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As I wrote in an earlier post, there is no better time to write your exam for 70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization, than now and particularly before May 31, 2012. So to aid in that endeavour, Joseph Yedid, an IT specialist with Enhansoft in Ottawa, has put together a series of posts focused on getting IT folk ready to pass this exam. Joseph writes his blog at www.josephyedid.com but has allowed me to repost this series here. 
Create and Deploy Virtual Machines System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is the über-management software for virtual machine management. It has more options and capabilities than Hyper-V Manager. Creating VMs in VMM is done the same basic way as in Hyper-V Manager. What is cloning? Cloning is the process of creating a new VM from an existing one. The source VM can be in either the VMM library or on an existing host. When a new clone is created, it retains the source’s original information: AD info, SID, name, and MAC. The source VM isn’t deleted. For a VM to be cloned, it first must be powered off or in a saved state. Be careful of having both VMs running at the same time because they might try to communicate on the same network; if they reside on the same network. For the best outcome, place the clone in the library. The clone can then be used as a backup. Deploying VMs in VMM is a lot faster and easier than in Hyper-V Manager. Due to the fact that VMM is a datacenter level product, rapid deployment is essential. VMM makes use of host groups which are merely containers for quick provisioning. VMM also relies on an intelligent placement star rating system to help determine which hosts are best suited to host the desired VM. Since VMM can manage clusters, VMM can place VMs in clusters, making them highly available. In best practices, you would use the library to store templates, VHDs, scripts, etc. for quick deployment. Creating VMs in Hyper-V Manager is pretty straight forward. Under the Actions click New and then Virtual Machine. A wizard will launch. The wizard will have you choose all the settings needed to create a new VM such as: location to store the VM, disk type, disk size, network to connect to, load an ISO, etc. Any additional settings you wish to make will be available in the VM settings after the VM is created. The Self -Service Portal (SSP) is designed to allow an individual user the ability to manage and create their own VMs without involving the VMM admins too much. The VMs that self-service users create can be isolated to not impact a production environment. One of the best uses of the SSP is to allow developers to build their own VMs and to test software against them. There is no impact on the production in case something goes wrong with the software. VMM admins first setup the SSP, create the users or groups that have access to it, and set limits, if any, as to what the SSP user can do. SSP requires IIS to function as SSP is web-based. The IIS requirements are: - IIS 6 and above
- IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility
- IIS 6 WMI Compatibility
- Static Content
- Default Document
- Directory Browsing
- HTTP Errors
- ASP.NET
- .NET Extensibility
- ISAPI Extensions
- ISAPI Filters
- Request Filtering
VMM admins can grant SSP users the following VM permissions: | Start | Start VMs | | Stop | Stop VMs | | Pause and Resume | Pause and resume VMs | | Checkpoint | Create and manage VM checkpoints | | Remove | Remove VMs | | Local Administration | Grant local admin rights on VMs | | Remote Connection | Remotely connect to VMs | | Shutdown | Shutdown VMs | One other item to note, VMM can place quotas on SSP users. What this means is that SSP users can do only certain operations within the quota limit. Using Powershell is another method for creating and deploying VMs. Now, I am not a programmer, but I will give this section my best shot. First thing to note is that VMM runs on top of Powershell. Everything you do in the GUI has an associated Powershell script or action. With that said, when you create a new VM in VMM you will see an option at the end of the wizard to view the Powershell script that will run to create the new VM. Just about everything has something similar to this. Being able to view the Powershell script also gives you the capability to copy and store the code for reuse. You can then edit/modify the code for other purposes. Once VMM is installed, the associated Powershell scripts will be available. The best advice I can give for this topic is to get familiar with the commandlets, what they do and how they work. Read the full series >>
 Joseph Yedid is an IT specialist working at Enhansoft a company based in Ottawa, Canada, that develops products and services to extend the value of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM) and System Center Configuration Manager 2012. He is an avid user of technology and is certified in many areas of Microsoft infrastructure technologies. He is MCTS and MCITP certifed - Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Vista/Windows 7. Other interests revolve around virtualization technologies, System Center and Private Cloud. Joseph is a member and on the executive of the Ottawa Windows Server User Group.
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As I wrote ain an earlier post, there is no better time to write your exam for 70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization, than now and particularly before May 31, 2012. So to aid in that endeavour, Joseph Yedid, an IT specialist with Enhansoft in Ottawa, has put together a series of posts focused on getting IT folk ready to pass this exam. Joseph writes his blog at www.josephyedid.com but has allowed me to repost this series here.
