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Windows Server 2008 screencast - Virtualization 10 Minute Tour

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Windows Server 2008 is going to ship its next public release candidate very soon.  Inside that release will be a CTP of Windows Server virtualization (WSv).  WSv will be setting the stage for a whole new wave of technologies so with that in mind, I thought I'd give you a quick peek at the product via a screencast video I created.

Hypervisor

ws2008 I love that name.  It's catchy and kewl.  It sounds like a supervisor for hyper space or something.  It does of course refer to the new thin layer that is installed on Windows Server 2008 also know at the virtualization parent partition.  It's also a a term used industry wide so when you hear the term, it doesn't just refer to the Microsoft implementation.

Our hypervisor, code named "Viridian", is an installable Windows Server 2008 role.  After installation of this role, you can start installing one or more child partitions in which to run your virtualization workloads.  Installation of those virtual machines is fairly straight forward although there are some things you need to be aware of.

Virtual Machine Additions

In order to use the new high speed VMBUS, you'll want to uninstall any previous additions from Virtual PC or Virtual Server, then install the integration components for WSv.  We're looking at making that transition as painless as possible, but you'll have to work through some of this manually until we get that work done.

Snapshots

You'll notice when you start looking at the CTP (and the screencast demo below), that we've added the ability to take snapshots of your virtual machines in either an online or offline state.  This gives you a look into the VSS capabilities that are coming. This is going to offer much more flexibility in your high availability and disaster recovery planning.

Management Tools

We do of course ship a management console with WSv which you'll see in the demos.  However, our strategy is to take advantage of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 product for advanced management of the virtualization partitions, VM workloads, monitoring, reporting, resource assignments, etc.  You simple won't believe what's coming and I'm not going to spill all of the beans just yet, but you can count on some deep dives later.

The Screencast

Take a look at the screencast and go on a tour of Windows Server virtualization (WSv).  The video is a little over ten minutes in length and I tried to hit some of the key areas so you can get a quick technical overview of the product.  If you want to save this local and review it offline, please right mouse click the second link and "SAVE AS".

Save Local - https://msinetpub.vo.llnwd.net/d1/keithcombs/ws2008/WSvTour.wmv

Other Resources

A number of new websites have gone live in the past week or so.  Here are a few of my favorites.  You haven't seen anything yet.  We are just getting started.

https://www.microsoft.com/scvmm

https://www.microsoft.com/virtualization

https://technet.microsoft.com/scvmm

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2007
    Keith: What do you use for the screencasts and what are the specs of the machine that you were demoing WS08 Virtualization? --Tray

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2007
    What does this mean? You'll be able to try out using hypervisor. The biggest advantage of hypervisor

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2007
    Keith Combs has done an excellent screencast demonstrating some of the features of the upcoming Customer

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2007
    I used the x64 Windows Media Encoder located at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx.  I'm testing Expression Studio as well.

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2007
    Hi Keith The download link doesnt seem to work. Has it been removed? Looking forward to seeing this running. Cheers David

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    Keith has provided a screencast/blogcast (or whatever you wish to call it) on Windows Server virtualization,

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    Is there a difference between “snapshots” under WSV and “checkpoints” under SCVMM?

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    If you have not had a chance to check out Keith Comb's blog, take some time to do so now. He is publishing

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    I've been talking about and showing you Windows Server Virtualisation (WSV) for a good while now (it's

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    fyi.. the streaming link is bad

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    The streaming link is not bad.  However I have seen other reports of issues connecting to video streams from the mms://wm.microsoft.com streaming media cluster.  If you are having issues, please use the contact form at the top of my blog and let me know what ISP you're using, speed of your connection, etc.  We'll need to collect some evidence to send over to our microsoft.com operations staff.  Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    Keith Combs Blog is showcasing what I think is the only screencast currently available demonstrating

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    Regarding the question on snapshots versus checkpoints (which is a really good question), I'm going to hold off answering that one until we release the CTP and you can try things out. Of course that generates the next question... when will the WSv CTP and the WS 2008 RC be available. When it's ready!  Soon, very soon!

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    In the upcoming release candidate for Windows 2008 we will aslo be able to test it's virtualization features.

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    In the upcoming release candidate for Windows 2008 we will aslo be able to test it's virtualization

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    Enfin !! Plusieurs sources sur internet annoncent la disponibilité prochaine de Windows Server 2008 RC1

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    Here is a quick 10 minute overview of Windows Service Vitalization by Keith Combs of Microsoft. Windows

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    I'm really excited to see this so feature-complete.  I already budgeted for the new Virtual Server as well System Center Virtual Machine Manager in the coming year! Keep up the great work...can't wait to play!!

