Microsoft Hosting Partner Technical Advisor Blog!

Exchange 2010 is Code Complete

htsblog — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:05:00 GMT

We are happy to announce that Exchange 2010 (on premise only version, not hosted version) is Code Complete! Our senior leadership team has signed off on the final code, and it has been sent to our early adopters for one final look before its public release. This Release to Manufacturing (RTM) milestone means we are on our way to general availability and the launch at Tech·Ed Europe 2009 (http://www.microsoft.com/europe/teched/) in early November.

Chris Samson

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 R2 RC Public Release

htsblog — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:04:00 GMT

SCVMM R2 RC Features

Storage Migration

We’ve heard from customers as well as field for the need for migrating storage of a running VM. This is especially relevant as customers migrate from their existing one VM per LUN deployments and consolidate their VMs into a single CSV (clustered shared volume) LUN when they upgrade to Windows 2008 Server R2.

With VMM R2, we’ve added the capability to do what we call “Quick Storage Migration”. This feature enables migration of a VM’s storage both within the same host and across hosts while the VM is running with a minimum of downtime. The downtime depends on the amount of activity going on in the VM at the time of migration, our tests have shown typical downtimes to be less than 2 minutes.

We’ve also added the capability to do VMware storage vMotion which allows the storage of a VM to be transferred while the VM remains on the same host with no downtime.

Queuing of Live migrations

While live migration is the much awaited new feature in Windows 2008 Server R2, it does come with a limitation in that a host can participate in only one live migration at any given time, both as source and destination. This means that the user has to wait for the live migration to complete before attempting another one.

In VMM R2, we’ve added the capability to detect the condition where live migration fails due to another live migration in progress and queue up the request in the background and retry the request after a period of time. The retry intervals are exponentially backed off to avoid overloading the system and the retries are capped to a max time period (15 minutes). This feature enables users to do multiple live migrations without needing to keep track of other live migrations that are happening within the cluster and VMM R2 will automatically do the queuing and retries in the background.

Rapid Provisioning

This feature is again in response to customers and field requests. In VMM 2008, the only way to deploy a new VM is to copy the VHD from the library to the host over the network using BITS. Depending on the size of VHD and the available bandwidth, this could take several minutes or even hours. We heard from a lot of customers that they have sophisticated SAN technologies that enables them to clone a LUN which contains the VHD and present it to the host. But they still want to use VMM’s template so the OS customization and IC installation can be done. So they basically wanted new-VM without the network copy which is exactly what we did in R2. You can now create a template which includes the OS answer file and which references a dummy VHD which is not used.

Host compatibility checks

VM migration requires host hardware to be compatible. This includes things like CPU features, enlightenment parity etc. In VMM R2, we’ve added deep check for compatibility using Hyper-V and VMWare compatibility check APIs. This enables users to check if VM is compatible with the destination host instead of doing the migration and then finding out that the VM cannot start on the host.

A related feature is to make VM compatible; it’s a setting per VM that turns off certain CPU features in VM so it becomes compatible with the host. This is a tradeoff between using advanced CPU features of the host versus making VM more compatible for migration. This setting requires that the VM be restarted to take effect.

Support for 3rd party CFS

There are companies that build clustered file systems that functionally is similar to CSV in that it enables multiple hosts to have shared access to a disk resource. In VMM R2, we support such file systems by detecting it’s a CFS disk and allow for deploying multiple VMs per LUN. This enables customers who have deployed such file systems (Melo from Sanbolic is one that we’ve tested with) to take advantage of this new capability.

Support for Veritas Volume Manager

We’ve also added support for Veritas volume manager which enables VMM R2 to recognize Veritas volume manager disk as a cluster disk resource.

As you can see, there’s a ton of new stuff that’s coming in RC and this list doesn’t include all those features that we already shipped in Beta.

RC availability

The bits will be available via Connect https://connect.microsoft.com/

Chris Samson

Senior Hosting Technology Specialist

Microsoft

Windows Server 2008 SP2 - Download available

htsblog — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:57:00 GMT

Overview

Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2008 is an update to Windows Server 2008 that supports new kinds of hardware and emerging hardware standards, and includes all updates delivered since SP1. SP2 simplifies administration by enabling IT administrators to deploy and support a single service pack for clients and servers. Please see the Windows Server SP2 page on TechNet/MSDN for additional details and documentation.

Windows Server 2008 SP2 TechNet

SP2 is an update to Windows Server 2008 that incorporates improvements discovered through automated feedback, as well as updates that have been delivered since SP1. By providing these fixes integrated into a single service pack for both client and server, Microsoft provides a single high-quality update that minimizes deployment and testing complexity for customers.

Service Pack 1 is a prerequisite for installing Service Pack 2. Please make sure that your system is running Service Pack 1 before you install Service Pack 2.

