Still, we got some great contacts out of it and had an interesting chat with the guys from Fusion-IO (who have some scary fast IO accelerator technology) about one of our customers. The speakers at the presentations we went to were great but the one that really stood out was an industry panel done lead by Equinix.

While the venue was OK, and some vendors were conspicuously absent it still shows just how important cloud platforms and services have become by the explosion of companies in this fairly new and rapidly growing sector. I don’t think there will ever be another IT industry expo that doesn’t focus on cloud.

In light of the shift to cloud technology and the benefits it brings, we are now offering discounted support to our customers who use Cloud services like Office 365. By reducing your operational complexity, we think it’s only fair to reduce the cost of supporting that reduced complexity. Are you getting a discount from your IT Support company for using Cloud services?

On a lighter note, we had a lot of fun taking pictures of all the marketing gimmicks there. Enjoy.

		Cloud Expo Europe 2012 Gimmicks VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Preparation

Downloads

SharePoint Foundation SP1: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26640

SharePoint August 2011 CU: http://hotfixv4.microsoft.com/Microsoft%20SharePoint%20Foundation%202010/sp2/sharepointfoundation2010kb2553050fullfil/14.0000.6109.5005/free/438521_intl_x64_zip.exe

SharePoint Search Server SP1: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26633

Backups

Of course backing up is critical all through the process so take (or have) a full backup of Windows on your web front ends and backup your SQL server databases before and after.

This being Search Server Express 2010 you might find that you are using SQL Server Express which means your databases should be pretty small so the process shouldn’t take long, not so in my case though… it look at a little while.

Installation Order and process

From this page it links you through to this page which implies you should have all the latest bits installed beforehand… although it’s not super clear as to whether you could install all three in a row without running psconfig until the end.

I’m following a cautious approach: Backup > SharePoint SP1 + Latest CU stuff and run psconfig > validate > Search Server SP1 stuff and run psconfig > validate > backup. Using this approach adds time to overall process but certainly doesn’t hurt. I’ll try to personally validate this “three in one approach” at a later time and/or when my interpretation or understanding changes for certain from someone older and wiser I’ll update this post. Until then, a little too much caution never hurt anyone. Bottom line, it worked just fine. SharePoint is well known for it’s sensitivity to installation order despite the latest advice from Microsoft since the August 2011 CU.

Patching SharePoint 2010 Foundation RTM up to August 2011 CU

This process took about 30 minutes with reboots and the time psconfig took to run. Obviously that has got more to do with the size of the databases and the performance of the SQL server but most SSE2010 installs are probably going to be something similar since while this environment is SQL 2K8 R2 it has very little content and still fairly small search databases.

SP1 & August CU 2011 Installation Validation

Central Admin > Upgrade & Migration > Check upgrade status

Central Admin > Upgrade & Migration > Check product and patch installation status

Patching Server Server Express RTM to Search Server Express SP1

1. Install Search Server 2010 SP1 (no reboot required)
2. Run PSConfig (psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait –force) or the GUI version, SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard.

Search Server 2010 SP1 Installation Validation

Central Admin > Upgrade & Migration > Check upgrade status

Central Admin > Upgrade & Migration > Check product and patch installation status

Central Administration > Search Service Application > Content Sources

Start an incremental crawl of one of your content sources and make sure it works. You could do more, e.g. a full crawl + search for something if you felt so inclined just to give it a slightly more thorough going over.

References:

Install a software update (SharePoint Server 2010) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff806338.aspx

SharePoint Foundation SP1: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26640

SharePoint August 2011 CU: http://hotfixv4.microsoft.com/Microsoft%20SharePoint%20Foundation%202010/sp2/sharepointfoundation2010kb2553050fullfil/14.0000.6109.5005/free/438521_intl_x64_zip.exe

SharePoint Search Server SP1: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26633

Known issues when you install Office 2010 SP1 and SharePoint 2010 SP1: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2532126

List of all SharePoint 2010 and Office Server 2010 SP1 packages: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510766

The Full Circle (www.thefullcircle.com) is a Microsoft Partner for both Online Services such as Office 365 (Public Cloud), and Virtualisation using Hyper-V with System Center (Private Cloud).

As part of this commitment we regularly attend Microsoft training and events, and over the course of this week there are a number of ‘Tech Days’ covering various industry hot topics – Cloud, Mobile, Web, Client and Server aimed at two distinct audiences – IT Pro’s and Developers.

Just over a year ago we attended the Virtualisation Summit TechDays event as covered in http://blog.thefullcircle.com/2010/04/12/microsoft-techdays-virtualization-summit-from-the-desktop-to-the-datacenter/
Today’s topic from the Vue Cinema in Fulham, West London (around the corner from the office ) is a continuation of last year’s theme – Private Cloud – running your own utility based compute platform using Microsoft technologies,  namely Hyper-V for virtualisation and System Center for management.

This 1-day event will provide you with an understanding of the latest technical updates for your datacentre & infrastructure investments. This event will share more expert knowledge and information than ever – with deep dive sessions on the Windows Server 2008 R2 platform, Hyper-V virtualization capability, and System Center end-to-end service management capabilities.

For more information, please visit: http://uktechdays.cloudapp.net/techdays-live/delivering-it-as-a-service-with-the-microsoft-private-cloud

Transforming your Datacentre

Kevin Sangwell

Virtualisation + Fabric Management + Mature Operations and Service Management + Cloud Principals = Private Cloud

a lot of benefit is based on stove pipes of provisioning teams – racking team handing off to system build, waiting on networks for VLANS, then storage team for LUNs, etc. to give the average time from order to service ready of a new server being c.12 weeks start to end.

In reality do many large IT shops still behave this way?  unfortunately for a lot of enterprise shops the answer is yes, this, is of course, fortunate for us!

Building the foundation: Server Virtualisation and Management

Julius Davies & Clive Watson (Data Centre Technology Specialists)

Evangelising Hyper-V, also introduced Hyper-V Server as ‘Enterprise’ but cut-down without GUI, same capabilities… in terms of CPU (64 Cores), Memory (1TB), etc. and the difference being that Enterprise and Data Center have licensing rights to run more VMs… this took me by surprise and at the break discussed with Stuart Leddy, old friend of ‘The Circle’ and Microsoft Core Infrastructure Marketing Lead – Server & Tools Business Group.

