July 2008 Archives

It's been awhile since we posted a video, or a link to a video. Thanks to Tony Soper for providing the links to whole gaggle of videos that show Hyper-V related presentations from Tech-Ed. If you didn't get to Tech-Ed you'll find these to be a wealth of knowledge. And if you did go, it might be handy to know where you can find them in case you need to reference them during your upcoming Hyper-V adventures.

Here is list of topics, links, and presenters:

• Hyper-V Architecture, Scenarios and Networking, Jeff Woolsey, Mike Sterling
• Deploying Windows Server 2008 Hyper V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Best Practices Edwin Yeun, Alan Stewart
• Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V: Scripting & Programmatic Management for Fun & Profit (VBS & PowerShell), John Kelbley, Alexander Lash
• Virtualization and Security: What Does it Mean For Me? Steve Riley
• Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008: Overview, Edwin Yeun
• Windows, PowerShell, and Windows Management Instrumentation: Unveiling Microsoft's Best Kept Secret,  Ben Pearce
• Virtualization and your Infrastructure, John Weston
• Securing your IT Infrastructure with Windows Server 2008, John Weston

Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7.0 include features that enable PHP to run more efficiently than it did on previous versions of Windows Server. This is important because many a Web site uses PHP for dynamic content.

Tom Hawthorn and Karthik Mahesh from the Windows Server Performance Team have an article describing how to tune Windows Server 2008, IIS 7.0, and PHP for environments with a single site and high concurrent user traffic.

Here are a few of the important points:

• Tuning a Windows 2008 machine for PHP performance in enterprise environments is all about increasing the default concurrency limits.  
• If you try out some of the tunings in the article make sure you test the effects of the changes in a controlled environment before deploying them to your front line servers.
  
• If you don’t have enough memory or your CPU is already fully utilized, don’t increase the concurrency limits.

All the cool kids are doing it, but do you know which method of virtualization is the right one for you? Fortunately, there are people like Dan Woodman who take the time to explore Microsoft's virtualization offerings so you can decide the best way to take advantage of virtualization for your self or your business.

Specifically, Dan is taking a look at Virtual PC, Virtual Server, and Hyper-V in a series on his blog. I recommend you read all of the relevant posts, especially if you're new to the concept of virtualization, but here are the basics on each product:

• Virtual PC: This solution works well for training, product demonstrations, and even end-users who need access to different operating systems (such as developers or those who need to run XP, for instance, to access a legacy Line of Business application).  It is extremely easy to use.
  
• Virtual Server: It is intended to virtualize 32-bit machines, and does so quite well.  If you do not yet have Server 2008, Virtual Server is a great way to get started with virtualization in your organization. This tool is intended as a solution for virtualizing in your data center and accordingly, has enterprise-class features.
  
• Hyper-V: When should you choose Hyper-V over Virtual Server?  Anytime you can.  Hyper-V is the latest and greatest of the virtual machine technology released by Microsoft.  It far exceeds Virtual Server in ease of use, feature set, and performance.

Dan does a good job of reviewing the cases in which Hyper-V might not be right (remember: it's 64-bit only!), in which case Virtual Server can probably handle your needs.

Ryan Bass and our friends over at Enterprise Networking Planet published a closer look at the Event Viewer in Windows Server 2008 this week. Through several incarnations of Windows and Windows Server, the Event Viewer remained largely the same. It's now received an overhaul and gained some functionality in the process.

It seems strange that a tool as important as this remained virtually unchanged from the NT days. With Server 2008 and Vista, the Event Viewer has gotten a much-needed face lift. The new interface includes the ability to execute a task based on a particular event, save custom filters, get more detailed logging and forward events from one server to another.

Ryan explains how to execute a task based on the occurrence of a particular event, looks at the new types of events, and explores the new ability to forward events to another server or workstation.

In the end, he concludes that the new Event Viewer is such an improvement that some Microsoft customers might  find another Microsoft product to be redundant.

People pay thousands of dollars for Microsoft's System Center Operations manager. With the Vista/2008 Event Viewer there is now a poor man’s version. The new Event Viewer that comes with Vista and Server 2008 is a welcome improvement to the Windows OS and will no doubt make many lives much easier.

This is a page you'll want to bookmark. Richard MacDonald decided to post links to every piece of information you may need to learn about Hyper-V, the hypervisor technology that's available as an add-on to Windows Server 2008. From the Hyper-V home page to knowledge base articles, information about licensing, and tips for getting started, Richard does a pretty good job covering all the bases.

Allow me to add some links of my own:

• All of the Hyper-V related entries from this blog
• Hyper-V: The Killer Feature in Windows Server 2008
• Will Hyper-V Make VMware This Decade's Netscape?

There is one mistake in Richard's list that I saw. The link to the Hyper-V homepage doesn't work. You can find it at: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/virtualization-consolidation.aspx.

Is it a good idea to virtualize a mission-critical application like e-mail? The answer is somewhat complicated. Exchange Client Access Servers can be done; as can Hub Transport Servers. But Exchange 2007 playing a mailbox role may not be such a great idea.

