Windows Server 2008

Microsoft is looking for participants in entities with at least 1 DBA, more than 25 PCs, and SQL Server installations across their organization. As part of SQL Server “Kilimanjaro”, they have announced baseline investments for application and multi-server management. They are recruiting customers to participate in a private CTP with SQL Server Engineering. Registration for the Private CTP will take place until December 15, 2008 and the 4-5 week Private CTP will begin in mid-January

 

Your SQL Server 2008 trial accounts includes:
Hyper-V Image
Reporting and Analysis Services
Integration Services
Full System Admin Rights

 

More details and sign up links can be fond here: http://www.sqlpass.org/hostedtrial/

 

See you in the cloud (or was that SkyNet) :-)

 

P.S. waiting for Jason Massie's comment how this is the beginning of the end for the DBA  ;-)

 

 

Hello everyone! Back in October I made a post about SP2. At that point, we allowed a small group of TAP customers access to the SP2 beta. Today, I am happy to announce our schedule for making SP2 available to everyone for download!

Starting today, TechNet and MSDN subscribers will be able to download the SP2 beta through our Customer Preview Program (CPP). If you are a TechNet or MSDN subscriber, you can gain access to the CPP through TechNet or MSDN today.  On Thursday, we will open the CPP to everyone through TechNet or MSDN. This CPP is designed to give developers and IT Professionals the opportunity to have an early look at SP2 by installing and testing in their environments. We hope these installs will give us great feedback through the automated feedback reporting tool to ensure we ship the highest quality Service Pack.

If you are interested in learning more about all the changes in SP2 for both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, take a look at the Notable Changes Document. Some of the changes I’m most excited about:

- The inclusion of Hyper V RTM bits in the Service Pack

- Changes to the power profile to yield additional power savings

For more information on what's in store for Windows Vista, see Mike Nash's blog posting. The Springboard Series is also a great place for more information as well.

We are tracking to ship SP2 in the first half of 2009. We value your feedback, so please download the SP2 beta!

Justin Graham
Senior PM Windows Server

The Business Productivity Online Standard Suite from Microsoft Online Services, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Live Meeting, is now available for businesses of all sizes to purchase in the United States. 

Microsoft provides a range of tools and utilities that can help organizations successfully deploy Windows Vista. This Learning Snack describes how to deploy Windows Vista across a network and demonstrates how to create Windows Vista installation images and deploy them on desktops on a network. It also provides guidelines and best practices for deploying Windows Vista in an organization.

Use the IE8 Admin Kit to simplify the creation, deployment, and management of customized Internet Explorer 8 packages. This kit can be used to configure the out-of-box Internet Explorer 8 experience or to manage user settings after Internet Explorer 8 deployment.