Windows Virtualization Team Blog

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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...
Posted 24 September 09 03:03 by vtango | 0 Comments
Filed under Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, Management, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Application Virtualization, Microsoft Application Virtualization, System Center, virtualization management, Virtual Desktop Architecture, VDI, integrated virtualization, VMM 2008, Virtuallization Solution Accelerators, Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Tool, Windows Server 2008, Live Migration, Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Hyper-V Server
The Virtualization platform vs. the Operating System: Day 1 at VMworld was mostly about Labs and content which builds up to the main event starting with the keynote on Tuesday morning. Looking forward to today. In the meanwhile I have been hearing about a concept being put forth that the virtualization platform Read More...
Posted 01 September 09 02:01 by vtango | 1 Comments
Filed under Virtual Server, Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, System Center, virtualization management, integrated virtualization, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Hyper-V Server
Server & Tools Business Exec to discuss state of IT, answer your questions on June 23: On Tuesday, June 23rd from 10:30am – 11:00am (PDT), you're invited to join a teleconference with Bob Kelly, corporate VP of Infrastructure Server Marketing. Bob will talk about the state of IT within the context of results from a new Harris Interactive study. The study, of 1,200 IT professionals from the U.S., United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, was commissioned by Microsoft’s Server & Tools Business. There will be time for your questions following the brief presentation. Submit questions over the phone or you can submit them at any time leading up to, or during, the teleconference by tweeting with the Twitter hashtag, #qs4ms. If you are interested in attending, please REGISTER NOW. Once you open the invite box, you can save and close to your calendar. Read More...
Posted 18 June 09 05:27 by porourke | 0 Comments
Filed under virtualization, Management, VMWare, MMS, integrated virtualization, Windows Server 2008, Cloud Computing
Re: Windows Server 2008 SP2 Hyper-V: Hi Isaac Roybal here. I’m a technical product manager on the Windows Server team covering Hyper-V. It’s been over two weeks since the release of Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and we’re seeing great adoption. From a Hyper-V point of view, we’re excited because the final Hyper-V release is an integrated feature in SP2 making it easier and faster to deploy Hyper-V. If you recall, when Windows Server 2008 was released, Hyper-V Beta was included. This meant to get the final Hyper-V release, you needed to go to Windows Update, download and go through the update process. With Windows Server 2008 SP2, Hyper-V final bits are included so there’s no need to pull down individual downloads which speeds up deployments. There are also some notable updates in SP2, including scalability enhancements for running on systems with up to 24 logical processors which enables support for up to 192 running virtual machines, update for Hyper-V when managed with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and updates for backup/restore of virtual machines with the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). Read More...
Posted 17 June 09 05:51 by porourke | 3 Comments
Filed under Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, System Center, integrated virtualization, VMM 2008, Windows Server 2008, VSS
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...
Posted 28 March 09 05:24 by porourke | 0 Comments
Filed under Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, ESX, SoftGrid, Application Virtualization, Microsoft Application Virtualization, System Center, virtualization management, VDI, Calista Technologies, Management tools, integrated virtualization, VMM 2008, Windows Server 2008, High Availability, Live Migration
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...
Posted 16 March 09 03:44 by porourke | 5 Comments
Filed under Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, Management, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, VMWare, System Center, virtualization management, Management tools, MMS, integrated virtualization, VMM 2008, Windows Server 2008, Quick Migration, Live Migration
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...
Posted 20 February 09 05:10 by porourke | 0 Comments
Filed under Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, Management, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, ESX, SoftGrid, Application Virtualization, Microsoft Application Virtualization, System Center, virtualization management, Citrix, Management tools, integrated virtualization, VMM 2008, Windows Server 2008
DPM for data backup/recovery of virtualized apps and environments: We want to congratulate the Microsoft Storage Solutions team for releasing Service Pack 1 for System Center Data Protection Manager 2007. SP1 for DPM 2007 brings some great new capabilities for protecting Hyper-V environments (as well as ESX Server). Most notably, of course, is the ability to protect guests within Hyper-V environments, often without downtime (for those guests running a Windows operating system that supports VSS). Also new for DPM with SP1 is the ability to run the DPM server on the Hyper-V host itself, so that the DPM server can protect the guests from the host viewpoint, within the same physical server - to disk, to tape and even to the cloud. And unlike other (shall-not-be-named) virtualization platforms’ backup mechanisms, DPM does not require a SAN and does not require 3rd party backup software or add-ons. It’s an all Microsoft backup and recovery solution for Microsoft’s virtualization platform. For more details on the SP1 release for DPM 2007, check out: · Bala’s executive viewpoint on DPM 2007 sp1 Read More...
