During our Windows 7 and Server 2008R2 day with Matt McSpirit, he covered some excellent features in both Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, after my previous post about the neat stuff in 7, here’s some of the things in server 2008R2 that really grabbed our attention on the day.

Boot from VHD

Love this feature, real clever, this allows you to boot your Windows server from a VHD image, so your virtual image actually boots on the physical tin. think it through, means if you ever decide you want your virtual machine on tin, then just boot away, plus you only have to have one server image, regardless of it been deployed on hardware or virtually. just how clever is that!

Core Parking

Liked this little feature to. allows Windows to be clever enough to know, that if its not using some of the processor cores then it can let them go to sleep. has the potential to save power and costs, not earth shattering amounts, but to coin a well known supermarket phrase, every little helps and as servers with increasing amounts of cores are common place, if you can use them more effectively, this can only be a good thing.

Remote Desktop Services

This is a mix of enhancements (and rebranding of terminal services) to the standard terminal services, as well as the addition of native Virtual Desktop functionality.

with improved user experience, allowing virtualised presentation of video and audio through to the client device.

the addition of a connection broker allowing for virtual desktop delivery straight from hyper-v, with no need for a bolt on application to make it work.

massive all around functionality improvements check out here for more enhancements http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/R2-virtualization.aspx

Hyper-V R2

Lots of the excitement around R2 are the enhancements to Hyper-V and especially the functionality that is also available in the freebie Hyper-V R2 Server.

The addition of Live Migration for those who want to move virtual workloads between servers without down time.

addition of the cluster shared volume, allowing multiple VM’s to sit on a volume, but having control over which server in the cluster mounts any VM, as all servers can truly share the volume.

Redirected I/O this is real neat as well, with the ability for hyper-v to add extra resilience by making its own intelligent calls on how to route traffic in the event of a component failure.

For much more on hyper-v http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-overview.aspx

Better together

as with the earlier BLOG there’s lots of stuff in there that when you throw Windows 7 into the mix, you add even more value, Direct Access, Branch Cache, RDP v 7, all add lots of value and business benefits.

What I really like about Microsoft’s recent software releases is that there has been lots of thought into adding benefits and value, looking at user problems and coming up with ways to fix them that are ingenious and innovative.

these releases of Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 carry that on in my opinion.

check out Microsoft’s sites if you want to try this stuff yourself the RC’s are still there for download.

Technet and VL customers will have the releases over the next few weeks.

Last week we hosted an excellent event here with Matt McSpirit of Microsoft as a preview event for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, what great timing as those two products were released to manufacturer (RTM) in the last week, which means it’ll be out there for use in anger over the next month or so for VL customers and for everyone else by October 22nd.

While Matt was here he covered some great topics so we wanted to give a brief overview of what these two excellent product releases can to your business.

In part 1 of this post here are some of the features of Windows 7

Direct Access

This has potential to be a biggy for lots of businesses, the ability for you to connect through to your corporate infrastructure securely and quickly without the need for VPN, this has the potential to improve the user experience, while lowering support and admin costs, got to be a good thing!

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/windows-7/features.aspx#directaccess

BranchCache

Provides another solution to an age old business problem, how do i centralise my document storage, without degrading the user experience, here’s a potential answer.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/windows-7/features.aspx#branchcache

Integrated Search

one of Vista’s successes was the integration of search technology straight into the OS, Windows 7 takes that and enhances it hugely, with integration with the web and Sharepoint as well as your desktop apps and data, in terms of productivity a massive 7 plus.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/windows-7/features.aspx#enterprisesearch

Bitlocker to go

building on the data encryption of Bitlocker in Vista, Bitlocker-to-go provides the ability to strongly encrypt the data that you store on external devices, such as USB keys, meaning next time I leave one in a taxi, no one will be able to access the data on it!

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/windows-7/features.aspx#bitlocker

XP Mode

One of my favourites, for those old, or those funny applications that don’t run cleanly under Windows 7 or maybe didn’t run under Vista. XP mode allows you to run a virtualised XP session into which these applications can run. This is different to running in compatibility mode, this is a full virtualised session running within the OS.

