Dugie’s Pensieve

Well it is kinda true!? 

I spent my MVP gift voucher at the Microsoft eCompanyStore — as well as buying an awesome coffee flask, I couldn’t resist buying the ‘brain-in-petri-dish” toy.

The funny part is Australian Customs saw “Brain in a Petri Dish” on the customs deceleration and immediately sidelined my package for inspection :)

 I just thought this was too funny not to share.

Short Answer:  Check out the Windows Server Virtualization Calculator, fill in how many servers, VMs and Processors you own; and it will tell you which server licenses you should buy.

Long Answer: Ok, so we all know licensing is a lot of pain.  The question on everybody’s lips is “What point does a license for Datacenter become more cost effective than multiple copies of R2?“

Enter the Windows Server Virtualization Calculator hereby referred to as WSVC — and using the defaults the answer: 16x VMs on a quad CPU box is the break even.

There is no hard and fast rule (enter the Blades vs Beefy Boxes debate) but the WSVC does a very nice job of  crunching some of the numbers.  The costs are in RRP USD.

Cool huh?

I just saw on Tim Gerla’s Blog that  rbuilder online (used for creating and maintaining linux virtual appliances) are now supporting the VHD format:

we added a couple of exciting features recently. We added support for Microsoft Virtual Server and Virtual PC images (VHD format)

I haven’t had a chance to check it out in detail, so I’ll post back when I have more news.

The lads over at vmToolkit (that delivered the fabulous Vmdk2Vhd) have come though with another fine tool: VhdExpand.  A snippet from the official announcement is below:

VhdExpand will expand Microsoft’s VHD format files and will also convert between Fixed and Dynamic file types. This is a sector by sector copy operation from one size/type to the other and the source file remains unaltered.

I’ve run a few tests on various VHDs and here are my first impressions:

• Nice.
• Resized a 64 Gb dynamic VHD to a dynamic 78 Gb VHD, straight foward, took about 10 minutes
• Interestingly enough the original VHD was 17.9 Gb in physical size and the new VHD file 12.7 Gb
• There new resized VHD had (as expected) the addition unallocated space
• Mounting the new VHD with VHDmount and running ‘diskpart + extend’ worked a treat
• Powered up the VM and new VHD and everything is humming along

Thanks again to everyone over at VMtoolkit for another fine tool for the collection.

Here are some Virtualization news items that caught my attention this week, but haven’t (as of yet) had a chance to blog in greater detail:

• Scott Wolf has released another gem with his formal writeup of Easy VMDK conversions with VMDK2VHD - Scott’s the author of the ’scrub script’ from my post VMware to Microsoft Virtual Machine Conversions a few weeks ago
• FabulaTech have a USB over TCPIP emulator for download (1.6 Mb 15-day trial, one USB device).  I need to use a USB key inside a Virtual Machine with Virtual PC, post later with an update.
• I’m getting a few questions does  VhdMount work with Vista CompletePC backup.  Short answer yes, yes, yes!!  See Preparing for Vista Backup
• Ben Armstong has posted a nifty script to get processor information within a virtual machines
• Alessandro Perilli over at virtualization.info has announced Rent-A-Lab — some heavy duty hardware to test the virtualization scenario of your choice. 

That’s it for now.

ToutVirtual has made (one of the first?) VHD images/appliance available for download  as part of the Microsoft VHD Test Drive program.

The appliance is called “VirtualIQ Professional Virtual Machine” and a snippet from their website is below:

This virtual machine, packaged with Microsoft Windows, can monitor heterogeneous virtual environment consisting of VMware, XenSource, Microsoft and Novell virtualization platforms.

Sounds cool.  Thanks to Volker for the news, and there is more info in his post “Test Drive partner images posted“.

I’ve just registered and downloading the appliance now (about 2Gb) — I’ll post my findings in a few days.

Bugger it worked yesterday!  Looks like windowsvista.com has closed it’s doors to selected unlucky people (myself included).

Now when I visit the pages and try to testdrive, I get this error:

Thank you for your interest in the Windows Vista Business test drive.

This trial program is available in limited geographies and languages,
and you are currently located outside of the available area.

Please check http://www.windowsvista.com for other Windows Vista
information and experiences that may be available to you.
 

My regional settings are English USA, so I assume it’s a geographic thing.  I do hope they re-open the labs to us soon, and that this valuable resource doesn’t stay a US only thing.