Posted 13 January 09 05:47 by porourke | 1 Comments
Filed under Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, Disaster Recovery, virtualization, Management, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, ESX, VMWare, System Center, cross-platform management, integrated virtualization, VMM 2008, Windows Server 2008, Cloud Computing
Videos to watch: Mark Russinovich; Virt and cloud computing panel: Before I start hunkering down for what's supposed to be a snowy weekend without college football, I wanted to pass along a couple videos that are worth a watch. First, TechTarget interviewed Mark Russinovich, technical follow, about Windows 7, WS08 R2, virtualization and Vista. It's about 8 minutes long. You can watch Mark's interview here. Second, this week Mike Neil, GM of virtualization, hosted a live meeting to discuss virtualization and cloud computing. Joining Mike was Dominic Foster, CTO of web hoster MaximumASP, and Deepak Patil, GM within Microsoft Global Foundation Services, which hosts the Windows Azure Services platform. You'll see slides and hear them talk and answer some Q&As in 45 minutes. You can access the playback here (log-in required). And if online videos aren't of interest, I'll point out that Mike Neil recently submitted his 2009 predictions to David Marshall over at VMblog.com. Patrick Read More...
Posted 10 December 08 10:00 by porourke | 0 Comments
Filed under Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, Management, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, ESX, VMWare, System Center, virtualization management, VDI, Management tools, integrated virtualization, VMM 2008, Windows Server 2008, Cloud Computing
Guest post: Moving VM automation and inventory beyond Excel files: Hi, I’m John Suit, CTO and principal founder of Fortisphere, which is a member of the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program. In this tough economy, the cost savings of virtualization are driving faster adoption – and the introduction of Microsoft Hyper-V is exposing more companies, large and small, to the benefits of this deceptively simple technology. In fact, from what we’ve seen, the scale of deployments has grown tremendously in the past year. When we did market research a year ago, people were calling their 90-VM environments “large.” Today, similar-sized deployments are “really, not very big.” Today, 300-400 VMs are commonplace, with a mix of Microsoft Hyper-V and others platforms running together. So, the deployment of VMs has become nearly routine. But, with scale, another problem has emerged: management of the environments. Today, we mostly see folks provisioning VMs and mostly ignoring them until someone calls with a problem, at which point they scramble to prove that the virtual infrastructure is not to blame. Inventories of VM are either kept in Excel files or outsourced to teams of inventory-keepers. Change alerting, reclamation of idle VMs, and a whole bunch of other functions are untouched, as most folks are too busy with provisioning and troubleshooting. Read More...
Posted 19 November 08 07:28 by porourke | 2 Comments
Filed under Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, Management, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, System Center, virtualization management, cross-platform management, Management tools, integrated virtualization, VMM 2008, Windows Server 2008
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...
Posted 21 October 08 08:52 by porourke | 17 Comments
Filed under Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, Management, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, VMWare, Microsoft Application Virtualization, System Center, virtualization management, Management tools, integrated virtualization, VMM 2008, Windows Server 2008
VMworld is over, but the facts remain: I’ve been to Las Vegas too many times to count and have always left with good stories, but I never thought that my best Vegas story would be work-related. That story of course is about last week’s marketing activity at VMworld. Definitely not your typical day at the office. While I have enjoyed the headlines (My Favorite: Microsoft attacks VMware with Poker Chips), the speculation as to what transpired has been most amusing to me. Unfortunately, I have to disappoint all those Oliver-Stone-like conspiracy theorists out there. Sorry, but Las Vegas Police were never called to the scene. Nor were we escorted out. We didn’t even attract the eye of hotel staff or security. Sorry! More than anything, I am glad that the right tone came through and loved hearing that it was “Great to see”, “Relevant and unexpected”, and “Pretty hilarious”. I couldn’t help but eavesdrop when I saw attendees share the collateral with a friend or hear someone chatting about it during the conference. The street team did a great job, and the marketing effort exceeded expectations (3,800 cards in <90 minutes, 25+ articles/blogs, 15,000+ visits and 175,000+ hits to www.VMwareCostsWayTooMuch.com in 7 days, and multiple tough questions on TCO to Paul Maritz). And, yes, that’s more visits to the site than attendees at VMworld! The site and the on-the-ground activity were part of our marketing/PR efforts at VMworld and designed to cut through the noise (over 200 press announcements in 3 days) with one, simple message: Microsoft offers a better TCO than VMware. Read More...