Configuring Virtual Networks and VLAN Security
In this section we will cover Virtual Networks and VLAN Security.
Hyper-V Manager allows for MAC address ranges to be set to dynamically and be assigned to VMs. This can be found in the Virtual Networks page, Global Network Settings option.
Network locations are usually determined by Network Location Awareness. However this can be overridden and needs to be done for ESX hosts. You will need to open the properties page of the host; choose the Hardware tab and choose a network adapter for which you want to configure. On the properties page, choose the Override discovered network location check box, then enter a new location in the text box. You can also set a network tag, under the Networking tab. Network tags help in distinguishing multiple virtual switches on the same logical network.
When it comes to VLANS, there are 2 places that you can configure the VLAN settings. The first is in the settings of the VM in the properties of the VM’s network adapter. This is an individual VM setting.
The second place is in the Virtual Network Manager. This is a global VLAN setting for all VMs connected to the same virtual network.
VLAN Security can be achieved by isolating the host and VM networks’ physical network security; for example using a dedicated NIC for host management, and using VLAN tagging.
The Virtual Network Manager is where you configure the network settings for VMs. There are 3 types of networks you can setup: External, Internal, or Private. External gives the VM access to everything. Internal restricts VM access to only the host and other VMs for internal communications. Private restricts VM access to private communications only with other VMs. For both Internal and Private settings there is no external communications outside the VMs.
Previous Posts:
Joseph Yedid is an IT specialist working at Enhansoft a company based in Ottawa, Canada, that develops products and services to extend the value of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM) and System Center Configuration Manager 2012. He is an avid user of technology and is certified in many areas of Microsoft infrastructure technologies. He is MCTS and MCITP certifed - Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Vista/Windows 7. Other interests revolve around virtualization technologies, System Center and Private Cloud. Joseph is a member and on the executive of the Ottawa Windows Server User Group. 
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As I wrote ain an earlier post, there is no better time to write your exam for 70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization, than now and particularly before May 31, 2012. So to aid in that endeavour, Joseph Yedid, an IT specialist with Enhansoft in Ottawa, has put together a series of posts focused on getting IT folk ready to pass this exam. Joseph writes his blog at www.josephyedid.com but has allowed me to repost this series here.
In this section, I will cover remote management.
Remote Management
VMM Agents are installed automatically on all hosts and library servers. The agents can also be installed manually or locally through the VMM setup or with the vmmAgent.msi file. When installing in a perimeter network, you must use the vmmAgent.msi file and provide additional information.
Firewall rule settings also need to be applied to allow for remote management
Firewall rules are added automatically when Hyper-V is installed and when a host is added from VMM.
To enable remote management from the command line use the following:
netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="remote administration" new enable=yes
Configuring Virtual Network Manager settings consists of 2 categories: Virtual Networks and Global Network Settings. Virtual Networks allow you to create External, Internal, or Private networks. It also allows you to configure LAN and cluster settings. The Global Network Settings allow you to configure MAC ranges to be assigned to VMs dynamically.
Previous Posts:
Joseph Yedid is an IT specialist working at Enhansoft a company based in Ottawa, Canada, that develops products and services to extend the value of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM) and System Center Configuration Manager 2012. He is an avid user of technology and is certified in many areas of Microsoft infrastructure technologies. He is MCTS and MCITP certifed - Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Vista/Windows 7. Other interests revolve around virtualization technologies, System Center and Private Cloud. Joseph is a member and on the executive of the Ottawa Windows Server User Group. 
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As I wrote ain an earlier post, there is no better time to write your exam for 70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization, than now and particularly before May 31, 2012. So to aid in that endeavour, Joseph Yedid, an IT specialist with Enhansoft in Ottawa, has put together a series of posts focused on getting IT folk ready to pass this exam. Joseph writes his blog at www.josephyedid.com but has allowed me to repost this series here.
In this series of blog posts, I will be trying to explain the requirements for the 70-659 exam.
In mirroring the actual exam outline, I will start with Installing and Configuring Host and Parent Settings.
Installing Hyper-V
To start off, the required BIOS settings should be turned on to allow Hyper-V to work. The BIOS must support:
- Hardware Assisted Virtualization:
- Data Execution Prevention (DEP):
The nomenclature for DEP can differ between Intel and AMD, or BIOS vendors. But the standards are below:
- AMD CPUs – AMD No-Execute (NX) bit must be turned on.
- Intel CPUs – Intel Execute Disable (XD) bit must be turned on.
