I thought I’d post some Viridian, Carmine and Longhorn gossip. Well it’s not’s really gossip, but more like conversation starters. …I’m struggling for the right words here, but it’s 10:30am and I haven’t had a coffee, so I’m going to need you to give me a little slack. :)
Anyway, in the past two weeks, between assorted breakfasts, planning sessions, usergroups and emails. I’ve spoken to over a hundred people about a variety of virtualization topics (like I said, it’s been busy). During this time I’ve noticed two distinct groups of people:
- We’ve looked at the idea virtualization, but now we want to take our first steps, and we want them to be firm, hardy steps. … and
- We have been using virtualization for a little while, we are pretty comfortable with it, and now we want to push the envelope.
Sure there is a few people in between, but not too many . So naturally I start chatting with all these interesting people, and this is where I’m finding the picture gets (just a little) blurry. Not from any mind altering substance, but more from the mixed interpretations and resources out on there on the intarweb.
Not that I can boast to be any sort of authority on this, but I promised these wonderful people I’d jam together a blog post with some of the resources I knew of, and hopefully make life a bit easier for them. If you’re reading this an you’re not one of those people, this post is going to be weirder than normal :)
Release Dates
We’ll I’ve no idea where the story originated, but there seems to be a widespread believe that we won’t see Viridian or Carmine until the end of 2008, and it won’t be publicly available till the beginning of 2009. I’m not sure where the dates came from, but obviously somewhere because quite a few folk had that impression. But keep reading cause, I think I figured out why…
Carmine
Firstly, Carmine is the code name for System Centre Virtual Machine Manager, also known as SCVMM. I’m just going to call it Carmine.
Carmine Beta 2 was announced at the Management Summit, and we’ve been told we’ll see a download within 45 days (that works out to be on or about Friday 11 May)
Yeah I know the Beta 1 announcement was May last year. I guess most people still have in their heads it takes forever to get from Beta 2 to RTM (I think it was 5 months for XP, and about 18 months for Vista). All of a sudden it seems akin to all those jokes about giving birth to a baby elephants (22 months). *groan*
Personally, Beta 2 just can’t get here soon enough for me. Virtual Server really needs some solid management tools and nice new features such as V2V
, P2V, and Virtualization Candidates Recognition. The full list of features to expect is on the SCVMM website. From the info out there Beta 2 will manage Virtual Server hosts. Viridian support will come later.
Viridian
Secondly, Viridian is the code name for Windows Server Virtualization, sometimes abbreviated to WSV. Guess what? I’m just going to call it Viridian
The official release date is a little fuzzy, because Viridian has been announced to ship 180 days after Longhorn. …Let’s be devils advocate for a moment. If (assorted IT articles report) Longhorn will ship this year, lets go for broke and say it ships New Years Eve (Dec 31). Therefore 180 Days after this brings us to June 28 2008. Which is just over 15 months away (In my worst case scenario) – but this is just conjecture, cause I’ve got no idea when Longhorn is going to ship, and Bob Muglia does say in his keynote “within”. I guess I can see how people see June and are thinking “End of 2008” — but then it becomes glass half empty/glass half full discussion.
As for getting access to a beta, read the next bit — because you need Longhorn to run Viridian on, I’m guessing we’ll see a beta some time after May 28 :)
Longhorn
Thanks to Patrick over at the Windows Server blog, who posted this as I’m writing this post, Longhorn development is on track. Look for beta 3 within the next 90 days (some time before May 28). The cool news is Windows PowerShell will be included in Beta 3. Sweet!
Service Pack 1 for Virtual Server 2005 R2
Well it’s been suggested that it should be ready for release soon. The released whitepapers refer to the “final build” Fingers crossed? I do hope it’s before the 31st May because that’s when my beta of SP1 expires :)
Linux Additions
Well the official linux additions page says the additions are on Connect, and although they were updated recently (today) – anything on Connect still has that stigma of it’s beta, unfinished, and unclean for production. Who knows maybe this will change when SP1 for Virtual Server RTMs?
Management Tools
This I thought was kind of interesting. I was chatting with a group of level headed guys, and whilst we were talking I heard something to the effect of “Bahhh, Virtual Machines breed like rabbits, I don’t care what they run on, I just want to be able to manage them.” This made me chuckle, because I’ve often had the same thought :)
Management is big thing for me, so I’m going to keep a close eye on the System Centre Family and see which products extend the functionality within the Microsoft Virtualization space. For example Bink has posted that DPM 2007 will backup VHDs on the fly for Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 with some ability to even backup apps inside the VHD as well.
Part II?
I this promised this post to those people who wanted to start to take some hardy first steps. I hope it’s helped. Ok, so it’s taken me 3 days to write this scattered article, and since I started writing, Alessandro, Clive, Bink, Maarten, and a few others have all published some great information you should check out. Actually there’s been so much material in the past few days, I’m hoping to write a short, sharp post linking to the important resources — called Part II.
Lastly, the Burning Questions
Lastly, do you know how insanely hard it was to get t-shirts in the exact colours Carmine or Viridian. I mean really, it’s pretty bloody hard!! So this is my challenge before TechED get’s here this year. I’m going to express my inner geek and find some shirts with the right colours and get the words Carmine and Viridian screen printed on them. Wish me luck :)
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