Microsoft will be publishing a support statement with respect to Exchange Server on Hyper-V within 60 days of today.

…In terms of best practices and requirements, the following guidance was released:

• We’re only supporting guests running Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008.
• We’re only supporting fixed disks, and not dynamic disks.
• Storage should be on spindles that are separate from the Guest operating system VHD physical storage.
• Storage must be SCSI passthrough or iSCSI (with a preference of SCSI passthrough for queues, databases and log files).
• All Exchange server roles, except for the Unified Messaging server role, will be supported.
• There’s a limit on VHD size of 2040 GB.

It was also mentioned that Hyper-V is a good fit when Exchange servers in branch offices cannot be consolidated to a central datacenter (for example, because of bandwidth or connectivity issues).

…So what’s the really great thing about this soon-to-be-released guidance?

60 days from now is just in time for Tech.Ed Australia and New Zealand!!!

Yes, I know it says “We’re only supporting guests running Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008.”  So let’s see what happens in 60 days..

If you have time, I recommend going to check it out:  Where the Hell is Matt (2008) on Vimeo

You can find out more about Matt Harding, over at Wikipedia.

Whilst you’re at it, check out Scott’s latest posts, snippets below:

• Hyper-V Clustering Scenarios
• Finding UNIX-Enabled Accounts in Active Directory MMC
• Virtualization Short Take #10
• Melio FS, Hyper-V, and VMware ESX
• One More Tech-Ed Schedule Change
• VIR350: System Center VMM Advanced Integration
• Significant Networking Problem with Hyper-V
• VIR358: Hyper-V Architecture, Scenarios, and Networking
• MGT374: Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool

Scott, if you’re reading this, many thanks for your coverage of TechED this year!

Next month Kyle will be doing a presentation on the joys of deploying Vista and Server 2008 using MDT at the Brisbane Infrastructure User Group (BIG). The details and RSVP info is below (from the BIG email out)

Next month, we have arranged for Kyle Rosenthal to give a presentation on deployment methods for Windows VISTA and Server 2008 using the Microsoft Deployment Tool PLUS Alan Burchill to present on the new and exciting features in Group Policy.

As always an early RSVP will help with catering. Please register on the BIG web site: http://www.aususergroups.org/Default.aspx?tabid=663.

There is no cost to attend, Pizza and drinks provided. Tuesday 8th July

…and even before it was cool Devin Murray was the man driving Microsoft’s internal virtualization adoption (I also got to meet the man in person last year; cool huh?).

Anyway, with the RTM of Hyper-V right around the corner; David Lef (Microsoft IT Technology Architect) dropped me a lovely little comment on my blog about what the lads at Microsoft IT are busy working on.  A snippet is below:

David Lef [MSFT]
I am the platform architect working for Devin Murray, subject of the TechNet article and webcast.

Microsoft IT has indeed been deploying production workloads on Hyper-V for several months now. We are currently about approaching 25% virtualized overall, up from the 7% figure discussed previously. (A big effort is underway to push as many new server requests into VMs as possible.) Part of this effort it redirecting many new server requests into Hyper-V VMs, where a few short months ago we would have been required to deploy them to dedicated physical machines. (Multi-processor, 64-bit, or other basic requirements that could not be satisfied by Virtual Server 2005 VMs.)

We have about 350 production Hyper-V VMs running as of mid-June 2008. We anticipate we will increase that number by about 100 in the next month, then bringing Hyper-V VMs in as a commodity standard available for our internal server customers.

We already have upwards of 300 machines in a queue, ready to be ordered and deployed when we can get the capacity ready. Natural adoption will take over shortly after the Hyper-V final release. With the knowledge we have about our environment and experience we have with Hyper-V so far, I am very confident we will meet or exceed our target to provision 80% of new instances into VMs.

From Microsoft IT’s [using] Hyper-V in production, 2008/06/18 at 12:46 AM

Now, not all of those VMs are on Hyper-V, but some are, if only a few percent - the interesting gem,  80% of all new servers will be virtualized (phwaaar!  that’s what I like to see).

If you want to hear more of what David has to say, check out his webcast next Tuesday, How Microsoft does IT Management and Operations. It’s a level 300 session, so expect some technical juicy goodness.  That works out to be 3am Australian time, so if I can drag myself out of bed, you’ll see me there =)

The Internet Explorer VPC has been refreshed and available in IE6, IE7 and IE8.

…and before I forget:  Microsoft’s Forefront "Codename Stirling" VHD has also been published (at a whopping 16 Gb) for all 5 VHDs:  Exchange, ISA, Stirling, Vista and Sharepoint.

Anway, I’m about to download the IE8 VPC and try it in Workstation 6.5 - I want to try the seamless window (aka "Unity").  I’ll post back with the details.

See you there [virtually] and come and watch Orin present Vista SP1

=)

Oi! You still here, go and check it out!

I must say, the experience was pretty good, I was on a lowly 512 ADSL1 connection.  I could see both the presenter, and the audience (including Jeffa, Rog42 and Johan).  I could even MSN through questions.

I love the idea so much, I might chat to the lads here in Brissie and see if we can hook one up for the upcoming Brissie User Group.

Each set of images come in two flavours, Full and Core.  If you want to know more, go check out the Microsoft Website, and a snippet is below:

VHD Images for Microsoft Virtual Server:

• WS08_RTM_x86_EnterpriseVHD.zip (single file)
• WS08_ServerCorex86_EnterpriseVHD.zip (single file)
• or download the multi-part image:  2008 VHD Images for VS2005

VHD Images for Microsoft Hyper-V:

• WS08_RTM_x64_EnterpriseFULL.zip
• ServerCorex64_Enterprise.zip 
• or download the multi-part image: 2008 VHD Images for Hyper-V

I’ll download a copy as soon as I can, and convert them to VMDK’s (using converter) and see how they run under ESX.

PS:  Mental note, I’ll also read the EULA too, and see if anything virtualization vendor specific pops up

Anyway, If you’re cutting your teeth with Powershell scripts you should check out the PowerShell Scriptomatic.

I’ve taken it for a quick spin, and it’s pretty cool!

Go check out the PowerShell Scriptomatic now.