A bold quote, and one I have to say I can’t claim it as mine.

This comes from Sams Publishing, it relates to their new publication of the same name and I have to say, the book does do exactly what it says on the cover (the back cover that is)

“In just 24 lessons of one hour or less, you will be able to install and configure Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and its various services for any size network. Using a straightforward, step-by-step approach, each lesson builds on the previous ones, enabling you to learn the essentials of Windows Server® 2008 from the ground up.”

The book cover the basics of Windows Server 2008, using Standard edition as it’s core for the step-by-steps, it walks through the key components to get anyone up and running. Aimed at anyone moving to Windows from an earlier version or new to Windows Server 2008, the lessons progress in the order you would go through. The 24 individual chapters are broken down into 4 main parts. These cover Installation and Configuration of a server up to the point where you have you server running. The next two parts cover Networking and Resources, these together set you on the road allowing access to your server. All the usual suspects are here, file and share permissions, TCP/IP, DNS, printing as well as Group Policy and NAP. The advanced part covers the network services, WINS, Routing, Remote Access and Terminal Services.

Once you’ve made it through these 3 parts you’ve completed 20 of the 24 hours and the finishing line is in sight. The last 4 hours cover security, IIS 7.0 and monitoring and tuning, so a nice gentle finish.

The 24 hour series are good for the audience they aim at. This is a good training guide for people coming in who need to get familiar with the main concepts. Given a DVD with the software and Virtual PC, they can easily do the exercises within that controlled environment.

If you are looking for a reference book for Windows Server 2008 however, this will not meet your needs. Look at the Administrator Companion from MS Press, or the Complete Reference from Pearson Technology Group

The SQL Server 2008 event series is now available from TechNet. Consisting of 6 initial sessions listed below, you can access video and audio version of each sessions, along with links to additional resources and training.

SQL-300 What's New In Microsoft SQL 2008
In this session, we will go through an overview tour of the new features of SQL Server 2008, split into four core areas, Enterprise Data Platform, Beyond Relational, Dynamic Development, and Pervasive Insight.
WMA | Zune | MP3

SQL-301 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database Engine Overview and Data Compression
In this session, we will explore the new features in SQL Server 2008. The topics that will be covered are enhancements to the SQL Server database engine and improvements to the T-SQL programming language.
WMA | Zune | MP3

SQL-302 Microsoft SQL Server 2008: Data Warehousing Enhancements
In this session, we will cover the many enhancements made to data warehousing including the database engine, Integration Services, and Analysis Services.
WMA | Zune | MP3

SQL-306 SQL Server 2008: Performance Monitoring using Management Studio
The main objective of the session is to introduce you to Performance Studio.
WMA | Zune | MP3

SQL-308 Reporting Services with SQL Server 2008 - Architecture drill down
This session will discuss the SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Architecture and how this redesigned architecture makes SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services modular and scalable.
WMA | Zune | MP3

SQL-309 What's New In Business Intelligence
In this session, we will be primarily focused on SQL Server Business Intelligence. More specifically, we will focus on Reporting Services and Analysis Services.
WMA | Zune | MP3

The TechNet Events and Webcasts pages and Event Presentation Library provide many hours of content on Microsoft Technologies. Each Page in the presentation library contains an RSS link to stay up to date with additions, links to watch the content online or download it for viewing later as well as links to many other resources to help you further.

When SharePoint works everyone on my team is happy. I’m happy too because all I have to worry about are permissions and the odd configuration change. However, when things go wrong they go wrong. My week was has consisted of trying to recover from a failure. No idea why, but I do know what. The server that host the Site and SQL server failed either shutting down or starting up. I don’t know and neither do the operations team who are closest to the server. (I’m in the UK they are in the Seattle area). Anyone, blank screen dead box. Only thing to do is power the machine down and up again.

The good news was the Security patch applied, the bad news the SharePoint Configuration and Content Databases when offline. They refused to come back and seemed to indicate that the SQL instance was SQL 2000 trying to attach a 2005 database. Well as it turned out, SharePoint had used the MSDE version of SQL on the machine not the full 2005, but the databases appeared in the 2000 listing.

Only way back? That was to attached the two DBs in the full SQL and try and move the SharePoint config over. The fun starts here, the documentation in different areas talks about STSADM as the command to use, while the TechNet library indicates usign PSCONFIG. I used PSCONFIG and while this did 75% of the job, I was still having some issues, but not that kept my team from working.

After a couple of days, the team reported that the Project Server site was not working. I looked into it, and found that the services were not running. Attempting to start them just refreshed the admin page. When I attempted to re-install Project Server, it decided to delete all the SharePoint virtual web folders, and pretty much made the server look like MOSS 2007 was not installed.

The only recourse was to re-install MOSS 2007 and start again. First advice, bear in mind this KB article, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927156. If you remove MOSS the key used to decrypt the passwords is deleted. You then have to discard you config database and start again.

Second advice, before you even start this process, document everything. The site, the web application names, the database names and their locations, the access path names, the works.

The third and final piece of advice I have is check you databases are backup, either via SQL or your backup software and practice a SharePoint recovery when there is no pressure on. I’ve done it now and next time – hopefully never – I have a much better idea of what the commands are, how they work and the procedure needed.

And that is my reason for not blogging for a week your honour.