Once the BIOS settings are enabled, Hyper-V can be installed. There are a few ways that Hyper-V can be installed.
Use Start /w ocsetup Microsoft-Hyper-V command.
In the full GUI of Windows Server 2008 R2, you will have to add the role.
- Virtual Machine Manager (VMM):
A third method to install Hyper-V on a system is using VMM.
In host systems without the Hyper-V role installed, VMM will install the Hyper-V role, as long as they are discoverable in AD. The host systems must be Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2. For Windows Server 2003 systems, VMM will install Virtual Server 2005.
Hyper-V Server R2 is a standalone server that does only one thing; Hyper-V. It is the only role in the product. Configuring it is pretty straight forward. This is due to fact that it is configured with a menu type interface. The menu allows for quick configuration of the server, due to the fact that no GUI is present. The file name used to bring the menu back (if closed) is HVCONFIG. Don’t confuse HVCONFIG with SCONFIG. Although they look the same, SCONFIG is the menu for Server Core, whereas HVCONFIG is the menu for Hyper-V Server.
Joseph Yedid is an IT specialist working at Enhansoft a company based in Ottawa, Canada, that develops products and services to extend the value of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM) and System Center Configuration Manager 2012. He is an avid user of technology and is certified in many areas of Microsoft infrastructure technologies. He is MCTS and MCITP certifed - Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Vista/Windows 7. Other interests revolve around virtualization technologies, System Center and Private Cloud. Joseph is a member and on the executive of the Ottawa Windows Server User Group. 
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We often get asked how to do certain “simple” operations on the GUI when running the Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 R2. While the SCONFIG utility allows you to perform a number of tasks quickly, it does not cover every possibility. There are still times when you need to go to the command line or look into using PowerShell. In this post, Mitch Garvis takes you through how to create a new Active Directory Forest in Server Core. 
 This article explains how to install a new domain forest on Windows Server Core, or in the Windows Server CLI (Command Line Interpreter). I will not discuss any other option for RODCs, existing domains, child domains, and so on… there are a plethora of articles out there that describe those already.
It astounded me the first (several) times I tried to create a new domain using Windows Server Core installations as my first domain controller in the forest. There are, I should mention, copious articles on creating additional DCs in an existing domain, but I have not come across too many (any?) that explained creating the FIRST… i.e.: creating the forest FOR the trees  This evening Steve Syfuhs and I sat down and attempted to do just that. Actually our original intentions had very little to do with that, but as we discovered along the way we would have two choices: - Create a new physical server with Windows Server 2008 FULL install, create a new domain on GUI mode, join our Server Core machine to that domain, promote it to Domain Controller, transfer all Operations Master Roles to the Server Core machine, and continue on; or
- Figure out once and for all how to create our domain in Server Core.
I should point out that between us we read several dozen articles (including some written by some very reputable IT Pros) that CLAIMED that it was possible, but none that elaborated. So we started clawing our way through the tidbits we gleaned from various sources and came up with the following unattend file that did the job: [DCInstall]
InstallDNS=yes
NewDomain=forest
NewDomainDNSName=swmi.ca
DomainNetBiosName=SWMI
SiteName=Default-First-Site-Name
ReplicaOrNewDomain=domain
ForestLevel=3
DomainLevel=3
DatabasePath="%systemroot%ntds"
LogPath="%systemroot%ntds"
RebootOnCompletion=yes
SYSVOLPath="%systemroot%sysvol"
SafeModeAdminPassword=Pa$$w0rd Now: Once the file was created we put it in the root of C: on the server core machine, and typed the following command: dcpromo /unattend:c:unattend.txt The next user interaction was (after a reboot) a logon prompt for the SWMIAdministrator account. I hope this helps the next group of IT Pros trying to claw their way through the process… Creating AD Forests and Domains is something I have done a thousand times but always in GUI mode; from now on I can do it either way… and so can you! Mitch - I'm a Windows 7 PC
My blog | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | MVP Profile | Virtual Business Card | About Me
This post also appears on garvis.ca. 
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Many of you (thousands, impressively!) read the three articles that Mitch Garvis wrote in April about Microsoft’s Software iSCSI Target 3.3. If you didn’t, you can read them all now by clicking below: In the months since, and more recently as both Mitch and I have been delivering IT Virtualization Boot Camps (register for Montreal, and Saskatoon now) a lot of people have asked us if this would work with Microsoft Hyper-V Server, and if so… how? The answer, of course, is YES it will work, but as with all things command-line, you cannot simply rely on the GUI and as such, there is another layer of complexity involved. Mitch outlines the steps you will need to follow to be able to configure your Hyper-V Servers (as well as your Windows Server Core boxes) as nodes in a failover cluster. 
