I've been somewhat dark on writing as I was just going through an internal boot camp for new hires in Worldwide Services called Microsoft Services University.  Two week intensive course.  Whew!

My new Dell system arrived a couple of weeks ago.  The one I talked about in my last post.

Anyway - there's been a couple of changes to the configuration since I last wrote about it.  I've decided to scrap the Asterisk PBX virtual machine.  I did that for a couple of reasons - I was running out of time to muck around with the sipX (or the SIP Express Router) component I'd need to do the SIP/UDP -> SIP/TCP tunneling, and it wouldn't copy over correctly from Virtual Server 2007 to Hyper-V Beta 1, and not being a Linux guy, I had no idea how to reinstall the network drivers so it'd work.  I had reached the end of the line for my Asterisk "fun."

I spent a little cash and bought myself an AudioCodes MP114 gateway device.  It's an approved Microsoft UC device - and essentially, you plug it into your wall (or in my case, the VoIP adapter), plug it into your network, and you can optionally plug a land-line telephone into it as well.  It acts as the gateway between the central office (again, in my case, it's a VoIP provider) and the network.

It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and is still sitting on my desk unconfigured.  I haven't had a chance to play with it and move it downstairs to where my VoIP adapter lives.  (I suppose I could move my VoIP adapter upstairs.  Hmm.)  Might be something I play with a little more this week before I leave for Charlotte, NC.

On the new computer, I've gotten Windows Server 2008 installed along with Hyper-V.  I've gotten one VM configured and built with WS2008, and am about to take an image of it so I can easily deploy new VMs (so I don't have to keep reinstalling Windows over and over and over again - just copy the VHD, mount it into a new VM, and rock and roll.)

I'm not very far with my configuration yet.  I do have high hopes for it all, though.  I just hope that I can cram all of this stuff onto a single box.

Oh ... and Windows Home Server so far won't install on a Hyper-V virtual machine.  When I find time, I'll track that down as well, figure out what gives.