Windows Server 2008

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Fpweb.net tried a VMware virtualization solution to cut hardware costs but reached the limit of the product’s capabilities. To expand its virtualized environment, Fpweb.net switched to Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, saving U.S.$100,800 in licensing costs over the VMware option. It has since virtualized 115 servers, avoiding an increase in data center rental costs of $180,000 a year and raising IT worker productivity by 30 percent.

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Greetings!  Chris Steffen here again. You may have read my posts regarding virtualization and green IT in the past.

I had the opportunity to spend the week at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) recently.  While I am not a programmer, as a technical architect, I took away several interesting tidbits from the conference that I thought I would take a moment to share:

1.  Windows Azure is the real deal. Previously, it seemed to be a hodge-podge of somewhat related technologies, with some of them helping customers get into the “cloud” – something elusive and barely defined, but very likely the next cool thing.  PDC 2009 changed that forever.  Now there is a complete roadmap, from application development to system monitoring tools to OS and database support.  Microsoft is the only company out there that has the complete solution—and it is about time someone did.

2.  The “cloud” defined (sort of).  What does it mean to be part of a “cloud”? I have actually had this discussion on multiple occasions, and while two individuals might be able to come up with an acceptable definition, no one has come out and established what it means to be “cloudy.” Finally, Bob Muglia, in his keynote address on Tuesday, has done so. Flexibility, scalability, self service, on-demand provisioning and virtualization are all key components to being part of the cloud.  More importantly, he also made it clear that you don’t need to do all these things to be part of the cloud – covering most of them is acceptable.  Of course, Microsoft has a solution for each of these components, with more tools in development to make it even easier.

3.  Some is better than none.  It was refreshing to hear that Microsoft is not thinking that everyone will migrate everything to the cloud immediately.  In fact, they are taking a very realistic approach to the cloud as a whole, fully expecting that it will be a deliberative process and that it is very likely that some sort of hybrid environment (part public cloud and part private cloud) will always exist.  Some of the other existing cloud providers could stand to learn a thing or two from this approach.

4.  One size does not fit all.  Probably the most interesting thing that I heard (repeatedly, I might add) is the idea that Azure is not a “one size fits all” solution.  Quite the opposite, in fact. Microsoft wants to bring cloud computing to the masses, but is keenly aware that providing for the masses means that there are niche markets for which they will not be able to directly provide, and that their partner hosting providers are expected to fill this space.  They understand that they are going to get the business – either directly through subscriptions to Windows Azure or through hosting partners, using Microsoft’s operating systems and management tools.  Pretty smart long-term thinking…

Overall, the developers that I talked to at the conference were excited about cloud computing.  Much in the same way that virtualization is the “it” technology among systems and operations folks. 

The forecast is cloudy!

 

Chris Steffen

Principal Technical Architect

Kroll Factual Data

This series of articles on deploying Windows 7 continues by discussing how to plan for application compatibility.

For all geek poets,

A Windows Server haiku

Means prizes click here

 

Oliver Rist

Yesterday at PDC, Ray Ozzie and Bob Muglia announced the global availability of Microsoft’s new cloud computing service – Windows Azure Platform. In addition, Ray and Bob announced a number of additional announcements related to Windows Server.  I wanted to take a moment and provide some context for all our existing Windows Server customers and partners.

For our existing Windows Server customers, the most important announcement at PDC was that in the future Windows Azure will support Windows Server virtual machines.  This Windows Server VM support will make it easier for customers to move their existing Windows Server applications onto Windows Azure. Microsoft is still evaluating the best approach and the timeline for VM support on Azure but we do know that virtual machines on Windows Azure will allow customers to take advantage of Windows Azure’s automated management capabilities. We also strongly encourage our customers to work with our thousands of hosting partners such as GoGrid, RackSpace, MaximumASP that provide hosting of Windows Server and SQL Server. If customers have increased compute capacity demands or need to deliver new applications to their customers as soon as possible, our Windows Server and SQL Server hosting partners are another great option. Here is a site to find out more about our Windows Server hosting partners.

Bob Muglia also announced today the beta release of Windows Server AppFabric. This new Windows Server technology allows developers and IT Pros to more easily build and manage composite web-applications and to more easily create scale-out application on Windows Server and IIS. Windows Server AppFabric Beta 1 is available now and will be available and will be supported on Windows Azure in the future.  This will allow customers to write an application once and then run it either on Windows Server or Windows Azure with minimal or no re-factoring.

So what is Windows Azure? Windows Azure is both a new cloud platform and a management service hosted in Microsoft datacenters. It is optimized for independent software vendors and enterprises to build new applications that span from consumer Web applications (such as the Dominos Pizza web site) to enterprise applications.  Windows Azure is not simply hosted Windows Server. It is a new cloud computing platform that makes it easy to build new scale-out applications and provides an integrated development platform via Visual Studio.

Importantly, Windows Azure was designed to interoperate with Microsoft’s existing products. This integration allows our customers to leverage existing skills sets and investments in Windows Server, SQL Server, Visual Studio and System Center. For instance, an enterprise can use their existing Active Directory infrastructure to provide user access to a Windows Azure application in order to maintain a single authentication approach for all applications. As another example of leveraging existing investments, developers build Windows Azure applications in the same tool that they develop applications for Windows Server. Over time, customers will be able to manage Windows Azure applications in System Center in the same way they manage their on-premises applications.  These examples highlight a key strategy of Microsoft – we will provide customers platform flexibility while delivering common application technologies, developer tools and system management tools for datacenters behind the firewall or in the cloud.

Some great news from PDC.  I encourage you to watch the conference online at www.MicrosoftPDC.com and to start evaluating both Windows Azure and Windows Server AppFabric.

Mike Neil

General Manager

Windows Server

Join Kevin Remde, a senior IT professional evangelist at Microsoft, and his guests for this webcast in which they address how Windows Server 2008 R2 help save energy with improved power efficiency, measurement, management capabilities for server and client computers.