I'll let Daniel Kenyon-Smith explain.

Some applications can have major advantages from increased utilization of hardware, simplified and flexible deployment. A virtualized technology is not necessarily suited to every server workload or application, in fact some are a poor fit and hamper the business benefit if virtualized.  Mission critical applications are often poor candidates for virtualization, the cost/efficiency can be outweighed by the risks.

Daniel goes to explain how Hyper-V should be configured if you're going to be virtualizing Exchange 2007 SP 1.

If you haven't already noticed, Paul Rubens has a new article up on the front page of our Windows Server 2008 Innovation Center that examines the security features available in Windows Server 2008.

Specifically, Paul takes a look at the following features in some detail:

• Server Core Installation Option
• BitLocker Drive Encryption
• Network Access Protection
• Digitally Signed OS Files
• Read Only Domain Controllers (RODCs)

Microsoft has its own page on the security and policy enforcement technologies available in Windows Server 2008 on the company's Web site.

Daniel Oxley was trying to find a way around the lack of wireless support to link virtual machines directly to the wireless adapter of a host. Finally, in a moment of clarity, he realized he could try to bridge his Hyper-V network and his wireless network. (This also means he could leave his router under the sofa, where it was never in the way.)

The biggest plus for me with this solution is that the VMs are connected directly to the same network as the host, so will not need any extra network configuration, especially if your host network uses DHCP.

The step-by-step instructions, including the all-important screenshots are available on Daniel's blog. One more note: the use of a wireless card to provide network services to Hyper-V is not a supported configuration by Microsoft.

As you probably know, VMware replaced its CEO this week. That's the news peg for a larger story by Richard Adhikari on InternetNews.com about VMware and the virtualization industry in general. You can't deny that the release of Hyper-V puts VMware under more pressure.

This comment by Andi Mann, research director at Enterprise Management Associates, caught my eye:

The average enterprise has 11 different virtualization technologies, platforms and vendors, and the environment will continue to be very heterogeneous, Mann said. "There's still lots of room for everyone to play and VMware had taken the attitude that they'd won, and you can't do that, especially when Microsoft has entered the market."

Our own Paul Rubens took a look at the Microsoft-VMware competition in the spring and asked if VMware could meet the same fate as Netscape. It's way too soon to be predicting something like that, but clearly consolidation will occur, and an increasing number of software vendors want a piece of the virtualization pie.

Also this week, a company called VDIworks announced VDIvision for System Center, which aims to bring desktop virtualization management capabilities to Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor.

That's the news coming out of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. Microsoft says it will ship the first release of its server bundle for mid-sized businesses as well as the next version of its small business server bundle on November 12.

Small Business Server has been around for a decade, but this is the first time Microsoft has developed a server specifically for mid-size business.

Stuart Johnston has all the details from InternetNews.com:

SBS 2008 will provide simplified server and PC backup capabilities, and also adds upgrades to Remote Web Workplace and integration with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. It also includes Exchange Server 2007 and trial copies of Microsoft security products.

Meanwhile, a Premium Edition will include a second copy of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 to run on a separate server. SBS is designed for businesses with as many as 50 PCs.

EBS 2008 will feature Exchange Server 2007, Forefront Security for Exchange Server, System Center Essentials 2007, and Internet Security and Acceleration Server. The Premium Edition will also feature SQL Server 2008. Its target audience has up to 250 PCs.

As for pricing, the Standard Edition of SBS 2008, with five client access licenses (CAL) included will cost $1,089, while the Standard Edition of EBS 2008, with five CALs, will cost $5,472.

Public previews, evaluation copies, more information, and other goodies are available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/essential/default.mspx

Because not everyone is ready for Hyper-V and not everyone is supporting Hyper-V. Bill Baer has a blog entry that tells you everything you need to know about installing and running Virtual Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008.

There are three conditions that have to met before you get started:

1. You need to run Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1
2. You must have KB948515 applied to enable Windows Server 2008 host operating system support
3. Internet Information Services 7.0 must be configured to support the Virtual Server Administration Web site

All of the necessary downloads and step-by-step instructions are in Bill's blog post.

If you've been virtualizing with Microsoft technologies, up until last week that meant you were likely using Virtual Server. But now you want the latest and greatest in Microsoft virtualization technology, and that means Hyper-V.  Matthijs ten Seldam has the good news and bad news in his blog:

When you have Virtual Server or Virtual PC virtual machines, you can use them in Hyper-V. However, this requires quite some manual steps. For the minimum, you need to attach the virtual hard disk files (.vhd files) to the hard disk drives in Hyper-V. This requires at least creating a VM from the Hyper-V wizard, opening up the settings for the newly created VM and then configuring the drives (probably IDE) with the virtual hard disk files.

And that doesn't include other settings you might want from the original VM, like CPU resource control and SCSI controllers.

More good news: Matthijs is working on a tool that will make it easier to move VMs from Virtual Server to Hyper-V. He has a screenshot and some details in his blog. Keep an eye out for the tool's release.