Posted 27 September 08 01:47 by porourke | 6 Comments
Filed under Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, Community, ESX, VMWare, virtualization management, integrated virtualization, Windows Server 2008
Guest Post: Virtualization and Cloud Computing: Hello, my name is Karl Schulmeisters, director of alliance technology and architecture for the Microsoft Global Alliance at Unisys. We are a global systems integrator that focuses on large scale-up solutions particularly in the public sector, financial services, federal government and pharmaceuticals industries. I watched Monday’s mid-day keynote at the Virtualization Launch in Bellevue, in which Senior VP of Server and Tools, Bob Muglia, spoke and brought a Gartner analyst on stage for an industry view. The traditional viewpoint of virtualization is that it is driven by cost savings, Green IT and operational efficiency. But according to Gartner, those are tactical considerations. Gartner believes that virtualization unlocks Cloud Computing, which in turn fundamentally transforms how IT is run. I’m not sure that virtualization itself unlocks Cloud Computing. Pervasive connectivity and standardized data protocols, like XML, are more crucial to this. What virtualization lets you do though is to get rid of the issues of app conflicts that have grown out of the PC industry’s history of using dedicated machines for a particular server type. Essentially it lets you isolate the various application servers as though they were on a separate physical box without having to assume the cost of that separation. Read More...
Posted 10 September 08 08:54 by porourke | 1 Comments
Filed under Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, Community, Application Virtualization, Microsoft Application Virtualization, System Center, Interop, VDI, integrated virtualization, Windows Server 2008, Cloud Computing
Guest Post: Why Microsoft and Hyper-V for HostBasket: Hi, my name is Bert Van Pottelberghe, business unit manager at Hostbasket, which is the leading hosting company and SaaS-provider in Belgium with over 30,000 SMB customers. In a recent survey of our datacenter with over 1,000 servers, we saw that the average CPU-usage was only 12%. On the other hand, investments in new server hardware, datacenter space and the cost of power and cooling – now at an all time high - keep prices for dedicated servers high. The hosting industry is a very competitive industry, so we needed to come up with an answer. We have been investigating virtualization technologies such as Xen, VMWare and Virtuozzo, but always found problems (such as security-issues, complex and expensive licensing, stability or scalability) that kept us from creating a virtual machine-offer. Read More...
Posted 28 July 08 11:53 by porourke | 2 Comments
Filed under Virtual Server, Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, Community, ESX, VMWare, Management tools, integrated virtualization, XenServer, Windows Server 2008
Guest Post: Going Live with Hyper-V for myhosting.com: Hi, my name is Stephen Nichols, VP of sales and marketing for SoftCom Technology Consulting, which is the company behind MyHosting.com, a leading global provider of affordable web, email and application hosting. We have been actively engaged with Microsoft technologies since we began in the hosting industry back in 1997. We are part of Gold Certified Partner program with competencies in Data Management Solutions, Information Worker Solutions, Mobility Solutions and Networking Infrastructure Solutions. Based on our strength and experience in shared hosting we see the greatest opportunity for growth is to build new solutions on this foundation. The development of these solutions will be customer requirement driven and need to be delivered cost effectively and on demand. The best prospect for future profits is to move beyond commoditized hosting of simple websites sold on large amounts of storage, bandwidth and email addresses. To future proof our business we have begun to offer unique solutions backed by exceptional support. As part of our process to find and develop tools and strategies to differentiate our services in the market, our entire organization was keen to implement some form of Virtual Server Hosting. In the words of our Operations Manager: “Modern computer systems are extremely powerful, 4 socket, quad core CPUs, these systems are able to support many gigabytes of memory and storage. Running one operating system and a single application on these type of machines would be inefficient. By using virtualization technology, we can consolidate multiple physical servers onto one physical machine.” We have already implemented virtualization technology within our infrastructure for our internal server needs and saw that server consolidation allows us to have smaller footprint and a lower cost of ownership. Fewer physical servers reduce power consumption both by servers and by the cooling infrastructure, lowering costs and at the same time making our solution “greener”. The next step was to build hosting solution that could take advantage of virtualization technology to provide our customers the tools they need to run their businesses. As not all virtualization platforms are created equally we took our time to find the best fit. At the end of the day the clear choice for us was to go with Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V platform. Some of the key factors we evaluated include the following. Read More...
Posted 28 July 08 11:44 by porourke | 1 Comments
Filed under Virtual Server, Windows Virtualization, Hyper-V, virtual machine, virtualization, VMWare, integrated virtualization, Windows Server 2008

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