Media

Screencast: Windows Server 2008 Server Core

Jeff Alexander — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:37:00 GMT

Hi there,

Jeff Alexander from Sydney here. This being my first post on Edge i thought I thought I best introduce myself. So in this screencast i'm going to show the new Server Core option in Windows Server 2008. I'm going to show how to administer it locally and some of the things you need to do to administer it remotely.

Enjoy!

Slipstreaming Internet Explorer 8 into Windows Vista

Matt Hester — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:40:00 GMT

Lately, I have been doing a lot fun work with the IE 8 team. Look for a TechNet radio interview shortly I did with Jane Maliouta who is a IE Deployment Program Manager. In talking with Jane she told that she had written a post on how to slipstream IE 8 into an Windows Vista image. After checking out the post I decided to make a screencast to show how easy this is to do.

If you want to see the steps in greater detail check out Jane's post here:

Detailed Steps to Slipstream IE 8 into Windows Vista

If you have not scene IE 8 in action check out my two screen casts I did a few weeks back:

Here are some other great resources for IE8, as well as download locations:

Download IE 8 today:

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 x64

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows XP SP2

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Server 2003 SP2

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Windows XP SP2 Pro x64

Using Powershell to managed Hyper-V

Adam Bomb — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Today wraps up our Hyper-V launch coverage with this interview I did at TechEd with John Kelbley and Alex Lash. These guys show us a heap of great tricks for managing your Hyper-V machines using Powershell, and introduce us to a bunch of shortcuts that allow even a non-coder to put together some impressive scripts. In fact, all the demos they do in this interview they put together in about 15 minutes before we started recording.
Here's a roundup of some of the resources they reference:
James O'Neill's blog
Power Gadgets
Powershell scriptomatic

p.s. If you are attending TechEd and happen to run in to John, ask him about the party list. Then prepare for some late nights out.

How MSIT does server Virtualization and Hyper-V Part 2

David Tesar — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:14:00 GMT

In this interview we met up with Devin Murray (Group Manager) and David Lef (Technology Architect) who are in charge of implementing virtualization within Microsoft. They've been running Hyper-V since it was in Beta in 2007 and have been running Hyper-V in production since January 2008. Watch Part 1 first.

In Part 2 of this interview, we cover the following topics:

Challenges they've faced in deploying and recommendations

[2:23] - What their thinking is around a future datacenter to address those challenges

[4:43] - Technical details on the future datacenter

[9:29] - What workloads would this infrastructure support

[13:15] - Branch office efforts around virtualization

[16:05] - How long we've been running Hyper-V, will we be able to have 100% of our servers virtualized in the future, and what is the net impact of running virtual server 2005 R2 vs Hyper-V.

How Microsoft IT does server Virtualization and Hyper-V

David Tesar — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:00:00 GMT

History behind why and when we started implementing virtualization in the environment and what challenges we had.
[6:22] - Number of servers virtualized in Microsoft's environment and goals of what percentage desired to be virtualized
[8:07] - Net business impact and how the team manages this area of the business
[9:54] - Current high availability stats (how many 9's) and how to make this higher
[12:45] - Configuration of virtualization environment
- High availability with Hyper-V
- Why they determined the sweet spot was an 8 node cluster
- [18:18] - Decision points between using VHDs versus Pass-through disks
- [19:45] - What workloads he wouldn't recommend using one disk type versus another in regards to performance
- Downtime they're seeing with quick migration

Watch Part 2 here.
Read more information about MSIT's virtualization strategy.

