NZ TechNet Flash 2 December 2010 published: Announcements from Tech·Ed Europe, Berlin

The latest edition of NZ TechNet Flash is now available.

Guest Editorial: Stu Fox

Welcome to the latest issue of NZ TechNet Flash,

We just recently had TechEd Europe in Berlin, and a lot of exciting announcements were made. 

Building a Private Cloud? Try Hyper-V Cloud. Hyper-V Cloud is a set of programs and initiatives to help our customers and partners deploy private and public clouds to deliver Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) based on Windows Server Hyper-V, System Center, and related products. These programs enable customers to:

· Build their own private cloud with help from the Hyper-V Cloud Deployment Guides and Hyper-V Cloud partners.

· Get a pre-validated private cloud configuration from Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track OEM partners. Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track partners have worked with Microsoft to combine hardware and software offerings based on a reference architecture for building private clouds.

· Find a service provider in the Hyper-V Cloud Service Provider Program who can host a dedicated private cloud for you.

In Michael Kleef’s VDI session he talked about a 40% increase in VM density when using Hyper-V SP1 Dynamic Memory.  Citrix have already shown that Hyper-V is the best hypervisor for running Windows 7 VM’s, this improvement increases that advantage.  If you’re looking at doing VDI, Citrix XenDesktop on Hyper-V provides the most scalable and flexible desktop virtualisation environment.

System Center Updates.   We got our first public look at a some of the latest versions of System Center products – Virtual Machine Manager vNext & Operations Manager vNext.  VMM brings in fabric management to allow deeper integration into storage and networking.  Operations Manager adds additional support for monitoring network devices & improved views into overall enterprise performance, along with topology simplification and improved monitoring scenarios.  We also had a look at the recent AVICode acquisition to see what additional functionality that brings into System Center.

Windows Azure.  What is it?  How does it work?  Why do I care?  An IT Pro view of Windows Azure might help, along with learn Windows Azure in 33 minutes.

Opalis 6.3 released.  Opalis 6.3 has shipped, adding support for Windows Server 2008 & introducing new integration packs for System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Configuration Manager, Operations Manager & Service Manager.

Microsoft Roadshow: December 2010

If you haven’t register for the Microsoft Roadshow starting next week, do so at www.microsoft.co.nz/roadshow. Microsoft technical advisors Nathan Mercer and Miguel Rojas will be presenting a TechNet UNPLUGGED session on Small Business Server 2011, Office 365 and System Center Essentials 2010. Level 300 technical for IT Pros, free to register.

Thanks again to the NZ TechNet for letting me guest write this editorial.  Enjoy the summer, and don’t forget your sunscreen.  And don’t injure yourself playing Kinect games!

Stu Fox
Technology Solution Professional - Datacenter
Microsoft New Zealand
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