Archive for category Windows Server

Combining Virtualization Approaches

While server virtualization seems to get the bulk of virtualization mindshare, there are several other approaches that are worthy of consideration.  Examples including presentation, application, storage, and network virtualization.  In fact, you can effectively combine these different approaches to find the best performing and most cost-effective solutions to common IT problems. 

That’s the topic of my SearchServerVirtualization.com article, Combining virtualization approaches for a data center’s ‘secret sauce’.  From the introduction to the article:

Being an IT professional is similar to being a good cook. Even if you have great ingredients, success is realized only when you combine these ingredients in the ideal way. The same holds true for virtualization — many technologies can work well together. The art is in determining which applications and services will benefit from one another.

The good news is that virtualization doesn’t come in just one flavor — administrators have numerous options from which to choose. You can combine different virtualization approaches to address some of the more difficult data center management tasks.

As long as you can handle some cooking-related puns, I hope the information provides to be useful.

Windows Server 2008 Webcasts: Info in 10-Minute Chunks

One of the hardest parts of learning about a huge new operating system release like Windows Server 2008 is sifting through all of the available information for for what really matters to you.  For example, if you routinely have to support Branch Office scenarios for your domain controllers, you’d like to avoid all of the marketing babble about how revolutionary the product is and get right down to to the technical details.  And, if you’re like me, you don’t want to skip around a 90-minute webcast to find the five minutes of information you really want to hear.

The Windows Server 2008 Webcast Express Demo Videos highlights the many different improvements and new features in Windows Server 2008 through some concise videos (most are around 10 minutes long).  It focuses on screencasts rather than PowerPoint slides so you can see various features in action.  I recently checked out the High Performance and Scalable Networking webcast to learn about QoS options and IPv6 updates.  Overall, this is my preferred way of getting information.  I rarely like to set aside 90 minutes or so to attend a webcast, but it’s easy to find 10 – 15 minutes to learn about something new just about every day.