Tag: 2008

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Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008


 

What is Virtual Machine Manager?:

The clue is in the name, but Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is a management system for virtual machines (VM’s)..however, and this is the ace up Microsoft’s sleeve…it also manages physical servers-this is in contrast to VMWare’s VirtualCenter as that can only manage VM’s. That means IT Administrators only need to learn to use one console to manage ALL their servers and anything that makes an Admin’s job easier is a good thing yes? 🙂

Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager delivers end to end support for consolidating physical servers onto virtual, fast Physical to Virtual (P2V) conversion “Intelligent Placement” of server workloads to balance performance and of course, the centralized console.

It also contains V2V conversion, making it easy to convert any existing VMWare VMDX/VMX files to Microsoft’s VHD format.

Further info on VMM’s features can be found here.

What’s new in VMM 2008?:

Good question! VMM 2008 is packed full of great new features including:

·         Allows for fault tolerant and cluster aware VM’s to be created

·         Integration with VMWare’s Virtual Center

·         Windows PowerShell scripts for automation etc supported across multiple platforms

·         Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) is a feature of VMM that can dynamically respond to failure scenarios or poorly configured components identified in hardware, operating systems, or applications

·         Working through PRO-enabled Management Packs together  with System Center Operations Manager 2007’s, PRO can either alert an administrator of an unhealthy system or application state and its proposed recommended corrective action or it can respond by automatically creating a system that is responsive and self-healing. PRO features are available to ESX VM’s as well.

·         VMM 2008 is now fully cluster-aware, meaning that it can detect and manage Hyper-V host clusters as a single unit

·         New in this version of VMM is automatic detection of virtual hosts that are added or removed from the cluster—thus easing the burden on the administrator to manage this function

·         Creating a High Availability (HA) VM is a simple as selecting a tick box

·         VMM 2008 also supports VMware host clusters in which the nodes of the cluster are VMware ESX Servers

A great White Paper on VMM 2008 can be found here

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Microsoft Windows 7-Parallel Processing


Windows 7 is Microsoft’s next hotly anticipated release and there is now information that changes will be made to help it support Parallel Processing.

Microsoft have already stated that deep-level changes between Vista & Windows 7 will be get to a minimum as a way to ensure driver and application compatibiity; and if they pull it off,  Windows 7 will have a much better start to life than poor old Vista 🙂

The downside to this is that they can’t play around with Win32 (Windows Core) too much, and that is going to limit what can be down with regards to Parallel Processing. However, at this year’s PDC (Professional Developers Conference), there is a session entitled “Parallel Symposium: Addressing the Hard Problems with Concurrency” and the session decription contains the phrase “Hear about the key architectural changes Microsoft is making to Windows to enable the efficient execution of parallel software.”, which shows the Redmond giant has clearly got something up it’s sleeve.

Many thanks to Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet for this info. She’s also got some words from Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer as to what’s on the drawing board.

Again, anyone attending the PDC please feel free to leave some comments if you hear anything blog worthy!

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Microsoft Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008


Microsoft Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008 is set to be released on 12//11/08 (12th November), along with Small Business Server (SBS) 2008.

What is it?

Windows Essential Business Server 2008 provides a unified Administration Console to manage an integrated IT infrastructure with the latest versions of management, messaging, and security server technologies.

EBS 2008 is aimed at medium sized businesses and the aim is that it will make your infrastructure more efficeint, cost effective and easier to manage. There are 2 version of EBS 2008..

Standard Edition includes:

  • 3 x Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
  • 1 x Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Standard Edition
  • 1 x Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007
  • 1Yr subscription to Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange
  • 1Yr subscription to Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, Medium Business Edition

The Premium Edition includes all the above as well as:

  • 1 x Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition (making a total of 4)
  • 1 x SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition

From a licensing point of view, EBS allows up to 300 users and there is a single Client Access Licence (CAL) that gives access to all the included programmes.

Licensing:

There are two types of CAL for EBS 2008. Standard CALs for all users/devices connecting to any part of the EBS network and Premium CALS for any users/devices connecting to the PREMIUM features of EBS (so SQL Server).

Another change is that CALs will be available individually as well as in 5, 20 & 50 packs. The ability to purchase CALs on their own makes it more cost effective when adding new members of staff.

One thing to note is that you are NOT able to downgrade the components of EBS 2008 to previous versions. To this end, Microsoft have made SQL 2005 available as an EBS 20008 component to prevent any possible issues with customized Line-Of-Business (LOB) applications. This will last for approx. 1 year.

EBS 2008 aims to make medium sized businesses more efficient and cost effective, and helps to reduce the workload for system administrators. The inclusion of System Center Essentials means that admins will be able to track assets, install patches and updates, deploy software packages and more all from the EBS Central Admin Console.

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