Hyper-V R2 Server is akin to Enterprise but cut-back, rather than the original Hyper-V Server which was more like Server Core with Standard constraints (32GB, etc.)…
since R2 – 1TB memory, 64 CPU cores – see:

Q. Are there any limitations to the number of processors and/or cores that Microsoft Hyper-V Server can utilize?

A. Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 supports systems with up to 64 logical processors on the physical machine.

Q. Are there any physical memory limitations to Microsoft Hyper-V Server?

A. Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 supports up to 1 TB of physical memory.

Teaming Support provided by NIC vendor

Intel = PROSet, Broadcom = BACS, HP = NCU
Best practise: :install/enable Hyper-V, then install networking utilities…. ???? WTF?  perhaps before configuring networking?  surely you present a Teamed NIC to Hyper-V rather than abstract post event

Hyper-V Networking for Clusters – guide at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff428137(WS.10).aspx

Best practise suggesting 5 separate networks!!  host mgmt, heartbeat, CSV’s, live migration, VM traffic, if iSCSI x2 with MPIO!  (interestingly their demo platform used 3 – Corpnet (External), Live Migration, and Storage

How can we better manage?

Clive talked about SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1… but not much SCVMM 2012… a shame!

interesting use of the term ‘evacuate virtual machines to another host’ (implementing a PRO Tip), and ‘rehydrating’ back onto a host once fixed.  Usual demo of Self Service and breaking VM’s – audit trail, etc.

ahha..a little bit about v.Next / 2012 – its all about Fabric Management!

VMM Self-Service Portal 2.0 – bringing business requests and IT service delivery/provisioning together.

HP Hyper-V Reference Architecture

Adam Richardson, HP & Neil MacCuish, CSC

Adam dot Richardson @HP.com – a sales guy, but a good sales guy.  Talking about the shape of HP customers and their agility, or rather, in a lot of cases lack of… 1 customer who took 18months to deploy a mail platform – yikes!

Some ‘Hyper-Customers’ – in excess of 100,000 servers installed – Microsoft is one of them.

Hyper-V Cloud Reference

Virtualisation at the Royal Mail

Customer Profile
The government owned Royal Mail Group (RMG) is responsible for universal mail collection and delivery in the United Kingdom and delivers more than 70 million items every working day.
Business Situation
RMG needed to improve the resilience and flexibility of its IT infrastructure to prepare the company to meet the challenge of a changing market for postal services.
Solution
The company looked to CSC as its IT outsourcing and systems integration partner to virtualise its servers using the Hyper-V feature of Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter.

Summary / Headlines

• 9 months to platform ready
• up to 720 Guest VM’s over 2 x HP 16 slot blade enclosures
• Delivered against plan** (of course, it evolved)

Key Points & Learnings

• Issues not really technology based – people change are harder
• ** Build it and they will come! – once the business realises you’re faster they will come to you
• Keeping it green, Service Integration
• One team – HP/CSC/Microsoft – go to meetings together, share the issues, share the plan

Managing your infrastructure with System Center

Ellis Paul & Paul Collins

Presenting your business case for Private Cloud

Adam Collins, Risual

Cloud, over time will allow a closer alignment between IT and the business by giving back time to focus on more strategic objectives and decision making. Understanding how to position with the business, build a technology roadmap and deliver long term value from your current and future investments is a critical task that can’t be put off any longer. Within this session you will be presented with the necessary tools to support you in taking advantage of Cloud solutions from both an experienced IT consultancy in Risual and a global customer in Paul Smith.

Very interesting session starting with the driver being ‘ensure predictable IT costs’ with five pillars to support:

Business
Service Delivery
Sustainability (Green IT) –
Contract Management –

Assumed Benefits – Financial, Operational Efficiency, Governance, CSAT, Innovation, Agility, Sustainable IT

Hyper-V and System Center- Competitive Comparisons

Matt McSpirit

You’ll learn more about the different components within the Hyper-V and System Center, but more specifically, how they can provide a greater level of comprehensive management, choice, and advanced automation.

Matt McSpirit for one of his last UK presentations before jumping to Redmond for a career in Corp. with Andrew Fryer doing his ‘Pap’ impression but with a gagging order this week..

As usual a great presentation from Matt who gave a deep (and broad!) session on why Hyper-V isn’t just a viable alternative to VMware, but a serious contender.  In a lot of cases not just a better value proposition (not difficult) but also more performant (not so easy!), and with independent 3rd party evidence to back up the claims e.g. TS workloads on VMware, Hyper-V R2 SP1, and XenServer (Virtual Reality Check – Phase II version 2.0) and more at http://www.virtualrealitycheck.net (same as http://www.projectvrc.nl)

There was a lot of myth busting around the issue often cited that Hyper-V is fundamentally flawed because it sits on top of Windows – of course there is Hyper-V Server (think Server Core), but what isn’t common knowledge is how many patches there have been for VMware and some pretty high profile issues, and as per Microsoft many require guest or host restarts – its not just Microsoft platforms that require reboots!

And, of course Matt plugged http://virtualboytv.com for great content including video walk-through’s and more e.g. bare-metal to live migration in under an hour!! – I’ve used Matt’s site as a handy reference and basic training tool many times and highly recommend as well worth your time.

What next?

For more information on what The Full Circle can do to help you find your way in the clouds, see http://www.thefullcircle.com/whatWeDo/Pages/Cloud.aspx

Inframon, headed by Gordon McKenna and Sean Roberts are old friends of ‘The Circle’ since we attended their System Center Train the Trainer workshop in November 2008.  Since then we’ve kept in touch at various events & launches, and when they are hosting they always deliver a cracking event.

Indeed, a fair summary as I wrote to some colleagues only a few weeks ago..

Coming up on the 5th November is Inframon’s War on Cost which is basically a 1-day systems management focussed preview of TechEd Europe which starts the following week in Berlin.
A whole bunch of senior Redmond folk come over the week before TechEd to present at this event, hit the town for a few beers (limited for me am afraid this year), stay the weekend in London before going on to Berlin for yet more & possibly better beer!
 
So, click on http://www.waroncost.com/ to register – I’ll absolutely guarantee you, if you have an interest/responsibility in managing a Microsoft estate then you will get a load of value from this event.