Hyper-V Part 5 - High Availability - Interview with PMs

David Tesar — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:01:00 GMT

John Howard, Ben Armstrong, Bryon Surace are program managers in the server virtualization team and give us the technical details on various components of Hyper-V. In part 5 we cover:

Guest operating system clustering
Virtualization platform clustering
- Planned failover i.e. "quick migration"
- Unplanned failover
- Clustering VMs
- Disc options and their benefits/costs problems/workarounds
  - iSCSI, Pass-through, disks using GUIDs

Hyper-V Part 4 - Disks and iSCSI - Interview with PMs

David Tesar — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:01:00 GMT

John Howard, Ben Armstrong, Bryon Surace are program managers in the server virtualization team and give us the technical details on various components of the Hyper-V architecture. In part 4, we dive into the following components:

Determine when you would want to use a pass-through disk
How iSCSI works and how you can use it with Hyper-V
Learn some best practices in using iSCSI

To learn more about iSCSI, view our other iSCSI posts on Edge.

Download Hyper-V RTM

Hyper-V Part 3 - TAP and VSS Snapshots - Interview with PMs

David Tesar — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Hyper-V TAP program results
(02:28) Virtual machine snapshots and Volume Shadow copy Service snapshots (VSS)
- Difference between the two
- How VSS snapshots function
- What happens with a backup for VSS and a non-VS aware operating system (i.e. Linux or Windows 2000 Server)

Real World DBA Episode 17 - SQL Server Features – Encryption

Buck Woody — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:00:00 GMT

In the news, CU 8 is now available for SQL Server 2005.

In this week’s feature, we’ll continue the introduction to SQL Server Features and talk about SQL Server Encryption.

The web link is on the maximum capacities for SQL Server 2005,

and the tip this week deals with the file locations and registry entries for SQL Server 2005.

Hyper-V Part 1 - Architecture - Interview with PMs

David Tesar — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:31:00 GMT

Overview of the architecture
- Where the virtual service provider (VSP) and virtual service client (VSC) fit in
- What the VMBUS does
- How a disk operation occurs through this architecture
[08:35] Comparison of fixed, dynamic, and differencing VHD disks

For more on architecture and the advantages Hyper-V has over 3rd party virtualization solutions, check out another Edge video with other program managers.

Hyper-V Part 2 - VM Snapshots - Interviews with PMs

David Tesar — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:28:00 GMT

John Howard, Ben Armstrong, Bryon Surace are program managers in the server virtualization team and give us the technical details on various components of Hyper-V. In part 2 we cover:

How virtual machine snapshots work under the covers
How to properly export a specific VHD/snapshot in your chain
Limitations with multiple branches of snapshots

Hyper-V hits RTM interview with Mike Neil

David Tesar — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:13:00 GMT

Hyper-V finally hits RTM! In this interview, we ask a number of questions to the guy who's in charge of server virtualization such as:
Why we decided to get into the server virtualization environment?
What changes have happened since previous RCs?
What challenges we've had along the way?
Where do you see things headed moving forward?
What challenges would an ITPro face with deploying hyper-v?
Fun Features IT Pros can use right now with Hyper-V

Download the RTM of Hyper-V starting at NOON PST. Existing customers who have deployed WS 2008 can recieve Hyper-V from Windows update beginning July 8.

Database Maintenance: Avoid and Monitor Fragmentation in Indexes

TechNet Magazine — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:17:00 GMT

In the August 2008 issue of TechNet Magazine, Paul S. Randal gives an overview of Top Tips For Effective Database Maintenance. In this accompanying video, Paul demonstrates the need to monitor fragmentation and how shrink (and autoshrink) can cause serious problems.

Remote Management: A Sneak Peek at Windows PowerShell 2.0

TechNet Magazine — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:16:00 GMT

Don Jones demonstrates the new remote management functionality in Windows PowerShell 2.0 CTP2. For more info on working with Windows PowerShell, see the Windows PowerShell column in TechNet Magazine.

TechNet Radio: Microsoft Forefront Client Security

Eric Ostrowski — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:23:00 GMT

Listen to this episode of TechNet Radio and learn more about Microsoft Forefront Client Security. We discuss how Forefront Client Security improves overall performance and also talk about support for Hyper-V.