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 - Five Language Standalone version can be installed on x64-based systems with any of the following language versions: English, French, German, Japanese, or Spanish.

If your system has additional languages please use the All Language Standalone for x64-based systems to install SP2.

Chris Samson

Software + Services Technology Specialist

Operations Manager 2007 R2 - Released to Market!

htsblog — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:51:00 GMT

The RTM of Operations Manager 2007 R2 released today!

New Functionality

Operations Manager 2007 R2 introduces key new and enhanced functionality, including:

· Enhanced application performance and availability across heterogeneous platforms

· Delivers monitoring across Windows, Linux and UNIX servers–all through a single console.

· Extends end to end monitoring of distributed applications to any workload running on Windows, UNIX and Linux platforms.

· Maximize availability of virtual workloads with integration with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008.

· Improved management of applications in the data center

· Delivers on the scale requirements of URL monitoring of your business.

· Meet agreed service levels with enhanced reporting showing application performance and availability.

· More efficient problem identification and action to resolve issues.

· Increased speed of access to information and functionality to drive management

· Faster load times for views and results.

· Improved and simplified management pack authoring experience

· Newly released collateral includes the following:

Thanks and Enjoy!

Chris Samson - Senior Hosting Technology Specialist

Online Assistance for your SPLA licensing questions

htsblog — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:42:00 GMT

This is a new webpage that will serve as another avenue to assist you in getting your SPLA based licensing questions answered, give it a try!

http://www.mslicense.com/Pages/livechat.aspx

In order to access Live Chat and begin working with an agent, you will need to access a front-end chat entry web page, complete a simple entry form and click on the ‘Chat Now’ button. From there, you will quickly be connected to one of our professionally trained support agents who will provide quick and reliable answers to your questions real time!

(Please select ‘SPLA Hoster’ in the Company Name drop down.)

Windows 7 Release Candidate available on Technet, MSDN

htsblog — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:58:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce that the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate (RC) is available for immediate download to our TechNet and MSDN subscribers. If you’re not a TechNet Plus subscriber, please click here to learn about the benefits of becoming one.

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 RC will be made available to the general public on May 5, 2009. You will then be able to download Windows 7 RC here, through the Springboard Series on TechNet. Windows 7 Ultimate is the Release Candidate edition; it will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions in English, French, Japanese, German, and Spanish.

Windows 7 RC offers many improvements over the beta release, including:

DirectAccess User Experience — Corporate Connectivity Notification has been removed to simplify the user experience; only Internet Access is displayed.
User Account Control (UAC) — In the beta release, a user could change the notification level in the UAC control panel without receiving a prompt for administrative credentials. The UAC control panel now runs in a high integrity process; changing the level of the UAC will prompt for confirmation. When a user is logged on with a standard user account, that user must provide administrative credentials to change the default UAC notification level.
AppLocker — The AppLocker UI includes a new Group Policy administrative template, which can be configured by an administrator to display a customized URL when AppLocker blocks an application from starting. The message can be used to reduce help desk calls by directing users to a helpdesk intranet site.
System Partition Size — The Windows 7/WS08 2008 R2 partition drive size (required for Bit Locker and Windows Recovery Environment) has been reduced from 200MB to 100MB.
Network Troubleshooting — Support for diagnostics is greatly enhanced, including a new Windows Troubleshooting Pack for DirectAccess within Control Panel. If a resource is not reachable (for example, a Web site fails to load), use 'Diagnose Connection' in Internet Explorer or 'Troubleshoot problems' diagnostic entry points to help determine the cause of the issue.

Thanks,

Chris Samson

Senior Hosting Technology Specialist

Exchange 2010 Public Beta released!

htsblog — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:37:00 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/default.aspx

Go here to grab the beta download. We will update you in the near future to discuss how this will work for Hosters specifically.

Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008 Available Today

htsblog — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:14:00 GMT

Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008 will be available today for customers. The Service pack is available via download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/default.aspx and is primarily a roll-up of previous cumulative updates, quick fix engineering updates and minor fixes made in response to requests reported through the SQL Server community. While there are no new features in this service pack, customers running SQL Server 2008 should download and install SP1 to take advantage of the fixes which increase supportability and stability of SQL Server 2008.

Customers have no reason to wait to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 and many are already taking advantage of SQL Server 2008 as a smart IT investment. In fact, there have been over 3 million downloads of SQL Server 2008 since the RTM in August. With this Service pack, Microsoft is introducing 80% fewer changes to customer configurations compared to previous SQL Server Service Pack releases. This remarkable decrease is a testament to a revised product development process and updated servicing strategy that is focused on ease of deployment while keeping customer environments stable.