The official agenda is below, and if I made notes I’ve added them in-line with the agenda:

Event Schedule

Inframon, the UK’s leading specialist in the Microsoft System Center suite present "War On Cost 2010", a very exclusive event which will be taking place in the Cabinet War Rooms in the heart of London, an historic underground complex that housed a British government command centre throughout the Second World War.

The aim of this event is to give you valuable information on how you can help your organisation drive down the cost of managing your Windows and Non-Windows based infrastructure using the Microsoft System Center Suite of products.

Featuring two dynamic tracks aimed at both Business and Technical decision makers, to give you the knowledge you need to make a difference in your organisation.

09:00 – 09:30 INFRAMON KEYNOTE

Introductory keynote from Gordon McKenna, CEO at Inframon setting the scene for our theme "The War on Cost"

Unfortunately I missed the start of Gordon’s keynote as I was unable to enter the Cabinet War Rooms due to an ‘entry lockdown’ whilst waiting for the PM to arrive and enter the building… okay I was slightly late in the first place… but no, not a Churchill impersonator, but Mr David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister!
‘Dave’ as he’s known to his mates was at the war rooms for an interview with ITV – maybe related to the recent UK Government spending cuts and the UK’s War on Cost…?

David Cameron speaking about The War On Cost..?

I eventually got in the building to then wander around the maze that was the cabinet war rooms and haunt of another famous conservative PM.. a certain Sir Winston Churchill!  to eventually find the Inframon team, Gordon, Sean and the guys in a War on Cost bunker that looked like it certainly did cost!  great venue!

Gordon McKenna ..it was this BIG!!!

Partners (allies) in the battle of the war on cost…
ComTrade – MPs for Citrix & Seibel
Silect Software – MP Studio, CP Studio, ConfigWise
Flexera – Win7 migration application challenges (packaging & sequencing)
Savision – Live Maps & Vital Signs for System Center (extends SCOM with mapping and real-time performance dashboards)
BridgeWays – helps you convert from VMware… Also free Hyper-V MP @….
Odyssey Software -

prize draw for an Windows Phone 7 device, the HTC HD 7 – went to European Market Oct 21st, won’t be in the US till Nov 8th!  and they are as rare as rocking horse sh1t in the UK with one distributor saying to me on Friday 5th Oct “Unfortunately we are not likely to be able to supply the HD7 as all three of the new HTC devices are going to be network exclusives.”

ROOM 1: 09:30 -10:30 MICROSOFT KEYNOTE – RYAN OHARA: DATACENTER TO THE CLOUD

Join us in the main auditorium for a first keynote from Microsoft’s Senior Director of System Center Product Marketing, Ryan O’Hara who will be giving us an insight on how Microsoft’s Datacenter and Cloud strategy can help you in the battle your organisation faces around reducing the cost of managing your IT infrastructure whilst trying to increase efficiency. Learn also how System Center can be a key business enabler in both on-premise and off-premise scenarios.

Ryan O’Hara & Justin Buffington (AKA The Professor)

Google, Salesforce, Amazon – don’t provide services that can run in your Data Center / stand up within your service offering

Ryan reckons that MS is the only single vendor that provided the widest reach of cloud based services to provide ‘IT as a service’

Self Service Portal for VMM – version being shown today along with VMM vNext. Capability for business process owners (application owners) to request and provision new data center services through a web portal.

VMM 2012 CTP demo
Moving from a server centric model to a service model – detaching the application from the O/S.

Create Cloud Wizard! what’s your job? I’m a cloud creator!

Demo of service maps – Opalis 6.3 available at the end of the month to all data Center management suite registered customers… & partners?

Acquisition of AVIcode allows 360 degree monitoring in delivering IT as a service. Black box & White box monitoring… Wazzthat then?

OpsMgr watcher nodes running outside your environment

SCOM2012 / OM10 – now with dashboards and can manage network infrastructure (at last! )

ROOM 1: 10:50 -11:50 MICROSOFTKEYNOTE – ANDREW CONWAY: DESKTOP AND SECURITY CONVERGENCE

With end users increasingly mobile, consumerization impacting IT,  and security and compliance needs converging on the business you are likely considering options for desktop virtualization, endpoint protection, cloud management and application delivery. IT has an opportunity to simplify their investments, tools and processes in order to be ever more responsive to the changing face of their customer.  In this session, we’ll focus on effective solutions that will help you in the War on Cost – we’ll do this and take a forward look at upcoming System Center and Forefront technologies

ROOM 2: 10:50 -11:50 BREAKOUT – SEAN ROBERTSSIMON SKINNER INFRAMON: MICROSOFT PRIVATE CLOUD STORY

Join Sean Roberts and Simon Skinner of Inframon for a walk through Microsoft’s new private cloud story. Learn how to build your own, internal private cloud solution with Microsoft Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager and the new Self Service Portal 3.0. See how you can drive more efficient use of your IT infrstructure using batch processing and chargeback reporting putting you back in control of your costs.

Sean Roberts & Simon Skinner …how many MVP’s needed to… don’t ask!

ROOM 1: 11:50 – 12:50 BREAKOUT – JUSTIN INCARNATODANIEL SAVAGE MICROSOFT: OPERATIONS MANAGER R2 AND V.NEXT

This session will cover updates to Operation Manager 2007 since the release of R2, including the latest new features included in R2 CU3. We will also go over the next major release of Operations Manager including the vision and product demonstrations. This will be a demo packed session with plenty of time to interact and ask questions

OpsMgr Sizing
OpsMgr sizing helper to address the unknown around sizing – ‘ask 5 MS engineers an OpsMgr sizing question and you’ll likely get 5 different answers…’

target environments:

Use in conjunction with the OpsMgr design guide, an introduction is at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb735403.aspx

OpsMgr R2 Core MP updates

Cumulative Updates 3 (CU3) for OpsMgr 2007 R2

Get it from the download Center at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9f1e1154-52ae-42df-aeea-b3ee83247e6a&displaylang=en

The KB article describing the fixes, changes, and instructions is at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2251525

The high-level fixes are:

CU4 should be out at the end of Jan’11 – plan is to have quarterly updates

There is a great post at http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2010/10/04/opsmgr-2007-r2-cu3-rollup-hotfix-ships-and-my-experience-installing-it.aspx which covers in-depth on CU3 and its deployment – essential reading!

