What is going on in the world of Virtualisation with Virtual Server and Virtual PC on licensing, Vista, x64 and more

doverton — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:13:12 GMT

There are a couple of recent announcements with regard to the current range of products that I thought I would cover off. One is about licensing and has been written up by Matt McSpirit at http://blogs.technet.com/mattmcspirit/archive/2007/06/22/microsoft-virtualisation-licensing-client-and-server.aspx and covers how many licenses you get when.

The other is Virtual Server SP1:

Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Is Now Available

Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 is the server virtualization technology engineered for the Windows Server operating system to increase hardware utilization and enable IT staff to rapidly configure and deploy new servers. Register to download the free software and you will receive relevant resources that are strategically assembled to address the challenges you will face as you discover, assess, and deploy the software. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7042993

The What is New page shows (plus more on the page) - note the x64 support for more memory. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/virtualserver/evaluation/vsoverview.mspx

What's New in This Release

Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 includes the following new capabilities:

Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Enterprise Edition can be installed on servers with up to 32 physical processors.

•	Virtual Server host clustering. Support for host-to-host connectivity lets you cluster all virtual machines running on a host.
•	iSCSI support. iSCSI clustering enables guest-to-guest connectivity across physical machines.
•	x64 support. Virtual Server runs natively within a 64-bit Windows host operating system, providing increased performance and memory headroom.
•	Enhanced PXE booting. PXE boot support has been added to the virtual machine network adapter. This means that when the appropriate network infrastructure is in place, you can perform a network installation of a guest operating system in the same way as physical servers.
•	Other improvements. Virtual Server now includes improved hyperthreading, support for F6 Disk (SCSI driver), Active Directory integration using service connection points, and virtual disk pre-compactor functionality.
•	Performance improvements.

For more information about what's new in Virtual Server R2 SP1, please refer to the following table:

New Features in Virtual Server R2 SP1
Benefit	Description
Hardware-assisted virtualization	Supports both Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) and AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) hardware-assisted virtualization.
VHD Mount Command-line Tool and APIs	Provides the ability to mount a virtual hard disk file (.vhd file) as a virtual disk device on another operating system.
Support for Volume Shadow Copy Service	Allows back-up of Virtual Server and its running virtual machines without needing to install backup agents inside the guest operating system of the virtual machines.
Larger default size for dynamically expanding virtual hard disks	The default size for dynamically expanding virtual hard disks has been changed from 16 GB to 127 GB, making the VHD file format even more useful for enterprise production, test, and disaster-recovery workloads.
Support for greater than 64 virtual machines on x64-based hosts	Virtual Server can run more than 64 virtual machines on x64-based hosts. The 64 virtual machine limit remains when running on 32-bit hosts.
Host clustering step-by-step guide	Host clustering allows you to extend the high-availability benefits of clustering to non-cluster-aware applications and workloads.
Virtual SCSI fix for Linux guests	This fix resolves an issue some customers encountered when trying to install certain Linux distributions inside a virtual machine on the emulated SCSI bus.
VMRC ActiveX control and Internet Explorer Security Zones	The Virtual Machine Remote Control (VMRC) ActiveX control now uses the security zone information in Internet Explorer to determine whether to prompt you for your credentials when you load the control.
Service Publication using Active Directory Service Connection Points	Virtual Server service now publishes its binding information in Active Directory as a Service Connection Point (SCP) object.

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: Virtualisation, Vista, Virtual Server, Virtual PC, Licensing

Deploying Vista to many desktops from Small Business Server 2003 with SP2 (R2 or R1) using Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) tools

doverton — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:56:49 GMT

A nice man named Zack dropped me a mail asking about the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) tools and "real" documentation, which led to Matt in the PTS team writing about all the great tools (see below). I then installed SP2 for Windows Server 2003 and realised that my SBS 2003 system now has the capabilities of BDD to deploy Vista desktops (in my case, pre-configured with Office 2007 too).

Wow. I went and checked and the Windows Deployment Services admin controls are there on my SBS SP2 system, so you can use this information to enable PXE deployments of Windows if you want. These can include other programs such as Office and anti-virus products and also be pre-configures to join the domain etc.

Business Desktop Deployment 2007 - Resources
Posted Wednesday, March 14, 2007 11:43 AM by mattmcspirit

For those of you out there who have an interest in the different ways that you can deploy Windows Vista, Office 2007 and your other applications, you may be interested in the Business Desktop Deployment Workbench, or BDD for short.
So, what is it?
Well, the BDD is essentially, your one-stop-shop for deployment when it comes to our new wave of technology. Want to customise your Vista install? Want to inject drivers for hardware into images? Want to customise WinPE 2.0? Want to easily create Unattend.xml files? Want next week's winning lottery numbers? OK, BDD can't help you with that last one, but it can allow you to do all the others!

Source: Peering through Windows...

ttfn

David

Technorati tags: BDD, Business Desktop Deployment, SBS 2003, Service Pack 2, SP2, SBS 2003 SP2

Search results matching tags 'Virtual Server' and 'Service Pack'

What is going on in the world of Virtualisation with Virtual Server and Virtual PC on licensing, Vista, x64 and more

What's New in This Release

Deploying Vista to many desktops from Small Business Server 2003 with SP2 (R2 or R1) using Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) tools

Business Desktop Deployment 2007 - Resources