In the Server Core and Hyper-V Server Server Configuration menu there is an option (number 11) to enable the Failover Clustering Feature. This takes a few seconds, and you are off to the races. You will also have to use Option 4 to Configure Remote Management; although I am sure it is all configurable by command line, I would much rather create my Failover Cluster using the Failover Cluster Manager. You can do this either from a server with the Failover Clustering feature enabled, or from a system with the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) installed. That server does NOT need to be a node of the cluster. Unfortunately before you proceed with all of that great and simple GUI driven stuff, we have to present your iSCSI target to the Hyper-V Servers. This we will do locally from the command line: 1) Start the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service: net start msiscsi 2) Configure the Microsoft ISCSI Initiator to start automatically when you start up: sc config msiscsi start= auto (note the space after the = sign. that is intentional and required) 3) Connect to the Target and set up a persistent login to same: iscsicli QAddTargetPortal 172.16.10.5 (note the address I used is the IP address of the server that is running the iSCSI Software Target) iscsicli ListTargets 
We see here that I have a single target available to me, with the IQN (Internet Qualified Name) of iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:swmi-storage-target1-target – which shows that my SAN provider is Microsoft, that my server is called swmi-storage, and that my target (LUN) is called Target1 (I have a great imagination for names). iscsicli QloginTarget iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:swmi-storage-target1-target This logs my server in to the target that was listed. iscsicli PersistentLoginTarget <target_iqn> T * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 0 This will make sure that the login is persistent – whenever you reboot. iscsicli ListPersistentTargets This will confirm that your target is persistent, and will list: - Target Name
- Address and Socket
- Session Type
- Initiator Name
- Port Number
- Security Flags
- Version
- Information Specified
- Login Flags
- Username
Admittedly, much of the information found therein will not be helpful. However it will determine that your target is persistent. iscsicli ReportTargetMappings 
In this screenshot you can see the session ID, Target Name, Initiator, Initiator SCSI device, Initiator bus, target ID, and target LUNs – in this case, there are four LUNs. Now that you have presented your target (or targets) to the servers you are ready to continue remotely with the GUI… the easy part, which you can review in the blogs posted up top. Remember, managing your servers via command line may be daunting, but it pays off. Not only does it usually give us better control over what we are doing, but by using Server Core (or Hyper-V Server) you can take back a lot of resources that would otherwise be wasted on the GUI. Have fun and have a great week! 
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Hello Folks, I meet a lot of you during the last TechDays season. And a few of you asked me if there were any information or guidelines for “tuning” servers. Well I found out that an old document has been updated and is just as relevant today as it was when it was just published back in June 2009. This guide describes tuning parameters and settings that you can tweak to improve the performance and energy efficiency of your Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. It describes each setting and its potential effect to help you make an informed decision about its relevance to your system, workload, and performance goals. After going through it i figured i have to tell the guys about this document. I know they will be interested. The different workloads discussed in this whitepaper are : - Choosing and Tuning Server Hardware
- Performance Tuning for the Networking Subsystem
- Performance Tuning for the Storage Subsystem
- Performance Tuning for Web Servers
- Performance Tuning for File Servers
- Performance Tuning for Active Directory Servers
- Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Session Host (formerly Terminal Server)
- Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Gateway
- Performance Tuning for Virtualization Servers
- Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (NetBench)
- Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (SPECsfs2008)
- Performance Tuning for Network Workload (NTttcp)
- Performance Tuning for Remote Desktop Services Knowledge Worker Workload
- Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload
- Performance Tuning for TCP-E Workload
download the white paper. Read it, Try the different setting and make that server hmmm like the performance machine it’s meant to be. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/s.stem/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv-R2.mspx Cheers! Pierre Roman, MCITP, ITIL | Microsoft Canada Co.| Senior Technical Account Manager| pierre.roman@microsoft.com
Twitter | LinkedIn 
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Yesterday the Windows team disclosed some information on what you can expect for Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. While there are no new features set for Windows 7 SP1 there is a change to XP Mode available for Windows 7 Professional and up. Until now your computer needed to support hardware assisted virtualization for XP Mode to run but that has changed. XP Mode will now run on all CPUs! This is great for those people with 2+ year old computers that have the horsepower to run Windows 7 but don’t have the CPU extensions, or the BIOS support to enable hardware assisted virtualization. You can get the bits here.. The more exciting news (to me anyway) were the announcements around Server 2008 R2 SP1. There are two big new features that will be released with this service pack… RemoteFX is a technology (from the Calista acquisition in 2008) that give remote workers using Remote Desktop Services (aka Terminal Services) the full Windows Aero desktop environment, support for full motion video, Silverlight apps and 3D applications. You’ll be able to extend the same experience to users with thin clients accessing a VM on Hyper-V R2 as they would get on a full featured PC. Dynamic Memory is a technology that will allow you to dynamically allocate memory to