GavinGee's Blog

All details relocated from the IIS.NET website:

• IIS7 is faster and more efficient than any other version of IIS.
• With IIS7 you can manage whole Web farms from one place.
• IIS7 allows you to delegate management workload with site owners. Site owners can also remotely manage their sites and applications over HTTPS from Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008.  IIS7's XCopy deployment model even allows you to deploy applications preconfigured!
• IIS7 is much more flexible and customizable than before, allowing you to fine tune the server (including server core!) to minimize security footprint and downtime due to patching. 
• You can save loads of time by automating more tasks with the interface that is right for you.  
• If you do run into issues, IIS7 makes it easy to resolve site issues faster, minimizing down time due to that bone headed developer on your staff. 
• IIS7 includes built-in support for PHP, making it the best Web server for both Open Source languages and .NET.  You can now have a single Windows platform to host all your web workloads!
• IIS7 makes it easy to publish content securely over FTP/SSL or WebDAV!
• Windows and IIS7 are cheaper than ever with the new Windows Web 2008 product.  This version of Windows is super inexpensive and supports all the great features of IIS, Sharepoint, SQL, Windows Media server and more for Internet facing sites!
• And as if that isn't enough, IIS7 is getting better every day with new IIS7 Extensions like built-in progressive streaming and playlist support for media content, URL Rewrite capabilities, integrated database management, powershell support, and much more. 

So I was fortunate to attend this year's worldwide partner conference over in Houston, Texas

For those of you who don't know what this event is all about it's basically the big show of the year for Microsoft partners, 12000 of them in fact I believe, that are brought together for a few days of keynotes, specific breakout tracks, training and hands on labs not forgetting the most important aspect – networking and a bit of fun thrown in for good measure.

This year we all descended into Houston Texas, into a typical southern US summer... hmm anybody like rain in 35 deg C?

Anyway apart from the usual topics such as Vista, Windows Mobile and CRM the big message was on Microsoft's Online services and its strategy for the new world of Software as a Service – Software plus Services if you take the Microsoft view.

Lots of articles have been written on this topic to name but a few...

http://www.computerworlduk.com/technology/applications/software-service/news/index.cfm?newsid=9955
http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn/news/2221498/microsoft-woos-vars-saas-4121114
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/07/10/ballmer_partners_services/
http://channel.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14319&page=1&search=microsoft%20partner%20conference

Microsoft Online represents a great opportunity for the whole of the Microsoft ecosystem and channel partners, including our hosting partners: bringing awareness to the world on hosted solutions and software services, enabling new scenarios and revenue opportunities for different partner bases and enabling the channel to provide solutions that customers have been asking for, plus enabling some great new opportunities for our hosting partners in differentiating their offerings and targeting more specific offerings to the market.

There is a picture I used to help me articulate at our hosting event in London a few months ago that really talks to this:

It was great to see some of the UK hosting partners in attendance this year at WPC including, Cobweb, Genesis, IncreaseCRM, Endeavours, MasterNaut, Trident Group, NetworkSI and although they couldn't attend, 7Global were a finalist in the partner of the year award for Advanced Infrastructure Solutions – Hosting solutions.

I caught this post up on my colleague's blog on Hyper-V and support for Exchange. http://blogs.technet.com/jkruse/archive/2008/06/27/hyper-v-is-here-what-about-exchange.aspx

For those hosters who are considering delivering a Hyper-V based solution for virtualised Exchange solutions please see the following detail:

In case you haven't heard the news, we have released Hyper-V into the wild.  In fact did you know that 25% of microsoft.com is already running on Hyper-V VMs?

So what about Exchange Server?

As we recently announced at Tech.Ed USA, Microsoft will be publishing a support statement with respect to Exchange Server on Hyper-V within 60 days of today.

Some of the more noteworthy bits of info from the session are:

• Within 60 days of Hyper-V's RTM, the Exchange team will publish a detailed support statement for Hyper-V, and a TechNet article with best practices.
• Customers should not deploy Exchange on Hyper-V until our support guidance is available.
• Early results show that performance of Exchange 2007 on Hyper-V is quite good, and that it scales very well from 1-4 processors per VM.

In terms of best practices and requirements, the following guidance was released:

• We're only supporting guests running Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008.
• We're only supporting fixed disks, and not dynamic disks.
• Storage should be on spindles that are separate from the Guest operating system VHD physical storage.
• Storage must be SCSI passthrough or iSCSI (with a preference of SCSI passthrough for queues, databases and log files).
• All Exchange server roles, except for the Unified Messaging server role, will be supported.
• There's a limit on VHD size of 2040 GB.

