Microsoft: W2K8 "Documentation Survival guide"

Microsoft has created a nice link to all info concerning Windows Server 2008 on technet. It's called the Documentation Survival Guide. Jump to it here

Learn

• Windows Server 2008 product information: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90853
• Windows Server 2008 TechCenter: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=86041

Evaluate

• Changes in Functionality from Windows Server 2003 with SP1 to Windows Server 2008: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=90854
• Windows Server 2008 TechNet Virtual Labs: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90855
• Windows Server 2008 Step-by-Step Guides: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=90856

Troubleshoot

• Windows Server 2008 Troubleshooting: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90857
• TechNet Troubleshooting and Support: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90728

Connect with Community

• Windows Server 2008 Forums: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90920
• Windows Server 2008 Podcasts: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90919
• Windows Server 2008 Chats: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90918

Additional Resources

Security

What can you do to secure your systems? These links to prescriptive security guidance resources, virus alerts, and security bulletins will help you find the security information that you need.

• TechNet Security Center: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=29482
• TechNet Security Virus Alerts: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=26702
• Microsoft Security Bulletin Search: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=24822

Downloads, Help and Support, TechNet Technologies, and Scripting

Need to find the latest product downloads or other technical information? These links will help you keep your systems current and learn about the latest Microsoft technologies.

• Microsoft Download Center: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=63637
• Microsoft Help and Support: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=7588
• TechNet Products and Technologies: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=26708
• Script Center: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=63080

Windows Server 2008 Technical Library

Need to learn more about what’s new for key Windows Server 2008 technologies and where to get additional information? These links to the Windows Server 2008 Technical Library will provide you with introductory and technical overviews and other resources.

•Active Directory Certificate Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=48545
•Active Directory Domain Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48547
•Active Directory Federation Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48542
•Active Directory Rights Management Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48554
•Application Server: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48544
•Availability and Scalability: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90922
•DNS Server: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48548
•File Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48550
•Group Policy: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90923
•Network Policy and Access Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48552
•Performance and Reliability: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90924
•Print Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48553
•Security and Protection: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90925
•Server Manager: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48541
•Streaming Media Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48551
•Terminal Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=48555
•Web Server: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48558
•Windows Deployment Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48559
•Windows SharePoint Services: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=48560

Citrix: Citrix to acquire XenSource

Holy god, this is breaking news! After rumors on the brianmadden website about Citrix wanting to buy XenSource, there is now an official statement: Citrix has signed a definitive agreement to acquire XenSource.

Citrix’s acquisition of XenSource comes on the heels of a substantial new release of XenEnterprise, the company’s flagship commercial product line. The new XenEnterprise v4 marks a significant milestone. Citrix will thus become one of the major players in the virtualization field (and a direct competitor to VMware & Microsoft).

Read the official announcement on the Citrix website here

Microsoft: Windows Server 2008 Component Posters

I came across some interesting W2K8 posters. These two posters, originally published in the July 2007 issue of TechNet Magazine, provide a strong visual tool to aide in the understanding of various features and components of Windows Server 2008.

One poster focuses exclusively on powerful new Active Directory technologies, while the other provides a technical look at a variety of new features available in Windows Server 2008 (such as Server Core, Network Access Protection, and more).

• Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Components.pdf
• Windows Server 2008 Feature Components.pdf

These should look great on my wall. Make sure to download them here

VMware: ESX 3.0.2 and VCB 1.0.3 released

As promised, VMware's ESX 3.0.2 has been released. In addition, VCB version 1.0.3 has also been released. Keep in mind that VCB 1.0.3 is compatible with VirtualCenter 2.0.2 (released recently) and ESX Server 3.0.2 (or newer) only. There are tons of updates in this release. Check them out here.

Download the ISOs at the source

VizionCore: ESXReplicator 2.1 Beta announced

Vizioncore has announced the Public Beta Release of esxReplicator v2.1, a real-time replication solution for the VMware Vi3. It addresses a number of problems we face in production. esxReplicator 2.1 offers the following new features:

• Fixed Interval Scheduling
• Failover Testing
• VM Display Name configuration
• Free Space Monitoring/Alerting

The beta release can be downloaded from: http://www.vizioncore.com/download.html

VMware: Cisco to provide 3rd party vSwitches for ESX

Info from http://www.virtualization.info/:

VMware will allow 3rd party vendors to develop their virtual switches for ESX Server virtual network, and Cisco is expected to be the first company announcing such product.

