• Top 6 Replacements for Windows Notepad http://snurl.com/2zz6w I tried to replace Notepad alredy several times, but I never succeeded somehow #
• Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and Application Virtualization 4.5 in Q4 2008 http://snurl.com/2zz8k VMM 2008 beta works fine. #
• VMware: Windows will be killed by virtual appliances. http://snurl.com/2zz9j Did anyone count how often Windows has been killed already? #
• Vista SP1 available on WSUS. WSUS team blog discusses the different packages. http://snurl.com/2zzb6 #
• Ready or Not, VMware, Here Comes Hyper-V. Nice review about Hyper-V on eWeek. http://snurl.com/2zzcn #
• Spammers Choose GMail. Google’s CAPTCHA system has been cracked. http://snurl.com/2zzd8 Expect more SPAM on your servers. #

The post entitled “Five Reasons Why VMware Virtualization is Better than Microsoft Hyper-V” on DABCC is already more than two weeks old. Perhaps I misunderstood some of the assertions in the article, but it seems to me that there are quite a few mistakes in it. I googled the topic to see if I had missed some essential news about Hyper-V; however, I wasn’t able to find anything that contradicts my view. So I decided to blog about it now because I am quite puzzled by the article’s arguments. Maybe you can tell me what I misunderstood.

I will reproduce the heading of DABCC article and sometimes a quote from Douglas Brown’s arguments, and add my comments afterwards.

1. Hyper-V is marketed as free but really isn’t.

Yeah it’s $28 bucks but that’s on top of a Windows 2008 License paid in full.

(more…)

• Microsoft Unveils New Internet Explorer Security Features: http://snurl.com/2stie Seems MS still values security over new features.
• Linux on Hyper-V: http://snurl.com/2s8n4 Some useful tips of running SUSE, Ubuntu and Fedora on Hyper-V.
• Linux Integration Components RC2 for Hyper-V http://snurl.com/2tg8g Strange! Why only RC2? Wasn’t Hyper-V already released?
• More than 1 million use Microsoft Office Live Small Business. I wonder how many use the business vers. of Google Apps http://snurl.com/2s8fp
• Steve Ballmer’s five most embarrassing videos of all time: http://snurl.com/2s7za Scaring! Makes me wonder if MS will survive without Gates.
  
• ISA Server 2006 SP1 has been released. http://snurl.com/2tg4n More about the new feature can be found here: http://snurl.com/2tg50
• Virtual Machine Manager 2008 will be released by the end of the year. http://snurl.com/2tg6d Note that VMM 2007 doesn’t support Hyper-V.
• Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 for Hyper-V http://snurl.com/2tgaz

Networkworld recently published an interesting article entitled “7 side effects of sloppy virtualization”. This title seems to indicate that the problems server virtualization might cause are solvable by being well prepared. Nevertheless, all seven arguments discussed can be considered disadvantages of server virtualization. Because I am seriously thinking of virtualizing all of our servers, I read the article with interest. So far, we have only four virtual servers with about fifteen virtual machines, but we have already encountered some of the problems mentioned in the article.

I will discuss all seven downsides from my own perspective and share some of the experiences we have had with server virtualization.

1. Magnified physical failures

Imagine you have ten important servers running on one physical host and its RAID controller runs amok, wiping out all of your hard disks. Don’t say that this is not very likely, as we have already had two or three incidents from malfunctioning RAID controllers from well-known brands.

(more…)

You probably know that you can install Hyper-V only on a computer that supports Intel’s or AMD’s virtualization technologies (x86 virtualization), i.e. Intel VT and AMD-V. That is, the CPU and the BIOS have to support it. I have already encountered relatively new PCs which have processors with virtualization support, but the BIOS setup doesn’t have an option to enable it. Sometimes it helps to update the BIOS.

AMD and Intel both offer free tools that allow you to check whether a computer supports hardware virtualization. If you’re unsure, you should use these utilities before you install Hyper-V. They also show whether virtualization is enabled. On most systems it is disabled by default for security reasons. To enable it, you have to change the corresponding BIOS settings. That is, you have to enable hardware virtualization and the NX-bit (AMD) or the XD-bit (Intel) respectively. Hyper-V can be installed without CPU virtualization enabled, but then its hypervisor won’t start and you will find related error messages in the event log.

