MVUG Blog

System Center Influencers Program

The Influencer Program is a community program that will give influencers - user group leads, MVPs, popular bloggers, and others recognized as influential in the community around System Center, the technical training, content, people connections, and general guidance they need to enhance their credibility and impact in the community.

For details on how to join see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ee532416.aspx

Patrick Lownds

MED-V Architectural Design Restrictions

Like any product, MED-V has system requirements, and those system requirements need to be taken into account when planning your MED-V architecture:

MED-V v1.0 supports the use of the following host operating systems

1.     Windows XP Professional or Home SP2/SP3 32-bit editions only

2.     Windows Vista SP1 or above 32-bit editions only

Note

There is no support for 64-bit editions of any operating system nor is there support for Windows 7 at present. However Windows 7 host support is expected with MED-V SP1, which is expected 1H 2010.

MED-V v1.0 supports the use of the following guest operating systems

1.     Windows 2000 SP4

2.     Windows XP SP2/SP3

Note

Because Virtual PC 2007 SP1 only supports 32-bit guest operating systems, 64-bit guests are not supported. At this present time there is no support for Windows Vista or Windows 7, and support for these operating system versions is expected in later releases of MED-V.

MED-V v1.0 supports the use of the following Virtual PC versions

Virtual PC 2007 SP1 is the only version supported for use with MED-V v1.0, however support for Windows Virtual PC is expected in MED-V v2.0.

MED-V v1.0 server infrastructure supports the use of the following operating systems

Windows 2008, either 32-bit or 64-bit, Standard or Enterprise editions. Support for Windows 2008 R2 is expected in MED-V SP1.

Patrick Lownds

Guest Operating System Support - Comparing MED-V with XP Mode on Windows 7

Customers who are running Windows 7 (Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate) can take advantage of Windows XP Mode to provide legacy operating system compatibility for applications that are unable to run on Windows 7. Because XP Mode is a free download you may be tempted to consider XP Mode as an alternative to MED-V. So what Guest operating systems does XP Mode and MED-V support?

Guest Operating System Support:

Patrick Lownds

HP recommended configuration for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 - StorageWorks EVA8400 using CA-EVA and CLX-EVA

HP has released "HP recommended configuration for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 - StorageWorks EVA8400 using CA-EVA and CLX-EVA". With the release of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (Exchange 2010) there are many new design features and configuration options to consider. To better understand how to deploy theses new features with HP servers and storage, HP has developed a series of recommended configurations. The recommended configurations provide sizing guidance and deployment options to support the new Exchange 2010 solutions. The configurations described in this guide are meant to assist you in designing solutions that address your email business requirements.

The recommended configurations provide server and storage sizing details for deploying Microsoft Exchange 2010. In this reference configuration the Exchange server roles have been placed on virtual servers using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V (Hyper-V). The advantage of this solution is that it allows the use of Hyper-V Live Migration for the mailbox servers. The solution has been sized to support 20,000 users with 512MB mailboxes. The hardware featured in this configuration is the HP ProLiant BL460c G6 (BL460c G6) server blade used to host the virtualized Exchange server roles and the HP StorageWorks 8400 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA8400) to manage the storage needs.

You can download the above document from http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA1-2127ENW.pdf

Patrick Lownds

Implementing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

HP has released "Implementing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2". The purpose of this document is to help customers install the following Microsoft hypervisor (Hyper-V) enabled products:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-VTM (The Hyper-V server role within Windows Server 2008 R2)
• Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

This document describes the level of support available for these Hyper-V enabled products running multiple guest operating systems on a single server and addresses the following key topics:

• Introduction to Microsoft products that provide Hyper-V functionality
• Recommended system configurations
• Hardware prerequisites
• Supported configurations of HP ProLiant servers
• Procedures for new installations
• Known issues and workarounds

You can download the above document from http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01925882/c01925882.pdf  

What’s the networking options and number of mezzanine slots supported in a HP Blade?

When planning your server architecture and defining the number of network cards you need to support for things like, management, virtual machine workload, cluster heartbeat, Live Migration, iSCSI and backup, it is worth understanding what networking options ship inbox and how many mezzanine slots are available:

Patrick Lownds

HP BladeSystem reference architecture for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 virtualization (Hyper-V)

HP has just released "HP BladeSystem reference architecture for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 virtualization (Hyper-V)". This document describes reference architectures validated by HP for the deployment of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V (Hyper-V R2) on an HP BladeSystem infrastructure.

The specification provides an outline of Hyper-V R2 and explains how an entire IT infrastructure can be created from HP BladeSystem c-Class components, HP LeftHand or StorageWorks SAN storage, and HP ProCurve switches.

Also oo help you plan your own Hyper-V R2 deployment on HP BladeSystem, the reference architecture provides a bill of materials (BOM) for Small, Medium, and Large configurations.

The document can be downloaded from http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA0-2391ENW.pdf.

Patrick Lownds