This is great news, as the current vSwitches are lacking in features.

Cisco will be presenting at VMworld 2007. BTW, see you guys there!

Microsoft: Vista Performance, Compatibility & reliability packs

Microsoft just released some important updates for people using Vista and suffering from (amongs others) slow file copies.

938979 Vista Performance and Reliability Pack
This update resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista. These issues have been reported by customers using the Error Reporting service, product support, or other means. Installing this update will improve the performance and responsiveness for some scenarios and improves reliability of Windows Vista in a variety of scenarios.

938194 Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack
This update resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista. These issues have been reported by customers using the Error Reporting service, product support, or other means. Installing this update will improve the reliability and hardware compatibility of Windows Vista in a variety of scenarios.

938828 XP Explorer.exe Reliability Pack
This is a reliability update. Install this update to improve the stability of computers running Windows XP. This update prevents crashes in explorer.exe.

These packs (actually, they are hotfixes) are downloadable via http://connect.microsoft.com/ or via the source http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=41691

Virtualization: A brief architecture overview of VMware ESX, XEN and MS Viridian

Massimo Re Ferrè has written a nice overview article on hypervisor architecture:

It is my feeling that there has been a bit of confusion lately around how hypervisors are being positioned by the various vendors. I am specifically referring to the three major technologies that seem to be the most relevant strategically going forward:

• VMware ESX
• Microsoft Viridian
• Xen

VMware ESX is the VMware flagship hypervisor product: it's the basis for the Virtual Infrastructure version 3 framework.

MS Viridian is the next generation hypervisor that Microsoft is going to use in the Longhorn time frame and that is currently being developed. It's basically the successor of Microsoft Virtual Server.

Xen is an opensource hypervisor that is being integrated by a number of players which include RedHat, Suse, XenSource and Virtual Iron.

Read the article here

VMware: VirtualCenter out of sync

I entered the office and fired up my trusty VIClient to connect to our design environment, just to discover all machines were shutdown. Suddenly the phone started ringing. All production VMs were shutdown as well? What happened?

It turned out to be a massive (physical) switch failure: during the weekend, all switches were failing in cascade due to some switch intervention (oeps). Result: all NICs in all ESX hosts lost their connection. So, every ESX host had noticed it couldn't ping it's default gateway and started shutting down ("releasing") all VMs (the default HA behavior). But...there were no other ESX hosts to pick up the host failure :)

After booting the VMs, we noticed something strange: VirtualCenter was completely out of sync with what was running on the ESX hosts themselves and we couldn't VMotion/Edit Settings/.. our VMs. Some VMs appeared to be running on a host when they were not! Really strange, strange stuff.

To get your VirtualCenter back in sync (and if rebooting the VC Service doesn't help), you must restart the vpxa (VirtualCenter) agent on every ESX host by issuing the following command:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware-vpxa restart

VMware: The dreadful sticky snapshot

When working with VMware ESX’s snapshot technology and/or VCB for a while, you will notice that sometimes a snapshot doesn’t get committed correctly. This occurs when for instance an ESX host crashes or hangs during a VCB snapshot.

The problem here is that a redo file (or delta, snapshot file) is created, but never removed. When looking at the snapshot manager, no snapshots appear to be available. Snapshots are devastating for your datastore performance, so we must remove them as quickly as possible! In the worst case, the redo file and the vmware-x.log files will eat up all the remaining disk space on the infected datastore and a message will be displayed (AAAaaaaaaaaaahh):

You will notice a number of <originaldiskname>-00000X.vmdk and <originaldiskname>-00000X-delta.vmdk files appear when browsing the datastore. When you look at your Virtual Machine disk properties (via Edit Settings) you will notice that your disk name will have changed from <originaldisk.vmdk> to <originaldisk>-00000X.vmdk, meaning a snapshot version is being used.

You can use 2 tricks to recover from this scenario:

• Execute vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/<datastorename>/<vmname>/<vmname>.vmx removesnapshots on the Service Console. However, most of the time this will not work and you will have to revert to the method below.
• Manually create a snapshot in the VI Client and remove it after it has been created. This will remove ALL existing snapshots and revert back to your <originaldisk>.vmdk. Great huh?