With this service pack, Microsoft has made investments to ease deployment and make management of service packs more efficient. Key improvements in SP1 include Slipstream, Service Pack Uninstall and Report Builder 2.0 click-once deployment.

o Slipstream allows administrators to install SQL Server 2008 and Service Pack 1 in a single instance. This decreases the total time for an installation, including a fewer number of reboots thereby increasing productivity and deployment availability.

o Service Pack Uninstall allows administrators to uninstall the service pack separately from the database release. This feature also improves DBA productivity, reduces the cost of deployment and improves overall supportability

o Report Builder 2.0 Click Once improves the existing SQL Server end-user report authoring application by easing deployment to business users

To download the SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1, please click here.

For more information on SQL Server 2008, please click here.

Thanks!

Chris Samson

Senior Hosting Technology Specialist

Just Released - Hyper-V Security Guide!

htsblog — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 09:42:00 GMT

This guide is designed to provide you with guidance, instructions, and recommendations to help you elevate the security of virtualized Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 environments to address your business-critical needs.

The Hyper-V Security Guide focuses on three key areas and provides the following information:

• Hardening the Hyper-V role. Prescriptive guidance for hardening the Hyper-V role, including several best practices for installing and configuring Hyper-V with a focus on security. These best practices include measures for reducing the attack surface of Hyper-V as well as recommendations for properly configuring secure virtual networks and storage devices.

• Delegating virtual machine management. Prescriptive guidance to help you safely and securely delegate administrative access to virtual machine resources within an organization.

• Protecting virtual machines. Prescriptive guidance for securing virtual machine resources, including best practices and detailed steps for protecting virtual machines by using a combination of file system permissions, encryption, and auditing.

Next steps

• Get all the details about the guide by visiting the Hyper-V Security Page on Microsoft TechNet.

• Download the Hyper-V Security Guide

Enjoy!

Chris Samson

Senior Hosting Technology Specialist

Microsoft

Announcing the Microsoft Web Platform: Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta and Windows Web Application Gallery!

htsblog — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:24:00 GMT

On Wednesday, March 18 at MIX ’09 the Developer Division will announce a number of new products and initiatives designed to build on the company’s multi-faceted investment in the Web. As always, we welcome your help in generating awareness and buzz around this news via your blogs. Since your blogs are commonly read by the press and the community, the information below provides some general guidelines and information on the announcements to consider as you plan to blog.

Announcing

Announcing the Microsoft Web Platform: Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta and Windows Web Application Gallery!

Key Announcements

· The Microsoft Web Platform has the vision and the goal to deliver the best platform to developers for building their Web applications. Microsoft is committed to delivering the platform, tools, and applications that development organizations, communities, and developers need and value; with the long-term idea of supporting a lucrative market to benefit developers and end-users. The Microsoft Platform is designed to interoperate with both ASP.NET and PHP, and integrate easily with community applications and products in the market today.

· The Web Platform Installer (WebPI) is a simplified download/install experience for all of Microsoft’s free web products. It includes everything that you need to get up and running to build your web solutions – from servers, tools, and technologies, including the most recently updated products. No longer will we be asking you to go to 10 different websites to get your products – with the WebPI, you can do this all through one integrated experience – and all on one website – www.microsoft.com/web. Additionally, the WebPI installs the community version of PHP so you have easy integration with popular web applications.

· The Windows Web Application Gallery is a community hub of free and popular .NET and PHP applications for you to use as building blocks for creating dynamic web solutions. Additionally, if you have a free web application you’d like to add to the Windows Web App Gallery – you can do so – and we’ll market & distribute these apps – your apps - to millions of Windows developers worldwide. Our goal here is to accelerate the speed of developing web solutions for your business – as well as provide all the guidance, building blocks, and products you’ll need to be successful.

Specifics about the Windows Web Application Gallery:

· www.microsoft.com/web/gallery

· Web Application Gallery is a destination to browse and discover community applications that install and deploy well on Windows

· The application developer owns the distribution point. Web App Gallery provides links to application ZIP packages with Web Development Tool integration on the application developer’s web site. We are not snap-shotting code and storing it on Microsoft servers. We point to community servers for the packages with Web Deployment integration, which is maintained and supported as part of the community app package by the community.

· Integration with the Web Deployment Tool is designed to work with existing application packages. You need to add a couple of manifest files to the root of your existing ZIP package using the Application Packaging Guide<http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/578/application-packaging-guide-for-the-windows-web-application-gallery/>, test to make sure that you work on the platforms supported by Web Platform Installer, and follow the other Web Application Gallery Principles<http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/605/web-application-gallery-principles/>.

Thanks!

Chris Samson

Senior Hosting Technology Specialist

RIP ExchangeLabs, Hello Outlook Live!

htsblog — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:40:00 GMT

So this is pretty big news for the hosting community in several ways. First it shows that Microsoft is committed to students having access to way cooler email experiences than everyone else! It is also a heads up to some new and exciting features in the next version of Exchange.

