Windows Server 2008

For those who may not have seen this on the Microsoft Virtualization blog, the Hyper-V Linux Integration Services for Linux Version 2.1 just went RTM! This is great news for customers using virtualization in a heterogeneous data center environment. Hyper-V has supported Linux as a guest OS for a long time, and this new release really enhances that support at a granular level. You can look for the following new features in the 2.1 release:  

• Driver support for synthetic devices: Linux Integration Services supports the synthetic network controller and the synthetic storage controller that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.
• Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.
• Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the host.
• Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be gracefully shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
• Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.
• Heartbeat: Allows the host to detect whether the guest is running and responsive.
• Pluggable Time Source: A pluggable clock source module is included to provide a more accurate time source to the guest.

Also, please note that this version supports Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 / 5.3 / 5.4 / 5.5. Head on over to the download page to give it a try.

Our series of articles on deploying Windows concludes with the addition of Windows Deployment Services to complete our LTI deployment infrastructure.

GFI MailArchiver for Exchange was selected the winner in the Email Archiving Software category of the WindowsNetworking.com Readers' Choice Awards. Symantec Enterprise Vault and Sherpa Archive Attender for Exchange were runner-up and second runner-up respectively.

A short description of each of the six original RAID architectures. Introducing some of the common terminology associated with RAID and computer storage in general.

Wednesday (7/21) was an exciting day for customer Direct Edge. They’re a new stock exchange, and are expected to handle 10%-13% of the monthly U.S. stock trading volume, which comes to an average of 1.4 billion shares a day. You can see news article here and here.

Microsoft, and other technology partners, joined them on stage Wednesday as their CEO “rang the bell” at the open of the market.

Direct Edge datacenter is in Secaucus, New Jersey. They’re running highly clustered Windows Server 2008 environment for low latency, and improved reliability and performance. The CEO said they’ll publish latency numbers in the near future.  They’re using SQL Server 2008, including row/page compression so they can improve I/O utilization and memory utilization, and reduce storage costs. They developed their trading applications using .NET framework.

Three years ago Direct Edge was 1% of the trading volume and less than 20 employees. Now they’re a double-digit player in U.S. capital market with more than 80 employees. Their CEO said that they’re planning to grow against their competitors using better infrastructure and new technology to create better subscriber experience. It’s great to work with customers like Direct Edge. And it was a privilege to participate in Wednesday’s launch of the new stock exchange.

Patrick O’Rourke

This article continues the discussion of Windows 7 compatibility testing by examining feedback from application vendors and the IT community.

This series of articles on deploying Windows 7 continues by showing how you can manage software updates during the deployment process.

How AuthIP contributes greatly towards enhancing IPsec capabilities and functionality.

The Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team is happy to announce that the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.0 is now available!  This is one of the most useful and popular of Microsoft's planning toolkits allowing customers and partners to automatically assess your current infrastructure and make recommendations for future capacity and compliance. The new version 5 release has several new features, including:

• Heterogeneous server environment inventory
• Software usage tracking for Windows Server, SharePoint Server, System Center Configuration Manager, Exchange Server and SQL Server
• Microsoft Office 2010 readiness assessment
• SQL Server discovery and assessment for consolidation
• Windows 2000 Server migration assessment

This is a powerful tool for assessing your current IT situation and planning for the future -- and it's free! Make sure to check it out.

An overview of solid state drive technology and an explanation on how innovation (specifically Fusion IO's innovation) is reducing some of these limitations.