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Re-blog: Microsoft Site Recovery Solution Launch
I'm re-blogging here. Over at Virt Planet blog, Jim wrote the following: This week Microsoft is launching a comprehensive solution to help customers implement cost effective, end-to-end site recovery programs. Built on proven capabilities in Windows Server 2008 R2 and the System Center management suite, Microsoft is helping IT Professionals leverage Windows Server Hyper-V and Failover Clustering along with tools like Virtual Machine Manager to deliver cost effective site recovery. The Microsoft Site Recovery Solution ecosystem is ramping with a broad range of storage replication partners like Double-Take Software, EMC, HDS, HP delivering solutions that take advantage of the Microsoft Cluster Resource DLL. With cluster integration IT Professionals can deploy streamlined and operationally effective site recovery. You can learn more about the Microsoft Site Recovery Solution by joining the Microsoft team and Enterprise Strategy Group on Thursday, November 5th at 10:30am Pacific for a webcast Building Effective and Highly Available Disaster Recovery Solutions Using Microsoft Virtualization This webcast looks at key drivers for site recovery solutions and reviews practical deployment considerations (you can view the recorded version of the webcast after the 5th). Microsoft and select partners will also be demonstrating Site Recovery Solutions at TechEd, so if you plan to be in Berlin during the week of November 9th, make sure to stop by the Virtualization Solutions kiosk in the Technical Learning Center. Read More...
Upcoming Webcasts on Best Practices for Virtualizing MS Server Applications
We’ve got some great webcasts coming up in the next few weeks to discuss recommendations for virtualizing MS server applications and the benefits of choosing hyper-V + System Center as your virtualization solution. Each technical webcast will focus on Read More...
Virtualization: desktop to datacenter
It's been a while since I've posted a blog ... but that one really caused a stir in the Virt circles in the Bay Area. Hopefully it doesn't mean I can't hit up those people for Sharks tickets. I've stumbled across some interesting items that I wanted to share with you. Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2009 R2 is now available. The big thing is support for Windows 7. Read the blog here. Here's an excerpt: On the server side, the latest is from Gartner Symposium in Orlando. Gartner announced their top 10 strategic technologies for 2010. Not surprisingly, virtualization is named or underlying several of the strategic technologies. And speaking of, Gartner also shared data on server virtualization adoption today and forecasted through 2012. Read this article. Here's an excerpt: Along those lines, I had a great email exchange a couple weeks ago with Steve at PoundHost in Maidenhead, UK. I was giving a presentation at IP Expo / VM Expo conference in London, and wanted to highlight PoundHost's business results since switching to Hyper-V and System Center away from VMware tools, and since PoundHost has deployed the Dynamic Datacenter Tookit for hosters. PoundHost has a very compelling story of how technology can really help a business transform itself and create new opportunities. The Microsoft case study doesn't really do it justice. Here's some of what Steve shared with me: Read More...
Microsoft and Red Hat Complete Cooperative Technical Support
Hi, I'm Mike Neil, general manager of Windows Server and Server Virtualization. Back in February we announced our work with Red Hat to enable cooperative technical support for virtualized environments. I'm excited to announce we've completed certification in each others' programs! Customers now can deploy Microsoft Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux and a range of select applications, virtualized on Red Hat and Microsoft virtualization products, knowing that the combined solutions will be supported by both companies. Here are the details: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 have passed cert tests when running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. See more at RedHat's certified hardware site. Windows Server 2003/ Windows Server 2008 / Windows Server 2008 R2 are validated to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, using their KVM-based hypervisor. See more at Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program site. Read More...
Strong end to end management required for Virtualization to be successful (VMworld day 2)
I am pleased that it is being acknowledged by VMware (evidenced by their keynote announcements yesterday on the vCenter additions) that for a strong virtualization platform a complete end-to-end solution is required. We agree completely!! We at Microsoft Read More...
What you won't see at VMworld 2009 - a demo of SCVMM 2008 R2
Ordinarily it'd be great news that we RTM'd System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 ahead of schedule, so close to the RTM of WS08 R2 Hyper-V and one week before VMworld conference. You can't beat the timing of it all. And the ~10,000 beta testers of SCVMM08 R2 are a big part of why we were able to deliver a high-quality release in the time we did. Some of the early adopters included Continetal Airlines, Lionbridge Techologies, Sporton, Indiana University Auxilary IT and MaximumASP. Thanks to all! But unfortunately, next week at VMworld 2009 we can't show SCVMM 2008 R2, or any other products, in our booth. You've probably read about it. In short, it's their show and they set the rules. So we'll make the best of it; always lots of Microsoft customers and partners on the floor. Zane summarizes his thoughts about the RTM here. Kerim blogged about upgrade path to R2 from SCVMM 2008. See here. On May 11, Vishhwa provided some details on features of SCVMM 2008 R2 here. As Cheng wrote in his blog (I can't say it any better) Go download a trial and give it a try, go get it now, and unleash the virtualization power that Microsoft brings to you. Patrick Read More...
Windows Server 2008 R2 Core: Introducing SCONFIG.
Virtualization Nation, It's been very busy in the world of Windows Server. With the launch of Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate, Tech Ed and the announcement of several new Hyper-V R2 capabilities such as 64 logical processor support and processor Read More...
Check out the Visual Studio Team System blog
Many of you will be interested to learn more about forthcoming lab management capabilities in Visual Studio Team System 2010. Or you may have lunch or meetings with a dev who you want to know more about VSTS 2010 Lab Management. That last part if a nod to "that darn reality" post at SharkTank. So check the VSTS Lab Management team blog. Recent posts include: Creating and working in virtual environments Application build, deploy and test automation in Lab Management Enable lab management features for existing team projects VSTS 2010 beta 1 is released Patrick Read More...
