takes a perspective much like what I have on “protecting your data” … it is “everybody’s business”. As a backup guy, I touch all of the Exchange, and SQL, and SharePoint, and Virtualization, and Windows servers and desktops – not because I am an expert in those platforms, but because they need to be backed up.
Backup touches everything – because without your data, you don’t have your business.
And while I am soap-boxing, back up your data at home. Those family pictures are probably worth more to you personally than last month’s budget spreadsheet at work.
So, backup is everyone’s business – and that’s one of the lenses that you’ll hear from me on this blog, as I offer my thoughts and resources around how backup matters and adds to the core elements of BIEB, as well as how BIEB applies to those management needs in midsized businesses.
Thanks for reading – and I look forward to visiting with you in the near future.
- Unified Communications Heats up this Month
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Over the next few weeks I have a lot going on in the world
of Unified Communications (UC) that I am excited to share with you. Today, I
want to touch on some of the great new features of Exchange 2010 that can save
organizations both time and money. Tomorrow, I will be looking at a new
possibility that OCS 2007 R2 brings to a company's IT support center. And next
week I will be hosting a Webcast on Technet where we will be talking about
Unified Communications as a concept and as a real world problem solver with an
expert from the Microsoft team. Stay tuned because this is getting exciting!!!
First, there is the release of Exchange 2010 a week ago
which brings UC to a whole new level. If you have not seen the advances that
Exchange 2010 brings to Unified Communications, you are really missing out.
Exchange 2007 introduced UC capabilities to Microsoft's email offerings
allowing for users to receive voice-mail in the Outlook Inbox, thereby making
it possible to reply and forward voice mail as easily as email. It also allowed
for the management of voice-mail using Managed Folders allowing users to apply
the same set of retention rules to voice-mail and can be applied to email.
Now with Exchange 2010, Unified Communications are taken
to new levels presenting users with the ability to not only listen to, but also
read, their voice-mail. This capability exists in both Outlook as well as
Outlook Web App (OWA), making it available for users in an office as well as
mobile users outside of our wired environments. This new ability extends to
more than simply reading through voice-mail too, it allows a user to read a
voice-mail and select any point in the text where they wish to begin listening,
then play the remaining message from that point forward in audio format. The
time savings this brings to organizations is enormous. No longer do people have
to listen to 5 or 10 minutes worth of voice-mail just to get to the important
30 seconds of information that they need to do their jobs. Even more
importantly, critical information no longer gets missed when someone is trying
to weed through a long voice-mail to pick out the parts that really matter, and
we are seeing more and more every day how lost information can often be more
important than the information that is made available.
I shared a couple of weeks ago some of my calculations
that I now use to show real Return On Investment in my daily job.
These numbers boil down to "for every 250 users that an organization has
at an average pay of $15/hour, each 2 minutes saved per day equals a savings of
$32, 500.00 per year". I think that you can easily see how this new
addition to Exchange 2010 can very quickly and easily add up to 10's of
thousands of dollars in savings for each and every organization deploying this
new product.
As I mentioned at the start, check back throughout the
coming weeks as we delve into the new and exciting doors that Microsoft is
opening to organizations like yours and like mine, with their Unified
Communications initiative.
- Hello from TechEd EMEA in Berlin
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Hello everyone. This week, I’m in Berlin for TechEd EMEA 2009. TechEd EMEA is a great event, where I get a chance to not only present on Microsoft Virtualization but also meet with real IT professionals, that use our products every day.
I’ve already presented a couple times on Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) and I still have one more presentation to go. The show is sold out, with more 7,000 attendees, and my sessions were all completely full. I wish we had more room for the other attendees. By far, the most amazing personal moment for me was when I did my standard survey of the audience. I asked the crowd, before we started, how many people run VMware and how many people run Microsoft Virtualization. The number of hands raised were nearly identical. This is completely different from just two years ago, at my first TechEd EMEA, where literally every person in the audience of 400+ used VMware and I could count the number of Hyper-V users on my finger. It made me very proud of the work that has been done over the last three years and I hope that my work was a part of that.