The previously labelled Exchange Labs provided free mailboxes on Exchange 14 to students. This was a great way for Microsoft to make sure that Exchange 14 will scale to very large numbers as well as test other scenarios and new features of Exchange. So whats new? To start, this program has been renamed to Outlook Live. In addition to just students being able to sign up for these services, this is now open to faculty as well.

In addition Microsoft is providing a new browser experience in a few ways, I cant put it as well as KC Lemson, so here are her words:

"One of the biggest features we're announcing today is multi-browser support for the premium version of Outlook Web Access (OWA). With Exchange 14, you can access the premium version of OWA or Outlook Live with Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer. We’ve always supported all browsers with what we call “OWA Light”, a simpler version of OWA. The difference now is that you can get the full rich experience with drag ‘n drop & the rest of that AJAX-y goodness in all three browsers."

In addition to that great announcement, there will also be Instant messaging integrated right into the OWA browser!!

Check out the neat video demo here http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/02/12/450639.aspx

Stay tuned to this Blog for more info on Exchange 14 and the impending beta program!

Marcel Messing

Hosting Technology Specialist

Sign up to attend Hosting Days today!

htsblog — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:46:00 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/hosting/resources/microsofthostingdays.mspx

The description below should give you all the information you need as to why to attend this event, but to sum up Hosting Days is a chance for you to meet up with fellow hosters as well as meet your local Microsoft Hosting Technology specialists and pick their brain about your current offerings and future trends in the hosting industry. Sign up today and we will see you at Hosting Days!

This FREE seminar will give you the knowledge and tools you need to expand your business. For Pure Hosters, Telcos, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), Resellers (VARs), and System Integrators this is a must-attend event ... for the entire ecosystem!

Microsoft Hosting Days is an annual event series, with a variety of event formats worldwide, that offers a unique opportunity to network with key Microsoft professionals as well as your partners within the hosting ecosystem. This FREE seminar will show you how to:

Leverage Windows Server 2008 for next-generation Windows Hosting platform
Turn the growing opportunities for software-plus-services on Windows technology into business advantage
Capitalize on the wide range of business opportunities available with the Windows Hosting platform, including Hosted Messaging & Collaboration, Hosted CRM, and Hosted Dynamics
Align your business with Microsoft’s product roadmap to maximize benefits from the planned testing, release and availability of Microsoft products and services, especially with SharePoint 3.0 and IIS 7.0
Reduce your total cost of ownership by deploying your Web servers on Hyper-V (hypervisor-based virtualization platform in Windows Server 2008)
Learn about the impact of the new Microsoft Partner Program Hosting Competency
Sell Business-Class E-mail to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) using Marketing Best Practices
Learn how to become a SaaS ISV, select a SaaS hosting partner and grow your SaaS business

United States and North America locations

Reston, VA

19 February 2009

Orange County/ Irvine, CA

26 March 2009

Chicago, IL

16 April 2009

Mississauga, Canada

18 February 2009

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

24 February 2009

Marcel Messing

Hosting Technology Specialist

Hosting Deployment Accelerator available on the web!

htsblog — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:26:00 GMT

UPDATED 3/23/09!! NEW LINK! http://www.microsoft.com/hosting/accelerate/demo.mspx

This is a great resource for hosters who would like to get new products like Hyper-V, SQL 2008 and IIS 7 out and into production fast! They also apparenly spent some extra time making this site look and flow in a really great way!

Dont take my word for it. Check it out ASAP: http://www.microsoft.com/hosting/accelerate/demo.mspx

Marcel Messing

Hosting Technology Specialist

ASP.NET will now work in Server Core with Windows 2008 R2

htsblog — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:03:00 GMT

The Server Core team posted a great blog post that talks about changes coming in Windows 2008 R2. We're extremely excited that ASP.NET and a subset of the .NET Framework will be supported in Windows 2008 R2.

You can find our more here: http://blogs.technet.com/server_core/archive/2008/11/13/server-core-changes-in-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

In case you're not at PDC...

htsblog — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:18:00 GMT

We've announced a TON of exciting things at PDC!! If you're like me and weren't able to attend in person, you can view all of the sessions online, on-demand here:

The first two days are already published and by weeks end I'd expect everything to be posted. To find these sessions simply visit the official websites session timeline page, click on the session you want to view and hopefully you’ll see a “View Session Detail” button that redirects to Channel9 where the actual videos and PowerPoint slides can be found.

This brings me to my next point. Encouraging you to make your own mini-PDC happen at your company! Why is this a good idea?

Here are just a few benefits:

First of all, the team will have a great chance to bond.
The team will also learn about technologies that will soon be critical to their business.
Developers given a chance to think about technology and get away from the “day-to-day” will get inspired about the future.

Even if you can't block off a whole day, spending some time over a long lunch together watching a few sessions would be the next best thing.

Adam