We are pleased to announce the release of the new Linux 3.1 Integration Services and support for the following Linux distributions as supported guests within Hyper-V:

· Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x (x86 & x64)

o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 (x86 & x64)

o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 (x86 & x64)

· CentOS Linux 6.x (x86 & x64)

o FYI, CentOS has only released 6.0 presently

This announcement is happening today at the Open Source Convention 2011.

The new Linux ISs are available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26837

The following features are included in the Linux 3.1 Integration Services release:

Driver support for synthetic devices: Linux Integration Services supports the network controller and the IDE and SCSI storage controller developed for Hyper-V.

Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.

Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the virtualization server and utilize the pluggable time source device.

Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager using the Shut Down command.

Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.

Heartbeat: Allows the virtualization server to detect whether the guest is running and responsive.

Key Value Pair Exchange (KVP): Information about the running Linux virtual machine can be obtained by using the Key Value Pair exchange functionality on the virtualization server.

The Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1 (VMMSSP) is a fully supported, partner-extensible solution that customers can use to pool, allocate, and manage their computing, network, and storage resources to deliver the foundation for a private cloud platform in their datacenter.

Get it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26701

The Solution Accelerators team is pleased to announce the release of Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 6.0.

Download the MAP Toolkit 6.0

Organizations planning their journey to the cloud now have a tool to help make the planning process easier and faster. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 6.0 includes assessment capabilities to evaluate workloads for both public and private cloud platforms. With MAP 6.0, organizations now have the ability to identify workloads and estimate the infrastructure size and resources needed for both Windows Azure and Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track. Also, new to MAP 6.0, is an Office 365 client assessment, enhanced VMware inventory, and Oracle schema discovery and reporting. Expanded assessment and discovery capabilities from MAP help organizations simplify planning for their next migration project.

NEW FEATURES AND BENEFITS:

Windows Azure migration portfolio analysis

Hyper-V Fast Track onboarding

Expanded heterogeneous server environment inventory

Office 365 readiness

Windows Internet Explorer 9 migration assessment

Oracle schema discovery

Analyze application portfolios for a move to the Windows Azure Platform.

For organizations considering a move to the public cloud, the application evaluation process for migration involves many tools and considerations. The MAP 6.0 Windows Azure migration portfolio analysis feature makes the process easier by providing the ability to quantify and label applications and services in an organization’s IT environment for Windows Azure migration consideration.

The Windows Azure migration portfolio analysis helps organizations:

· Catalog all of the applications in their environment

· Estimate the needed capacity to run their applications on the Windows Azure platform

· Evaluate applications based on migration difficulty

· Stack rank applications in terms of migration suitability

· Obtain a TCO-ROI analysis for the application

Accelerate private cloud planning with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track onboarding.

Organizations can plan their private cloud with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track onboarding, a new assessment available with MAP 6.0.This assessment provides consolidation guidance and validated configurations with preconfigured Hyper-V Fast Track infrastructures, including computing power, network and storage architectures. Get a quick analysis of server consolidation on Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track infrastructures to help accelerate planning of physical to virtual (“P2V”) migration to Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track. Each assessment also provides guidance on the next steps forward in using Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track.

Identify migration opportunities with heterogeneous server environment inventory.

MAP has expanded its heterogeneous server environment inventory to include VMware Server, vSphere and VMware vCenter. Inventory and reporting of the number of servers and guests deployed and managed by VMware infrastructure helps organizations identify migration opportunities and accelerates the migration planning process. Because SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange run better on Hyper-V, MAP 6.0 has the added capability of identifying Microsoft workloads deployed on VMware guests.

Assess client environments for Office 365 readiness.

For organizations considering a move to the cloud with Microsoft’s award-winning business productivity solutions, MAP 6.0 can help make the planning process easier and faster. MAP 6.0 includes an Office 365 client assessment which evaluates the compatibility of Office suites deployed in their environment with Office 365, via a hardware and software readiness assessment. This assessment helps organizations quickly determine which client computers in their environment are ready to use Office 365. The tool obtains machine level detail about why a given computer is not capable of using Office 365, and identifies whether the Office suites currently being used in your environment are compatible with Office 365.

