Dugie’s Pensieve

Nice!. The Microsoft [Licensing] Virtualization Calculator just got upgraded to version 2.0

It’s built with Flash, but a really nice touch is the ability to drag and drop your role (everything from MOM, SQL, Exchange and so on) and work out the ideal licensing for your environment.

You can view all the detail on the Windows Server Virtualization Calculators website and a snippet is below:

Lets you interactively build virtual machines running multiple Microsoft server products to estimate the licenses and costs for Windows Server by edition (Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter) and many Microsoft server products. It starts with configuring your server based on virtualization technology, sockets and clustering requirements, and then builds the virtual machines.

 

Ok so the title is a bit tabloidish.  But I just finished reading an article that Volker blogged about.

It’s a good (if not enlightening) read, and details some of the challenges of Microsoft Internal IT and Virtualization.  You can read more in the web site “Q&A: Microsoft’s utility computing guru talks about his in-house support challenges“  and  a snippet is below:

How are you changing the conversation internally?  We’re using the SPEC benchmark as our raw computing metric. So, say you want to buy a platform with 200 compute units, but you’re replacing a system with 40 units that you’re not really using fully. You’re using 20% of your existing system, but you want to upgrade by 400%. So we try to shift the business thinking. The conversation changes to why you want to replace the system and what you’re trying to do.

What has the response been from your users? Businesses are very interested in how they are using the systems, and now they want more information. We’re starting to scorecard a lot of our different IT services to show utilization and growth potential, and we’re comparing and contrasting businesses to present different scorecard views to any given [manager]. So they can share best practices at the general manager and CIO level. We also scorecard ourselves, from the perspective of an infrastructure and services provider: the percentage of servers moving to virtualization, how heavily the virtualized servers are being used, and so on.

How are you doing on the virtualization front — what progress have you made? We’ve got about 1,000 production and 500 development applications running on around 70 hosts. The average is a ratio of 8 [virtual machines] to 1 [physical server] in the production space, and around 16 to 1 in test or dev environments. Our goal is for all new applications to go into the virtual environment; we’re not necessarily going back to existing or older applications to virtualize them all.

I think the article is recommended reading, and there are a few key gems to consider.  It’ll be interesteing to see how/when this perfomance data and lessons learned gets released to the public.

I thought this was interesting from the recent Microsoft Learning email:

The Windows Server “Longhorn” certifications will be released in the new generation format of Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) and Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) credentials. There will not be a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) or Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) credential associated with Windows Server “Longhorn.”

Hmmm.  With Virtualization emerging as a skillset in hot demmand - I wonder if the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) will eventually be availabile in a Windows Server Virtualization flavour as well?

On a side note does anyone see the irony of me spelling virtualization with a ‘z’ but flavour with a ‘u’?

Jan Stafford from over at SearchServerVirtualization.com is looking for users of Microsoft Virtual Server.

If you are using Virtual Server, drop her an email (editor@searchservervirtualization.com), and she’ll send you a $5 Starbucks voucher.

A snippet from her email is below:

“Who’s using Microsoft Virtual Server or any Microsoft platform for virtualization?” That question has been asked in at least one session of the many conferences I’ve covered this year, and every time one lone user has raised his hand. I’ve talked to those users, and every one only uses Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 for a few virtual machines.
…
Rather than making me play “find the user in the haystack”, I appeal to you, faithful readers. If you’re using Microsoft products to virtualize, please tell me about it. I offer my thanks and a $5 Starbucks card in return.

It’s [almost] common knowledge that Virtualization skills are misunderstood.

I get called by recruiters a lot, and I have no problems with that.  Mostly it’s a non-event, and I can generally refer them to someone else who may be interested in the position they are trying to fill.  Sometimes, I’m pleasantly surprised and come across a recruiter knows and understands the Virtualization space very well.

But sometimes, (like now) I’m left with such a head scratching, “what drugs are you on“  sensation, that words fail me completely.  Take the following “opportunity” - I’ve changed some words to protect the guilty:

Be an integral part of a growing company with cutting-edge IT systems!

• Installing, configuring and supporting Microsoft Windows Operating systems (2000, XP & Vista);
• Supporting the Microsoft Office suite of products at an advanced level;
• Maintaining and supporting standard desktop hardware, printers and peripherals;
• Providing system administration using Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange.
• Desktop publishing, multimedia (e.g. Video editing) skills and Web design experience using Dreamweaver will also be advantageous
• VMWare and Microsoft Windows Server experience in this area will be well regarded

Attractive salary and working conditions are offered.

*chuckle*  If nothing else, it proves without a doubt, that virtualization no longer lives in just the Datacentre.  Virtualization is being applied in the strangest of places - and before we know it, will be everywhere from the desktop, to the branch server, and beyond.  ..and maybe even your media centre   :)

Fellow BIG member Bob Eggles, just emailed me with the good news, www.microsoft.com/VHD has been updated.  There is now a a total of 9 VHDs, including the new Vista VHDs:

• Exchange Server 2007
• ISA Server 2006
• SQL Server 2005
• SQL Server 2005/Exchange 2007
• System Center Essentials 2007
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Beta 2
• Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite
• Windows Server 2003 R2
• Windows Vista

You can find my unofficial list of 15 VMs on my other blog.

How cool is that?  Thanks Bob!

