Windows Server Division WebLog

We announced the new Microsoft Operations Framework 4.0, and the MOF 4.0 online community. Check out Jeff's blog post over on the System Center team blog. Here's an excerpt:

So what’s new?  First, where the old MOF talked mainly about operations, the new MOF 4.0 describes the entire IT life cycle, including business planning, project organization can use a common language and a consistent framework for planning and coordinating their activities.

The second improvement is to the design of the content.  If you’re looking for a way to overhaul your organizations service management practices, then MOF 4.0 provides that comprehensive view that will help you choose where to start.  However, if you’re just looking for a best practice around one particular area then MOF 4.0 can help as well, with short (25-page) “service management functions” that can give you ideas on improving a particular function in 20 minutes.

Patrick

Helping businesses address the growing complexity of managing their IT environments, today at Microsoft Management Summit 2008 we announced the public beta release of System Center Virtual

Machine Manager 2008 (formerly referred to as code name “Virtual Machine Manager vNext”).

 System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 enables customers to configure and deploy new virtual machines and to centrally manage their virtualized infrastructure, whether running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 or VMware ESX Server. When used in conjunction with the broad System Center management suite, customers can use SCVMM 2008 to effectively manage both their virtualized and physical servers and applications.

For more information about this news and other activities taking place at MMS, check out the Virtual Press Room.

 -Tina

What a Launch Wave it has been! I've just returned from celebrating Windows Server 2008 with many of you all over the world. It was great to hear your stories and see how Windows Server 2008 will fit into many of your organizations. For those of you who were not able to attend a launch event, check out www.heroescommunitylaunch.com to find a community event in your area. Also make sure to check out the Virtual Launch Experience at www.heroeshappenhere.com/vle.

On another note, we are still doing some very cool things around Windows Server 2008. Check out the information below.

Win a Windows Home Server!

Evalu’08 and you could win!  Download a free trial or take a Virtual Lab of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008 or other Microsoft Server products and be entered for a chance to win an HP MediaSmart Server powered by Windows Home Server software.  To sign up and to view the official rules, visit Evalu’08.   

Knowledge Base Article:  How to extend the Windows Server 2008 evaluation period

This article describes how to extend, or re-arm, the windows Server 2008 evaluation period up to 240 days.

Test Drive Windows Server 2008

The Windows Server 2008 test drive allows you to try the latest release from Microsoft instantly. By simply logging onto our test-drive environment using your web browser, you will be able to experience Windows Server 2008 first hand through a collection of short virtual labs and video walk-throughs.

Webcast Series:  24 Hours of Windows Server 2008

Watch these 90-minute Windows Server 2008 webcasts and learn how your organization can leverage the enhancements in Windows Server 2008 improve your organization's networking infrastructure and security, server performance and reliability, remote resource access, and client deployment. Subject matter experts break down what these upgrades mean for your environment and how to take advantage of them. Tune in for live webcasts and stream or download webcasts for on-demand viewing.

· TechNet Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 1 of 24): Overview (Level 200)

On-demand

Presenter:  Keith Combs

· TechNet Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 2 of 24): Server Virtualization with Hyper-V Features and Architecture (Level 200)

On-demand

Presenter:  Kevin Remde

· TechNet Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 3 of 24): Managing Hyper-V (Level 200)

On-demand

Presenter:  John Baker

· TechNet Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 4 of 24): Presentation Virtualization with Terminal Services RemoteApp (Level 200)

On-demand

Presenter:  Chris Avis

· TechNet Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 5 of 24): Terminal Services Gateway and Terminal Services Web Access (Level 200)

On-demand

Presenter:  Blain Barton

· TechNet Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 06 of 24): Deploying and Migrating to Terminal Server (Level 200)

On-demand

Presenter:  John Baker

· TechNet Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 7 of 24): IIS 7.0 Overview and Architecture (Level 200)

On-demand

Presenter:  Chris Avis

· TechNet Webcast: 24 Hours of Windows Server 2008 (Part 8 of 24): IIS 7.0 Advanced Management (Level 200),

On-demand

Presenter:  Shawn Travers

Hopefully this information will continue to help you with your questions and deployments of Windows Server 2008.

Stay tuned!

- Justin Graham

More details on Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) below.