OpsMgr v.Next 2012, Daniel Savage, Senior PM Operations Manager

Support for network device monitoring

Support for Java EE (J2E) Web Service Monitoring – server level, not currently site/app level

Release roadmap – Public Beta in Q2 CY11, RC Q3 CY11, RTM Q4 CY11

ROOM 2: 11:50 – 12:20 BREAKOUT – ODYSSEY SOFTWARE: ATTACK THE COSTS AND COMPLEXITY OF MANAGING MOBILE DEVICES IN YOUR ENTERPRISE WITH ATHENA TM DEVICE MANAGEMENT EXTENSIONS FOR SYSTEM CENTER CONFIGURATION MANAGER 2007

In this session we will demonstrate how to dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of managing deployments of Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Windows CE, BlackBerry, iPhone/iPad, Android and Symbian devices through comprehensive, centralized management of these devices utilizing Odyssey Software’s AthenaTM device management extensions for System Center Configuration Manager 2007.

ROOM 2: 12:20 – 12:50 BREAKOUT – BRIDGEWAYS SOFTWARE: HETEREOGENEOUS MANAGEMENT WITH OPERATIONS MANAGER 2007

Learn how you can extend your Operations Manager 2007 platform beyond the Windows stack with Bridgewys cross-platform extensions and connectors, allowing you to manage platforms such as VMWare and Oracle from the same familiar console as the rest of your devices allowing you to consolidate your management tools, driving down your infrastructure costs,

12:50 – 13:50 LUNCH

Join us for lunch in our partner pavillion, where you can network with other delegates and meet our ISV partners and speakers

ROOM1: 13:50 – 14:50 BREAKOUT – JEFF WETTLAUFER MICROSOFT: SYSTEM CENTER CONFIGURATION MANAGER V.NEXT HIGHLIGHTS

The next generation of the world’s leading systems management technology is now in Beta!  As we enter a new era of work styles, with people working in new ways from new locations on new devices, the System Center flagship product is evolving.  In this session we present a demo rich technical highlight of the next release of ConfigMgr.  We will focus on our continued vision of User Centric client management, highlight new improvements to core capability, infrastructure simplification and more. 

ROOM 2: 13:50 – 14:50 BREAKOUT – SEAN CHRISTENSEN MICROSOFT: SERVICE MANAGER THE BETTER TOGETHER STORY

Breakout two, takes us on a journey into the world of IT service management with one of the newest members of the System Center family, Service Manager. Learn how you can pull together your IT resources with industry standard best practices, bringing disciplines like incident and problem and change and release management to your organisation allowing you to drive more efficient working processes across your organisation.

ROOM 1: 15:10 – 16:10 BREAKOUT – JASON BUFFINGTON MICROSOFT: INTELLIGENT DATACENTER APPLICATION PROTECTION

This session will focus on leveraging Data Protection Manager’s protection and recovery capabilities in large datacenters.  We will look at how Data Protection Manager protects and recovers critical application workloads such as SQL, Exchange and SharePoint – as well as virtual machines within Hyper-V.  The session is full of demonstrations, including the new self-service restore capability for database administrators.  We will also look at combining on-premise and off-premise protection using both Data Protection Manager’s built-in replication mechanisms as well as cloud-based Data Protection Manager-partner repositories.

One stat to take away… up to 60% of corporate data does not reside in the datacenter… Yikes!!!

therefore backing up the client machines, with policies to not backup the junk, movies, music, etc.

ROOM 2: 15:10 – 16:10 BREAKOUT – ADAM HALLGREG CHARMAN MICROSOFT: DATACENTER IT PROCESS AUTOMATION

In one of the final sessions of the day we bring you the one solution that will probably give you the biggest set of tools in fighting the War on Cost. Microsoft’s newest addition to the System Center suite is Opalis, a robust and multi functional IT orchestration toolkit that can help drive incredible efficiencies in your organisation by automating many of your time consuming, day to day IT processes. This is not a session to be missed.

16:10 – 16:30 CLOSING KEYNOTE

Proceedings end with a closing keynote from Inframon CEO Gordon McKenna.

16:30 – 17:00 TOUR OF VENUE

Finally you are invited to take a tour of this very historic venue.

notes from the day..

OpsMgr 2007 R3 – a first R3 release for Microsoft

ConfigMgr 2007 -> ConfigMgr v.Next – embracing user centric targeting

SCE 2010 notes to follow..

DPM 2010, Anthony Tyler, Storage Strategy Architect (aka Foggy, and an old team mate of mine from PSS some 12 years ago!)

Backup to pretty much anything inc. “SAN in a can” but nothing seen as a removable device (so no USB unless you use iSCSI or a.n.other mapping technology)

tactical deployment in line with MS application deployment

i365 EDPM appliance – supports hetrogenius environments via eVault

Full agenda below, but key points for me:

VDI & App-V – still virtualise your apps when using VDI to leverage further coat savings & ROI

Win2008 R2 SP1 – Hyper-V gets ‘Dynamic Memory’ not same as memory over-commit but shares a pool of real server memory across VDI VM’s
‘Remote-FX’ – graphics rich across TS/RDP/VDI using server graphics capabilities – putting high-end GPU’s in the server!

‘Private Cloud’ & ‘Partner Cloud’ – enabling cloud based computing without the budget of Azure or Amazon Web Services!

Using optimised desktop for on-demand application provisioning & apparent coexistance of non-compatible apps

One image per major hardware type – more emphasis on process for application delivery & customisation/personalisation of the desktop.

Deploying Personal Virtual Desktops by using Remote Desktop Services Web Access step-by-step guide

VDI using Dynamic (“Non-Persistent”) Virtual Desktops
- master VDI image then pesonalisation & customisation streamed to image delta – discarded at logoff, roaming profile intact

Pooled VDI experience vs. RDS architecture (Shared Session Virtualisation)

giving a video interview with Stuart Leddy for TechNet Flash

Having an insightful chat with David Overton (SBS Guy) around the prospective launch date of SBS2008 R2.. we think that the announcement won’t be until WPC in July, and then tabled for release in the last calendar quarter of 2010 and very likley post Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1… hmmm!

Formal / published event information below..

Event Overview
Looking at virtualization but unsure about your options? Thinking about Windows 7 migration? Interested in VDI and server virtualization? Want to save on costs but wondering about ROI? Have more questions than answers on the topic?