XP mode also allows for the virtualised app to be presented in its own Window without the need for a full XP desktop to be presented. For a single user application virtualisation mode, this is a great solution. If you want something a bit more enterprise and centrally managed then look at App-V but as a starter, this works great.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/

Many companies are now choosing to embrace the wonder of Microsoft SharePoint, we at Gardners certainly have. SharePoint gives the ability to have document management in a nice looking Web Browser based user interface which allows documents to be edited in Microsoft Office. With the added ability to use Workflows to automate common business tasks its no wonder why SharePoint 2007 is a hot seller.

New Features

In an attempt to unify all MS product user interfaces the well known icon based ribbon toolbar is being developed for the SP2010 web interface. From here users can perform common SP tasks such as checked in and out documents, emailing on links to locations etc etc.

Site customisation is going to be a big part of SP2010, for those of you not keen on the icon ribbon toolbar then you can simply turn it off or make your own. Customising the look and feel of the web interface is also easier than the current SharePoint designer setup now. The site can be edited by the owner as if the page was a typical MS Office document.

For those of you already using some of the more advanced features of SharePoint no doubt you would have heard of the “Business Data Catalogue”. In SP2010 this is renamed to “Business Connectivity Services” and gives users the ability to manipulate data in business databases. The end result of this is that users have the ability to read, write, update and delete records in databases (such as SQL) from MS Office documents and InfoPath forms.

-this sounds a lot easier than using the Web Services which are available now.

Administration

Management of SharePoint is going to get easier with a whole host of new admin tools to monitor server performance, farm status, fix common problems and view usage stats.

MS have announced also that Firefox 3.x, Safari and IE (all versions over 6.0) will be supported.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218500775&subSection=News

Specs

In an attempt to aid budgeting and planning the preliminary server specs have already been released:

64 bit architecture only (there is no 32-bit version)

MS Windows Server 2008 or MS Windows Server 2008 R2

SQL Server 2005 / 2008 (64-bit only)

What if I Want to Upgrade?

1. Start by ensuring new hardware is 64-bit.  Deploying 64-bit is our current best practice recommendation for SharePoint 2007.
2. Deploy Service Pack 2 and take a good look at the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Checker that’s shipped as part of the update.  The Upgrade Checker will scan your SharePoint Server 2007 deployment for many issues that could affect a future upgrade to SharePoint 2010.
3. Get to know Windows Server 2008 with SharePoint 2007, this post is a great starting point.
4. Consider your desktop browser strategy if you have large population of Internet Explorer 6 users.
5. Continue to follow the Best Practices guidance for SharePoint Server 2007.
6. Keep an eye on this blog for updates and more details in the coming months.

Below are a few common Q&A’s (which we’ll add to as required)

Advantages of 64-bit hardware and software (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

Migrate an existing server farm to a 64-bit environment (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

We’ll keep you posted on more information as it is announced

This caught our attention today on the BBC website, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8148969.stm as Microsoft are looking to grow significantly their “cloud” offerings, already there is Exchange Hosted Services, Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS, online versions of Exchange, Sharepoint, OCS and Live Meeting) and now with the addition of online versions of the office suite, this is going to provide an impressive set of choices for office infrastructure deployments.

The real plus about Microsoft’s offerings which differentiate it from some of the others we have looked at, is with their heritage of “on premise” solutions, Microsoft offer an excellent mix of either On premise, Cloud or importantly a “co-existence” offering providing both on premise and cloud working together seamlessly. we are currently working with a big client of ours on a project that does just that for over 1000 mailboxes.

interesting times.

if you want to see more on office 2010, check out the Microsoft site http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/

As many of our customers know and to be fair anyone who has had a look at our website realise we like to use NetApp storage with our clients.

But Why?

There are many reasons, but mainly our clients no longer wanted just spinning disk for their enterprise storage solutions, they wanted something with some intelligence, something that not only added capacity, but something that added some real improvements in service and added functionality that improved their entire storage infrastructure and management.

