Aidan Finn, IT Pro

A number of news sources published comments by Microsoft’s Mike Neil:

"Microsoft believes the claims made in VMware’s whitepaper contain several inaccuracies and misunderstandings of our current license and use policies, our support policy and our commitment to technology collaboration," said Mike Neil, Microsoft virtualization GM in a statement. "We believe that we are being progressive and fair with our existing licensing and use policies and creating a level playing field for partners and customers. We are deeply committed to providing high-quality technical support to our customers who are utilizing virtualization technology. In addition, we are committed to working collaboratively with industry leaders to foster an environment of interoperability and cooperation that best serves our customers."

“We believe it’s better to resolve VMware’s claims between our two companies so that we can better serve customers and the industry," Neil added in the statement. "EMC is a long-time partner of Microsoft. We’ve extended this courtesy to VMware due to our mutual customers and partnership with EMC. We are committed to continuing to collaborate with VMware as we have been doing on regular basis. Consistent with this, Microsoft believes that we will be able to accommodate a mutually agreeable solution between our two companies and clear up any existing misunderstanding with regard to the points raised in the whitepaper.”

It does read like that either Microsoft is taking the high road on this or that something else is in the works and this was released to keep the media quiet.  You could read more into the comments about being "best mates" with EMC who happen to own VMware but I’ll leave that up to your imagination.

Both make good products in this market.  I’d hope that for their customers, they can work things out like was done with Citrix and MS.

Credit: The Register.

I admit it, I know nothing about Groove.  My cloning hammock broke last Summer so I’ve just not had the time.  I do know it’s a collaboration solution that can integrate into the other Office 2007 system products, e.g. Sharepoint, Office, etc.  The emphasis is on the user being able to work when they want to and being able to work with who they want to.

Microsoft has released a document that describes how they deployed Groove 2007 to 8,000 users across their global operation.  Details of AD integration, Office and Sharepoint are also promised.

ENN is reporting that Dell is looking into providing Novell’s Suse Linux as an option on their complete desktop range.  That’s a big deal.  There is growing unrest, particularly in Europe, with increasing licensing costs which are highlighted by the cost differences between the USA and Europe.  Being able to adopt lower cost and open source alternatives will be attractive to those who need to trim costs to a minimum.

But how in the heck do I manage Linux desktops?  Well folks, you can manage Linux systems using Microsoft SMS 2003 if you extend it with the Quest Management Xtensions for SMS.  And Linux servers?  How do you manage those?  Again, there are third party management packs and agents for MOM 2005 such as Quest Management Xtensions for MOM.  OK, I’ve got one: I don’t want to maintain two accounts/passwords for every user.  Ha!  Not a problem.  There’s plenty of solutions out there for enabling single sign-on between UNIX/LINUX and Active Directory, an example being Vintela Authentication Services by Quest 🙂

You see, you can use AD as your primary directory even in a heterogeneous environment and still take advantage of the excellent management and infrastructure solutions provided by Microsoft.

Credit: ENN.

In case you didn’t notice, we’re about to witness a new war to replace the "Browser Wars", the "Office Wars" and the "Open Source Desktop Wars".  We have recently entered the age of virtualisation.  This market has been dominated by VMware, and rightly so.  Their product range is excellent, from the Workstation product, the free Virtual Server mid range product up to the enterprise level ESX with it’s accompanying management and disaster recovery solutions.

I’m a big fan of virtualisation:

• You can make the most of purchased hardware, e.g. why only use 5% of CPU for a single application server?
• You can increase server density to reduce space, power and air conditioning requirements.
• Hardware abstraction allows you to replace hardware and move your VM in a few minutes with no rebuilds or driver issues.
• This agility allows you to quickly move servers from host to host, perfect for disaster recovery.
• Virtual Machines can be replicated to a SAN in a DR site.  Invocation will just be a matter of shutting down the original VM’s and starting up the new ones … much simpler than current implementations.

Virtualisation is not good for everything.  I always want at least one physical DC.  Some machines require every bit pf processing available to them, e.g. mailbox servers, SQL servers, Terminal Servers.  Disk performance does drop a bit too.  I’ve seen a client where they used a virtual file server.  Its performance was abysmal compared to that of a physical server.