Eric Rezabek

Greetings from Dallas at the SMB Summit, where 400+ channel partners are gearing up for Windows Essential Server Solutions.  Small Business Server 2008 is the topic du jour, tomorrow is all about Essential Business Server 2008 for midsized companies.  The Microsoft team is here in force, providing technical sessions, hands on labs (powered by HP hardware), and generally absorbing all the feedback they can about how to help partners meet the needs of small and midmarket businesses.

Many solution providers are truly excited about the new features of SBS - lots of whistles and shouts in the opening keynote today, particularly around the addition of SQL Server Standard Edition to SBS Premium Edition.  During the opening session, partner John Endter of E Squared C shared his experience deploying SBS 08 beta for a golf course client. He called the new product "rock solid" and praised the improved sytem health monitoring (server and client.)

Michael Cocanower of itSynergy is successfully running EBS 08 beta for clients, and told us that many partners see the new product as a way to extend or strengthen their services in the midmarket. 

Check out the SBS blog and EBS blog for more posts from the Summit by the program management team. 

Joel Sider

We are excited to introduce “The Server Unleashed” ad campaign featuring Windows Server 2008 personified as a robot delivering super-human reliability, stability, management and security. Just as Windows Server is not your average server, this is not your average campaign. The website provides great resources like case studies, product information and downloads and even cool screensavers….check it out!  

Why “IT24-7?”

Across IT infrastructures, both integration and consolidation are happening at ever increasing rates. This can bring huge benefits for IT Pros and enterprises, but it also puts great pressure on the server OS to deliver unprecedented levels of security, manageability and reliability. As the infrastructure becomes more interconnected, the OS must deliver rock-solid reliability.

Windows Server 2008 is up to the challenge. As positioned in our integrated campaign, Windows Server 2008 is the innovative must-have solution to meet the stringent new demands of the changing IT infrastructure. Windows Server 2008, with its significant improvements and innovations, delivers the game-changing reliability needed to run a changing IT infrastructure.

To bring this to life we created the Server Unleashed campaign which rests squarely on the strong shoulders of the “IT24-7” Robot, who embodies innovation, strength, and unstoppable reliability. The IT24-7 robot is the server’s potential unleashed. It is a server OS that finally combines the forward-thinking features that IT Pros want with the never-failing reliability that they need.

We’ve unleashed these server ads online in places like LinkedIn and in the tech pubs instead of TV time because this is where IT pros are going.  One of the main things we want to do with this campaign is interact with customers through videos, training and evaluation information.  As such, this campaign’s LinkedIn sponsorship provides IT professionals with relevant information about Windows Server 2008 in LinkedIn’s IT Answers forum.  There is similar interactive content at sites like Internet.com.  

Also, noteworthy is that this global campaign is in 31 markets worldwide.

Here's a video from the campaign:

This week kicked off the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia. While thousands of fans cheer for their favorite player, each professional golfer will pick up a club, swing, and hope for the best.  What’s often overlooked in this story is the scientific precision that goes into making the clubs that golfers depends on to execute the game with. 

Callaway Golf, a leader in golf equipment, established its reputation on scientifically designed clubs that help golfers make personal breakthroughs on the course, whether it’s stopping the ball on the green or simply hitting it farther.  To sustain this superior level of quality, Callaway recently switched from a Linux-based high performance computing cluster to Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. 

With Windows CCS 2003, Callaway is seeing an eightfold increase in performance, helping make engineers far more productive and enhancing their ability to deliver innovative, high-quality products. Also,  by choosing Windows CCS 2003 over Linux, Callaway Golf is benefiting from a solution that is easier to use, simpler to support and will save the company tens of thousands of dollars in software and maintenance costs.

Just a little science to keep in mind when you’re watching this weekend and hoping Tiger makes his birdie on the 18^th hole.

-Tina

In the spirit of keeping you updated on Windows Storage Solutions, this week members of our team are off to Orlando, Florida for the bi-annual Storage Networking World (SNW) conference.  You may recall that last October at SNW, we announced the RTM of Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 as part of Microsoft’s Universal Distributed Storage commitment to deliver storage solutions with high-end storage functionality via a multitude of partners. 