(more…)

Rate this tool: (1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Submit favorite free admin tool | Free tools ranking list | Descriptions of all tools

It was hard to miss that the final of Hyper-V was released today. Maybe it has something to do with the kind of feeds I subscribed to, but it seems to me that the media coverage is comparable to when Windows Server 2008 was released. We updated our RC1 test installation and have encountered no problems so far. I have also tried the beta of Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM 2008). After I installed the VMM agent on the Hyper-V-Server I had to restart the VMM admin console, but after that everything seemed to work flawlessly. I only played with it a little though. I am not aware of a release date of VMM 2008 RTM, but I think it can’t be far away.

Our overall experience with Hyper-V RC1 was quite positive. We have had a few issues, but in each case it turned out that it was a configuration mistake. We also virtualized a Linux server (SuSE Enterprise 10), and didn’t have any problems with it. We are going to make some performance tests with the with the Linux VM soon. We had some performance problems with a content management system (Eprints) under Linux on VMware Server 1, so I am curious to see how much better Hyper-V will be here. Note that we do know that Eprints works fine on VMware ESX. Nonetheless, this thing is just too expensive in my view.

(more…)

You don’t work with Hyper-V? This might change soon. Then you probably would like to have Hyper-V Monitor, a tiny gadget for the Vista sidebar. It displays the status of all your Hyper-V virtual machines. It supports multiple Hyper-V servers and you can also use it to connect to a virtual machine.

For this, you have to install the Hyper-V Manager for Vista SP1 first. Then you have to tell Hyper-V monitor where VMConnect.exe is located. Usually, it is under C:\Programs\Hyper-V. Note that only a double click on a virtual machine will establish a connection. I first tried it with a single click because the mouse pointer changes to a finger when you move over the VM.

It also seems to me that the tool is a bit buggy. I got a couple of script errors while configuring it. But once everything was configured it worked flawlessly.

Hyper-V Monitor Gadget

Rate this tool: (4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Submit favorite free admin tool | Free tools ranking list | Descriptions of all tools

• 41% had no direct experience of Vista, but are offering an opinion on Vista’s suitability in a business context. http://snurl.com/2aduv #
• Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 available: Intel AMT support, new Inventory capabilties, Vista SP1+Server 2008 support http://snurl.com/2adx7 #
• Technet and MSDN are now hosted on Hyper-V. They have 4 million hits daily. Guess the final will be released soon. http://snurl.com/2adxo #
• New white paper from Microsoft comparing Vista SP1 with XP SP3. This is highly recommended for Windows XP fans. http://snurl.com/2adyf #
• Just tried Hyper-V-Manager for Vista SP1 that was originally released for Hyper-V RC0 with RC1. No problems so far. http://snurl.com/2apw9
• PCWorld has an interesting article according to which UAC helps better against rootkits than anti-virus software. http://snurl.com/2apuv

The feature complete Beta of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM 2008, sometimes you read SCVMM 2008) has been available for some days now. Microsoft’s new management tool for centralized deployment and management for Virtual Server 2005, Server 2008 Hyper-V and VMware ESX can be downloaded via Microsoft Connect. Today, I had a quick look at it. This post will also give you some tips on how you can test VMM 2008 if you are already working with Virtual Machine Manager 2007.

Considering the fact that VMM 2007 was released in September 2007, VMM 2008 has quite a few interesting new features. Most prominently are its Hyper-V and VMware ESX support. I will probably blog about the new features in another post. Today, I am just sharing some experiences I had when I played a little with VMM 2008.

(more…)

I am kinda surprised that Microsoft already released the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Release Candidate. It seems they are still ahead of their original schedule. Virtualization.info speculates that the release date of Hyper-V might be much earlier than August. Since Microsoft’s new hypervisor is now feature complete a quick look at it could be worthwhile. The new features are interesting. If you already played with the Hyper-V beta and want to upgrade to Hyper-V RC, I recommend reading ahead.

(more…)