MVUG Blog

MAP Toolkit v5.5 Beta will help migrate your organization to the cloud

The MAP Toolkit v5.5 Beta can help you determine what assets in your environment can be migrated to the cloud and how much it will cost you to do so. Using the new Azure Platform Readiness and Capacity Estimate features you can identify web applications, databases and IIS instances in your environment that are suitable for migration to the cloud and determine what features you’d need to support them. If you haven’t already, please take a minute to download the MAP Toolkit v5.5 Beta and find out about the new features for Azure Platform Migration, Discovery of Oracle, SyBase and MySQL database deployments, Internet Explorer Migration, and Server Consolidation.

The Beta of the MAP Toolkit v5.5 is now available for download at the link below:

https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=23188&SiteID=297 

Patrick Lownds 

Native VHD Boot - A Walkthrough of Common Scenarios

The above document describes the functionality and usability of native VHD boot, which is a feature in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?FamilyID=7062fc66-90f9-47f0-8cb7-1c1652767081. The key scenarios are:

Scenario 1 - Configuring Native VHD Boot on a Single Computer

Scenario 2 - Deploying Native Boot VHDs Using Windows Deployment Services

Scenario 3 - Performing an Advanced Deployment of Native Boot VHDs

Patrick Lownds

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 R2 SP1 RC Available on Microsoft Connect

Microsoft have announced SCVMM 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate, which can be download from https://connect.microsoft.com/site799. This release adds support for Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RC to SCVMM. Microsoft has added the necessary properties and controls to allow you to create and manage Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX enabled  virtual machines on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V hosts. Since this is a pre-release version, usage of this is limited to test environments.

Patrick Lownds

DPM2010 Storage Calculator for Hyper-V

Microsoft has published an updated set of XLSX storage calculators to aid DPM 2010 administrators in sizing the DPM storage pool and one of these updated storage calculators provides support for Hyper-V. You can download the NEW calculator from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c136c66c-bd4a-4fb1-8088-f610cd02dc51

The only downside about this new series of storage calculators is that they have limited tape support and so I have uploaded a copy of the older calculator, which offers better support for tape backup at http://www.mvug.co.uk/media/p/22321.aspx

Patrick Lownds

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0

VMMSSP (also know as the self-service portal) is a fully supported, extensible solution built on top of Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, and System Center VMM 2008.

You can use it to pool, allocate, and manage resources to offer infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and to deliver the foundation for a private cloud platform inside your datacenter. VMMSSP includes a pre-built web based user interface that has sections for both the datacenter managers and the business unit IT consumers, with role based access control. VMMSSP also includes a dynamic provisioning engine.

VMMSSP reduces the time needed to provision infrastructures and their components by offering business unit “on-boarding,” infrastructure request and change management. The VMMSSP package also includes detailed guidance on how to implement VMMSSP inside your environment and can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=fef38539-ae5a-462b-b1c9-9a02238bb8a7
 

Patrick Lownds