As for the rest of the show, System Center is clearly the star of the New Efficiency. During the keynote presentation, which you can view here, the demonstration done by Jeff Wettlaufer was just amazing. It showed all the different capabilities, functions, and integrations that the System Center family of products can enable. Jeff showed integrated Virtualization management, Power Management and Savings, Montioring of physical and virtual systems, and even linking the Live Migration of a Virtual Machine, linked to the Power budget of the servers CPU.
Beyond the keynote itself, the System Center sessions have been extremely well attended. The attendees have been learning not only about the existing System Center products, but also upcoming products like Configuration Manager 2007 R3, Configuration Manager Vnext, Data Protection Manager 2010, and System Center Essentials (SCE) 2010. I’m very excited about SCE 2010, as it extends upon the great systems management and monitoring in SCE 2007 and adds Virtualization management features from VMM.
Look out for more information on all these products in the upcoming months. Don’t forget to follow my on twitter (@edwinyuen), as I continue to tweet about TechEd, Virtualization, System Center, and even some afternoon funnies.
- How Management Drives Consolidation and Virtualization
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Hello everyone. It’s been a couple weeks since I last posted but I was on a much needed real vacation (one without daily E-mails or relatives). :)
Without a doubt, one of the most important new technologies in IT today is Virtualization. And it’s very easy to see why. Virtualization, especially server consolidation, gives significant, hard cost savings with reduced numbers of servers, leading to greater efficiency, decreased space and facilities costs, and an overall decrease on the physical impact of the servers.
Still, there are several factors that many virtualization implementations have overlooked. The first is the cost of implementation and infrastructure. In the past, the actual cost to implement a virtualization solution was not a significant planning factors, due to the fact that is was a “cost” of the technology and the significant returns of virtualization overshadowed the upfront costs. In today’s IT and economy, it’s difficult to ignore costs in any way, even if you get great returns.
This is why the Microsoft Virtualization solution, with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and the System Center suite of applications, is becoming so popular for Virtualization implementations. By including Hyper-V with Windows Server 2008 R2, along with key features like clustering and Live Migration, customers can implement virtualization with an existing Windows Server infrastructure. Also, the Microsoft Virtualization tools are easy to use and leverage existing Windows skill sets and extends Enterprise class virtualization to all customers.
The other factor that is often lost in virtualization implementations is the need for great management of the virtual machines (VMs), especially the applications and services running inside the VMs. The System Center suite, with Virtual Machine Manager, Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, and Data Protection Manager, provide not only a great virtualization management but best in class management of Windows applications and services.
Like I often say to customers when I meet with them, we must not forget that virtual machines are machines first, virtual second. We have to manage and configure virtual machines with all the requirements as the physical systems, then factor in the additional virtualization specific requirements.
The System Center suite of programs provide not only great management of physical systems but Enterprise class virtualization management. Microsoft has integrated physical and virtual management together, along with the unique capability for in-guest management. Only Microsoft integrates the in-guest management, insight into what is happening inside the virtual machines, with the actual applications, along with the standard virtualization management. This offers an end to end solution that allows administrators to manage all the different layers of IT, from physical to virtual to application to services.
For more information on what Microsoft offers, check out the Microsoft System Center and Virtualization websites.
- Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 - Small Things That Make a Big Difference
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The past 3 weeks I have been very busy preparing for and
hosting webcasts for TechNet dealing with the new products (Windows 7, Windows
Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010) that Microsoft will be releasing this
month. While discussing some of the new features and updates in Windows
7, I was struck by what a large impact some seemingly simple new additions can
make. Let's face it, we've all heard a great deal over the past few months
about DirectAccess and BranchCache and they truly are game changing technology,
but they require new technologies to be implemented (Server 2008 R2 for both
features, IPv6 for DirectAccess). So I wanted to look at some of the small less
touted features in Windows 7 that still return a very real business value right
out of the box with little to no administrative overhead. What I came up with
are the new Windows 7 Search and Windows 7 Libraries. It didn't take much
digging to see that these new additions would make users working experience
more enjoyable, but when I broke out my calculator and started doing some
simple math I was startled by the results.
Let's start out by taking a quick look at what Windows 7
Search and Libraries are and how they impact a user's daily routine.
