October Microsoft Virtualization Issue: Managing Virtual Environments from Data Center to Desktop

In this issue:

- Get Virtualized

- The Virtual Experience - Microsoft virtualization solutions in real-life
business scenarios

- Microsoft Virtualization resources

- News, Events, Experts' Column and much more...
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"Virtualization-including server, desktop, presentation, and application
virtualization-will be a key building block for transforming the enterprise,
delivering better service to users, and reducing costs. With Windows Server
Virtualization (aka Viridian) as the final piece of the puzzle, Microsoft
will be a leading force across all these areas of virtualization and in the
critical area of virtualization management."

- Barb Goldworm, President and Chief Analyst, Focus Consulting.
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Get Virtualized


The market is buzzing about virtualization. Enterprises see it as a means
for significant operational cost savings. And with good reason.
Virtualization technologies-particularly when implemented across the entire
infrastructure-can save tremendous money by helping you consolidate
resources, automate traditionally time-consuming processes, and drive
complexity out of your environments.

And that's just the beginning. At Microsoft, we view infrastructure
virtualization as a key enabler of dynamic IT, which, beyond reducing costs,
provides a level of business readiness, scalability and flexibility
unattainable with a purely physical environment.

Microsoft offers a uniquely comprehensive set of virtualization solutions,
spanning the data center to the desktop. Equally important, we provide
virtualization management solutions that truly transform the way IT controls
and manipulates the infrastructure, while also enabling you to utilize
existing skills and technologies, as well as relationships with Microsoft's
partner ecosystem. When implemented in a truly dynamic state, virtualization
has the power to change IT from a cost center to a strategic asset, one that
anticipates and facilitates business change.

With the recent announcement of Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine
Manager-which is featured in this newsletter-we are offering customers a
compelling, cost-effective solution that addresses today's key challenges
while building the foundation for future growth. Virtual Machine Manager
enables you to manage both virtual and physical assets from a unified
platform, and helps drive business agility by allowing you to dynamically
provision rapidly change and streamline management of your infrastructure's
machine layer. With a view towards the dynamic enterprise, it also lets you
seamlessly migrate to new virtualization technologies, such as our upcoming
Windows Server 2008, which will enable even greater levels of flexibility
and responsiveness.

Read about Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager in this
newsletter to see the tremendous impact that effective management can have
on your infrastructure, well into the future. We're also highlighting
SoftGrid Application Virtualization to show how virtualizing applications
can transform and streamline management of one of the most time-consuming
aspects of the infrastructure.

As you're following the buzz around virtualization, talk to your Microsoft
channel partner about your needs, check out our resources (see links below),
and consider the benefits of going with solutions that will easily support
virtualization-from the platform to management, from the data center to the
desktop-as you evolve to a state of dynamic IT.

-Larry Orecklin, General Manager, Virtualization, Microsoft
For more information
Check out the Microsoft Virtualization Web site for an overview of our data
center-to-desktop approach and products: www.microsoft.com/virtualization
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Microsoft Virtualization: Featured Products


System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007: Comprehensive Management
Solution for the Virtualized Data Center

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 is a comprehensive,
cost-effective solution for unified management of physical and virtual
machines. Virtual Machine Manager speeds and simplifies many common data
center tasks while providing administrators with powerful tools to perform
critical activities such as consolidating underutilized physical servers and
rapidly provisioning new virtual machines.

Using Virtual Machine Manager can make a difference in several key ways.
First, you can use it to maximize IT resources. It's a simple yet robust
support for consolidating multiple physical servers into a virtual
environment increases overall utilization of physical hosts. Second, it
helps create an agile data center. With the rapid virtual machine (VM)
provisioning capabilities in Virtual Machine Manager, administrators can
build and deploy new virtual machines at a fraction of the time and cost
needed for physical hardware. Finally, by using it, you can take advantage
of existing skills. Using the common interface and intuitive controls in
Virtual Machine Manager, you can maximize your IT department's existing
Windows Server and System Center expertise, minimizing the need for
retraining of administrators and help desk personnel.

You'll find these key components in Virtual Machine Manager:

1. Intelligent placement of virtual workloads that ensures rapid deployment
and migration of virtual machines on the best-suited physical host servers.
The product employs an intuitive ranking system based on an extensive and
modifiable placement algorithm.

2. Fast and reliable physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V)
conversions. An easy-to-use wizard converts physical machines into virtual
ones with just a few clicks from the Administrator Console.

3. Centralized library repository that stores and archives all the building
blocks of the virtual data center, such as virtual hard disks, CD/DVD media
images, post-deployment customization scripts, hardware configurations,
templates, and ISO images.

4. Fully scriptable with Windows Powershell. Every command or control
available in the Virtual Machine Manager Administrator Console can also be
executed by Windows Powershell, a powerful new administrator-focused command
shell and scripting language.

5. Integration with System Center. Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine
Manager works seamlessly alongside System Center Operations Manager 2007,
System Center Configuration Manager 2007, and System Center Data Protection
Manager 2007, providing the most comprehensive server management suite in
the industry.

For more information on System Center Virtual Machine Manager, please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/evaluation/default.mspx
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SoftGrid Application Virtualization: New Version 4.2 and New MSI Utility
Accelerate Application Management Lifecycle

Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization 4.2 transforms applications
into virtualized, network-available services resulting in dynamic delivery
of software that is never installed, minimizes conflicts, and reduces costly
application compatibility testing. Users and their application environments
are no longer machine-specific. The machines themselves are no longer
user-specific, so that IT can be flexible and responsive to business needs,
significantly reducing the cost of PC management, including application and
operating system migrations.