Microsoft jumped into the market in 2004 with Virtual PC which competes with VMware Workstation.  VPC 2007 is a free product whereas Workstation requires a license purchase.  My opinion is that either is excellent for basic functionality.  however, I give VMware the edge because they implemented a much better (and less accident prone) state saving system and there is USB device redirection.  VPC is a good tool and it is free.  I’d heavily recommend it to sites that have Windows Vista Enterprise usage rights to make user of those 4 free VM’s per host offer.  I prefer to use VMware Workstation on my PC for lab work because of the excellent Snapshot feature which is a mile ahead of Microsoft’s Undo Disks.

Microsoft released the now free Virtual Server, currently 2005 R2 which was followed by VMware releasing the replacement for GSX, a free VMware Server.  I’m 50/50 on these.  VMware has the edge on snapshots and disk performance, in my opinion.  Microsoft has the edge on CPU resource management.  Personally, I use VMware Server at home because of the snapshots and because I can quickly copy stuff to and fro my Workstation installation.  However, for clients, I’d be just as likely to pick Virtual Server depending on requirements.

At the top end, VMware are still uncontested with ESX.  This product is selling like hot cakes right now.  Being able to move VM’s around server silos with no interruption, replicate VM’s to DR sites, manage them remotely … that’s everything that I’d look for.  Microsoft have rattled VMware’s cage a bit.  We know that within 6 months of the release of Windows Server "Longhorn" (Q4 2007), Microsoft will release a trimmed down version that will be a Hypervisor, much like ESX.  Microsoft currently has the first of their management products in beta testing.  Further management is possible with OM 2007, CM 2007, ADS and probably Service Desk in the future.

VMware decided to strike first in this new "war".  They have released a whitepaper discussing the shortfalls of Microsoft virtualisation technology and licensing.  Some of their points are fair:

• Microsoft only gives support for their products on other people’s virtualisation solutions if the client has a Premier support contract.  Why can’t they treat the product as just another server and provide support to everyone?
• Microsoft does not have the full range of products for managing and replicating VM’s.  Not yet … but give it time.

The tone of the paper is pretty negative.  There are those who will love it.  There are those who will see VMware as a baby tossing their toys out of the pram.  I can understand where VMware is coming from but a more clinical approach would have served them better.

What would I use right now if I needed mass virtualisation, mobility and DR?  I’d go with VMware.  It’s more mature, has better accompanying technology and supports a broader set of guest OS’s.  If I had a shoestring budget?  Microsoft would have a 50/50 chance depending on requirements.  And in the future for the enterprise?  Good question.  The architecture of the Longhorn Hypervisor looks efficient.  For me, it really will depend on the accompanying technologies and how seamlessly they can be managed and integrate into my Active Directory.

This white paper describes networking and TCP/IP performance enhancements in Windows Vista. It also provides details about migrating to IPv6 and configuring IPv6 by using Teredo, 6to4, and other methods.

I’m a fan of what is probably the least known of the Office products.  InfoPath is intended to be used as a digital form editing and browsing tool.  Using it you can completely do away with the need of paper forms (excluding regulatory requirements) in your office.  This not only does your bit to save the rain forests but also makes your organisation more responsive to change.

I’ve used InfoPath 2003 in the past for managing projects and for employee timesheets.  The form was published onto Sharepoint for easy access and storage.  My usage was quite basic.  I was hoping to expand its usage to include all of our process that required forms.  Unfortunately, that was when our department was moved to Germany.

The data could be stored in the forms or in a SQL database.  Data was validated using rules.  Drop down dialogs cou be pre-populated.  Most of all, if you have deployed certificates, e.g. deployed an enterprise CA and certificate auto enrollment for users, then you could require that users of the form sign them, thus guaranteeing that person X did actually fill the form.  You could extend this using workflow for automated processing of the forms.

InfoPath 2007 was released with the Office 2007 system.  Microsoft has made step-by-step training available.  It also includes a set of downloadable samples.

I’ve just been testing out some of the plug-ins for Windows Live Writer (Beta).

There’s a bunch of plug-ins and updates for the product itself to offer loads of additional functionality.  I’ve just loaded a plug-in for Flickr (photo sharing).  Hopefully, if MS Live Spaces allows, you’ll be seeing a photo of a male Chaffinch that I took from my new hide over the weekend.

I filed formal complaints with both Eircom and BT Ireland last Friday.  Here’s some stuff I noticed:

Eircom:

• The Customer Complaints dude had a real attitude about him as if to say "How dare you complain about us taking your account wtihout your knowledge or permission!"
• I was promised a call back withing 10 working days.