The new Search capabilities in Windows 7 make searching
for anything much easier than ever before by both putting the Search box
directly on the Start menu and then returning search results directly into the
Start menu as the Search is entered. The results to a search are not limited to
only files and directories on the local computer, but rather display files,
files contents, SharePoint contents, Outlook contents (even if Outlook is
closed), Internet results, and many other possibilities. Making Search easier to
access while also returning a better and more diverse result set makes finding
information much easier and faster for an organization's users.
While Windows Search makes finding information easier, the
new Libraries feature in Windows 7 allows users to organize their data in ways
that are intuitive to them.Users can create their own Libraries and then add
files and directories to them for future access regardless of where the
data truly resides. With Libraries, it no longer matters where a file or
directory is located, which makes accessing files as simple as
opening a Library. No more digging through directory hierarchies to find files,
no more remembering which mapped drive holds the necessary data; just open the
library and the appropriate files and directories are there. The best
part is that these libraries were created by the users not and administrator,
so they do not have to recall someone else's logic to find things, they create
the organization while IT Professionals create the infrastructure.
Now you might at first respond to all this with "So
what, users can search and find things more easily. What does this mean for me
as an IT Professional or Manager?", because that was my response. But then
I put pen to paper and fingers to calculator, I crunched some numbers and
I was very happy with what I found. Assuming that users save a mere 2
minutes apiece per day by no longer traversing directory structures to
access the information they use to do their jobs, an organization with 250 users
would save $32,500.00/year if each user makes $15.00/hour. I honestly
think that the numbers I used are low (I see our users at my organization
already saving far more than 2 minutes per day in real life testing programs)
and I haven't even delved into some of the "big" changes in Windows
7, but already I am seeing a full ROI for my upgrade licenses in less than a
year with enough left over to by a very nicely configured server for continuing
my migration to a virtualized data center. That's powerful stuff! Those are real
concrete numbers I can take to the CEO, CFO or CIO and justify those
upgrades that Vista just never managed to warrant. This truly is The New
Efficiency!!!
The second change I want to discuss is Power
Management in Windows Server 2008 R2, which I feel is just not
getting the coverage it deserves (much like Search and Libraries in Windows 7).
The biggest change in power management with Windows Server 2008 R2 is
how it deals with multiple processors specifically Processor Parking. There is
a great write up on the new Power Management in Windows Server here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/R2-management.aspx which
I highly recommend reading (it's short), but what it really comes down to is
the fact the Windows Server now monitors the consumption of processor resources
and powers them accordingly. If a server has processors that are not needed
Windows Server now uses Processor Parking to shut them down so they consume no
power. If there are underutilized processors, Windows Server 2008 R2 throttles
them back so that they consume less power. As with the changes to Windows 7 I
knew about this change as was not terribly impressed, until I saw the
real-world numbers. I will start by admitting that the main purpose for which I
have currently deployed Windows Server 2008 R2 is as virtual hosts so that I
have the capability of Live Migration in Hyper-V. I build these servers and
configure the guests in a lab environment until they are ready to be deployed
at which time I shut them down and move them to my data center, and that is
when I got my surprise. I deployed Windows Server 2008 R2 on the same hardware
make and model as I have used for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003
for the past year and because I have metered PDUs in my data center I how how
much power each server draws. This gave me a pretty good baseline of
knowledge that each server draws a little over 1.5 amps per power supply which
varies slightly depending on the load the server is under. When I power on the
first of my new 2008 R2 servers, I was stunned to see the draw stay at zero. I
really thought I had 2 new faulty PDUs (they were new and unused which is why
it was at zero to begin) and was ready to start the RMA process to get them
replaced, but first I powered on the second of my new Server 2008 R2
servers at which time the draw finally topped 1 amp and hovered under 2 amps.
Again, I admit that these were virtual hosts and the guests on them were
replacing development servers and underutilized physical servers, so the
processors are obviously not very taxed, but I don't feel that that make the
results any less exciting. Who among us does not have servers that require
great deals of disk I/O or memory while needing little in the way
of processor resources? The power reductions and the corresponding savings
are very real and extremely compelling, in my case I took 12 physical servers
offline where each one was drawing significantly more power than just
one of the 3 physical servers that replaced them, with no loss in workload. And
I haven't even mentioned cooling costs!