Firstly, I’ve never been a big fan of the word “goals”.  I love and embrace the concept, just not the word — so I prefer to think of them as ‘challenges’.  …and New Year’s Resolutions always have that overhanging stigma of “it’s ok to break them, because everybody else does”.

Anyway, I’ve been pondering this for a long time now, but when I read Mitch’s post, I really liked his idea of ‘vision setting’.   I realise a lot can change in just 12 months, and having some visibility/reminders out there appeals to me.  So here is some insight to my challenges for 2007:

• Personal, Family and Lifestyle
  • Read more novels, books and ‘regular’ news
  • Take a bike trip from Brisbane to ‘Cameron’s Corner‘
  • Listen to more music and more podcasts.
    • Given I spent a lot of time wearing a motor bike helmet, this is a challenge - but not impossible.
  • Have more Picnics, BBQs and ‘walks in parks’
  • Take more photos
  • Continue my self imposed ban on Live TV
    • Last year my Wife an I agreed to ‘ban’ Live TV in our house.  The results were amazing, so we are going to enthusiastically ‘ban’ it again this year
• Community and Blogging
  • I’m going to keep my blogging style (I liked Franks post immensely, it was an affirmation that really hit home).  
    • I blog here to share my thoughts with others on Virtualization with Windows - not to tell them what to think
    • I will to continue to blog more about my findings, more speedlinking, and keep the noise:signal ratio acceptable  :)
  • Meet more people
    • Not everyone has a ‘thing’ for user groups, this doesn’t mean they are any less exciting - So I’m going to get out any meet more people.
    • Attend the MVP Summit this year,
    • Listen to Bill Gates speak in person — I have always had a burning desire (huge understatement) to hear Bill speak, now I get the opportunity at the MVP summit.
    • Attend at least (but more than) one ‘Wardy Community Dinner’ in Brisbane
  • Understand more about the perceptions of Virtualization out in the ‘field’
    • I’ve spent a lot of time with people who ‘want’ Virtualization 
    • I’d like to spend more time with those who want more from their current Virtualization solutions
    • …but most of all I really want to spend more time getting a solid understanding why some people don’t embrace Virtualization in any capacity
  • Keep the user group lovin’ alive and well with the Brisbane Infrastructure Group .
  • Get the wiki on WindowsVirtualization.com live with some useful content
• Career Goals
  • Find customers who are using technology in exciting ways or using exciting technology  (both is a bonus)
    • Exciting doesn’t always mean emerging, but again it’s a bonus
  • Automate one defined business process that consumes too much of my time,
    • Last year it was the [kickass] automation of timesheet entry from Outlook into Jim2
    • This will give me more energy to focus on ‘finding balance’:
  • Find balance and align my career interests with my vision for long term direction
    • Some of the things that I do, I do incredibly well.  It’s just these things don’t interest me anymore.
    • I want to refine an appropriate level of balance (personal, family, community, career, etc) so I can take positive steps toward my own vision

I imagine this will change the flavour of my blog slightly and increase the number of posts I make.  Maybe I’ll revisit this post with updates?  Maybe not?.  We will see.

If you are here for the Virtualization content and don’t want all the other ‘noise’, you should consider subscribing to only to the Virtualization category (RSS).  If you have already done so, I guess you won’t be reading this :)

I’m looking forward to this year.  I believe it will be a great year full of opportunities and exciting times.  Time to breath deep, and press the ‘Post’ button.

There are a couple of things things that make me all ‘warm and fuzzy’, and just wanna say “phwaaaarrr!!“

Windows Home Server and Codename Carbon pretty much hit that spot.  Home Server is a small, headless box that backs up *all* your cool stuff; and Carbon lets you watch television shows from the comfort of your wireless 360 (different from MCE)

You can find all the coolness over on10.net, and you should check it out — you know you want to:

• Windows Home Server,  you can also check out the pun-intended-viral-marketing
• Carbon for XBox 360

Phwaaarrr!

I was going to post this earlier but Alessandro has beat me to it again :)

Anyway, you can testdrive Vista Business Edition is a Virtual Machine on-line at windowsvistatestdrive.com

PS: On a side note if each Vista VM has 1Gb of ram, and if there are likely to be a few hundred people about to hammer the site — I wonder what hardware is in use??