VMware: VMTSPatchmanager for patching

Massimiliano Daneri of vmts.net (well known for his backup scripts) has created a useful tool for patching your ESX: VMTSPatchmanager.

Features:

• Automatic Patch downloading from VMware Web site
  Virtual Center Integration
• Support for Background Intelligent Transfer Service (Microsoft BITS)
• Password saved inside the Microsoft Protected Storage
• SSH Connection (with root or other users)
• Implement a tiny Web server to deliver the patch
• Multi Thread implementation
• Configuration Wizard

Download it here

Microsoft: Terminal Services Session Broker

Michel Roth over at thincomputing.net has written a nice (p)review on the new load balancing options for terminal servers in Server 2008. Read his article here

WTS: Using ThreadMaster to Tame Rogue Applications

Duane Bradley has written an excellent tutorial on how to deploy & configure the free tool Threadmaster to "tame" CPU usage for specific applications on a Terminal Server or Citrix box. Read the article here

Microsoft: Technet Magazine A guide to deploying WTS

James D. Silliman has written a short but insightful article in Technet Magazine on deploying Windows Terminal Services on a Windows 2003 platform. In the article, he discusses GPO’s, security filtering, Folder redirection, installing Office using templates and admin installl, some licensing info, etc.

Definitly a good read for people new to Terminal Services. Read the article here

Microsoft: Its all about Virtualization now...

Yesterday, I attended the TechNet Webcast: Windows Server 2008: Server Virtualization Solution Scenario. It was quite interesting (although not as technical as I had hoped).

To summarize, Microsoft’s virtualization strategy is divided in 4 types of “virtualization”:

1. Desktop virtualization: desktops/servers can be virtualized on your local desktop using Virtual PC technology. Nothing new here.
2. Application virtualization: Microsoft bought Softricity a few months ago, one of the leading companies for applications virtualization. They are now selling Softgrid as their application virtualization solution (and a good one I might add). Softgrid 4.1 is now the current version, and version 4.2 will be released soon. Zerotouch (a web portal front end) was dropped.
3. Presentation virtualization: this one is quite funny (and the most surprising). As you might know, Server 2008 will have a bunch of new “Citrix-like” features for Terminal Services like load balancing, TS Web Access, TS gateway (SSL tunnel), remote (published) apps and UPD (called “easy print”). So now, Terminal Services is looked upon as being “presentation virtualization”. BTW, Citrix already uses the term “application virtualization” for its Metaframe Presentation Server solution.
4. Server virtualization: Oh yes, the combination of Virtual Server 2005 R2 (SP1) and/or Windows Server 2008 virtualization (“Viridian”) and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (now in Beta 2). SC VMM version 1.0 will be released in 2007, mainly to manage VS 2005 R2. A new release of SCVMM 2.0 will be released as soon as Viridian is ready (stripped of some features or not ;)) in 2008. So stay tuned!

During the presentation, a comparison was made between VMware ESX server and Windows Server 2008 with Windows Server Virtualization. The thing to note here is that VMware uses drivers in its hypervisor model, while WSV uses no drivers in their hypervisor. Instead, they deploy drivers directly in Virtual Machine instances. I can’t wait to compare it (even with hot-add & live-migration features stripped) to ESX!

VMware: deploying a VM using a custom sysprep.inf answer file

You can create a template VM and use sysprep to rename, reSID, etc. a new VM. The difference between the default approach and my approach is that in my approach you can completely configure your VM as you would like (for example, use the correct regional settings).

In our example below you will notice that the regional settings default to Belgium/Dutch. You can change this (or other settings) using the setupmgt.exe found in de DEPLOY.CAB on your windows 2003 CD-ROM.

The steps:

• Create a template VM, install the latest VMware tools and convert your VM to a Template
  
  IMPORTANT: make sure the VM is not joined to a domain, otherwise the Join to Domain section during the sysprep will fail.
• Download the sysprep 1.1 files from http://www.microsoft.com/download and unzip them in the following directory on your VirtualCenter server: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\1.1 (you can also use the unzipped content in the deploy.cab on the windows CD-ROM located under SUPPORT\TOOLS)
• Create a custom sysprep.inf file using the setupmgr.exe file found in deploy.cab. The content should look similar to the following:
  