Back in February VMware released their whitepaper on “Microsoft Virtualization Licensing and Distribution Terrms“.  It caused quite a bit of stir out on the intarweb and I was even inspired to write my own commentary — along with thousands of others  :)

Anyway, roughly 3 months later VMware has released an update, included recent licensing changes in their ‘post’, “Microsoft Virtualization Licensing and Distribution Terms - Addendum“, and a snippet (Thanks to Virtualization.info) is below:

• Running Microsoft Virtual Machines on Third-Party Virtualization Software
• Activation of Microsoft Virtual Machines on Third-Party Virtualization Software
• Server Virtual Machine Mobility
• Virtualization for Hosted Desktops
• Mobility for Virtualized Desktops
• Availability of Virtualized Windows for Desktops from OEMs

I have to agree with Alessandro, “this addendum is a welcome action from VMware even if it should be included at bottom of original paper and not as a separate download“

Windows Vista Enterprise now available as a VHD

Now this is welcomed news.  Volker has announced that Windows Vista Enterprise is available through the VHD Test Drive program.  You can read more in his post “VHD Test Drive - Vista Images” and a snippet is below:

The VHD Test Drive team has posted new images for download on Microsoft Connect. I guess many of you have been waiting for this. We just finished uploading the first 2 Vista images. Yeah, that’s right, Vista. The first images is our Vista base image. Vista Enterprise. The second images - also Vista based - is Vista Enterprise plus VSTS. How’s that?

…

While the images on Microsoft Connect are meant for ISV partners, a similar set of VHD images is available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers for testing.

I’ve had a quick look on the Connect and MSDN websites, but could not see the Vista VHD.  I did find the “Vista and Visual Studio 2005 VHD“ .  However when Volker announced the “Combined SQL and Exchange VHD” it took about 10 days for it to appear on Microsoft Downloads.

Keep you posted!

Yup, it’s official, no denying it.  People everywhere are p*ssed.  I know I said I wouldn’t post any more on this until after WinHec, but I read this snippet in the recent WinInfo from Paul Thurrott, and thought it was news worthy of sharing:

Let’s play a little game. I’ll toss out a scenario and you tell me what year it is and what product I’m talking about. Here it is: After making sweeping promises over a long period of time, Microsoft has decided to cut back the feature-set of a core technology and delay the release of this technology yet again. Sound familiar? No, I’m not talking about Windows 2000, Windows Vista, or WinFS. This time, the technology du jour is Windows Server Virtualization, codenamed Viridian, the Longhorn Server feature that became a Longhorn Server add-on that is now a WinFS-like “we’ll get there eventually” kind of thing. This type of backtracking makes me feel funny inside, like I’ve eaten some bad sushi, and in this case it’s even more personal because Viridian, of course, was at the heart of my “Debacle in Denver” a few weeks back. (I can still hear Michelle in the back of my head; “It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine.”)

Anyway, you may recall that Virtualization was originally going to be a role in Longhorn Server. Then, it was going to ship in beta form in April 2007, with the final release expected within 180 days of Longhorn’s final release. Now, the beta won’t ship until Longhorn Server is complete (in Q4 2007), though Microsoft still claims it can ship Viridian within 180 days of Longhorn (in 2008). How can it do this, you ask? Easy: By dropping important, core features that customers were truly excited about. Now, Viridian will not support hot-add storage, networking, memory, or processors. It won’t support live migrations. And it will support only 16 processor cores (down from 32). If you’re thinking these are major losses, then you’re keeping an accurate score.

I used to give the Windows Server guys a pass on the delay stuff because they were so reasonable about schedules, but this is ridiculous. And allow me to be the first to say so: Congratulations, guys. You’ve just pulled a Vista. And not the good kind

VHD Install Guide for ‘Longhorn’ - Enterprise vs Core

I was writing a ‘Longhorn’ install guide for TechTalk Blogs, hence odd updates for posts such as “where did my Virtual Machine Additions come from“.  But I’ve just found out that TechNet Blogger, Dave Northey has beat me to it (again).   Thanks Dave! :)

You can read more in his post “Windows Server Code Name ‘Longhorn’ - Beta3, Now What” and a snippet is below:

..‘Longhorn’ reached the Beta 3 which means that we’ve finished adding features.

My intention in this article is to get you ‘playing’ with Longhorn quickly and without the need for those physical servers (you will need a PC with a minimum of 1Gb of memory though).

The quickest and easiest method is to use Virtualisation and the quickest and easiest route to that (assuming you aren’t already using something else) is with Virtual PC. Virtual PC 2007 is the only version that will work well with Longhorn,

My suggestion is to download the 32-bit Enterprise Edition & run it in a Virtual PC. 32-bit because Virtual PC 2007 only emulates 32-bit hardware. Enterprise Edition because it has more functionality that Standard or Web and the same functionality as Datacenter (apart from support for lots of CPUs – something you haven’t got in a Virtual PC).

….

I’ve run through this process for both Enterprise and Enterprise Core. My laptop is pretty powerful and I have Hardware Virtualisation enabled, so my install times were quite quick. Yours will/may differ, but here are mine for your information (time to go and have a cup of tea):

• Enterprise Edition  Start - 11:53; Finished - 12:16 (23 minutes)
• Enterprise Core Start - 13:39 ; Finished - 13:48 (9 minutes)

The Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) for the full install is nearly six gigabytes (5,971,508), whilst the VHD for Core is just over one and a half (1,645,076).

The above snippet is heavily edited, and there is lots of good information in his article,so you should check it out.  Happy beta testing.