Let's not forget however that the recommended method to build a hosted Exchange platform is to use the HMC 4.5 guidance found here: www.microsoft.com/hosting

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Virtualisation was "released to manufacturing" today - i.e. its done!

Expect a lot more resources on Microsoft.com to be updated overnight as the sites become live with info.

For now please see the press release:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/jun08/06-26hyperv.mspx

I haven't blogged about this document before but it's a great resource to get a good understanding about everything in Windows Server 2008

Here

I wanted to highlight this section from the new HMC 4.5 documentation:

There are two types of service providers who can make money from selling Microsoft Hosted Messaging and Collaboration version 4.5 based services, those who run the service themselves and those who are resellers.

Research shows that achieving a customer base of several thousands MAPI seats with monthly growth rates of 100's of seats is the minimum level to achieve profitability in running the hosted Exchange platform as a commercial service provider and partners that will not achieve this level of customer adoption would be significantly more profitable through a reseller arrangement with a large scale white-label provider.

For service providers that run the services themselves, to run the service profitably, the key points are:

• To be able to invest enough money and people to run a high quality service with at least a 99.9% uptime SLA
• To be over 10,000 mailboxes soon, and expect to grow significantly over time
• To have a plan for how they are going to differentiate their service from others in the marketplace (probably through bundling other services together with the Hosted Messaging and Collaboration based services)
  

For service providers who are not going to have the scale identified above, Microsoft strongly encourages service providers that cannot achieve at least a 10,000 mailboxes customer base to seriously consider shifting away from the operational aspect of the hosted Exchange business and explore working with one of our white-label exchange service providers that can be found at Hosted Exchange Server Partner Directory.

This means that they will not run Microsoft Hosted Messaging and Collaboration version 4.5. Instead, they will find a provider with whom they can partner and sell the service run by that partner.

Ok so not hosting related in anyway but just a great video playing around with megapixel images on a Surface device using Seadragon technology.

http://www.gottabemobile.com/GBM+Shortcut+Live+Labs+Seadragon+On+Surface.aspx

The new site looks fab: hopefully it will make it easier to find the content!

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/serviceproviders/default.aspx

Following up on the news that the support policy has changed for hosters using the HMC solution: http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/solutions/hmcpremiersupport.mspx

If any hoster in the UK has trouble contacting PSS for support post this change: Do let me know via the blog.

Clearly I'm not the most scalable or correct channel into support but with this change I wanted to make sure you had a method of contacting MS to discuss support options.

If it becomes email overload I may try a different method, but until then...

Gavin

(Click the email button at the top of the page)

The Business Applications Services Enablement (BASE) Team is proud to announce the official release of the Microsoft Solution for
Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) 4.5

HMC 4.5 brings together powerful Microsoft enterprise products such as
Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, and
now gives you Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, which
manages all real-time communications such as instant messaging (IM)
and audio and video conferencing.

Folks,

I hear that the release of HMC 4.5 is very close. In fact potentially hours away. Keep checking back on the MS website www.microsoft.com/hosting and http://www.microsoft.com/technet/serviceproviders/default.mspx for the bits.

I will post when I see the source up there.

In the mean time check out the HMC 4.5 brochure:

Gavin

http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Microsoft/VARs-Eye-Boom-in-Hosted-Microsoft-Exchange-Business/

Interesting article from the VAR perspective of Microsoft's move into delivering services to customers.

"they said, the fact that Microsoft was getting into the game both validated the market and was sure to increase awareness that such services are a viable option for businesses.  That's the kind of promotion Microsoft partners, even the big ones, can't buy for themselves.

Folks, getting a lot of requests for details on HMC 4.5... It's coming really soon just hold on a little bit longer!!!

In the meantime make yourself aware of the HMC 4.0 docs as a lot of the base architecture will remain the same, and will provide a great understanding and familiarity as a first port of call.

Please see the following KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;947005

Submit a Video about Your Solution - https://www.wpcvideos.com/

Viral video: It's the perfect way to make the case for your solutions. In your own words. No expensive production required. Take advantage of this exciting new opportunity to demonstrate your ability to build innovative solutions based on Microsoft technologies. Microsoft is launching an initiative that enables you to showcase your solutions to Microsoft, Microsoft partners, and prospective customers. Whether your solution is about building software or providing services, we want to hear from you.

This environment is a great opportunity to showcase Web 2.0 experiences and compelling visual solutions.

Check back often as more details become available. But start submitting your videos now. And benefit from the extra exposure you could receive at the 2008 Worldwide Partner Conference, July 7–10, 2008, in Houston, Texas.