Microsoft Management News - 12/1/04
Major Management Announcements at ITForum 2004, Copenhagen
Bill Gates delivers vision for reducing IT complexity and announces software advances for operational efficiency at IT Forum Europe. Other announcements include the worldwide availability of new Windows Server System technologies, including Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 and Virtual Server 2005. These two products enable customers to reduce cost and complexity of managing distributed systems, as part of Microsoft's Dynamic Systems Initiative.
Microsoft and Dell Announce Strategic Development Partnership
Microsoft and Dell announced a strategic development partnership aimed at improving the way customers manage systems across the enterprise. As part of this partnership, the companies are simplifying the way customers update hundreds to thousands of Dell servers in their enterprise with the first unified change-management solution that leverages existing operating system management applications for hardware updates.
Released: Virtual Server Migration Tool (VSMT)
The Virtual Server Migration Tool (VSMT) focuses on the problem of simplifying the migration of a complete Windows server environment from a physical server to a virtual server configuration. Without VSMT, the process of migrating from a physical server into a virtual sever would be the same as trying to build a clone of an existing server – a time consuming process.
One of two approaches could be taken – 1) An administrator could image an existing server, install the imaging software in the virtual server session, and then restore the image into the virtual server instance, or 2) the provisioning of the server would have to be scripted such that the server could be rebuilt from the ground up in a virtual server environment. VSMT automates this process and quickly helps migrate a functional physical server environment to a virtual environment – in most cases taking less than an hour.
Some of the potential usage scenarios for VSMT are:
- Legacy application migration to Virtual Server 2005.
VSMT provides a quick and easy method for customers to migrate legacy NT4 applications to an instance of Windows NT 4 running as virtual machine in VS. Applications can be moved to new hardware for better performance, reliability, and maintainability – helping the rapid migration of existing server workloads to new and improved hardware. - Targeted server consolidation.
Multiple physical servers running at low utilization rates can be consolidated onto a smaller number of physical servers running Virtual Server 2005 and Windows Server 2003.
Upcoming Webcasts
- TechNet Webcast: Managing Your Group Policy Environment with GPMC (Part 12 of 14) (Level 200)
Wednesday, December 8, 2004 - 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Pacific Time
Matt Hester, TechNet Presenter, Microsoft Corporation.
In this session we discuss the use of the Group Policy Management Console to manage your Group Policy environment. We will include a discussion of Group Policy Results, explaining its role in policy management, and showing how you can use it to plan and determine what settings get applied when users and computers move around. We will also describe how to use a Staging Server to plan and test Group Policy, including a demonstration of the import and export of Policy objects between the test environment and the live servers. - TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 - Installing a two-node virtual machine cluster (Level 200)
Thursday, December 9, 2004 - 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM Pacific Time
Robert Larson, Subject Area Manager, Microsoft Corporation.
Looking for an easy way to build a cluster of virtual machines to avoid the cost and complexity of a physical environment? Attend this session to learn how to create a two-node cluster of virtual machines running Windows Server 2003 - a key feature of Virtual Server 2005. This session will include a demonstration of the steps involved in building a cluster of virtual machines. - TechNet Webcast: Virtual Server 2005 COM API: Automating Your Virtual World (Level 300)
Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM Pacific Time
Robert Larson, Subject Area Manager, Microsoft Corporation.
During this webcast you will learn about the Virtual Server COM API and how to create scripts to automate tasks like virtual machine creation, configuration, enumeration, and provisioning VMs for a test lab. The session will focus on demonstrating small scriplet building blocks and assembling them into useful scripts. Session assumes knowledge on writing VBScripts. - TechNet Webcast: Group Policy Best Practices (Part 14 of 14) (Level 200)
Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Pacific Time
Matt Hester, TechNet Presenter, Microsoft Corporation.
In this final session, we will offer some best practices for creating and applying GPOs in complex networking environments. We will also look at using inventory tools as a way to manage Group Policy objects.