This 1-day event will provide you with an understanding of the key products & technologies enabling seamless physical and virtual management, interoperable tools, and cost-savings & value. Microsoft Virtualization provides a completely virtualised infrastructure for your organisation, from the datacenter to desktop to the cloud. Please mark your calendar for Microsoft Virtualization Summit on Monday 12 April 2010 in London. Join us and interact live with Microsoft, key partnerships and early adopter customers in this informative event near you.

For all the latest agenda and speaker information, please visit our UK Techdays website: www.microsoft.com/uk/techdays

• Virtualization Summit -
From the Desktop to the Datacentre

Vue Cinema Shepherds Bush, Screen 9.

Looking at virtualization but unsure about your options? Thinking about Windows 7 migration? Interested in VDI and server virtualization? Want to save on costs but wondering about ROI? Have more questions than answers on the topic? This 1-day event will provide you with an understanding of the key products & technologies enabling seamless physical and virtual management, interoperable tools, and cost-savings & value. Microsoft Virtualization provides a completely virtualized infrastructure for your organisation, from the datacenter to desktop to the cloud. Please mark your calendar for Microsoft Virtualization Summit on Monday 12 April 2010 in London. Join us and interact live with Microsoft, key partnerships and early adopter customers in this informative event near you.
8.30am – 9.30am Registration
9.30am – 10.30am Virtualization 360 to End-To-End Virtualization
Dai Vu, Director, Microsoft Corp

Organisations today face many challenges and have certain priorities they must address. With Microsoft Virtualization they can address these challenges and concerns with the essential capabilities Microsoft delivers through the products they already own. When you couple Microsoft Virtualization solutions with integrated management to bring it all together you now have the visibility into your environment, while increasing your capability to respond to the ever changing business requirements. Also, learn how Microsoft Desktop Virtualization can help organisations with their access, data security, and compliance concerns while also providing anywhere access for their users. Learn how Microsoft Virtualization solutions in the datacenter help IT save money, increase availability and improve agility through the dynamic platform and management capabilities we provide to our customers. This allows IT to be more service-centric in how they provide to their customers. This vision of Virtualization will show that Microsoft today has the capabilities you need today with a path to the future.
10.30am – 11.30pm Next Generation Optimised Desktop
Keith Baker, Datacenter Technology Specialist

Many organisations are using Windows 7 migration as an opportunity to change how they provision and manage their desktops. The Windows Optimised Desktop is a vision for how organizations can bring down the costs of client computing while maximising flexibility, security, and manageability. Learn about the next generation of the Windows Optimised Desktop, which includes new technologies in Windows 7, Desktop Virtualization, Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP) and System Center.
11.30pm – 12.00pm Break
12.00pm – 1.00pm Implementing a Comprehensive VDI Solution
Matt McSpirit, Partner Technology Advisor – Virtualisation & Management

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is one of the hottest topics in IT today and is an important cornerstone of the Microsoft’s Optimised Desktop strategy. Desktop Virtualization offers new and powerful opportunities for IT to deliver and manage corporate desktops and to respond to various user needs in a flexible way. For organisations to realise the full benefits of VDI, they need to ensure they choose a solution that addresses the key issues they face today. This session helps outlines the Microsoft VDI offering and benefits of an integrated and comprehensive approach toward desktop flexibility and manageability.
1.00pm – 2.00pm Extended Break – Time to grab a bite nearby
2.00pm – 3.00pm Physical to Virtual Management with System Center
Julius Davies & Clive Watson, Datacenter Technology Specialists

Virtualization has transformed how IT can deliver the applications and services to their customers in a very dynamic climate. But not all applications and machines are great candidates for virtualization, and it will take some time for IT to move all of the applications that can be converted to virtual machines. This session will discuss how an IT organisation can leverage System Center, a comprehensive set of integrated management tools, allowing you to keep complexity to a minimum and streamline operations. A common management environment reduces training, ensures uniform policy application and simplifies maintenance by leveraging your existing software, personnel, and most importantly, your existing IT management process.
3.00pm – 3.30pm Break
3.30pm – 4.30pm Deploying Business Critical Workloads and Applications
Dai Vu, Director Microsoft Corp

This session will cover how Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V provides an optimal platform for running your business critical workloads like Exchange, SQL and SharePoint as well as other various applications and workloads, including best practices, key concepts and other considerations.
4.30pm – 5.30pm Building a Foundation for Your Private Cloud
Sohbat Ali, Solution Architect

Windows Server 2008 R2 and the Microsoft System Center family of products are enabling customers to build the foundation for a private cloud infrastructure by using the Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Center (availability scheduled in the first half of 2010). This free, partner-extensible toolkit will provide you architectural roadmap, deployment guidance, best practices, and familiar tools to create agile, virtualized IT infrastructures. This session will provide more information on the toolkit components, and how you can improve your datacenter efficiency by lowering the overall costs of on-boarding, deployment, and management.

IO has been around for a while as a Microsoft branded activity – see www.microsoft.com/io for a wealth of information on the IO optimization model and how to move up the stack.

However, before can start an IO improvements program you sometimes have to go right back to basics!

This morning (whilst finishing our new Windows 7 with Office 2010 Beta build for the ThinkPad X series – yes I’m a sad git at 07:00!) I’ve deleted space consuming binaries and install media for older beta products that have been superceeded or are about to be.

For the cull are SCE2010 Beta, DPM 2010 Beta v3 (RC is due in early feb), and a really old SCVMM 2008 R2 RC…. saved a mere 26GB of disk space there! (yes this is sarcasm!)

Now I’m not intending to write possibly the most pointless and dull blog post in the history of the blaahhhg, but more as a reference to myself of our involvement in these stages of product testing and development.

If for some reason you’re not aware of how you get hold of Microsoft early release beta’s and release candidates then take a trip to http://connect.microsoft.com.  Be warned this may start a long and time consuming passtime of exploring new software, but the rewards are there for your efforts.

Anyway, its time to start reusing some of that reclaimed disk space and start extracting the 4.10GB of SCE2010 RC I downloaded the other day… who’s going to bet its even bigger than the beta?

44CO134 – Server Virtualisation Competency Fast Track: Implementing and Managing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and SCVMM

Summary:
This course combines the syllabus of Microsoft courses 6422 and 6331 providing delegates with the knowledge to take Exams 70-652 and 70-403 which can lead to the new Server Virtualisation Competency.

This combined four day course teaches students how to implement and manage Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. It also teaches students how to manage Hyper-V with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) and with PowerShell. The course then goes on to teach students how to implement a Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager V2 solution in an organization. The course also discusses how to install, configure, and deploy VMM.

