Win7 VHD Released 64bit only

As part of the Run IT on a Virtual Hard Disk – Test Drive Program, a   pre-configured VHD  that enables you evaluate Microsoft Windows 7 for 90-days was released yesterday.

What is notable is that this VHD requires Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, or the R2 to use this virtual machine, because it is the 64-bit version of the product.  When will we have the 64-bit version of Virtal  PC ?

You can download at Microsoft’s download site

Summer blues…

Wow – It is hard to believe how fast the summer came and went.

As you can probably gather from the frequency of posts, it was a very busy time for all of us at the InfraOps team.  Busy working with clients and getting to know updated technologies.   Lots of activity, including  some much needed summer breaks.

Anyhow, our commitment to continued postings  is renewed – Thanks to all for the ping!  – Stay tuned!

Microsoft AssessmMAP Toolkit ent and Planning Toolkit 4.0 Released

Some of us have been using it already, but just in case you did not know, MAP 4.0 is now officially released.

As you would expect,most of the changes are around Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, but there is much more.   Definitelly a good upgrade!   According to the official release, key new features include:

• Windows 7 Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment
• Virtualization Candidates Assessment for Hyper-V R2 Server Consolidation
• Integration with the Microsoft Integrated Virtualization ROI Calculator
• Inventory of VMware Server Hosts and Guests
• User Interface and Proposal Customization for Partner co-branding
• Enhanced SQL Instance Discovery
• Enhanced Usability and Improved Inventory Performance

Additional Features

• Virtualization Candidates Assessment for Hyper-V Server Consolidation
• Windows Vista Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment
• Windows Server 2008 Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment
• 2007 Microsoft Office Readiness Assessment
• SQL Server Instance Discovery
• Desktop Security Assessment for Anti-virus and Anti-malware Programs Installation
• Forefront Client Security/NAP Readiness Assessment
• App-V Infrastructure Readiness Assessment
• Power Savings “Green IT” Proposal

Download here.  More info at: MAP Toolkit

CompuCom Webcast on Data Protection Manager

We thought you might be interested in the latest webcast produced by our colleagues at CompuCom and in close cooperation with Microsoft.

It took place online on June 2, 2009, and it was about Microsoft’s latest release of  Data Protection Manager.  It covered a lot of ground and there was a number of interesting questions from the many attendees…

Link follows:

• Webcast 6/2/2009: What’s New in Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2007 Service Pack 1

CompuCom has done  several other excellent events pertaining to Microsoft products, services and licensing changes, and they have posted them online for viewing.  A couple that can be called out  include:

• 5/4/2009: Microsoft Licensing and Product Update
• 3/2/2009: Get Virtual Now with Microsoft Products

For a full list of archived 2009 events go here

Enjoy!

Google’s Wave

We have typically focused our articles on Microsoft and related technologies. This one will  change that trend a bit, as what we heard and saw is – in our view – significant  announcement from Google.

Yesterday, during the keynote on day 2of  the Google I/O Conference  , Google demonstrated (literally) the vision they are heading towards, and they have called it – very appropriately – Google Wave.     It has been a  long time – since Application Virtualizaton (SoftGrid back in 2003 /2004)  -  since we  have been so excited about how can we use technology to truly help the way we interact and communicate.

Google’s Wave product demonstration was impresive, and in our opinion, represents a significant leadership leap in the space of collaboration and communication technology.     [ It is not publically available yet, but they talked about a release later this year  ]

By the buzz around the web – we are not the only one that is as excited about this…  Lots of tweets came through overnight and all day Friday.   Just to mention a few sources you can read more about this:

• From my teammates at  InfraOps:
  Check this out http://wave.google.com/ – I predict this will either revolutionize email/communications or spawn a host of wannabes!; … 
• Joe Wilcox’ Blog: Will Google Wave be Microsoft’s Tsunami?
• Techcrunch’s Blog: A new Communication Platform
• VentureBeat: Google’s take on the future of Communication

I am sure we will be hearing about this for many weeks / months ahead -  I

A must see video of the presentation is at http://wave.google.com

A sidebar worth mentioning:

Microsoft’s Groove product – which came with the acquisition of Groove Networks in 2005 and was the brainchild of Ray Ozzie  – now Microsoft’s Chief Strategy Officer – had much of the same concepts and ideas (when we used it in our workgroup – we found it slow and with some significant limitatons)  

Early this month  Microsoft announced that the next version of Groove was getting a new name and it will be folded into the SharePoint product family. The successor to Microsoft Office Groove 2007 will be SharePoint Workspace 2010.  In the announcement they briefly talked about the improvement including:  make it easier to deploy and better integration/access with SharePoint content (or content from any server that implements the publicly documented protocols)  

Not sure if  the improvement will be that significant that we can compare the two products, but something tells me that someone is working long hours to make sure this wave does not become a tsunami.

WPC 09

Anyone out there going to WPC09? I’ll be there (Rob West) – look me up on https://connect.digitalwpc.com/ if you’d like to meet up! Or, tweet me: http://twitter.com/infraops/

The AppCompat Guy

As Windows 7 relieves a lot of the pent-up demand for a new OS from Microsoft and unblocks the anti-Vista sentiment that has been one of the major impediments to widespread enterprise adoption of what was (in our opinion) a great OS in its later iterations, we are seeing greater demand for application compatibility projects in our customers.

You probably all know about the Application Compatibility Toolkit (recently revved to 5.5) but what you may not know about is Chris Jackson’s (“The AppCompat Guy”) wonderful blog, Semantic Consonance.

Whether you are an old hand with or new to working through AppCompat on Vista or Windows 7, you should really take a spin by Chris’ blog. He’s an entertaining writer in addition to being extremely knowledgeable.

http://blogs.msdn.com/cjacks/

Solution Accelarators – Guide at TechNet Site

Microsoft TechNet’s site has changed the way in which they present the solution accelerators.   You can now sort  according MOF Service life cycle and by discipline - 

 

A very good move we think!

 

Also we just heard that the upgrade to MAP (4.0) is right around the corner!  More info on this can be found at the MAP Team Blog

Cloud Computing – Basics

Microsoft’ Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Online,  made available  a basic but interesting video  on his views on cloud computing adoption which he expressed at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium in Boston, MA

For one thing, chief information officers are uncertain how to fashion a roadmap that brings “cloud services” into their IT architecture. They also have questions about security, reliability, and control of their data.

You can see the entire transcript anf video here

On the same topic – an article  on the Wall Street Journal Blog  titled “IT Forecast: “The Great Restructuring” On Horizon sites Stephen Schuckenbrock, president of Dell Inc.’s Large Enterprise saying something I found *extremely*  interesting:

As I apply virtualization to 100% of my application install base, I now have the ability through one management lens to look across the entire estate. As the public cloud evolves, my ability to move workloads from a virtualized environment inside of my firewall to a virtualized environment outside of my firewall and use the same management tools to see the performance of that business, the optimization, the cost structures, et cetera is now in the hands of customers. It gives rise to the opportunity to eliminate a lot of the complexity.

If I was a start-up today, I’d be looking at management of virtualized workloads.

Truly telling of the world ahead..

Webcast ahead: How Microsoft IT Deploys Application Virtualization

Upcoming  Webcast: How Microsoft IT Deploys Application Virtualization

The MDOP team has announced that on May 26th TechNet will host  a  webcast  to discuss how Microsoft uses App-V 4.5 and ConfigMgr 2007 to deploy and manage applications within their environment.  if it is anything like the one at MMS2009 it should be an interesting one.  Click here for registration