Application Request Routing for IIS7 is a proxy based routing module that forwards HTTP requests to content servers based on HTTP headers and server variables, and load balance algorithms.  Application Request Routing can be used to:

· Increase application availability and scalability.

· Better utilize content server resources.

· Facilitate application deployment including pilot management and A/B testing.

· Lower management costs and create opportunities for shared hosters.

Application Request Routing relies on URL rewrite module to inspect the incoming HTTP requests to make the routing decisions, and therefore, the URL rewrite module is required to enable Application Request Routing features.

Download the modules:

· Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7 (x86)

· Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7 (x64)

· Microsoft Application Request Routing for IIS 7 (x86)

· Microsoft Application Request Routing for IIS 7 (x64)

Features:

• HTTP based routing decisions
  Unlike hardware load balancers that make the routing decisions at the IP level, Application Request Routing makes the routing decisions at the application level.  Working with URL rewrite module, powerful routing rules can be written based on HTTP headers and server variables.
• Load balance algorithms
  A user selected load balance algorithm is applied to determine which content server is most appropriate to service the HTTP requests.  Six algorithms are provided.
• Health monitoring
  Both live traffic and specific URL test are used to determine the health of content servers.  A set of configuration parameters are provided to define the meaning of server health.
• Client affinity
  Using a cookie, Application Request Routing can affinitize all requests from a client to a content server.  It differentiates the clients behind NAT, so each client is treated independently.  This feature requires that the clients accept cookies.
• Host name affinity
  “Host name affinity” is a specific feature for shared hosters. It changes the deployment topology to minimize and streamline administration and to create additional business opportunities.  For more information on this scenario refer to Overview of Shared Hosting Deployment Using Application Request Routing.
• Multiple server groups
  Application Request Routing can manage multiple server groups, which are logical groupings of content servers in an environment.  This feature allows Application Request Routing to be used in pilot management and A/B testing scenarios.
• Management and monitoring via UI
  All configuration settings and aggregated runtime statistics of Application Request Routing are managed and viewable via IIS Manager.
• Failed Request Tracing Rules
  Specific traces have been added to quickly troubleshoot and diagnose Application Request Routing.

Using the module

These articles explain how to configure and achieve the core scenarios using Application Request Routing.  It is recommended that the articles are read in the following order as the scenarios get richer with each article:

• Install Application Request Routing
• Define and Configure an Application Request Routing Server Group
• HTTP Load Balancing using Application Request Routing
• Includes using health monitoring and client affinity
• Configure 3-tier deployment architecture using Application Request Routing
• Pilot Program Management using Application Request Routing
• Shared Hosting using Application Request Routing
• Using Failed Request Tracing Rules to Troubleshoot Application Request Routing

Questions  and Support

Your input is extremely valuable.  Please contact iislb@microsoft.com for any questions, feedback, and support.  Additional discussions are also available at the Application Request Routing forum.

For me the Microsoft Press book I’ve been waiting a while to see was the full Administrators companion. I will admit to being a fan of this series, both the full Companion and it’s pocket sized sister. I think I might have the complete sets of both in my bookcases somewhere, most are good, some are a little indifferent, but that is not today’s subject.

The quality of the Windows Server 2008 guides has been getting higher, the ones coming out now are more comprehensive. The first two I reviewed, Windows Server 2008 Inside Out by Microsoft Press and Windows Server 2008 Unleashed by Sams Publishing are detailed looks at the product, however both skip some features and cover others in more depth. I feel with both I have good coverage and both are on a par, however for me, the core of my Windows Server 2008 publication library is always going to rest with the Admin Companion, basically because of experiences using it.

Before I dive into this book, I will say I’ve been reviewing a publication from Pearson entitles “The Complete Guide to Windows Server 2008” by John Savill, this is not in print yet and I’ve only had access to the electronic script, but I’ve liked what I’ve read so far and I’ll write more on that closer to the publication date.

So back to the Admin Companion, what can you expect? Well if you have the Windows Server 2003 version, the layout is going to look almost identical. It’s broken down into the same number of parts, similarly titled, covers the material in the same order, but is 200 pages shorter than it’s predecessor. Should that concern you? Well frankly no, some of that difference comes from things like “Understanding TCP/IP” chapter that is not in the 2008 version, the Security in 2008 is more comprehensive, gone are individual chapters on Novel, Mac and Unix interop, in comes a section on Internet Servers and Services. Plus in comes all the details on Roles, features and installation types. Also in comes a chapter on scripting – including PowerShell information and scripts as well as a detailed chapter on Virtualisation, which was one of the chapters I was looking forward too – the Inside Out book does not cover it and the Unleashed book covers the concepts not the Hyper-V technology as it was still in flux at the time.

Looking at the book overall, I’m certainly not missing the material that was in the 2003 version and not in this version, I am liking the material that replaced it a lot, the authors have added enough to certainly freshen it up, I mean we all know that task like administering file and share permissions has not radically changed but this type of book has to cover that material and I may not rush to those chapters, but I have glanced over them.

This is a worthy additional to the series, it was what I expected, all the step-by-steps are there, the Real World notes are there and importantly details of all the features of the product are there. Worth the time in any good book shop to look over, especially those ones that have coffee bars, and one that will serve you well if you have to start administering Windows Server 2008 systems in your organisation.