VMs running on a Hyper-V R2 host. Now those of you with experience with ESX might think this is like memory overcommit but it is different. In a nutshell both technologies allow you to assign more memory to your VMs than the host has. For example I can start 5 VMs each with 4GB of RAM eventhough the host only has 16GB of RAM. Memory Overcommit is different in that it uses paging files for that extra address space. As you are aware paging has a negative impact on performance. I am simplifying but that’s basically it. Today, on a Hyper-V host when you assign a VM 4GB of memory and start it, it locks out the 4GB of address space on the host for that VM. Now that VM might only be utilizing 1GB meaning that the other 3GB is essentially idle until the VM requires it. With Dynamic Memory we will still assign the VM 4GB of RAM however it will only lock the address space the VM is utilizing leaving the rest available for other VMs. When a VMs memory utilization increases, it will draw from that pool and when memory utilization decreases it will release it back into the pool. Again I am simplifying things but that is how it works in a nutshell. What this means is that you’ll be able to use the physical memory in your Hyper-V hosts more efficiently without impacting performance in your production environments. You can see a demo of RemoteFX and find out more about these changes at http://www.desktopvirtualizationhour.com 
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The R2’s are out the door with the release of Hyper-V R2, SCVMM R2 and MDOP R2. As with the new release of any technology you are probably wondering how it works, how to use it and how it is going to make your life easier. Well I am happy to share that my friend Mitch Tulloch and the team at MSPress have been working hard and have written a FREE e-book covering everything from server to local and remote desktop virtualization, virtualization management and what the cloud brings to the table. It is a great read an I highly suggest you download a copy. It’s free, it’s 15MB and you can get it in XPS of PDF formats! Also be sure to check out Mitch’s site with free e-books on other topics and the unofficial Windows 7 Resource Kit support site. 
Download XPS Version Download PDF Version 
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 Last week, in a special edition of the TechNet Flash, I wrote about how you can get Windows 7 before the General Availability date by registering for TechDays 2009 before August 19th. If you do so, or have already registered, we will activate your TechNet Plus Direct subscription within a couple of weeks. This means that you will not only be registered to attend Microsoft Canada’s premier series of technical readiness events in one of 7 cities across Canada, but you will also get Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 before the General Availability date of October 22 so you can start working and becoming familiar with them early.
Since the Flash was sent out, I received a number of emails regarding what is included in the TechNet Plus Direct subscription and how you will access Windows 7 and the other software. The TechNet Plus Direct Subscription is an online one where you get access to all of the bits through the TechNet Subscriber Downloads site. You can find out more information on TechNet Plus subscriptions here. The list of products included in the TechNet Plus Direct subscription can be found by going to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/subscriptions/bb892756.aspx. Even though Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 might not be listed, rest assured that RTM versions of both are available for download right now. In terms of how you will access the TechNet Plus Direct content, you will receive an email from the TechNet Plus Direct team within 10 business days of August 19th with your subscriber ID and information how to activate your subscription online with your Windows LiveID. Once you have completed the activation process, you will have access to all of the TechNet Plus Direct content for a year. You can then download the ISO file for Windows 7, get your product key from the Subscriber Downloads site, burn your DVD media, and then use it to install Windows 7 on your computer. Remember, the only way to get your TechNet Plus Direct subscription activated early is by registering for TechDays before August 19th. If you register after August 19th, we will activate your subscription only after you have attended TechDays 2009. Register for TechDays 2009 Now and get Windows 7. Damir 
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Hot off the presses! Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 have hit the RTM Milestone! From the Windows 7 team blog… I am pleased to announce that Windows 7 has RTM’d! As I mentioned previously, RTM officially happens only after sign-off occurs. What happens is a build gets designated as a RTM contender after going through significant testing and meeting our quality bar for RTM. Then, it goes though all the validation checks required for RTM including having all languages of that build completed. If all the validation checks have passed – sign-off for RTM can occur. Today after all the validation checks were met, we signed off and declared build 7600 as RTM. Continue reading… And from the Windows Server blog… The acronym (RTM) stands for Release to Manufacturing, and it means this latest release of Windows Server 2008 R2 is now blessed by engineering as ready for the manufacturing process. We're talking final code. Sun shining, birds singing, children dancing in the streets. With evaluation software available for download in the first half of August and the full product available to customers with Software Assurance in the second half of August, RTM is more than just an engineering milestone. Occurring in lock-step with the release of the Windows 7 RTM, these two platforms are now ready for our partners to start testing and installing on their hardware. And that lock-step isn't a coincidence, it's a design goal. Customers using Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 in their enterprises has been Microsoft's intent from the first day programmers touched fingers to keyboards. Continue reading… So with those two announcements the first question is “When and where can I get it?” The answer. A big thank you too all the beta testers, without your testing and feedback this would not be possible! 