Prerequisites:
Windows Server 2000/2003 System Administration

Basic understanding of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) (optional)

Server Virtualization using Virtual Server 2005, Virtual PC, or VMWare

Operating knowledge of System Center Operations Manager 2007

Objectives:
Delegates will learn how to
Install and configure Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
Understand Hyper-V Virtual Networking.
Understand the types of Virtual Hard Drives and their benefits.
Create and manage Virtual Machines on the Hyper-V server.
Understand how to configure the Hyper-V server to ensure high availability.
Monitor the performance of the Hyper-V server.
Understand how to use existing virtual machines in the Hyper-V server.
Understand the issues with migrating existing Virtual Machines to Hyper-V.
Understand how System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) can be used to manage Hyper-V servers throughout the enterprise.
Use PowerShell to manage the Hyper-V server and the virtual machines hosted on the Hyper-V server.
Implement a disaster recovery plan for Virtual Machines on Hyper-V.
Identify installation prerequisites and requirements for VMM, select secure settings for VMM installations; and install VMM management packs.
Describe prerequisites for installing the Administrator Console; configure the Windows Firewall for the VMM Administrator Console; and configure managed hosts.
Describe prerequisites for the VMM Self-Service Portal; configure IIS to support the Self-Service Portal; and install the Self-Service Portal.
Configure host server hardware to support VMs.
Add VM hosts to VMM; install the VMM agent; add VMWare servers to VMM; and create filters.
Configure delegated administration; set host or group permissions; and configure VMM settings to support a test environment.
Configure access to the VMM Self-Service Portal; configure quotas on the VMM Self-Service Portal; and self-provision VMs using the VMM Self-Service Portal.
Add a VMM library including library shares and library servers and manage the contents of VMM library shares.
Deploy VMs using multiple methods; and use Intelligent Placement to deploy VMs.
Identify considerations for SAN VM migrations; perform a Quick Migration; and use Intelligent Placement to move a VM.
Convert a physical computer to a VM.
Convert other VM formats to Hyper-V VMs using VMM.
Describe considerations for configuring host clustering and describe procedures for configuring host clustering.
Describe considerations for configuring guest clustering and describe procedures for configuring guest clustering.
Identify scenarios where VMM Checkpoints may be used to meet operational requirements and create a VM Checkpoint.
Describe considerations for patch management using System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) and deploy patches using WSUS.
Describe and configure SCOM reporting.
Use SCOM to select potential virtualization targets based on workload and performance characteristics.
Describe considerations for monitoring host server utilization; measure and analyze host server utilization; and identify important considerations in growth planning.
Monitor and manage the progress of VMM jobs.
Locate failed jobs and recover failed jobs.

Agenda:
Course outline
M6422
Module 1: Introduction to Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
This module introduces the concepts related to and the history of server virtualization. Through this module, the student will understand the business need for virtualization and how virtualization fits into their existing environment. Selecting the required hardware and basic installation and configuration are also covered.
Introducing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
Hyper-V Requirements
Installing the Hyper-V Server Role
Configure Hyper-V to Be Highly Available
Lab : Install Hyper-V and Perform Initial Configuration (Install Hyper-V; Explore the Hyper-V Management Console)
Module 2: Configure Hyper-V Settings and Virtual Networks
This module provides information on the configuration options available on the Hyper-V server and the Hyper-V Virtual Networks.
Configuring Hyper-V Options
Configuring the Virtual Network
Lab : Configuring Hyper-V and Virtual Networks (Configure Hyper-V Server Settings; Configure Hyper-V Virtual Networks)
Module 3: Hyper-V Remote Administration
This module explores the requirements for remote management of the Hyper-V Server and the tools available for remote management.
Configuring Hyper-V Remote Administration
Connecting to Hyper-V Remotely
Lab : Accessing and Managing Hyper-V Remotely (Configure the Windows Firewall; Install the Hyper-V Manager on Windows Vista; Connect to the Hyper-V Server Remotely)
Module 4: Creation of Virtual Hard Drives and Virtual Machines
This module explores the creation of the Hyper-V Virtual Machines and their associated Virtual Hard Drives. The options available for the Virtual Machines and the types of Virtual Hard Drives will be covered. This module also covers the importance of Hyper-V Integration Services and Hypervisor.
Creating Virtual Hard Drives
Creating Virtual Machines
Lab : Creating Virtual Hard Drives and Virtual Machines (Creating New Virtual Hard Disks; Creating New Virtual Machines)
Module 5: Virtual Machine Settings, Snapshots, and High Availability
This module explores the settings available on each Virtual Machines hosted on the Hyper-V server and how to use and manage Virtual Machine snapshots. The module will also cover configuring Hyper-V for high availability and performance monitoring on the Hyper-V server.
Managing Virtual Machine Settings
Using Virtual Machine Snapshots
Configuring Hyper-V for High Availability
Monitoring Hyper-V Performance
Lab : Managing Virtual Machine Settings (Configure Virtual Machine Settings; Monitor Hyper-V Performance)
Module 6: Migration of Virtual Machines to Hyper-V
This module provides instruction on how to migrate virtual machines hosted on earlier virtualization technologies to the Hyper-V server.
Migrating Legacy Virtual Machines
Understanding the Impact of Migrated VMs
Lab : Migrating Legacy Virtual Machines to Hyper-V (Migrate Existing Virtual Machines to Hyper-V; Troubleshoot Issues on the Migrated VMs)
M6331
Module 1: Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager
Module 1 describes the installation prerequisites for VMM and describes the procedure for installing VMM. In addition, Module 1 describes the procedure to install the VMM Administrator Console and the VMM Self-Service Portal.
Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager Server Components
Installing the VMM Administrator Console
Installing the VMM Self-Service Portal
Lab : Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager (Installing VMM Server; Installing the VMM Administrator Console; Installing the VMM Self-Service Portal and Configuring a DNS Record)
Module 2: Configuring VM Hardware, Hosts, and User Roles
Module 2 describes host server hardware configuration considerations. In addition, Module 2 describes general host server configuration procedures including security configuration procedures.
Adding Hosts to VMM
Configuring Hardware
Configuring VMM Settings
Managing VMM Security
Lab : Configuring VM Hardware, Hosts, and User Roles (Configuring Hosts; Configuring VM Hardware; Configuring User Roles)
Module 3: Configuring the VMM Self-Service Portal and Library
Module 3 describes considerations and procedures for configuring the VMM Self-Service Portal and Library. This includes enabling user- or group-level access to the Self-Service Portal, configuring quotas, and using the Self-Service Portal to self-provision VMs. In addition, Module 3 describes procedures for maintaining VMM library servers and shares and the contents of library shares.
Configuring the VMM Self-Service Portal
Maintaining a VMM Library
Managing Library Files
Lab : Configuring the VMM Self-Service Portal and Library (Configuring the VMM Self-Service Portal; Maintaining a VMM Library)
Module 4: Deploying and Managing VMs
Module 4 describes VM deployment and management tasks. This includes using VMM Intelligent Placement, VM Templates, and other automated VM deployment tools. In addition, Module 4 describes using VMM to move VMs between available hosts.
Deploying VMs
Moving VMs Between Hosts
Lab : Deploying and Managing VMs (Deploying VMs; Using Intelligent Placement)
Module 5: Converting from Physical or Virtual Platforms
Module 5 describes important considerations for converting physical and virtual computers to Microsoft VMs. This includes procedures for using deployment agents to execute conversions to Microsoft VMs as well as converting from third-party formats.
Converting Physical Computers to Virtual Machines
Migrating Virtual Machines to Hyper-V
Lab : Converting Virtual Machines Using VMM (Converting a Microsoft Virtual Server VM; Converting a VMWare Virtual Machine)
Module 6: Deploying Highly Available VMs
Module 6 describes considerations and procedures for deploying clustered VMs.
Introducing Virtual Machine High Availability
Deploying Host Clustering
Deploying Guest Clustering
Lab : Planning for Highly Available Virtual Machines (Designing Host Clustering Hardware; Selecting Guest Clustering Type)
Module 7: Managing Virtual Machine Checkpoints and Updates
Module 7 describes procedures for managing VMs using checkpoints and updates. This includes identifying scenarios for using VMM VM Checkpoints and procedures for creating VM Checkpoints. In addition, Module 7 describes update deployment using WSUS and SCCM tools.
Managing Virtual Machine Checkpoints
Managing Virtual Machine Updates
Lab : Managing Virtual Machine Checkpoints and Updates (Managing Virtual Machine Checkpoints; Managing Virtual Machine Updates)
Module 8: Implementing Monitoring and Reporting
Module 8 describes procedures for integrating System Center Operations Manager with VMM to extend the capabilities of VMM. This includes using SCOM reporting with VMM. In addition, Module 8 describes using SCOM to select potential virtualization targets and to monitor and plan host server utilization.
Integrating System Center Operations Manager
Performance and Resource Optimization
Planning and Managing Hyper-V
Lab : Configuring VMM and Operations Manager for Reporting (Setting Up VMM for Reporting and PRO; Enabling PRO; Viewing Reports)
Module 9: Monitoring and Troubleshooting Jobs
Module 9 describes procedures for monitoring and troubleshooting VMM jobs. This includes monitoring and verifying multiple job types as well as recovering from failed jobs.
Monitoring Jobs
Troubleshooting and Repairing Jobs
Lab : Troubleshooting Jobs (Using PowerShell to View Jobs; Running PowerShell Script to Generate Jobs; Managing Jobs; Troubleshooting Failed Jobs)