In our opinion NetApp lead the way in this but also importantly for many of our clients NetApp also have outstanding integration with Microsoft’s technology and this was recently highlighted by NetApp been awarded as Microsoft’s storage solution partner for 2009, interestingly specifically around Hyper-V and the value they add to this virtualisation platform.

if you want to read a bit more about this then check out NetApp’s website http://www.netapp.com/us/solutions/solution-partners/global-alliance/microsoft-partnership.html 

NetApp are so confident about the value they add to a virtual platform they run a 50% guarantee programme, which they commit to guaranteeing you using 50% less storage on a NetApp platform for virtualisation than on competitive vendors.

http://www.netapp.com/us/solutions/infrastructure/virtualization/guarantee.html

so if you are virtualising on Hyper-V or VmWare or Citrix, then check them out or have a word with Gardner and come in and see this stuff in action.

we’ve been working on a number of virtualisation projects recently and one of the things often missed is the types of virtualisation that are available, one of the reports I’m writing at the minute outline some of the different types of virtualisation solutions out there and thought you may find it useful to be familiar with some of the phrases that get thrown around by us technical folk!

There are many types of virtualisation out there however some of the ones that are more common are;

• Server Virtualisation
• Desktop Virtualisation
• Application Virtualisation
• Presentation Virtualisation

And these are just a few of them, there’s things like storage virtualisation and compute clusters and many more!

The following section provides a brief description of each technology

Server Virtualisation

Is a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers so that each has the appearance of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, have its own resources allocated to it and each server can be independently rebooted.

The ability to partition physical hardware in this way as long been available on mid and mainframe systems, however is becoming increasingly widely adopted in the Intel (and AMD) server arena, with increasing amounts of virtualisation software been made available.

Desktop Virtualisation

Is a relatively new term that describes the process of separating a personal computer desktop (its applications, files and data) from the physical machine. The ‘virtualised’ desktop is stored on a remote central server instead of on the hard-drive of the local personal computer. This means that when users work from their desktops, all of the programs, applications, processes and data used by the desktop are kept and run centrally, allowing users to remotely access their desktops on any device which is capable of displaying the desktop, such as a PC, laptop, smartphone or thin client.

Application virtualisation

Is an umbrella term that describes software technologies that improve portability, manageability and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in the traditional sense, although it is still executed as if it is. The application is fooled at runtime into believing that it is directly interfacing with the original operating system and all the resources managed by it, when in reality it is not.

Presentation Virtualisation (Terminal Services)

Allows you to install and manage applications on centralised servers in the data center; screen images are delivered to the users, and the users’ client machines, in turn, send keystrokes and mouse movements back to the server. Administrators can present users with the individual applications and data they require to complete their task, or the whole remote desktop. From a user perspective, these applications are integrated seamlessly—looking, feeling, and behaving like local applications.

thought as we wrote this into a report, it would be something others found useful, hence here it is been blogged about.

of course these technologies don’t have to be run in isolation and can indeed all be run together as they are not necessarily competitive technologies but can be very much complimentary.

now just to find an explanation of storage virtualisation!

Microsoft have announced two Windows 7 upgrade paths, if you are interested in this new OS then there are two methods you can use to get it:

Buy a compatible PC from one of the supporting manufacturers and then upgrade when Windows 7 is released. Manufacturers include HP, Dell, Lenovo and many more.

For a list of manufacturers see this list

If you are happy with your current PC then you can:

1. Ensure your PC is ready for Windows Vista using the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor.

2. Purchase a qualifying version of Windows Vista from a supplier such as Gardner Systems.

3. When Windows 7 is ready follow the upgrade instructions to get the new OS.

View the Cool features Windows 7 has to offer

If you are interested in this upgrade path then contact us

A real buzz word and something we are asked about on a regular basis here is around virtualising the desktop.

big players like Citrix, VmWare and Microsoft all have compelling views on virtualising your desktops.

although the hot topic is virtualising or VDI as many are calling it there is still many considerations as to whether its right for your business.

One of the leading techies I know in this field is Matt Mcspirit over at Microsoft, Matt is the UK partner tech specialist for Windows Server and MS virtualisation technologies, but Matt also has a good view on the general virtualisation scene.

Matt is joining us here at Gardner on 14th July to present where Microsoft are going with Server 2008R2 and Windows 7 (due for release in October)

Microsoft are an excellent source of information on this topic though and Matt has a great piece on his BLOG today with some of the sizing tools MS have available. Check it out, could give you some valuable information as you search for your ideal desktop strategy.

go check out Matt Blog post about “windows desktop optimised scenarios”