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Wow they are busy down in Redmond! Yesterday Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 was released and today Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 were completed! I’ve been doing some digging to find out what is new and noteworthy as well as what resources are available. So what’s new in SP2? First and foremost this release coincides with the expiration of the Windows Vista SP1 blocker utility. If you have this in place you will now be offered Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update. Windows Vista: - Feature Pack for Wireless, which contains support for Bluetooth v2.1 and Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration. Bluetooth v2.1 is the most recent specification for Bluetooth wireless technology.
- SP2 includes ability to record data to Blu-Ray Disc media.
- SP2 includes Windows Search 4.0, which builds on Microsoft’s search technology with improved indexing and search relevance. It also helps find and preview documents, e-mail (including signed e-mail messages), music files, photos, and other items on the computer.
Windows Server 2008: - SP2 provides the Hyper-V virtualization environment as a fully integrated feature of Windows Server 2008, including one free instance with Windows Server 2008 Standard, four free instances with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and an unlimited number of free instances with Windows Server 2008 Datacenter.
- SP2 improves backwards compatibility for Terminal Server license keys. Windows Server 2008 changed the licensing key from 512 bytes to 2,048 bytes which caused clients using older Terminal Server versions to fail. SP2 allows legacy license keys on Citrix applications to work with Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server.
- SP2 increases the authentication options for WebDAV redirector, enabling Microsoft Office users greater flexibility when authenticating custom applications using the WebDAV redirector
And in relation to both Windows Vista and Server 2008, SP2 provides an improved power management (both on the server and the desktop), which includes the ability to manage these settings via Group Policy. For more information on SP2 for Vista and Server 2008 please see: 
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Project: K-12 Network Overhaul The Challenge Describe the situation, challenge or problem you or your team faced. A private K-12 school was running on a Windows Server 2000 network with an infrastructure that had been neglected and was falling apart. Viruses, spyware, 10mb hubs, and lack of backups plagued the system. The schools data was at risk. The old server (P4 1.6 white box workstation) had bad sector and disk write errors filling the event log every 30 minutes. Users had almost full rights, and there was no internet filtering. Teacher data was accessible to students due to poor security. The school only receives partial funding from the government, and had minimal budget for IT, so I and a few others volunteered to do a comprehensive analysis on the computer systems. Recommendations turned into implementation plans and I ended up the project lead and primary implementer. The Solution Describe how your solution helped overcome the challenge. Tell us about the innovative ways you used technology to create this solution.