For the dinner, the UK team chose a fabulous Italian restaurant called Bacco (www.bacco.de/english/restaurant/restaurant.html) which I’d definately go back to and hosted a great evening… many thanks to Stuart, Gareth, Neil, Alex, etc. from Microsoft UK. 

We were also joined by Allen Stewart & Rajesh Dave from corp.  Allen is Principal PM for Windows Server and Raj is a PM for Windows Hyper-V.  Both very interesting & incredibly knowledgable guys with deep understanding across a wide range of topics (and not just Microsoft!).
I pestered them for info on Hyper-V thin provisioning of memory and whilst they couldn’t confirm anything as we all said ‘we live in hope!’ ;-) 

…as for the  night, I’d been invited to the 1E TechEd Europe party at Spindler & Klatt www.spindlerklatt.de - an uuber trendy restaurant/club in East Berlin frequented by the likes of Angelina, Clooney, and now Cook! 

What a great party and many many thanks to the team at 1E (www.1e.com).  Did I mention I was the 4th member of the business in the founding year?  (yes I probably did & several times.. lots to drunk! ) We went our separate ways in 1999, oh for a slice of that now… anyway, moving on! 

Seriously though hats off to Samir, Mark, and Phil – they have built a company that knows how to throw a great party (regarded as the best at TechEd), and a team of very bright, talented people who have a lot of respect for the company and its founders. 

Ouch my head is pounding!  time to go to sessions, starting with… 

ITS211 Keeping Your CIO Happy: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SLA Scorecarding with Operations Manager 2007 and SQL Server 2008

Presenters: Gordon McKenna, Sean Roberts, www.inframon.com

Thu 11/12 | 10:45-12:00 | London 2 – Hall 7-1b

Learn how you can create CIO level SLA scorecards in SharePoint Server 2007 for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 using some of the new features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services and to create Executive SLA views of your Operational Environment. The session looks at why these types of views are important to many companies, what impact this can have on your business, and what simple steps you can take to achieve very effective, high-level executive views of everything from performance and availability of your key LOB services and applications, whether important SLAs and KPIs are being achieved and whether your IT department is meeting the day-to-day needs of your business. The key demos in this session take you through the steps you need to implement effective business scorecarding in SharePoint Server 2007 using key metrics collected in the Operations Manager 2007 Datawarehouse based on “real-world” experiences gained from the field. After attending this presentation you will have a good insight into how CIO Scorecards can help you add value to your Operations Manager deployments, helping you to show real value to your executives.

