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Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) or Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V)?

January 2, 2009 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

WindowsITPro answers this question: when should one use Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) as opposed to Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V)?

APP-V and MED-V address two very different scenarios. APP-V virtualizes at the application level, placing applications in a sandbox-type environment. Applications can’t see one another through the user of virtual file systems, virtual registries, or virtual services but the applications are still running on the local client OS. APP-V is great for resolving conflicts between applications and expediting application testing deployment, as APP-V applications aren’t locally installed on a computer.

MED-V, set to be available in the first half of 2009, virtualizes at the OS level and is used to resolve incompatibility problems between applications and an OS. MED-V is also a solution for the delivery and maintenance for virtual machine (VM) images on a client desktop. For more information about MED-V, see this previous FAQ.

If your problem is that applications are incompatible with one another or you need to deploy apps quickly with minimal testing, you want APP-V. If you have applications that won’t run on a new client OS or you want to manage VM images then you want MED-V. Either way, you need the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack to get access to the technologies. It’s highly likely you may need to use both technologies for different applications within your organization.

Updated Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Adds More Virtualization Support

December 8, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Microsoft will offer today the first public beta release of its BizTalk Server 2009 enterprise connectivity software, which can take advantage of virtualization and enhanced failover clustering featured in Windows Server 2008.

Clustering capabilities let BizTalk be deployed in multi-site clustering environments without additional software or hardware.

Microsoft Deepens Partnership With HP

November 17, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Microsoft today announced expanded product, sales and services initiatives with HP aimed at helping businesses more easily adopt and deploy virtualization. Microsoft has expanded its work together with HP to sell and market storage, server and networking consolidation solutions and desktop virtualization solutions to small-, medium-sized- and large-business customers worldwide.

Today’s announcements include the following:

In the U.S., Microsoft is working with HP to offer products, training and deployment services for storage, networking and server consolidation that are designed to help customers decrease costs, increase business agility, improve data access and protection, and increase employee productivity.
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 and Microsoft System Center are supported on the new industry-standard HP Virtual Connect 10Gb Flex-10 module, which works with the Flex-10 NIC on the recently introduced HP ProLiant BL495c virtualization blade server. Together these technologies help enable customers to significantly lower costs with their server and network consolidation, business continuity, and dynamic datacenter projects.
The HP and Microsoft Frontline Partner Program in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) has registered 60 percent of eligible partners across 36 countries to receive access to virtualization training, sales tools, marketing materials, workshops, and incentives targeting small and medium-sized businesses.
Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) features will be delivered in the HP ProLiant PRO Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager, running on HP ProLiant and BladeSystem servers, in December 2008. PRO is a feature of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 that enables dynamic management of virtual machines and the associated host platforms.
HP provides comprehensive services, built on Microsoft technologies, for customers to virtualize their desktops and data centers. The services address strategy, design, transition, operation and continual improvement. HP offers virtualization workshops and proofs-of-concept as the first step for virtualization projects. HP also provides education and support for technology staff as well as services to develop a strategic technology road map using best practices to consolidate and manage infrastructure.
HP Business Service Automation will enable automation of change and configuration management processes across virtual and physical environments for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environments, and will integrate with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 for managing advanced platform capabilities, while decreasing downtime associated with uncontrolled change. HP is scheduled to release a beta in the first quarter of 2009.

Microsoft Releases System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 RTM

October 21, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Microsoft has released System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008, its enterprise management console for its hypervisor platform Hyper-V. You can download a free trial version here.

From Softie Keith Combs’ blog:

Highlights of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

Support for VMs Running on Windows Server 2008
- System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 was designed to fully utilize the foundational features and services of Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Hyper-V™ Server. This includes Hyper-V’s 64-bit architecture, attack hardened security model, fail-over cluster support (see below) and others.
- Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM) supports the management of hosts running Hyper-V and VMM can actually enable Hyper-V remotely from the VMM 2008 console.
- VMM 2008 integrates with new clustering support in Windows Server 2008 to allow for fault-tolerant and cluster aware virtual machines to be created
- VMM 2008 supports all Hyper-V functionality while providing VMM-specific functions, such as Intelligent Placement, the Self-Service Portal, and the integrated Library.
Multi-Vendor Virtualization Platform Support
- In addition to support for Hyper-V, VMM 2008 integrates multi-hypervisor management into one tool with its support for virtual machines running on VMware ESX infrastructure and Microsoft Virtual Server.
- VMM 2008 provides comprehensive support for VMware VI3 including moving virtual machines among virtual hosts with no downtime via VMotion, through integration with VMware’s Virtual Center.
- VMM 2008 specific features such as Intelligent Placement, consolidation candidate recommendations and others can be run against virtualized infrastructure on any supported platform.
- Windows PowerShell™ scripts for customization or automation are also supported across Hyper-V, VMware ESX or Virtual Server implementations
Host Cluster Support for “High Availability” Virtual Machines
- With greatly expanded support for failover clusters, VMM 2008 improves its “high availability” capabilities for managing mission-critical virtual machines. VMM 2008 is now fully cluster-aware meaning that it can detect and manage Hyper-V host clusters as a single unit.
- New in this version of VMM is automatic detection of virtual hosts that are added or removed from the cluster – thus easing the burden on the administrator to manage this function.
- In VMM 2008, creating a high availability virtual machine (HA VM) has never been easier. Gone are the complex multi-step manual processes from before – now, an administrator clicks a simple checkbox which designates a VM as highly available. Behinds the scenes, VMM orchestrates the creation of that HA VA which includes instructing the Intelligent Placement feature of VMM 2008 to recommend only hosts that are part of a host cluster for the newly minted HA VM.
- Improved HA VM management features of VMM 2008 include the Failover Cluster Management Console for various cluster-related tasks such as designation and management of cluster reserves, letter-less disk drives, guest clusters, among others.
- VMM 2008 also supports VMware host clusters in which the nodes of the cluster are VMware ESX Servers.