What obstacles or roadblocks were overcome? Is the solution reusable elsewhere? Be specific! I replaced the whole domain and file system with multiple Windows 2008 servers running virtualized on a Dell 2900. We made heavy use of GPO's, folder redirection, automation, and role based access control. Utilizing a product called USBDLM combined with software restriction policies, we were able to restrict usage of USB flash drives. Automated scripts were setup to create AD accounts, profiles, and group memberships based on user data from the enrollment system. Utilizing MDT with WDS we built HW independent desktop image (that took some digging!). Windows Server Backup was utilized along with Symantec to backup all data to one tape. A Barracuda AD integrated web filter system protects kids/teachers on the web. 150+ hours of my time later, it was done. The Results What positive impact did your solution have in the workplace, the community, or at home? The school immediately benefited from increased stability, security, and sustainability. We were pleased by very thankful teachers, administration, and school society. Some unhappy students (no more games!). Protection from spyware, malware and pornography/violence on the web ensures compliance with government policies and confident parents. A solid backup solution for servers and administration PC's has released nerves and tension about data loss. Users were very excited with Office 2007, and other software upgrades. Other Information Feel free to let the community know about any interesting or humorous tidbits you feel will add to your submission. In the analysis report, I made a note that the current server room was very dusty and that the old backup tapes were not standing upright. This got a laugh at the school board presentation, as it was a random tidbit between things like: Drive's failing, and Impending failure. While fine tuning the software restriction policies, I wanted to prevent users from storing executables in various profile locations. Not realizing that .lnk (shortcut) was in the default executable policy, I ended up with students not being able to launch Word from their start menus. Oops! The big highlight was creating a custom policy and profile for a student with visual (among other) impairments. When the student logged on the new system the first time. he was so excited, and it made all the hours feel worth it. Products Used To help the community understand the scope of your project, please select the technologies utilized. Windows/Web Client Web Technologies Collaboration Management Platform Security Systems 2008 Server, IIS7, FSRM, WDS, WSUS, MDT Submission Hyperlink http://www.microsoft.com/canada/igniteit-awards/view_submissiondetails.aspx?id=236
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Project: Welaptega Reborn The Challenge Describe the situation, challenge or problem you or your team faced. This client based in Halifax was facing enormous challenges trying to keep their infrastructure system up and running. I found out about their issues when I visit their CEO at his cottage and he couldn't even connected remotely to his own email/shared folders. They had 1 x server (SBS 2003) and 2 x server (win 2003) that were totally unbalanced. The SBS server had almost 1 Terabytes of data on it without having any functional backup. Their hard drives were almost full 95% used. However, another server had only 5% used. They did not have any maintenance contract with any IT firm, only Time & Material. Also, everyone had the domain administrator password handy in case they were having issues. The Solution Describe how your solution helped overcome the challenge. Tell us about the innovative ways you used technology to create this solution.
What obstacles or roadblocks were overcome? Is the solution reusable elsewhere? Be specific! We sat down and presented a full scale solution by running SBS 2008 and Hyper-V combined with OCS technologies. Their servers count went from 3 to 6 physicals and 2 virtuals. We even throw on top DPM and SharePoint solutions for keeping documents in one location and secured. I have also added a Blackberry server with OCS functionality on their desktops/notebooks and on their Blackberries as well. I have also removed the Symantec Anti-Virus that wasn't updated anymore for the total Forefront solution (Servers, Clients, SharePoint, OCS and Exchange). The Results What positive impact did your solution have in the workplace, the community, or at home? Today, the client is pleased with the results; in fact they never had any issues since the system is up and running couple weeks before XMAS 2008. We still have some little bits of configuration to complete before presenting them with a maintenance contract for 3 years. We have been helping them since the installation at no charge. Other Information Feel free to let the community know about any interesting or humorous tidbits you feel will add to your submission. We strongly believed that Microsoft came up with brilliant solutions for the Small and Medium businesses (SBS 2008, OCS, SharePoint v3, Forefront, DPM) and they work perfectly all together. Products Used To help the community understand the scope of your project, please select the technologies utilized. Windows/Web Client Virtualization Office Productivity Unified Communication Management Platform Security Systems, Network Infrastructure Systems, SharePoint Submission Hyperlink http://www.microsoft.com/canada/igniteit-awards/view_submissiondetails.aspx?id=112 
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A while back Ruth did an interview with Cameron McKay about an upcoming infrastructure project he was in the planning stages on. While the planning is done and the implementation also complete, I thought it was time to revisit with Cameron and talk about how things went. Turns out Cam was one step ahead and posted an entry on his blog which we are cross posting here. ------------------------- And here we are.... it's March 15th, I'm now 25 Years old, and the largest infrastructure project of my career to date is wrapping up. Now, I originally planned to have all work completed in a weekend... I may have been off by a week or two. Not a result of unknown factors, but delays in setting up systems and the occasional hour or two of sleep. February 27th at 10PM my Team and I started by redirecting all web facing sites to the ubiquitous "planned downtime" graphic to alert clients that the geeks are hard at work somewhere... :) First up on the task list was to modify our Cisco switches and firewalls and setup 10 new VLAN's. The tricky part here is that the Cisco VOIP servers also need to be re-IP addressed and this is where we had to take our time. While our contractors were busy checking everything with the telephony systems, our team was busy setting up the base AD Infrastructure (DNS, DHCP) and getting ready to deploy all our new servers. What servers exactly? - Windows Server 2008 /w Hyper-V