  ;SetupMgrTag
  [Unattended]
  OemSkipEula=Yes
  [GuiUnattended]
  AdminPassword=<yourpassword>
  EncryptedAdminPassword=NO
  OEMSkipRegional=1
  TimeZone=105
  OemSkipWelcome=1
  [UserData]
  ProductID=12345-67890-12345-67890-12757
  FullName="MyCompanyName"
  OrgName="MyCompanyName"
  [RegionalSettings]
  LanguageGroup=1
  SystemLocale=00000813
  UserLocale=00000813
  InputLocale=0813:00000813
  [SetupMgr]
  DistFolder=C:\sysprep\i386
  DistShare=whistlerdist
  [Identification]
  JoinDomain=<NetBIOS Domain Name>
  DomainAdmin=<administrator name or delegated user>
  DomainAdminPassword=<Password>
  [Networking]
  InstallDefaultComponents=Yes
• In the VI Client when connected to your VirtualCenter, go to Edit => Customization Specifications. Create a new customization file.
• Select the appropriate OS type (in our case Windows) and check “Use custom sysprep answer file”. Fill out an appropriate name (like “Sysprep Windows 2003 SP2”)
• In the next screen, select Import a file and browse to your sysprep.inf file or copy/paste the contents in the sysprep.inf text field
• When using DHCP, select Typical Settings in the next screen. Select Custom settings when using a static IP.
  
  IMPORTANT: Make sure to fill out the default gateway & alternate gateway with the same gateway IP (this is a known issue)
• Make sure Generate New SID is selected in the next screen
• The Sysprep customization should know be available to use in combination with your template.

Microsoft: WTS Step-By-Step guides in upcoming Win2K8

Microsoft has released some very interesting step-by-step guides related to (amongst others) Terminal Services:

• Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 Release TS Gateway Server Step-By-Step Setup Guide.doc
• Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 Release TS Licensing Step-By-Step Setup Guide.doc
• Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 Terminal Services RemoteApp Step-By-Step Guide.doc
• What's New in Terminal Services for Microsoft Windows Server Code Name Longhorn.doc

Download them here

Microsoft: Requesting TSCALs for Win2K8

To be able to test the new features in WTS Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has made available test TSCALs (Terminal Services Client Access Licenses). You can request batcehs of 20 Per-user or Per-device licenses. Go to this website to request & have fun!

Microsoft: Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008

Patrick Rouse has written an excellent article on new TS features that will be available in Windows Server 2008.

To summarize:

• TS Easy Print: this will be Microsoft’s answer to Universal Printer driver solutions. As you know, there was already a “fallback” mode available in Windows 2003. TS Easy Print will be available with the new RDC 6.1 client
• Per-Session default printer: This feature ensures that different sessions logged on with the same user name retain session specific default printers
• SSO (Single-Sign on) when using Vista/Server 2008 combinations. 
• Dual-monitor support
• Terminal Services RemoteApp: his feature provides Seamless Windows & Session Sharing functionality to users with Remote Desktop Client 6.x. Also, Session sharing will be available (as seen in Citrix MPS releases)
• Terminal Services Load balancing: With the new Terminal Services Session Broker, Win2K8 Terminal Servers can be effectively load balanced based on:
  • Session Count
  • Weight
  • Black hole avoidance (avoid a new TS from being overloaded with new logon requests)
  • Drain mode (aka redirect new logins to other TS servers)
• Terminal Service Web Access: Similar to Citrix Web Interface, this IIS Portal delivers RemoteApp Connection information to a client with the Remote Desktop 6.x Client.
• Terminal Services Gateway: Similar to Citrix Secure Gateway, this feature provides RDP over HHTPS (443) traffic from DMZ to your trusted network.

Definitely check it out here

VMware: May patches for ESX 3.0.1

VMware has released new patches for ESX 3.0.1:

ESX-4825991 Patch | 05/15/07 | Critical Patch
ESX-5095559 Patch | 05/15/07 | Security Patch
ESX-5140477 Patch | 05/15/07 | Security Patch
ESX-6657345 Patch | 05/15/07 | General Patch
ESX-6704314 Patch | 05/15/07 | Security Patch
ESX-7281356 Patch | 05/15/07 | General Patch
ESX-7302867 Patch | 05/15/07 | Critical Patch
ESX-7408807 Patch | 05/15/07 | General Patch
ESX-7557441 Patch | 05/15/07 | General Patch