Dan Forster’s IT Consulting Blog | Focused on Systems Management, IT security and whatever else I’m working on
I saw this post the other day and thought it was an excellent resource for reviewing application virtualization options. The guys over virtualfuture.info created a comparison document of the most popular application virtualization products.
Get the chart here: virtualfuture.info/2008/06/virtualfuture-appchart
I’ll be curions how the new version of Microsoft SoftGrid, now called App-V will compare.
Ensynch has deployed Windows Vista internally and the Microsoft case study was posted today.
The Systems Management team at Ensynch welcomed a new colleage today, James Campion. James is one of the founding members of the Arizona Systems Management Users Group. He comes to us from IBM and has an extensive systems management background.
I got a free voucher in April to take a Microsoft test. I sat on it until June. So when I decided to finally use it, I researched the new Microsoft certifications. Gone are the days of the MCSE…apparently. I decided that the MCITP: Enterprise Administrator track looked promising (although no one will now what it is). Because of my schedule I decided to take the test that might be the easiest to study for, MS 070-620 Configuring Windows Vista. I ordered the book and scheduled the test. The book came and I was only able to study for two nights. I couldn’t reschedule the test so I figured I’d at least get a free look at the test. Let’s just say I passed the test based only on experience.
If you need to use Windows Server 2008 Core edition and still want a GUI, this MVP has your back.
Check out the CoreConfigurator
Features:
The second AZSMUG meeting of the year is tonight at the Microsoft Phoenix office. See email below for details.
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Hello Everyone,
We have decided to schedule our next user group meeting the night before the Phoenix Server 2008 Launch. Here is more information on the meeting and the registration link:
We are planning on having our second meeting of 2008. This meeting will be held at Microsoft’s downtown Phoenix Office: 2929 N Central Ave, suite 1400 on Monday, March 31st. The meeting will start at 5:30 PM, but BE SURE to arrive early, and remember that you cannot enter the building after 6:00 PM.
In this meeting we will be covering Software Updates in Configuration Manager. Everything from set up and configuration to patch deployment.
As always, we will be raffling off some goodies.
Registration site: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=126587
Event Code: 126587
Thanks,Mike Terrill
AZ Systems Management User Group
http://www.azsmug.org/
http://www.myitforum.com/groups/group87/
A video was posted today by “The Deployment Guys” on setting up Configuration Manager 2007 and the Deployment Toolkit. See the post and download the video here: SCCM 2007 and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - Video Walkthrough
In an unrelated event (I think), the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit was updated to support Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. BDD was also updated to support Vista SP1 and Server 2008, but Microsoft recommends using the MDT instead.
Quote from MDT announcement: “MDT 2008 extends existing functionality to deploy Windows Vista® SP1 and Windows Server® 2008 for both Lite Touch and Zero Touch deployments using Systems Management Server 2003* and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. This release of MDT supports Windows AIK 1.1 and configuration of Active Directory® directory service, DNS, and DHCP server roles.”
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008
VMWare is working on a PowerShell command line interface. VMware Infrastructure Toolkit (for Windows) 1.0 Beta
This should be a sign to Microsoft that they went the right direction with their Virtual Machine Manager product.
Download it here: Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008.
About WAIK:
“The Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) is designed to help corporate IT professionals customize and deploy the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 family of operation systems. By using Windows AIK, you can perform unattended Windows installations, capture Windows images with ImageX, and create Windows PE images.”
The simple answer is yes. And it will be supported as long as you use Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2. So will it work in VMWARE? Yes, but it is “un-supported” by Microsoft.
But the real question is should Configuration Manager 2007 (ConfigMgr) servers be virtualized?
The answer to this question lies with the virtual server infrastructure being used and the ConfigMgr Site System roles you need virtualized. Input/Output (I/O) performance is one of the biggest limitations of virtual server infrastructures. I had a client change the processor platform to AMD, for the VM host, because the I/O capabilities of the AMD motherboards was four times faster than the same server with the Intel chipset. In that case, when images were downloaded from the virtual servers, the performance of all of the “guest” virtual machines on the host was severely degraded.
The ConfigMgr Primary Site servers require Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft has released a good document with their recommendations around virtualizing SQL Server. If the ConfigMgr Primary Site Server role will be virtualized, I would always recommend using an external SQL server. If the ConfigMgr Primary Site Server is going to be installed on physical server, installing SQL locally will typically produce the best results. A remote SQL database is only suggested if a highly available SQL cluster is required for SQL services.
Virtualizing ConfigMgr Distribution Points can also cause I/O bottlenecks and with image deployment. Imaging from a virtual server should be profiled to determine the number of simultaneous images that can be deployed at one time. Downloading packages and patches from Distribution Points can cause performance bottlenecks as well, but they not as bad as imaging will. Performance testing should be done to determine the performance of virtual machines during package downloads.
So again, the answer is yes ConfigMgr can be virtualized. But careful consideration should be given to SQL and Distribution Point performance.