BT Ireland:

• Once I said "I want to file a formal complaint" they had a different attitude.
• I was promised a call back within 2 working days.  A rep called first thing this morning.

BT are saying that they can’t just take my account from Eircom.  Maybe Eircom should realise that they can’t just take an account from other service providers?  A sales rep is to call me to arrange to get me back onto a new contract under my old arrangements.

What state are things in now?  For a few weeks, I was on an Eircom address but signing in with my BT credentials!  Somehow or other, I’m now on a BT Ireland IP address.  I tried to access my Eircom online bill on Friday but was told that no such account existed.  I’m thinking that Eircom realised that I would do them in a courtroom and that I would not pay them a cent was not just a bluff and they started restoring my original service.

Hopefully, all these service interupttions that affect my mail and web server will be coming to an end within 3 weeks.

And we wonder why Eircom make the news for being probably the worst service providers, in my opinion, (in any industry) in the west?

One of the many versions of Windows Vista is Windows Vista Enterprise.  Enterprise is only available to Software Assurance customers.  Seeing as I rarely hit one of those, I’ve not had my hands on this version yet.

First, some background:

• Any version of Vista can host virtual machines.
• Only Vista Business and Vista Ultimate can legally be run as guests in virtual machines.
• Usual licensing applies: 1 Vista VM = 1 Vista license.  1 host and 2 guests = 3 licenses.

Now to Enterprise.  One of the marketed benfits of using Enterprise was built in virtualisation.  Why would you use it?  Typically you would use it for running a legacy OS for old application dependancies and for split administration, e.g. an admin uses an ordinary user on their host PC for office work and an admin user in their VM for admin work. 

Enterprise allows you to run up to 4 free guests as long as:

• They are going to be used by the user logged on to the host OS.
• They run either Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate.

The following was said on a recent MS blog post: "In Windows Vista Enterprise edition we allow the user to have 4 installs of Windows in VMs and they can install and use Vista Business Edition in a VM".

Many aren’t even aware of their Software Assurance benefits and haven’t even signed in to view them.  Contact your LAR or your TAM to get your credentials sorted out so you can sign in and access/activate those benefits (free training, e-learning, free or cheap products/upgrades, downloads, etc). 

Download and install Windows Vista Entperprise.  Then download Virtual PC 2007 (free) and install it on your Windows Vista Enterprise clients so you can use VM’s to:

• Split your admin user accounts.
• Create software development/test environments.
• Develop and test OS deployment.
• Develop and test application deployment.
• Have dedicated test machines for group policy administration.

The only limit is your imagination.  It’d be a shame not to make use of all that free licensing if it’s available to you.

The Exchange team discussed the service pack which will go into public beta (via TechNet) in April.  They are aiming to coincide the RTM with that of Window Server "Lonhorn" in Q2 2007.   This is what they had to say:

Standby Continuous Replication (SCR)

For such a great feature, we obviously needed a new name!

With Exchange 2007, we introduced Clustered Continuous Replication (CCR) for replication of data between 2 servers within a cluster within the same datacenter. With SCR, data replicates to a non-clustered server in a remote datacenter. If the primary datacenter becomes unavailable, the standby replica in the second datacenter is readily available to be activated.

Mobility

We’ll have new policies for:

• Enforcing encryption of main memory contents on device
• Enforcing which applications are allowed/blocked from running on the device
• Enforcing networking capabilities: disable wifi, Bluetooth, infrared, external storage
• Enforcing communication capabilities: disable SMS, MMS, POP/IMAP, disable camera

OWA

SP1 will fill in the feature holes that we just didn’t have time to complete by RTM:

• Personal distribution lists
• S/MIME
• Rules
• Monthly calendar view
• Deleted items recovery

OWA 2007 SP1 spell checking will add support for:

• Arabic
• Korean

OWA 2007 SP1 will add support for viewing Office 2007 file formats as HTML.

Exchange Management Console

SP1 will fill in the GUI holes that we just didn’t have time to complete by RTM, including:

• Public folder configuration
• POP and IMAP configuration
• SendAs permission configuration
• Delegation wizard scenarios

Web Services

New web service coverage will include:

• Public folder access
• Delegate management
• Folder permission management

IPv6

On Longhorn Server, we will support Exchange 2007 on native IPv6 networks.

Move Mailbox

This vital tool administrator tool has been beefed up to include import and export to a .pst