November 2008 Archives

Tony Soper has word of new Hyper-V backup and security information that was added to the Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide.

The Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide is intended to help you understand the considerations you should take into account when planning to deploy Hyper-V, and to provide installation and configuration details that will help you deploy Hyper-V.

The new guides that are available include:

• Planning for Hyper-V
• Planning for Backup
• Using Authorization Manager for Hyper-V Security
• Configure Hyper-V for Role-based Access Control

The second installment of Ziran Sun's series on Windows Server 2008 Core on 15seconds.com is up for the world to see. We blogged about the first installment last week. This time around Ziran covers three basic functions.

• Installing a server role
• How to install updates and patches
• Enabling Remote Administration

He covers the installation of the Web server role, manually and automatic patches and updates, and enabling the Remote Desktop (aka Terminal Services).

A lot of the talk about the benefits of virtualization has centered lately on consolidation, power and cooling, and the technology's ability to help with "green" initiatives. The benefits for software developers have taken a bit of a back seat, unless you're a software developer I guess.

Jani Jarvinen has an article on Developer.com that examines the use of Hyper-V for software testing.

Say that you have a.NET application you would like to test as automatically as possible. Armed with a Hyper-V environment and System Center Virtual Machine Manager installation in place, you can write a PowerShell script that fully automates your testing.

The article talks from the perspective of .NET and Visual Studio development, you actually could use Hyper-V–based testing automation for applications developed with any Windows development tool, be it Embarcadero/CodeGear, Java, PHP, or anything else.

15seconds.com, an Internet.com site that focuses on ASP.NET development, just started a new series on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Server Core. The author is Ziran Sun, and the introductions reads in part:

"...the lack of the familiar Windows user interface can make managing a Server Core installation rather intimidating. This series of articles will introduce Windows Server 2008 Server Core and walk you through the steps needed to get your very own Server Core instance up and running."

In addition to reviewing Installation, the first installment includes restarting and shutting down, changing the computer's name and workgroup and changing the computer's IP address.

The next installment will include how to install a role on the server, install patches and updates, and enable a few different types of remote administration.

Day two of the WinHEC conference was devoted largely to Windows Server 2008 R2, and Andy Patrizio of InternetNews.com took it all in. Expected about two years after the initial release of Windows Server 2008, that would put R2 on tap for a 2010 scheduled arrival.

You can expect support for up to 256 logical cores and features that will make it easier to manage hardware.  On the energy-efficiency front you can expect to see some big gains. Windows Server gained 10 percent in efficiency from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008. Microsoft plans to gain another 10 percent with R2.

Helping that along are features like Core Parking, which puts idle cores into a low-power standby mode, varying the voltage to each chip and deciding which devices to turn on or off.

There is also the new "powercfg" utility that works with the new PowerShell 2.0, Microsoft's two-year-old command-line shell. The new powercfg cmdlet -- a utility that runs on the command line -- offers a detailed analysis of which devices are consuming power on a server and which may not be falling into proper sleep states.

From there, managers can create a power profile to shut down devices or machines when they are idle.