Tricks of the Windows Vista Masters - J. Peter Bruzzese

Adam Bomb — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Another busy guy at TechEd, J. Peter Bruzzese took time away from the ClipTraining partner booth and his own breakout sessions to talk with me about his latest book, "Tricks of the Windows Vista Masters." He told me the story of where the secrets in the book came from, and shared a couple of his favorites with me.

HPC Server 2008 High Availability - Part 3

Giovanni Marchetti — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:01:00 GMT

This is the third of a series of screencasts demonstrating how to set up HPC Server 2008 head nodes for high availability.
In this part we discuss the installation of SQL Server 2005 on a 2008 fail-over cluster.

Powershell tips and tricks from the field with Ben Pearce

David Tesar — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Ben Pearce is a Premiere Field Engineer (PFE) who specializes in powershell doing consulting, troubleshooting, and delivering training. He gives us insight into what challenges you might have starting out with powershell, tells us an example of what a customer has done with it, how powershell can benefit you, and gives some tips on getting started.

At 8:00 min, he gives a demo of some of the key/basic elements to powershell you'll want to know.

Resource: Windows PowerShell Week

System Center Operations Manager and the Brazilian Post Office

Adam Bomb — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:02:00 GMT

Breiner Queiroz is a Senior Systems Analyst for the Post Office in Sao Paolo Brazil. In this video, he talks about his experience deploying Operations Manager. He talks about the challenges of getting a project like OpsMan deployed on a limited budget, and working with a new technology.

Real World DBA Episode 16 - SQL Server Features – Web Services

Buck Woody — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:00:00 GMT

In the news, the SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate is now available. In this week’s feature, we’ll continue the introduction to SQL Server Features and talk about SQL Server’s Web Services. The web link is on SQL Server Replication, and the tip this week deals with identifiers.

UGTV – It’s class not Glass!

Michelle Fleming Toure — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:31:00 GMT

User Group Television (UGTV pronounced YOU GEE TEE VEE) is a monthly video show dedicated to bringing informative programming to User Groups while providing Microsoft the ability to introduce up and coming information to user group communities as well as highlight our engagement with them.

Today's show includes your favorite anchors (get to know them, love them), interviews with UG leaders, a recap of April’s MVP Summit and an interview with Culminis. (Culminis is an international not-for-profit organization devoted to the development and growth of the IT community). And…the pièce de resistance – introducing a new segment coming to UGTV.

UGTV is hosted by Michelle Fleming Toure and Alan le Marquand.

Got Feedback? Email ugtvidea@microsoft.com

One Day at TechEd IT Pro

Adam Bomb — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:01:00 GMT

This is the first year that Tech Ed was split into two weeks: 1 for developers and another for IT Pros. As you know, there are specific differences between the two types, and even further dividing lines within each group. Laura, having attended both weeks, started to feel like an outsider looking in and decided to get to the bottom of what it takes to be an "IT Guy"

TechNet Radio: NAP Deployment from a Customer Perspective

Eric Ostrowski — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:40:00 GMT

Hear Microsoft customers talk about how they deployed Network Access Protection (NAP) within their organizations. In this TechNet Radio session, Kevin Remde and Jeff Sigman talk with Chris Boscolo of Napera Networks, Alex Chalmers of Ball State University, and Pattabhi Attaluri of Avenda Systems.

Be Green with Hyper-V at Singapore's Microsoft Innovation Center

Dennis Chung — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:07:00 GMT

Matty caught up with me and did a video for "ANWYCDFYSBWYSCDFY" video. I know its super duper long. It stands for "Ask not what you can do for your server, but what your server can do for you".

In this video, Matty asked me about what i was doing to be Green. So in the MIC, using Hyper-V, i mounted on a project to consolidate servers and reduced power consumption. We briefly talked about what was done and the benefits of it.

HPC Server 2008 High Availability - Part 2

Giovanni Marchetti — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:01:00 GMT

This is the second of a series of screencasts demonstrating how to set up HPC Server 2008 head nodes for high availability.
In this part we discuss the creation of a 2008 fail-over cluster.