Tip – to remove parameter data from Ops Mgr reports imported into a SharePoint webpart, suffix the url with &rc:Parameters=collapsed

Cracking session from Gordon & Sean on how to try and keep your CIO happy (if that’s possible! )

blog Daniel Savage

Service Level dashboard – free solution accelerator dashboard on Microsoft 

SVR401 & 402 DirectAccess Technical Drilldown, Part 1 of 2: IPv6 and Transition Technologies + Part 2 of 2: Putting It All Together

 

Presenter: John Craddock (www.xtseminars.co.uk)

Thu 11/12 | 13:30-14:45 | Helsinki – Hall 7-2a

Take a sprinkling of Windows 7, add Windows Server 2008 R2, IPv6 and IPsec and you have a solution that will allow direct access to your corporate network without the need for VPNs. Come to these demo-rich sessions and learn how to integrate DirectAccess into your environment. In Part 1 learn about IPv6 addressing, host configuration and transitioning technologies including 6to4, ISATAP, Teredo and IPHTTPS. Through a series of demos learn how to build an IPv6 Network and interoperate with IPv4 networks and hosts. In Part 2 we add the details of IPSec, and components that are only available with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to build the DirectAccess infrastructure. Learn how to control access to corporate resources and manage Internet connected PCs through group policy. Part 1 is highly recommended as a prerequisite for Part 2.

John Craddock is an extremely talented AD/identity expert, and deeply technical across many other fields – in this case IPv6 & DA.

I was also lucky enough to have a drink with John and my old Microsoft PSS chum Paul Duffy on Monday night at the cleverly named hotel ‘Berlin Berlin’.

John is a genuine international industry expert and a thoroughly nice bloke with it!   Paul, another ‘genie-I’ went on to become PM for Office Communicator and knows a thing or ten about OCS amongst other subjects to a deep level.  This probably explains why these two know each other!

Anyway, back to the session plus my own notes, links, etc.

Gems & Tips

- be careful, not all apps will be compatible – test!
- to be native will likely mean new network gear, is new network layer (layer 2 unchanged)
- hex is back!  use of double colon notation, but can only be used once per address
- cannot mix with ipV4 mask bit notation
- host derived with mac address which has privacy issues, Win7 & R2 generate random based on interface, can be disabled (revert to mac based) with netsh interface ipv6 set global randomizeidentifiers=disabled

- route print -6 will show IPv6 route table

- ::1 is IPv6 loopback

- if you have a registered IPv4 address then you automatically have an IPv6 address on the 6to4 network

6to4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6to4 states 6to4 performs three functions:

1. Assigns a block of IPv6 address space to any host or network that has a global IPv4 address.
2. Encapsulates IPv6 packets inside IPv4 packets for transmission over an IPv4 network using 6in4.
3. Routes traffic between 6to4 and “native” IPv6 networks.

- you need to manually unblock ISATAP entry in DNS which can be done via the registry or command line, e.g. 

C:>dnscmd /config /globalqueryblocklist wpad 

Registry property globalqueryblocklist successfully reset.
Command completed successfully. 

ISATAP is a huge subject in it’s own right, the Intra-site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol Deployment Guide is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0f3a8868-e337-43d1-b271-b8c8702344cd&displaylang=en 

Putting it all together..

- Check tunnel endpoint authentication using ‘klist’ to list Kerberos data
- Use NRTP to direct DNS queries to a specific server for a particular names space (view using ‘netsh namespace show effectivepolicy’)
- PKI needs to be right as certificates are the foundations
- you must publish the revocation list
- NLS (Nework Location Server) is just a https website accessible from the DA server, e.g. nls.corp.example.com
- if it doesn’t work, it could be a couple of days troubleshooting! 

If you’re thinking of setting this up in a virtual lab, I also took note from Allen Stewart’s blog at http://blogs.technet.com/wincat/

…if you’re planning to virtualize your lab environment on Hyper-V, you should ensure you’re using Legacy Network Adapters for the child partition where you’re running the DAS. Using the default synthetic NICs is OK for all the other resources in the test lab, but for the DAS itself, it’s important to have both the Internet and Corpnet NICs as legacy ones, to ensure proper passing of traffic between both sides of the DAS. If you use the default synthetic adapters, you may end up in a situation where traffic doesn’t properly flow from the outside to the inside, even though all your IPsec, 6to4, Teredo, and IP-HTTPS settings are correct. Basically, you’ll be in a situation where connectivity will fail at a basic level, with you not even being to successfully ping the internal DNS server using its ISATAP address.If you’ve already built your lab on Hyper-V using the synthetic adapters, the fix is pretty simple. Just replace them with legacy ones, reconfigure the IP addressing as specified in the guide and rerun the DirectAccess wizard, again supplying all the information specified in the guide. After doing so, all your traffic should flow properly.

- Thanks Allen!

DAT312 All You Needed to Know about Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering

Presenter: Gopal Ashok

Thu 11/12 | 17:00-18:15 | London 3 – Hall 7-1b

There are major architectural changes in SQL Server 2008 for failover cluster setup and management, geared towards increased reliability and high-availability. To learn all the benefits and changes, attend this session for a comprehensive overview direct from the product development group. We cover SQL Server 2008 failover clustering setup, underlying Windows Server cluster and how SQL Server uses it, what’s new in SQL Server 2008 for failover clustering, differences from previous versions of SQL Server and future directions. This includes details of SQL Server 2008 failover clustering setup operations together with demos to illustrate the new setup.

- new features
- applications need retry mechanisms built in to provide seamless failover
- no longer have to take down the cluster to upgrade, supports rolling upgrades 

Want to deploy stretched clusters?  lots do.  As in separate geo-redundant clusters, not separate nodes e.g. 

Stretched SQL Clusters or the doodles of an artist?

- sql 2008 failover clustering install breaks on windows server 2008 R2 and needs to be slipstreamed with SP1 (If only we knew this last weekend!)
(slipstreaming is incorporating patches into the installation media to effect a higher level of install base over RTM – Microsoft tend to do this but not always quickly!)
see http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2009/03/17/how-to-fix-your-sql-server-2008-setup-before-you-run-setup-part-ii.aspx for more info
- during upgrades to a 2-node cluster there will be a period of time when you are exposed to node failure, and must not have a failover attempt for fear of corruption.  removing the node from the cluster owners will stop premature attempted failover. 

Further Microsoft resources.. (will add others also) 

      SQL Server ^® 2008 Failover Clustering White Paper: http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2009/07/08/sql-server-2008-failover-clustering.aspx 

      Recommended  Books Online  Doc Refresh #7 (May, 2009), or later: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms130214.aspx 

      Failover Clusters – Getting Started: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189134.aspx 

      Rolling upgrade process and best practice: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191295.aspx 

      Maintaining a Failover Cluster: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178061.aspx 

      Setup command line usage: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms144259.aspx 

      Configuration.ini file usage: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239405.aspx