Reinforcing that commitment to storage solutions, I’d like to highlight progress and announcements that our partners are making at SNW:

·         Cisco introduced the WAAS WAE 674 Appliance that provides local application hosting and acceleration of centralized data center applications.  The Cisco WAAS WAE-674 can be upgraded with embedded virtualization software to support “virtual blades” for hosting off-the-shelf applications, beginning with Windows Server 2008. 

·         AMD announced availability of the industry’s first Reference Design Kit (RDK) for the Storage Bridge Bay (SBB) 2.0 Specification.  The RDK supports Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Area Networks (SANs), Unified Storage systems, as well as all major interface connectivity options including GigE, 10GigE, Fibre Channel, and Infiniband.  SBB 2.0 and the Windows Storage Server platform will help promote affordable enterprise class storage functionality to customers of all sizes.

·         Fujitsu debuted an easy-to-install network attached storage (NAS) appliance for small to medium businesses called F-NAS.  Based on Windows, F-NAS features Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (WUDSS) and allows both file and block-level data to be transferred over Ethernet networks.  F-NAS also consolidates storage under a single Microsoft Management Console (MMC), simplifying the management of storage resources.

·         emBoot delivered winBoot/i v2.5, an important update to its iSCSI boot solution for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, that utilizes Microsoft's iSCSI architecture to allow the booting of any Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 devices using existing low-cost Ethernet adapters versus substantially more expensive host bus adapters (HBAs).

More information on SNW can be found here.

Tina Couch

Do you want to use the server core installation option of Windows Server 2008, but are put off by the command-line interface? Well, Guy Teverovsky may have what you need. He created a GUI for the GUI-less server core of WS08. Check it out here.

Patrick

Announcing the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows Vista SP1!

Do you remember ADMINPAK.MSI? This has been a staple for many IT Admins for many years. RSAT is an update to ADMINPAK.MSI for the WS08 administration tools to run on Windows Vista with SP1 and includes the new Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) which adds functionality like search, filter, commenting, and most importantly, Group Policy Preferences. RSAT is the collection of Windows Server management tools provided to enable IT Professionals to manage their Windows Server infrastructure from their PCs running Windows Vista SP1. RSAT is available as a separate download rather than as part of another product. RSAT is available to all customers as part of a supplemental EULA to Windows Vista licenses.

You can install RSAT from the following locations:

RSAT Questions and Answers 

Q.           Why is Microsoft making these tools available?

A.            Many IT professionals manage their servers from their own desktops. RSAT enables IT professionals to use the updated Windows Server 2008 management tools to manage their servers remotely from their own PCs.

Q.           Which operating systems does RSAT manage?

A.            All RSAT tools manage Windows Server 2008 servers. Certain RSAT tools also manage servers running Windows Server 2003.

Q.           Is RSAT the next version of ADMINPAK.MSI?

A.           Yes. As ADMINPAK.MSI provides IT professionals the ability to remotely manage their Windows Server 2003 servers, RSAT provides updated functionality for Windows Server management from PCs running Windows Vista with Service Pack 1. All tools within RSAT support the management of servers running Windows Server 2008; some of these tools also support the management of servers running Windows Server 2003, and thus can be considered a replacement for ADMINPAK.MSI.

Q.           Will RSAT run on the version of Windows Vista with no service packs installed?

A.            No.  RSAT requires Windows Vista with Service Pack 1.

Q.           Will RSAT include a Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) for Windows Vista with SP1?

A.            Yes.

Q:           Will the GPMC provided by RSAT allow me to manage Group Policy preference items from a computer running Windows Vista with SP1?

A.            Yes.

Q.           What tools does RSAT include?

A.            RSAT includes the following tools and features:

Role Administration Tools:

            Active Directory Certificate Services Tools

            Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Tools

            Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) Tools

            DHCP Server Tools

            DNS Server Tools

            File Services Tools

            Network Policy and Access Services Tools

            Terminal Services Tools

            Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) Services Tools

Feature Administration Tools:

            BitLocker Drive Encryption Tools

            Failover Clustering Tools

            Group Policy Management Tools

            Network Load Balancing Tools

            SMTP Server Tools

            Storage Manager for SANs Tools

            Windows System Resource Manager Tools

The following list of tools are also fully supported managing Windows Server 2003 servers:

•             Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Tools