SoftGrid is an integral tool in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, a
dynamic desktop solution available to Software Assurance customers that
helps reduce application deployment costs, enable delivery of applications
as services, and better manage and control enterprise desktop environments.

Microsoft recently announced a new utility called the MSI Utility for
Microsoft Application Virtualization (available in Q4, 2007). With the MSI
Utility, you can use your existing ESD infrastructure to deploy virtual
applications without streaming. It uses Windows Installer (previously known
as Microsoft Installer) -- a standard format and a service for deployment,
configuration, and component management on Windows systems -- to load and
configure virtual applications.

The MSI Utility extends SoftGrid's on-demand streaming deployment
capabilities by also enabling distribution through a broad range of systems,
such as Microsoft Systems Management Server or System Center Configuration
Manager for enterprise-wide deployments, third-party ESD systems, or a
network share or CD for simpler deployment scenarios.

For more information on Microsoft Desktop Optimization and Microsoft
SoftGrid Application Virtualization, please visit:
www.windowsvista.com/optimizeddesktop
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The Virtual Experience - Microsoft virtualization solutions in real-life
business scenarios
"Virtualization is the broad attempt to use hardware and software technology
to move computing functions from operating totally in a physical setting to
operating in a logical or virtual setting. Once there, these functions can
operate in an environment that is ideal for them. This can improve
performance and scalability, offer consolidation and agility, or offer a
unified management domain. In the end, organizations using this technology
can improve revenues and reduce overall costs of computing."

-Dan Kusnetzky, Principal Analyst, Kusnetzky Group

Featured case study: RackForce Networks and System Center Virtual Machine
Manager

RackForce was the first hosting service provider to bring Microsoft® Virtual
Server 2005 R2 technology to market. However, with hundreds of customers and
an array of server nodes, managing the company's growing virtual environment
was a challenge. Enterprise-ready and easy to administer, Microsoft System
Center Virtual Machine Manager lets RackForce centralize and vastly improve
VM management. The company can streamline server management and maintain an
average of four customers to each physical server, rather than the
one-to-one ratio previously supported. With System Center Virtual Machine
Manager, RackForce can easily identify which servers have capacity for
additional workload. Using Virtual Machine Manager, RackForce has
significantly simplified physical-to-virtual machine migrations. RackForce
expects to be able to cut maintenance and provisioning time in half with
System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

"Virtual Machine Manager is rich with features that make managing virtual
machine environments much easier and highly efficient."
- James Bothe, System Administrator, RackForce

"I've been exposed to hundreds of applications, and SoftGrid is one of the
most compelling I have seen. It does everything it promises to do."
- Ed Simcox, Director of Technology Planning, Clarian Health Partners

"By reducing the size of our data center [using Virtual Server 2005 R2], we
expect to save more than $70,000 a year in leasing costs and $40,000 a year
in utilities and maintenance."
Felipe Garcia, Manager of Network Services, Midas
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Microsoft Virtualization resources


System Center Virtual Machine Manager Flash Demo
With virtualized infrastructure rapidly becoming a larger and larger portion
of data center operations, the need for top-notch management tools is
becoming more and more critical. See how Virtual Machine Manager fulfills
this vital role in our new flash demonstration.

Virtual Machine Manager Tips and Tricks
While getting Virtual Machine Manager installed and properly configured is
easy and straightforward, a few tips and tricks that will make this process
even smoother. Before getting started, watch our Live Meeting recording of
VMM Installation and Configuration Walk-through.

Enter the World of Virtualization Webcast Series
Virtualization is the most talked-about technology today and can impact
almost every aspect of your infrastructure, driving greater efficiencies and
flexibility. This Webcast series dives into the technology and looks at
products in the market that deliver virtual solutions. Register today.

Introducing SoftGrid to the World (Level 200) Webcast
Do you wonder when you should use Microsoft SoftGrid Application
Virtualization or Terminal Services? In this session, we look at these
solutions, provide details on how they differ, and explain when to use them.
We also cover how to install, configure, and use SoftGrid. Attend on
November 7, 2007. View session.

Microsoft Virtualization Cookbooks
These cookbooks provide step-by-step details on installing and implementing
Microsoft virtualization solutions, including Microsoft System Center
Virtual Machine Manager, Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, and System Center Data
Protection Manager.

Safeguarding Microsoft Office SharePoint with Data Protection Manager
These Webcasts will focus on how Data Protection Manager 2007 can provide
continuous data protection for Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server. Attend
them on November 8, 12, or 14, 2007.

Data Protection Manager Overview
This Webcast will focus on the new features of Data Protection Manager 2007,
including protection of virtual servers, Microsoft SharePoint Products and
Technologies, and Windows desktops, along with disaster recovery
capabilities. Join us on November 26 or 28, and December 5, 2007.

Terminals Services Executive Chat
Have you ever wanted to meet the team that leads development for Windows
Server 2008 Terminal Services? On November 7, 2007, you can participate in
an online chat with Chandra Shekaran, General Manager for Terminal Services,
and Tad Brockway, Group Program Manager for Terminal Services. Learn more.

Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Webcasts
November is the month to dive deep into Terminal Services. We're offering a
range of Webcasts that cover everything from deploying TS RemoteApp with
Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services, to best practices for security and
authentication, and developing for Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services.
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Thank you for joining us this month, see you in the next issue.

Sincerely,

- The Microsoft Virtualization Product and Marketing Teams

David Cochrane
Senior Network Specialist
D&K Enterprise
Bridging the gap between humans and technology.
100 N. Federal Highway, Suite 840
Fort Lauderdale, Fl 33301
Phone  (954) 615-7905
Fax      (831) 306-3715

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