Adnan Rafik = Adnan Rafique

With the New Year, comes a new Community Virtualization Deep Dive Day.  This year, we have what looks like will be the best lineup ever.  In addition, we will be simulcasting part of the event to other locations across the country so people in other locations can enjoy the show! 

More details can be found on the Deep Dive Day Landing Page.   In a nutshell it is an all day virtualization event being held in Waltham MA on Friday Feb 12, 2010.  We have Panopto lined up to simulcast one of the five tracks to the New York City Microsoft Offices as well as other locations across the country.   Many of the sessions will be recorded and made available for online viewing after the show. 

When: Friday Feburary 12, 2010

Where:   http://deepdive2010.eventbrite.com

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Greetings,

We have most of the details ironed out about the Virtualization Deep Dive Day on Feb 12.  I think I have mentioned it to all of you.  I wanted to write to get commitment from you on your level of interest in participation.   At the very least, I would love for you to promote the event.  If possible, I would very much appreciate any assistance you could provide on the day of the event.  In a nutshell it is an all day virtualization event being held in Waltham MA.  We have Panopto lined up to simulcast to the web and would like to  have one track of the event presented at the NYC Microsoft Office on the day of the event.  There will be an opportunity for attendees in NYC to ask questions of the presenters and we hope to also have one or two subject matter experts onsite in NYC.  Edwin Woo will be the owner of the NYC part of the event.  We have reserved the MPR rooms (Belvedere & Bethesda Terrace Conference Room) which seats 75 people. We have at least one Microsoft person on cue to support the event.  I would be looking for you guys to do what you do best…

Help coordinate things on the ground in NYC and drive attendance.  Details of the event can be found at www.virtg.com/deepdive2010  All groups that participate at any level (even just promoting it to their users) will be listed on the website as sponsors.  Those that help with coordination will be eligible for profit sharing from the event.  We will handle registration on our end.  We have already lined up sponsors and speakers so it will be pretty easy on your part.  If you want to line up additional local sponsors/speakers, you are welcome to do that.

There will be a very small fee for attendees.  I think it will be $10 early bird and $15 after that.  We am arranging to get some Swag to you guys so at the end of the day when we do Swag handout’s you will do the same at your event.  All of the funds you bring in for the entry fee will go to the NYC groups that actively participate in the event. We will also be offering an online option after the event so people can attend virtually if they cannot make it the day of the event.  The online option will be $15.  If Live attendees want to also have access to the online content they can get a ticket for only $10.  All of these details and more will be documented once the registration site goes up next week.  All content will be streamed from Waltham MA.  If you have a speaker locally that you would rather cover the content (or change the content) that is fine with us.  We do have agreements with some vendors so there may be one or two sessions that we will not be able to change.  The NYC Schedule currently looks like the following:

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In Hyper-V 2008 R2 you have three types of virtual networks i.e. External , Internal and Private.

Private- a virtual network between VM-to-VM

Internal- a virtual network between VM-to- Host. Here the virtual network act like as a loopback adapter.

External- a virtual network between VM-to-External or physical access to the network card.

Cheers:)

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Today I did my 2^nd presentation in New York, this time it was for New York Exchange User Group in the New York City (http://nyexug.com). It was a level 300 session where I covered Hyper-V on Windows Server 08 R2 and Hyper-visor R2 (core server). So what did I cover?

Difference between the 2 Hypervisor
New features and enhancement in R2 of Hypervisor
Better management of Hypervisor using Hyper-V Manager and RSAT tool
Initial setup and configuration of Windows Server R2 Hyper-V
Initial setup and configuration of Hyper-V Core Server
Setting up the network , joining to the domain and enabling remote desktop on Hyper-V Core Server
Setting up Firewall Rules on the Hyper-V Core to enable Remote Management
Accessing the Hyper-V Core Server from the remote client (Hyper-V Manager or RSAT on Windows 7 )
Device Management, Disk Management, Event Viewer, Firewall Management, Service etc of the  Core Server from the Remote Client i.e. Windows 7
Command Line configuration of Hyper-V Server Core firewall and remote managment.

Hyper-V_Final_1 - Presentation Slides

Resources
www.microsoft.com/Hyperv
http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy
http://edge.technet.com
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee344828(WS.10).aspx

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Is virtualization all hype or can it reduce costs, make an admin’s life easier, & save the planet.

Come and join us on coming tuesday to see two falvors of virtualization at the same time.  I’ll be doing the demo of Q4 release of Microsoft Hyper-V and the Hypervisor and in additon how-to do the remote managment of Hypervisor.

The other session will be conducted by Ben (NY Exchange UG ). Ben is the UG leader for NYEXUG and he will share his expeirnce running exchnge in the VM. So do join us as we can accomodate max 30 person.