Determine readiness for migration to Windows 7 and Windows Internet Explorer 9.

Organizations can simplify their migration to Windows 7 and Windows Internet Explorer 9 with MAP 6.0. The MAP Internet Explorer migration assessment—now updated for Internet Explorer 9 migration—inventories an organization’s environment and reports on deployed web browsers, Microsoft ActiveX controls, and add-ons, and then generates a migration assessment report and proposal for easier migration to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9.

Discover heterogeneous database instances for migration to SQL Server.

MAP 5.5 included heterogeneous database inventory and reporting capability to help organizations accelerate migration to SQL Server from MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase instances. MAP 6.0 adds to this capability with Oracle schema discovery and reporting of the size and use of each schema. Reporting also provides an estimate of the complexity of migration and suggests candidates for migration to SQL Server. Organizations can use this information to determine the total cost of ownership in maintaining Oracle and the potential ROI from switching to SQL Server.

Download MAP Toolkit 6.0: Download now Learn more Tell us what you think! Please send questions and comments to mapfdbk@microsoft.com. Tell your peers and customers about Solution Accelerators! MAP works with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and Security Compliance Manager to help customers plan, securely deploy, and manage new Microsoft technologies—easier, faster, and at less cost. Please forward this to anyone who wants to learn more about MAP and Microsoft Solution Accelerators. Learn more. Already using Solution Accelerators? We’d like to hear about your experiences. Please send comments and suggestions to satfdbk@microsoft.com.

Lifting from the Virtualization Team Blog here:  http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2011/07/18/windows-server-8-sneak-preview.aspx

If you’re in IT you are likely pulled between an almost infinite need for more computing power to deliver business solutions and the ever increasing demands for greater agility, higher efficiency and lower costs. Fortunately, you can now deliver on these seemingly contradictory demands by leveraging the benefits of cloud computing with our public and private cloud solutions. And they are only going to get better.

Today we are excited to give you a sneak peek at the next step in private cloud computing by showing you just two of hundreds of new capabilities coming in the next version of Windows Server, internally code-named “Windows Server 8.”

At 36:50 of this online video we demonstrate how Windows Server 8 virtual machines will help you build private clouds of greater scale by supporting (at least…) 16 virtual processors fully loaded with business critical workloads like SQL Server. Then we show you how you can deliver improved fault tolerance and flexibility, without the added tax or complexity of additional hardware, tools and software licenses, by using the new built-in Hyper-V Replica feature. All it takes is a few clicks, a network connection and Windows Server 8.

But this is just the beginning! We’re looking forward to sharing more about Windows Server 8 at Microsoft’s BUILD conference, September 13-16, in Anaheim.

System Center Operations Manager 2012 provides the monitoring component of cloud and datacenter solutions, to help you manage your datacenter and cloud environments by:

• Delivering flexible and cost effective enterprise-class monitoring and diagnostics while reducing the total cost of ownership by leveraging commodity hardware, with standard configurations to monitor heterogeneous environments.
• Helping to ensure the availability of business-critical applications and services through market-leading .NET application performance monitoring and diagnostics plus JEE application health monitoring.
• Providing a comprehensive view of datacenters, and private and public clouds.

• Predictable performance and availability of critical applications
  • End-to-end views of application health and topology
  • Establishment of application service-level delivery (SLAs)
  • Precise identification of application errors
• Flexible and cost-effective infrastructure monitoring
  • In-depth monitoring, diagnostics, and reporting for heterogeneous environments
  • Integrated network device monitoring and alerts
  • Simplified management infrastructure
• Comprehensive monitoring for your datacenter and cloud—on your terms
  • Integrated physical, virtual, and cloud management
  • Common console across datacenter and clouds
  • Rich reporting

• Documentation: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=213297
• Forums: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/systemcenteroperationsmanager
• Feedback: https://connect.microsoft.com/OpsMgr/Feedback
• Team Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26804