All of this is to point out the fact that, with some small
changes that require no configuration on an administrators part, Windows 7 and
Windows Server 2008 R2 will save you money. Just install the OS and you will
save money it really is that simple. Be aware that all of the numbers that I
have quoted and used come from my real world experiences, so I strongly urge
you to do the same. Install them, try them out and see if you find the
same things that I am finding, if not let me know. I'm very interested to hear
your feedback on how these small changes are making a difference in your bottom
line.
- Virtualization Reality: Why Microsoft® Virtualization Solutions Deliver Value When Compared to VMware®
-
Hello everyone. This week, I want to cover a topic that has been discussed on numerous blogs, articles, and even tweets over the last several weeks. The topic is the cost comparison between Microsoft and VMware virtualization solutions. As many of you know, we often cite the fact that for server virtualization, VMware's solution is 6x the cost of the comparable Microsoft solution.
The Microsoft Comparison
So how do we get to those numbers? The calculations and how we get to those numbers is right on our cost comparison webpage. On that page, we show a chart of the costs and features surrounding the comparison. If fact, you can try the calculations yourself using the Cost Comparison Calculator. To make it clear, this comparison uses the following parameters:
- Five servers with two processors each
- Includes the cost of the hypervisor and the management stack (including the associated management servers)
- 2 years of subscription/maintenance is included in both solutions
- List Prices for all software is used (Microsoft retail prices and VMware pricing off VMware’s pricing website)
- No Operating System cost
With those parameters, the results are pretty clear and the cost differential is very significant. Some people point out that the vendors will discount their software. That is true but the levels of discount differ amongst customers. But just a quick check shows that even if VMware gave a 70% discount on their list price, the VMware software still costs almost twice as much as the Microsoft solution at retail price.
This cost comparison also allows for one of the closest, apples to apples comparisons. The cost comparison is based on the key differences that apply for most implementations, being the actual software and licenses that a company would have to buy to implement each individual solution. It should be noted that all the features listed in the chart are included in the cost listed. This is important because most VMware cost comparisons use the base cost figures but most VMware feature comparisons use features (such as Site Recovery, Lab Manager, AppSpeed) that cost thousands of dollars per host, the cost of which is never added to their comparisons.
There are other potential parameters, as we’ll discuss later, but the costs compared here will always be different between the Microsoft and VMware solutions, something that can’t be said of other parameters. If you want to do your own comparisons, changing server numbers or different software editions from each vendor, you can use the Cost Comparison Calculator that is available off the Microsoft Virtualization website.
One question we get is why we didn’t include the cost of Windows. The reason for this was based on feedback from our customers and partners. It was pointed out to us that some customers already own Windows, so that cost isn’t involved. Even for those who don’t own Windows, they would buy the Windows licenses for both solutions. Finally, with our R2 releases, we have made Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, our free, standalone hypervisor, available with true feature parity with the Windows Server 2008 R2 based Hyper-V. Thus, customers can choose either Microsoft Hypervisor solution, have the same features and benefits, and in the end, the same net zero cost, allowing the removal of the OS cost from the calculations.
Sharp eyed followers of this discussion will also note the cost comparison went from 1/3rd last year to 1/6th now? How did that happen? Two reasons: We removed the cost of the operating system (which you can add back in via the cost calculator) and VMware introduced their Enterprise Plus SKU, which increased the cost of VMware for most Enterprise customers (since many of the newer features of vSphere are only found in Enterprise Plus and VMware is retiring the older, Enterprise SKU).
VMware’s Comparison
Not surprisingly, VMware doesn’t agree with our assessment. :) VMware challenges our statements but don’t actually challenge the cost comparison, as the numbers really speak for themselves. VMware presents an alternative cost comparison method, which they label as Cost Per Application. There are two very simple reasons why VMware went with this calculation. First, by including additional costs such as Real Estate and Power, they attempt to cover the true cost differential in terms of the software purchased. The second is that VMware then uses a white paper study to justify that VMware can run more VMs than Microsoft, claiming up to a two to one ratio.
Let’s take a look at the first concept, the use of cost per application. Like any other unit of comparison, a cost per virtual machine comparison is only as useful as the parameters it is based on. In VMware’s case, there are several issues of note that you should consider.
- The comparison changes the cost ratios (since it adds cost, often the same costs on both sides) but the cost differential is still there. That means on like hardware, the Microsoft solution still costs less.
