Dugie’s Pensieve

I was asked this at the Brisbane VMware usergroup tonight, and in hindsight, I should have blogged it earlier :)

Anyway, by default Windows 2008 gives you ~60 days grace if you install it without a key.  Using slmgr.vbs –rearm you can extend the evaluation up to 240 days.

Check out all the goodness in Microsoft KB 948472 "How to extend the Windows Server 2008 evaluation period", and a snippet is below:

When the initial 60-day evaluation period nears its end, you can run the Slmgr.vbs script to reset the evaluation period. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Command Prompt. 
2. Type slmgr.vbs -dli, and then press ENTER to check the current status of your evaluation period. 
3. To reset the evaluation period, type slmgr.vbs –rearm, and then press ENTER. 
4. Restart the computer.
   This resets the evaluation period to 60 days.

I’m a bit excited, infact I’m a lot excited.   I saw an email today, and then it all hit home.  The email was from one of the product teams announcing internal availability of a new technology.  It’s one of the technologies that really make me go "phwaar".  (And I thought it was phwaar even before my life here at VMware) — and the phwaar is getting closer, every day. 

It’s all NDA type stuff, but that doesn’t matter.  Ok, so maybe the word "matter" is the wrong word.  Why?  Because "internal", will eventually mean it will become beta, and beta’s turn into RTM. 

How can I explain it better?  It’s kind of like Christmas.  You know it’s coming; you can expect [it] all year long, but it’s not until the Christmas decorations go up and the presents start arriving under the tree, that it really sinks in.  Then once it arrives, it’s a flurry of wrapping paper, and eagerness, and, and   …well you know the rest of the story.

Anyway.  It’s such a such a simple, (some might mistake it as almost trivial) technology, but it’s so fundamentally exciting that it will change the rules of "traditional computing" [again] completely.  …and the coolest bit, just when you thought you had a handle on it, the next wave will come along and completely knock your socks off!

Virtualization is sooo much more than server consolidation, it’s tired of hiding in the server room, it’s coming baby.

Phwaaar!

I wanted to blog some info on how much power [in my non-scientific trials] you can expect to ‘burn’ from your different types of desktop clients. 

So with the help of Patrice, here is the typical power consumption (in Watts) from hardware we had available at the time of testing:

A few quick notes:  These non scientific results were measured using a power meter from Jaycar; In Australia we use ~240v; when testing the desktop hardware we excluded the monitor (add another ~22w for a 17" LCD); and all desktops were running windows. 

Obviously more watts = more $$$, if you don’t know exactly how much you pay for power (and your power provider here in Australia can’t seem to tell you), you can try the Artog Website.

I still have to write Part II, but the point I wanted to make here is power consumption does vary between computers.  A couple of watts on a single computer, might not be such a big deal, but a couple of watts across a 100 computers (or more) over a couple of years can potentially be a big deal.

Furthermore, power consumption varies on the role the computer performs (Jeff Atwood has a great breakdown in his post "How Much Power Does My Laptop Really Use" and again in "When Hardware is Free, Power is Expensive").  I’m sure at some level we know that, but it’s not until you see a table like this that you start to get the old noggin’ thinking.

I was reading through Microsoft’s TechNet and came across this:

All of Microsoft IT’s Hyper-V production and pre-production hosts are scheduled to run on a Server Core installation. This is because the more secure and available the virtualization host or parent partition is, the more stable and secure the virtual machines are….

Cool.  Maybe this means a good portion of Microsoft infrastructure is running in [Hyper-V] virtual machines - that means Microsoft should have nearly virtualized 80% of their production workloads including 64 bit; but it does say scheduled, so maybe they are yet to start. (I know that’s alot of ‘maybes’)  I wonder what they are using to manage it?  Although I couldn’t find any hints, I can only assume a pre-beta build of SCVMM R2/vNext.

I’m hoping this means we’ll see an update to all the Virtualization support KB’s  (like Exchange 2007, please pick Exchange.  Exchange officially supported outside of Premier support would make me a very happy camper)

Ok, I digress.  Anyway, it looks like Microsoft are using Hyper-V in production.  Gotta go, back soon.

Yup, it’s official, Hyper-V is availables will be listed as an "Optional Update" via Windows Update for all Windows Server 2008 SKUs.  

Cecilia Cole (WSUS Program Manager) has all the juicy details:

Today, April 8, the Windows Update team is making the Hyper-V Release Candidate package available as an "Optional Update" via Windows Update for all Windows Server 2008 SKUs. It will also be published as an "Optional Update" to WSUS…