Windows Virtualization Team Blog

Visual Studio 2010 lab management uses virtualization

There are 4 million .NET developers in the world, so I figure one or two might read this blog, or you might know someone. A couple weeks ago at the Professional Developers Conference, we began discussing, and announced a CTP, of Visual Studio 10. One of the many features of VS10 is lab management, which leverages virtualization to enable software development and test teams to build higer quality apps. Lab management accelerates setup/tear down time and elimiates no-repro bugs by creating better integration across dev and test teams throughout the application lifecycle. Read More...

by porourke | 1 Comments

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...

by porourke | 5 Comments

Bare metal hypervisor is here, along with new training, services

"Bare metal" was my attempt at being dramatic ;-) Anyway, I really wanted you to know that the standalone hypervisor, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, was released today for download. This is the no-cost, bare metal hypervisor. Think ESXi, but with Windows and not Linux. More on this in a bit. Today we also announced new virtualization training and certification program. You're qualified to take this training if you have Windows Server experience. Get more info here; I'm told the cost for training is dependent on the country, but generally ranges from US $90-$130. Click here if you need the currency conversion rate. Before I get back to Hyper-V Server 2008 (and yes, it's different than Windows Server 2008 server core with Hyper-V), today's announcement also said that System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 will be released in a few weeks. The word is: "by end of October", and "there's still some more fine tuning and quality checks to do with early adopter customers." So net-net, SCVMM won't be released next week as announced here, but a couple weeks after. So what exactly is Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008? Following are some bits I've collected that you might not Read More...

by porourke | 11 Comments

Before we get to VMworld Vegas

My ears are still ringing from Monday's virtualization event in Bellevue. Not necessarily from the keynotes or demos, but mainly from being 10 feet away from the stage as the band Live played a 60+ minute set during the party. Here's a photo I snapped Read More...

by porourke | 1 Comments

MS Hyper-V Server: in 30 days for $0

The show begins in 10 hours, but the news it out: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, a new hypervisor-based server virtualization product (like ESXi), will be released within 30 days and be available at no cost via the Web Microsoft will demonstrate live migration feature of Windows Server 2008 R2. And the next version of Microsoft Hyper-V Server (the one after 2008) will have live migration capabilities. System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 will be released within 30 days [not a surprise], which will manage Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 or VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 Microsoft’s global server OEM partners ... report that nearly 100% of their customers who order Windows Server 2008 with hardware are also choosing to have Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V included with their order. Dedicated virtualization lab established within the Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center. The keynote will be shown here in the morning [noon EDT]: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/virtualization/default.mspx Patrick Read More...

by porourke | 5 Comments

Thoughts on today's virtualization licensing and support news

Today we announced some changes to server application licensing and support policies related to running MS server apps on top of anyone's hypervisor. Several folks have written or blogged about it, here are some: Chris Wolf (Burton Group) Virtualization.info NetworkWorld Windows IT Pro Thoughts on application mobility licensing Read More...

by porourke | 8 Comments

VM standards, offline patching tools

Quick post here on two items. Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool can be downloaded here. As blogged about at by the System Center team blog, Virtualization.info, and InfoWorld blog. This product allows the update of large-scale deployments of virtual machines, leveraging PowerShell, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2007 and WSUS 3.0 (or Configuration Manager 2007). As Alessandro pointed out, "It just automates the VM power-on, updates deploying through virtual network access, and VM shutdown." You can use this Solution Accelerator to help you with business scenarios such as these: Your IT organization is converting physical servers to virtual machines to reduce costs, including administrative overhead. How can you regularly update offline virtual machines while minimizing administrative costs? Your IT organization has thousands of virtual machines stored for months at a time in a number of libraries. How do you keep the virtual machines reliably up to date? Second, today Citrix issued an announcement about "Project Kensho", which is described as: Read More...

by porourke | 2 Comments

Top 5 things to know about Hyper-V

My name is Ronald Beekelaar. I'm a Microsoft MVP of Virtual Machine Technology, based in Amsterdam. I have my own consultancy firm, and since 2002 I focus on virtualization. At first, this was strictly VMware-oriented, but a few years later this included Microsoft's virtualization products as well. Since the first public beta of Hyper-V more than a year ago, I have done many presentations about Hyper-V at various events, and talked to a lot of customers about transitioning to Hyper-V. The people I talk to can be divided into two groups: they either have experience with Microsoft Virtual PC and Virtual Server, or they only know the VMware products and are just now looking into Hyper-V. However, for both groups, and despite very different opinions, there are five topics that always come up in discussions. Below is my list of the top-5 things you should know and understand about Hyper-V. Read More...

by porourke | 17 Comments