- Some of the cost parameters, especially for the Microsoft management infrastructure, seem focused on adding more physical servers to the configuration, thus more of the additional costs.
- Other parameters can vary greatly, including what type of hardware (blades or 2U systems), how much memory is in each system, and what the cost of these systems are.
- The calculator ignores the fact that since the Microsoft Virtualization management infrastructure is an extension of the existing System Center tools, any company that already uses System Center can leverage their existing infrastructure. That significantly reduces the cost of the Microsoft solution.
The most glaring parameter missing is that capability of the Microsoft System Center solution and the need to factor equivalent costs for the VMware side. While VMware argues that their management solution is better than Microsoft (which we don’t agree with), VMware completely ignores the solutions that System Center brings to the application and service level. This includes complete Patch Management, Software Distribution, Compliance, Inventory, Monitoring, and Backup and Recovery, for BOTH physical and virtual systems, from hardware to software, all the way to the service level. To get the equivalent software solution for VMware, one would have to buy a significant amount of third-party software, most of which are licensed per VM, along with that associated infrastructure. In fact, one of the most cost effective management solutions for VMware is the System Center solution, resulting in adding the System Center license cost and infrastructure to the VMware calculation.
The second concept is the use of memory overcommit, a feature that allows the running of VMs with more memory than is physically available. The concept is essential to the calculator, as without it, the VMware solution just isn’t cheaper than the Microsoft solution. Matt McSpirit, a Microsoft Technology Specialist, covers this pretty completely in his own response.
The increased consolidation ratios shown in the calculator is based on a single, VMware-sponsored study. For an in-depth look at memory overcommit and the study behind the calculations, please read the Virtualization Reality white paper. This white paper reviews the study itself, what the overcommit is, and what are the potential issues with it’s use.
Finally, the calculator doesn’t factor in the most important variable for a Cost Per Application calculation, which is the the application. Without factoring in the application to be run, you can’t actually calculate the hardware and software cost or the consolidation ratios. How much memory the VMs take, how they run, what additional software you might need, is all dependent on the applications that actually run in the VM. If you factor in applications into the calculation, you get a much more accurate calculation but the results cannot be applied, implementation wide, to all VMs, which is what VMware is trying to do.
If the discussion on the merits of VMware’s calculator seems complicated, it is because it is complicated. More importantly, while the calculator might be useful to estimate potential costs for virtual machines, what it is not good for is comparing differing solutions. In the end, the final cost of implementation varies by company, technology, and applications. Regardless of the various parameters, I’m confident that you find that the Microsoft solution will save money over an equivalent VMware solution.
- Welcome from Edwin Yuen: Who I Am and What I Do Around Here
-
My name is Edwin Yuen and I wanted to introduce myself to everyone who follows this blog. I'm a Senior Technical Product Manager here at Microsoft, in our Virtualization and System Center group. I spend much of my time meeting with and talking to customers about virtualization and how it impacts them. Some of you may know me from some of the events that I speak at, or my online activities such as my Virtualization Planet blog or my Twitter account (@edwinyuen).
To give some background, I've been at Microsoft for little over three years now. Before Microsoft, I worked at Softricity, the company that developed the product now known as App-V. I was a Engagement Director in the services group at Softricity before we were bought by Microsoft. Before that, I did a lot of consulting for the large Enterprises and the US Government. At Microsoft, I worked in our services group and for a couple years, I was the product manager for System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
In the coming weeks and months, you'll see some of my thoughts on why Because it's everybody's business is more than just a slogan but something important for Microsoft. I hope I can provide a unique perspective on both System Center and Virtualization. Feel free to get a hold of me here or my Twitter account. I'd love to answer your questions and help you out!
- Living in a Virtual World
-
It never ceases to amaze me how fast our world can change
around us. The quote "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look
around once in a while, you could miss it." from the classic 1980's movie Ferris
Bueller's Day Off has never been more true. I really believe that
virtualization is one of those technologies that have recently caused
our world of Information Technology to accelerate at rates that have never been
seen before. If we don't take some time to stop and look around us, we might
just be missing some awesome new things. I want to take a few moments today to
take Ferris's advice and stop to look at the world of virtualization and
what it means to those of us in IT.
