Announcing the Infrastructure Planning and Design Series and New Releases for Virtualization!
The concept of the Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) series is to distill down to the core decisions required for planning and designing the IT infrastructures necessary to support business services. The first wave of released guidance introduces the series and focuses on new virtualization technologies from Microsoft, including SoftGrid Application Virtualization and Windows Server Virtualization in Windows Server 2008.
The Infrastructure
Planning and Design series is an evolution of Windows Server System Reference Architecture. The guides in this series help clarify and streamline design processes for Microsoft infrastructure technologies; each guide addresses a unique infrastructure technology or scenario. All guides share a common structure including:
Definition of the technical decision flow through the planning process.
Listing of decisions to be made and the commonly available options and considerations.
Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
Framing decisions in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive alignment with the appropriate business landscape.
These guides complement product documentation by exposing and focusing on infrastructure design options.
Guides Available in this Release
IPD Series Introduction Guide
Planning the next generation of technical infrastructure for corporations is a complex and daunting task. The IPD series is designed to present the reader with the most concise planning guidance for Microsoft technologies. It also provides a means to validate design decisions with the business to ensure that the solution meets the requirements of both business and infrastructure stakeholders. This guide describes the background for the IPD series as well as the format of each guide and defines characteristics common to the series.
Selecting the Right Virtualization Technology Guide
There are several different forms of virtualization that need to be understood as a basis for making the right technology choice. Server hardware virtualization, server software virtualization, presentation virtualization, application virtualization, and desktop virtualization are all valid options for organizations considering which services to virtualize and how to implement these technologies. The goal of this virtualization overview guide is to enable you to rapidly and accurately select which Microsoft virtualization technology or technologies to use for specific scenarios. You will then be able to proceed with the planning and design process for that virtualization technology by using the appropriate Infrastructure Planning and Design guide.
SoftGrid Application Virtualization Guide
Microsoft SoftGrid® Application Virtualization is the only virtualization solution on the market to deliver applications that are never installed, yet securely follow users anywhere, on demand. It dramatically improves IT efficiencies, enables much greater business agility, and provides a superior end-user desktop experience. The Infrastructure Planning and Design Series: SoftGrid Application Virtualization assists designers in the infrastructure planning process for SoftGrid by providing a clear and concise workflow of the decisions and tasks required for each method. This guide enables you to plan the infrastructure required for meeting your application virtualization service goals.
Windows Server Virtualization Guide
A virtualized computing environment can improve the efficiency of your computing resources by utilizing more of your hardware resources. Windows Server virtualization enables you to create a virtualized server computing environment using a technology that is part of Windows Server® 2008. The Infrastructure Planning and Design Series: Windows Server Virtualization guide discusses Microsoft virtualization options using Windows Server virtualization in Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1. The guide explains design considerations at critical decision points and helps with plans for an optimized server virtualization architecture to meet organizational goals for performance and consolidation.
Where to Find Infrastructure Planning and Design
The Infrastructure Planning and Design Series guides are available as free downloads on the Microsoft Download Center.