- Exchange Server 2007 SP1
- SQL Server 2008
- IIS7
- Team Foundation Server 2008
- Office Communications Server 2008 R2
- Groove Server
- ForeFront Client Security
- SharePoint Office Server 2007
Not to mention: - WSUS
- NAP
- Certificate Services
- Rights Management
- File Screening
And if that wasn't enough... We rolled out Vista Enterprise and Office 2007 to 100 workstations and also deployed the latest Blackberry Enterprise Server. I also felt the need to deploy the latest version of GFI Faxmaker to handle our some 300 faxes a day at the office. And of course, it's all managed by System Center. So around 2am on Saturday morning all the network changes were completed and the base AD deployment completed. At this point, we have taken a flat network and diced it up into 10 VLAN's, a DMZ, and 4 Windows domains. I'm still pretty excited and pushing through the night. Next up was taking all our existing physical and virtual servers and switching the IP's. This took us until around 6am... We took a coffee break and then moved onto deploying Exchange Server 2007. About this time I realized that I haven't slept yet and shrugged it off... I'm an IT Pro. At 9am we brought our SQL Servers online and IIS 7 web farm. My network team was working on all the ACL's and settings for the DMZ to make sure that we were ultra secure, as this is a Fortune 18 we work for and information security is paramount. Our developers came in around 10am to start migrating content from the old network and get the business up and running again. One challenge here is that there was no connectivity from the old LAN to the new network, so terabyte hard drives were used to move all the files. This took the better part of the day to get all the files over and onto the new servers. Once this was done, the Dev's could start configuring all the new database servers and IIS sites. I had our network team leave the edge network accessible from the internal LAN to make it as easy as possible for the development team to get access and complete the migration. Around 6pm on Saturday evening the Boss realized that I hadn't been to sleep yet and "suggested" that I go over to the hotel and get a few hours sleep. I slept from 7 until 11 and then showed back up at the office to continue working on the deployment. Sunday morning we started our LT deployment of Vista and Office 2007 to all the desktops. I was left configuring Exchange 2007 and the Blackberry Server and a half dozen other servers. We were having some issues with migrating the data. As it turns out, moving everything onto SQL 2008 and IIS7 is a big deal. Who would have thought? At this point, the comment of "backing out" came up. I didn't like the sound of that... and the discussion became a pow-wow a couple hours later. I'll spare everyone the discussion, but we decided to push forward and not roll back. Forgetting that all the workstations were already converted to Vista and on the new network, it would of been about 6 hours work to bring the old LAN back up. Around 2am on Monday morning I had my first real challenge of the deployment. The Exchange Hub Transport and Edge Servers suddenly stopped working. The EdgeSync connectors were all there and all the settings were correct and by-the-book.... but still, I couldn't send or receive email. So, 6 hours from the start of business, email was down. This was my worse nightmare. After a couple hours of troubleshooting and rebuilding the EdgeSync, I had email working again. Come Monday morning, we had core systems online and our CRM application was functional but none of the file shares or printers were up. Throughout the day we were busy assisting the developers, as their apps are all client facing and most of my Infrastructure changes were completed. Again, sent over to the hotel late Monday afternoon for a few hours sleep. Back at the office come 2AM. At this period, I'm feeling like the biggest geek in the world... and loving it. Tuesday I had the file shares and printers online. The task for the next couple days was to import all the old email from our 5.5 server and load it into each users new mailbox. This was a tedious task that took us until Friday to complete. Why? Lot's of old email... Over the weekend we brought ForeFront Client Security online. This is probably my most favorite piece of the new Infrastructure. All workstations and servers were now protected. The following week we were tweaking group policies and completing the configuration of all our web portals and databases. Fast forward to today. It's Sunday March 15th... and we have the most modern network in the company. Built for High Availability and Security from the ground up using the latest Microsoft technologies. I am very proud to say that I was apart of this great project and it has definitely been a fun and exciting ride. The best part is that 90% of the Datacenter is virtualized on Hyper-V. I'm a huge fan of the technology, and the benefits it provides our business in the DR / BC areas. It was interesting to see the entire IT Team, all 9 of us, pull together and stand unified behind this project. Sure, it's difficult and I've only had 20 hours total sleep in two weeks, but this is what I live for. We now have a platform to work off of that will drive the business for the next 6 Years. Was it as easy as I thought? NO. Would I do it again knowing what I know now? YES. Why? Because it had to be done. Our business is very competitive and we were working off technology that was 10 to 15 years old. More time was spent on maintenance and workarounds, then innovation. And how do I feel? Great. I slept in this morning and looking forward to getting back into the office tomorrow to work on my new state-of-the-art Infrastructure. All 100% Microsoft software based. ------------------------------ You can read more about the project at Cameron’s blog! 
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