Live Migration and Host Clustering available at no charge in Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
I’m Zane Adam, senior director of virtualization and System Center. It’s been a while since my last post, and wanted to update you on our standalone hypervisor, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Last Fall we released Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, a standalone hypervisor-based virtualization product that is available for free. We continue to add more features and value to this product in the upcoming release, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. Our core strategy is to ensure that our customers can virtualize their IT environment in the most cost effective manner, and at the same time, have access to enterprise features like live migration and clustering features for high availability. So in addition to scalability and performance improvements in this version, customers can get live migration and host clustering capabilities and high availability (up to 16 nodes) at no charge. Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 will continue to be free, and now will include live migration and host clustering capabilities. Customers won’t need to pay thousands of dollars for alternate virtualization platforms to get these features. With Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, customers have a solution for both planned and unplanned downtime and can use it for scenarios like server consolidation, branch server consolidation, high availability, and VDI. Read More...
More on virtualizing SharePoint
Since there was interest in the previous post about the UK services team's series on virtualizing SharePoint, I wanted to recommend the following video from October 2008. The interview is with Michael Noel of Convergent Computing. Michael is also a SharePoint MVP. In this video (6 minutes long), Michael talks about using System Center Virtual Machine Manager to deploy SharePoint. He also talks about disaster recovery and quickly provisioning a SharePoint farm. There's a high interest amongst our customers to adopt SharePoint, and to run it within a virtual machine. Mark at Enterprise Strategy Group [his blog] shared the following data with me [from a Dec 2008 research brief by ESG], that partially explains why: In a recent survey of 1,191 IT and business managers, ESG found that one in three (33%) North American and Western European midmarket and enterprise companies are currently using Microsoft’s SharePoint suite of collaboration and content management tools. As adoption becomes more widespread, SharePoint is quickly becoming an organization-wide, critical business resource. As shown in Figure 1, 29% of current SharePoint users rate the implementation of SharePoint as one of their top three IT initiatives over the past 12-24 months and 82% place it in their top ten initiatives. ESG’s research also reveals that SharePoint is viewed very favorably by current users, with 69% of current adopters saying they would recommend that organizations similar to their own implement SharePoint broadly. Read More...
March 31 live web chat
On Tuesday, March 31, Microsoft's Edwin Yuen will be hosting a live web chat 11am-3pm EST. Edwin is a sr. technical product manager. Edwin came to Microsoft with the acquisition of Softricity (and the SoftGrid application virtualization technology). He now also covers Hyper-V and System Center VMM. Sign up here. Read More...
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 beta available
Exciting news for Windows Server Hyper-V, System Center, and VMWare customers. The beta of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 is now available on the Microsoft Connect site for download . If you don't already have access to VMM on the Connect Read More...
System Center Ops Manager management pack for Hyper-V
A quick note that a beta of the Hyper-V management pack for System Center Operations Manager (2007, 2007 R2) is available. In combination with SCVMM (for advanced monitoring of VMs across your Hyper-V, ESX and Virtual Server environments), this SCOM management pack enables health/perf monitoring of the Hyper-V host. The management pack includes health diagram view of virtual machines, virtual components roll-up per host, critical Hyper-V Service monitoring, disk space threshold monitoring. This beta management pack supports the following OS only (for now): § Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition (Full Installation with Hyper-V Role enabled) § Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (Full Installation with Hyper-V Role enabled) § Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition (Full Installation with Hyper-V Role enabled) To request an invitation to access this beta, you can send a message to the following address: MPCC@microsoft.com Read More...
SCVMM and VMware ESX management
The threat of virtualization sprawl. That was a theme my colleagues heard last week at IDC's "Directions" conference in San Jose. And true to IDC's form, they backed up their predictions with some numbers. Here's an excerpt from one article: Virtualization has often been seen as something of a magic bullet to this problem, promising to consolidate a number of low-utilization servers onto a single piece of hardware. But the average number of virtual machines per server is only five, Bailey noted, with that number going to eight by 2012. So much for the vision of consolidating dozens of servers onto one machine. More important, though, was that IDC found that just going from five virtual machines to eight means there will be 100 million new servers by 2012, and "all of them still need to be managed." That's a problem, she said, since the tools to do this are not keeping pace. Our customers have referred to this issue as "islands," referring to the need for different management tools, interfaces, etc. to manage their heterogeneous environment. After all, customers and partners tell us, they're trying to manage services, no matter if the applications run on Windows or non-Windows, physical or virtualized. For those of you in that last camp, like Atlanta Journal Constitution, Mamut and Maxol, you know that Microsoft and some other systems management vendors are creating tools to keep pace with heterogeneous hypervisors and VMs, and as well traditional physical systems and non-virtualized applications. System Center is one such management tool; VMware vCenter isn't (yet, according to Alessandro). To elaborate on this point, check out RakeshM's latest blog post here. Read More...
Microsoft customers showcased at VMworld Europe 2009
This week at VMworld Europe 2009 we're showcasing a number of European customers who have deployed Windows Server Hyper-V, System Center and App-v 4.5. You can watch two videos below. One is of Bouygues Construction based in France. Bouygues does civil engineering, electrical contracting, and maintenance, employs 51,100 people and operates in more than 80 countries. This video is in French with English subtitles, and includes discussion of their Hyper-V and SCVMM deployment on Dell servers with EMC storage. Read More...
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