Click Here for details

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Finally I’m done with my very first presentation in New York at New York Enterprise Windows User Group.  We talked about how Hypervisor is different from windows server hyper-v and what’s in it for you and why would you consider it or not. We looked into the new features and the USB support in the virtualization.

Here are the rouses for this presentation

My Hyper-V presentation

TechNet Edge Videos

Hyper-V Website

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To improve customers’ support experiences when running Windows Server on virtualization technologies other than Hyper-V™ and Virtual Server, Microsoft has launched the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP).

SVVP is open to any vendor that delivers a machine virtualization solution that hosts Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4 (SP4)and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and subsequent service packs. The virtualization solution can either be hypervisor-based or a hosted solution. The program enables vendors to validate various configurations so that Microsoft customers can receive technical support for Windows Server in virtualized environments.

Customers can benefit from the support provided by Microsoft as part of the regular Windows Server technical support framework when running Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 2000 Server SP4 and Windows Server 2003 SP2 and subsequent service packs on validated solutions running on server hardware Certified for Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2, with the same validated processor architecture and not exceeding the maximum virtual memory or processors validated. Microsoft Life Cycle Support policy still applies for support and end of support for specific versions of an operating system and Service Packs.

Read more here
http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp.aspx

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MICROSOFT IT EVOLUTION 08 – ABU DHABI UAE

I’m happy to be there and gained some new information especially about the Hyper-V. This event is happening throughout the Gulf region so if you missed it in Abu-Dhabi then you still have the chance to attend it in Dubai on 23rd of Nov and other Gulf countries. Overall the event and the contents were very good; I’m talking about I.T. Pro track and the contents as there was another track for Developers.

In the IT Pro tracks the main focus was Virtualization and the Application streaming. Both these topics I’m familiar about it but got to know some new things in Virtualization track from the speaker Yousuf Bismillah from Microsoft. The MSFT –HP track followed by the HP (I didn’t like it because the presentation was really bad). Application streaming is again delivered by the Yousuf Bismillah. During all the session from Yousuf Bismillah there was a good Exchange of information with healthy Q&A and discussion between the speaker and the audience. Yousuf really did a good job, I’ve met him after a very long time and he is as good as he was.

A number of things have got cleared while making the decision which technology or vendor should you choose if adopting the Virtualization.
1- Why do you want to go for the virtualization?
2- What is your organization type – ISP, Data Centers/Hosting services, 24×7 operation etc.
3- How critical is the downtime for you?
4- How much is the budget?

The virtualization case varies from organization to organization according to their business model. Thus it will help you to decide whether to go for MSFT Windows Hyper-V or Citrix XenAPP or VMWare. All of these have their pros and cons according to the requirements. May be Hyper-V fits for you or vice versa. Since there no VMWare track so I couldn’t find the information about it.

Few major things I’ve got to know is that both Hyper-V and XenApp works the same way , using VMBUS where the Guest OS directly interact with the hardware.

Both Hyper-V and Xen-Server Express is freely available. For Hyper-V you must buy Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, so nothing comes really free and also there is a limitation to Xen-Xpress edition too which max 4GB of memory to each machine is.

A very interesting question was that what If I want to allocate the resource on the fire, does Microsoft support this feature? Answer was NO, but Citrix’s Enterprise and Platinum does support this feature. So again you decide what you are looking for. Microsoft does have VMM (Virtual Machine Manager) to manage the virtual servers but doesn’t offer this feature.

The event was well served with tea/coffee and nice lunch  , we also got the chance to meet the HALO 3 Chief, but I doubt on him as never removed the mask

So if you missed it and you are in the UAE then do register now for the Dubai event and make the use of this learning opportunity.

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MS Virtualization from Datacenter to Desktops

What was the session about?

Technical –

               it was about isolation of products
                   running different OS on top of Host OS
                   better performance and robustness
                   better managing the IT infrastructure
                   running different versions of same application on the same desktop at the same time

Managerial  -

                   reducing downtime
                   less resources more productivity
                   less space required for the data center
                   less power consumption, better use of CPU/Memory etc
                   saving Total Cost of Ownership
                   better license utilization
                  
 There is much more to know. Wole was outstanding and his session gave me a new roadmap to my consultancy and to help other IT decision makers to show them how important is VITUALIZATION now.

Wole did the demo during the session which was the most interesting thing for me, since I saw myself running two versions of MS Access i.e. MS Access 2000 and MS Access 2007. This was achieved by the technology called Sandbox. I know I’m missing so many things now but I need to recall and write it again.

He also talked about Virtualization of Windows Terminal services thus for Citrix too. He also talked about different layers of Virtualization and how does it work, what steps are included and what exactly is the design. He gave some points during the session where a smart IT manager can better utilize the product licenses. He also talked about the hosted application through virtualization.

Thanks Wole see you again.

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