Let me preface my statements by openly admitting that when
virtualization first came onto the scene a number of years ago, I thought
it was an overhyped non-issue, particularly for those of us working for
mid-sized or small businesses. Let's face it; with the lack of scalability
available from Microsoft's Virtual Server product line and the high cost of
other virtual server solutions, I was right. These frustrations caused
most of us to give up on the failed promises of virtualization and to go back
to running our networks in the real physical world.
All that being said, I am thrilled to be able to say that Microsoft's
release of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, combined with the System Center product line, truly does bring
virtualization to all IT organizations in a way that is both cost-effective and
easily managed. Let's touch on some of the more important features that Microsoft's
recent product releases have brought to the table, as well as some very
exciting new capabilities that soon to be released products will be making
available.
Here are the high points of these game changers on a
product by product basis.
Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2
Microsoft touts 5 areas of improvement in Hyper-V R2 from
the original Hyper-V RTM, but I really want to concentrate on 2:
- Increased
availability for virtualized data centers
- Increased
availability is dramatically improved through the addition of the new Live
Migration feature. Live Migration allows an administrator to move a
virtual machine from one host to another with no interruption of service
to your users. This capability had been a critical piece of the
virtualization puzzle that had been missing from Microsoft's arsenal in a
world where hosts still need to have updates and patches loaded every
month. With this addition, Hyper-V truly is worthy of our data centers.
- A
simplified method for physical and virtual computer deployments by using
.vhd files
- Hyper-V
now supports the ability to boot a computer from a .vhd file. This new
ability is wonderful to me, as I have struggled to understand why it wasn't
there earlier. Being able to boot from a local .vhd file allows
administrators to greatly streamline the number of images that they must
keep to enable quick and easy deployment of new servers when needed.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2
Like Hyper-V, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 has
undergone many improvements in the areas of performance and compatibility. The
cross platform capabilities of VMM 2008 R2 have also been improved, allowing
for even better control of VMware hosts that might exist in your environment.
The biggest addition to VMM 2008 R2 however, is the
ability to control and queue Live Migrations between Hyper-V hosts. Combining
the monitoring capabilities of System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 with
Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 makes it possible to monitor the resources of
physical host servers and move virtual machines to the most appropriate host
based on performance and availability, all with no effect on your end users.
While we are discussing the updates to VMM2008 R2 I want
to be sure to include 2 products that I feel do not get enough recognition by
those working in the small and mid-size markets.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
Workgroup Edition
The Workgroup edition of Virtual Machine Manager gives you
all the same capabilities of VMM 2008 with the one limitation that it will only
manage up to 5 physical host servers. This allows for the management of up to
20 virtual servers using 5 Windows Server Enterprise licenses, which will make
virtualizing a large part of any mid-sized business an extremely cost-effective
possibility. In the event that a company outgrows the Workgroup Edition, making
the upgrade to the full version of VMM 2008 R2 is a simple process.
System Center Essentials 2007/2010
System Center Essentials 2007 has been around for over 2
years and is a very good management product for small and mid-sized businesses.
SCE allows administrators to more proactively manage their networks by making
it possible to monitor, update, and install software to both client and server
systems all from one console. With the release of Systems Center Essentials
2010 in early 2010, SCE will soon include virtual machine management
capabilities built into the management console. Organizations with fewer than
50 servers will be able to deploy, manage and move virtual servers in their
environments all from one window. The combination of virtual machine management
with machine administration all within one central application also brings
forward the ability to deploy and move virtual machines based on resource
utilization of the available physical host servers while at the same time
tending to the administration of the operating systems on both the physical
hosts and virtual guests of your network. As with the Workgroup Edition of
Virtual Machine Manager, if an organization outgrows System Center Essentials,
they will be able to upgrade to Operations Manager.
I hope that this helps to highlight some of the great new
advances that Microsoft is making in the world of virtualization. Whether we
are deploying a single server or building out a whole new domain; what once took
months, now takes days or even hours; what once took 10 power supplies to run,
now takes 2; what took 30 fans to cool, now needs only 6. With the obvious cost
savings that are there to be had, and the minimal investment that is required
to get started, let's all stop looking around and get busy building our virtual
worlds.