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    Man, that was a cool demo. I can't wait to get my hands on the RC1 to test this out. Oh, thanks for naming one of your VM's Jamaica, I am from Jamaica W.I. ;) Question, in terms of guest OS, is this limited to recent versions of of Windows Server/client or I can run NT 4 and 2000 Servers/clients? My test machine is not as powerful, so I will only be able to allocate limited memory and hard disk space. I have skipped a few CTPs, still running April, which seem to have expired this morning when I tried to log in. Looks like AERO experience is back in, wanna try that out too. Currently running Server 2K3 R2 on my laptop every day with LUNA, so might do the same when this comes out. You say, AERO is not something you would run in production environment, why not? Are you saying there are some draw backs associated with AERO? Also, with Virtualization becoming a bundled/built in feature in Server '08, will this phase out the need for Virtual Server eventually? I found it difficult to use anyway, so I wouldn't be missing anything after seeing this demo. Thanks again Keith.

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 14, 2007
    Thanks for the response Keith. I live in South Manchester, near the South Coast. Thanks for mentioning Grand Lido Braco, I have a friend from the States who might be visiting the island soon and is wondering where he should stay, Grand Lido Braco sounds like a great spot to check out. Hurricane Dean did some serious damage this past summer, my house and yard seem to have gotten the brunt of it, but we have recovered so far and are back up and running. Again, I'm looking forward to the next Server '08 CTPs. Keep up the good work. :)

  • Anonymous
    September 16, 2007
    Hello Keith, nice show, but when you are going to create real virtual computing platform, it's more about managing physical servers and migrating resources between them (noone except showmakers use single server for virtualization). I am not sure, if viridian fit in enterprise scenario, but if does, it will be nice to have some show about these features.

  • Anonymous
    September 16, 2007
    Vorcigernix, See http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2007/09/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-scvmm-in-15-minutes.aspx when you have another 15 minutes.   SCVMM combined with WSv is going to be enterprise management solution. It will manage our products and others.  This is going to take a while to gel because Windows Server 2008 must ship first, followed by WSv, followed by the next version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).

  • Anonymous
    September 18, 2007
    Ok, 15minutes one is better one for me, but this all looks like (very nice anyway) virtualization management without virtualization product, which will be released in third q next year, if I got it. I don't understand these guys which "can't wait to get their hans on". When you need windows OS under each virtual host, you are loosing half of virtualization kudos in my opinion. Even core installation of some enterprise linux distro with free vmware server is better solution (ok, there is very bad management in this case, but its near free in other hand).

  • Anonymous
    September 18, 2007
    Keith, great screencast! I would like to see more info on networking. Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 has a limit of 4 virtual NICs per VM - what's the limit in Viridian? Nice to see that the virtual switches now support VLANs. Do they have any L3 capabilities, like routing? QoS? cheers, Aitor

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2007
    Last week Keith Combs published his 10 Min of Windows Server Virtualization (WSV) screencast. In this

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2007
    Is there a way to automate jobs as well ? Like installation of software ? Looks like MS is rolling a lot of the features of the VM management systems into this one.

  • Anonymous
    September 20, 2007
    Keith Combs has put together a great screencast video demonstrating the cool new features of Windows

  • Anonymous
    September 20, 2007
    Keith Combs over at the TechNet Blog site has put together a really good screencast demonstrating the very much anticipated Windows Server Virtualization product, which is going to be made available as a new role in the upcoming Windows Server 2008 operating

  • Anonymous
    September 20, 2007
    Rams, there is a ton of automation possible.  If you want to see it in action with a shipping product, take a look at System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007. We'll obviously be doing some really kewl stuff with WSv, VSS and other services in Windows Server 2008.

  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2007
    Keith Comb has a nice screencast about Windows Server Virtualization (WSV) in his “Blahg“. If you only want to get a quick impression, you could as well have a look at the screenshots I made from it and if you want to learn about the most

  • Anonymous
    September 25, 2007
    Windows Server 2008, with built-in Web and virtualization technologies, enables you to increase the reliability

  • Anonymous
    September 25, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 25, 2007
    the first release candidate of Win2k8 was made available for download today athttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0818D425-CD47-4279-BE8D-24ABA14530A3&displaylang=en

  • Anonymous
    October 10, 2007
    Revisando algunas notas para la charla de virtualización que voy a dar el próximo 18 de octubre, invitado