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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...
Announcing the availability of the updated Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for Virtualization and System Center
Microsoft has a comprehensive portfolio of technologies when it comes to Virtualization ranging from Presentation Virtualization with Remote Desktop Services to Server Virtualization using Hyper-V with many more in between as below. · Server Hardware Read More...
Update: What you won't see at VMworld 2009
This post is for the readers out there that will be attending VMworld, or have colleagues attending VMworld. There’s been some speculative statements made in the press and blogs in the past 24 hours, so I want to try to set the record straight: 1. Microsoft Read More...
Microsoft’s new VDI licensing: VDI Suites
Hi, my name is Manlio Vecchiet, and I am a director of product management on the Windows Server marketing team. I'm in New Orleans right now attending the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) , and wanted to update you on new licenses we’ll offer Read More...
Online sessions, book and more
Admittedly this post is a stew and not a meal (if that metaphor works). But you might be interested in the following items. I'll keep it short: John Kelbley will host a webcast on Friday, May 8 at 8:00am PDT titled, "Running Linux on Hyper-V." The session will discuss install, configure, run, backup and monitor non-Windows systems. See here. On May 14, 8am-noon PDT, Edwin Yuen will host a live chat on TechTarget. He'll answer questions about our virt products, be it datacenter, desktop or managemment. See more here. Wondering what to read when you're flying to TechEd, or your next trip? The Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Resource Kit book is it. One of the authors, Robert Larson, architect in MS Services and TechNet blogger, told me that the book is in final formatting and some sample chapters are available to download (here). The book will be available via Amazon and Barnes and Noble in June. Read more from one of the authors here. Enjoy. Read More...
VMware vSphere pricing - Meet the new price; same as the old price, only more
Hi, I'm Edwin Yuen, a Senior Technical Product Manager at Microsoft's Integrated Virtualization team. This past week, there were two key announcements made, one by Microsoft and one by VMware, that have an impact on how we compare Microsoft and VMware Read More...
MMS 2009: Application Virt for Servers
I'm a bit behind is sharing the following demo video. On Tuesday at Microsoft Management Summit, we did a demo of application virtualization for servers. Both Mary Jo and Alessandro predicted this demo a couple weeks ago - so not a real surprised. The demo was described as a technology preview, meaning there's no plan of record for beta testing, etc. So what did Bill Morein demo? As you'll see, Bill's demo was setup by talk about administering the compute fabric and managing deployment of a tightly bound OS can create challenges. By applying application virtualization to this challenge, we can separate apps from the server. This should mean a more simplified, and accelerated, approach to deploying those virtualized apps and patching. Bill pointed out that this leads to reduce image libraries, and accelerated migration. Check out the demo - it's less than 6 minutes. Read More...
Top 10 VMWare myths video
Edwin and David recently sat down in front of a video camera to talk about the top 10 myths from VMWare. Here's a quick outline of the topics discussed during the 11 minute video: Live migration clustered shared volumes Hyper-V scalability Hyper-V performance Hyper-V footprint Hardware support Memory overcommit End-to-end management Value Why pay VMWare's virtualization tax? See the video below, or the other 22 videos here. Read More...
Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization now available via MDOP
It's great to learn that MED-V is now available to customers with the new version of MS Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) for customers with Software Assurance. See Ran's post here. Following are excerpts from Ran's post: MED-V provides deployment and management of virtual Windows desktops to enable key enterprise scenarios. MED-V 1.0 helps enterprises upgrade to the latest version of Windows even when some applications are not yet compatible. MED-V builds on top of Microsoft Virtual PC to run two operating systems on one device, adding virtual image delivery, policy-based provisioning and centralized management. A recent brief by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) emphasized some of the customer benefits of using MED-V: "We found that MED-V really solved our application compatibility problems. It allowed us to deploy the applications that we were having difficulty with, where third party vendors were not providing a supported version. Where we used to have hundreds of images, we were able to move to one [Windows] Vista image, and use MED-V to deploy [legacy] applications on top of that," said IT Deployment Manger at Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, an organization of 22,000 staff members. "We are really happy with MED-V. We can virtualize the applications that are made only for XP, and they work fine, with all the functionality intact," said a large European telecommunications company with almost 80,000 employees. 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...
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...
Microsoft at VMworld Europe 2009
VMworld Europe's tagline this year is "virtually anything is possible". Kinda reminds me of Mike's blog post on Monday about Red Hat. And for many IT pros, "virtually anything is possible" might apply to the fact that Microsoft is exhibiting at, and sponsoring, VMworld Europe for the second year in a row. Tres bien, as they say in Cannes. So if you're one of the 3,000 paid attendees expected at VMworld Europe 2009, below's a sneak peak at what you'll find inside booth #133. If you're not attending, I'm going to attempt to post some pix ... maybe video if I'm lucky ... from the booth so you can see the action. No doubt there will be plenty of other blogs coming from VMworld Europe. You can see most of them at the Virt blog aggregator. So what am I expecting to see in Cannes? Outside of the Microsoft booth, I'd expect to see early versions of client hypervisors, interop announcements, new product packaging, cloud computing announcements, and likely an update about VMsafe. Should be a busy week. Read More...
The Virtualization Essentials from Citrix
Bonjour from Cannes. This is just a quick post about Citrix making public the Essentials for Hyper-V news. It's been talked about already by Alessandro and others. Read More...
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 RTMs and what I’m hearing from customers and partners about Microsoft’s virtualization solutions
I’m Zane Adam, sr. director of virtualization strategy here in Redmond at Microsoft. I’m writing today to announce the exciting news that we’ve released to manufacturing (RTM’d) System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and to talk a bit about its critical Read More...
For $50,000, I could pay someone to move my virtual machines for me
The subject line will make sense in a moment. It's a quote from a customer in Australia ... and pretty funny, too. But before that, a few items crossed my inbox that I thought I'd share: Software vendor AspenTech has a process engineering/manufacturing application called aspenONE. Today they announced that their customer BASF deployed aspenONE using Microsoft App-V. I found this interesting for a few reasons. One, I've participated in conversations about whether enterprise customers would deploy 3rd-party apps running on App-V/SoftGrid without some sort of application certification program/logo for App-V. Second, BASF runs large, complex chemical process simulations - and now they're doing so as a network service. I know these sorts of computer-aided engineering apps often times get computed on HPC clusters; but never did I think they'd then get streamed at sufficient speed to the desktop using application virtualization. Along the lines of App-V, J.C. over at the App-V blog noted some new downloads. Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 security configuration wizard. Download here. Microsoft Application Virtualization best practices anayzer. Download here. J.C. wrote last week that App-V 4.5 for Terminal Services license will be available Nov. 1. Read more here. Adam over at TechNet Edge just posted a video interview with the authors of "Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Unleashed." I mentioned Rand's and Jeff's book a couple weeks ago. I had the opportunity to meet Rand/Jeff last week while they were up here in Redmond. Rand spoke to a bunch of us about Convergent's business, and set us straight that applications (Exchange, Sharepoint) and solutions such as disaster recovery and compliance are driving his customers' infrastructure purchases (e.g., Windows Server, Hyper-V, System Center) ... not the other way around. Here's a link to Jeff's blog. Read More...
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