Microsoft Bashes VMware With A New Website; “Get The Facts” Revisited?

September 23, 2008 by Toon Vanagt 3 Comments

Thanks for reading us. We are bundling all our VMworld 2008 coverage in one handy page, go check it out now for more reports and videos!

Microsoft had people dressed up like medieval Venetian models at the hotel entrance of last week’s VMworld conference in Las Vegas. They distributed dollar chips and flyers to anybody wearing a VMworld bag, with on it the website address VmwareCostsWayTooMuch.com, which led VMware customers and partners to a landing page, on which the headlines all redirect to the Microsoft Hyper-V portal.

The guerilla marketing tactics actually worked, with coverage from publications like NetworkWorld, ZDNet Blogs, Channel Marker, Virtualization Information, Burton Group’s Data Center Strategies blog, and others.

We ignore whether this smear marketing stunt was inspired by the US presidential campaign, but it was certainly not the first time Microsoft engages into heads-on advertising. Last time around it was targeted against Linux. However, we were never aware of Microsoft distributing any leaflets with GetTheFacts.com at the entrance of LinuxWorldExpo or LinuxTag. It is also quite funny to observe that Linux distributions (starting with SUSE) are now supported as Guest Operating Systems on Hyper-V and that Redmond advertises this feature extensively.

Microsoft even provides integration components and technical support for customers running select Linux distributions (limited to SUSE for the moment) as guest operating systems. IF history repeats itself, VMware can be reassured that in a few years this type of Microsoft campaign results in supporting a competing technology.

It took the VMware conference staff a little while to get notified about the leaflets and some more time before they got the hotel staff at The Venetion to stop the flyers from being handed out at the entrance of their annual user conference, attracting over 14.000 attendees to Las Vegas. It is estimated at least 4.000 flyers were distributed in the elapsed time.

The distributed 1 dollar chips were actually valid inside The Venetian Casino. This guerilla marketing initiative has cost at least 4.000 dollars in casino money, but the website and distribution must have cost a lot more.

It is hard to believe The Venetian did not make the connection between selling a few thousand ‘Dollar chips’ to Microsoft and concurrently renting their entire event facilities and rooms to VMware. Especially with those video cameras and security personell all over, it can be assumed Microsoft had obtained some sort of permission before handing out those free chips at the hotel entrance.

What do you think about this remarkable anti-VMware propaganda? Does it make MS look desperate as the new kid on the hypervisor block? Does it suit a multinational that runs entirely on ‘expensive‘ licenses to attack a ‘partner’ at its annual user conference over that very cost element? Do the facts that they present on their marketing website actually make sense? What boomerang effect can they expect? How would Microsoft react if Sun would hand out flyers at the gates of TechEd or DevDays with a catchy URL: GetOfficeForFreeAndStopPayingMicrosoft.Com. We look forward to seeing who will register that available domain. 🙂

As we all know, hypervisors are a commodity nowadays and just like Xen and Hyper-V, it must be said that ESX comes free of license cost too. At Virtualization.com, we like to think the value and related cost are no longer in that free naked hypervisor, but in the integrated management and extended tool sets that surround it.

If you were among those first 4.000 VMworld attendees, feel free to tell us how much you made with your Microsoft dollars on the gambling tables and if that was enough to cover/upgrade a VMware license?

AMD and Microsoft Team Up On Virtualization

September 22, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

AMD today announced the availability of robust new virtualization solutions powered by a combination of technologies from AMD and Microsoft. This new deployment model uses AMD Opteron processors with AMD Virtualization technology together with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Mid-market companies in particular, which have traditionally been slower to implement virtualization, can take advantage of the combined AMD and Microsoft product offering to help reduce cost, complexity and energy consumption.

Resource consolidation achieved through virtualization can deliver the low energy consumption, and superior utilization and manageability demanded by today’s businesses. AMD Opteron processors and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, a hypervisor-based virtualization feature of Microsoft Windows Server 2008, allow OEMs, VARs and Solution Providers to offer a valuable server virtualization combination to help increase their competitive edge and market opportunity. AMD-V technology and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V also help enable businesses to scale according to demands, boosting the efficiency of workloads.

Advanced Micro Devices