Virtualization

This application is going into my bag of tricks for debugging temperamental servers or workstations. You can take a snapshot of the system state, sort of like what Windows does for the actual System State data, and compare it to another system state from another point in time. Note that it does not use or require actual System State snapshots created by Windows, so you can create these dynamically on the fly very easily.

Perfect for finding out what applications put in your registry and file system.
Perfect for debugging esoteric Softgrid or Terminal Server problems.
Perfect for debugging cluster servers that are supposed to be setup practically identical, but could potentially be setup differently.

Plus, I'm sold on the price - Free.





I first read about it here and have been playing with the application for the past few hours.

You can download the program here.

To slightly misquote the originator/creator of these documents:
"These are the first of several cookbooks to help consultants get up to speed to deploy virtualization solutions in record time. These are step-by-step, one-stop documents with all the details, tips/tricks to build a working solution".

You can read about them and download them from here.

You can also download them directly from here as PDF files courtesy of Windows SkyDrive:

Hosted Backup and Recovery Solutions for Service Providers using DPM and VS
Simple Offsite Backup and Recovery of virtual machines using Data Protection Manager and Virtual Server
Simple Onsite Backup and Recovery of virtual machines using Data Protection Manager and Virtual Server
High Availability with Virtual Server and Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Server Clustering
Application Isolation and Operation in Branch Office Using Virtual Server

I don't have much to add to this other than it is nice that it is in one centralized place. I suspect/expect that Viridian/Hypervisor related materials will eventually make their way here.

KB 939796 details a good way of sequencing Office 2007 in a SoftGrid environment. If this all sounds like a foreign langauge to you, it really isn't. SoftGrid is now part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack.

The best way to think of it? Let's say for some reason you want to run Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 on the same desktop. Softgrid helps make that happen.

I am, however, curious why they force the Office 2007 applications to use the 'classic' search and not use the integrated indexing software of Office 2007. I suspect it is due to the way the indexing service is implemented. If any Softgrid experts out there know why, please let me know!

Even though this blog is very Microsoft centric, I do work with other operating systems.

My "Unix" background dates back to IBM AIX, SGI Irix, and of course, Linux. I 'experimented in college' with other operating systems like OS/2, FreeBSD, SunOS, Solaris and BeOS.

Even before then, I ran a BBS under various computer systems starting with an Atari 400 self-modded/self-soldered from 4k to 52k. It even had a toggle switch to switch between 52k and 48k memory sizes because some programs couldn't address the last 4k properly.

The BBS progressed to an Atari 1040ST, then to a 386 running Desqview, then to a 486 running OS/2. A mutated/updated form of OS/2 (eCOM Station) still runs a good amount of ATMs and other POS systems.

Anyway, back to the future - today, I still like to tinker with various operating systems and kernels, case in point:

Windows Vista as a host, VMWare 6.0 as the virtualization software, Redhat Fedora 7.90 (Rawhide), and kernel 2.6.23-0.71.rc2.fc8.

I took a Fedora 7 VM image and decided to live dangerously on the bleeding edge and enabled the development repositories. The end result is a pretty nice OS. I wish I could use the fancy 3D effects but at least I get to play with some of the newer technologies.
I still am on the fence whether I like KDE or Gnome better. I always had a soft spot for Enlightenment way back when too. It is interesting to see stuff that was in Enlightenment about 10 years ago get rolled into other products in 2007.

Kernel 2.6.23 will or has merged, depending on when you read this, a lot of patches that have been waiting on the sidelines. One of the more notable ones is the Xen patches.

I'm not using Xen at the moment but it was nice to see this fly by when the kernel was booting:

[snip]
VMI: Found VMware, Inc. Hypervisor OPROM, API version 3.0, ROM version 1.0
Booting paravirtualized kernel on vmi
ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT1] (battery present)
[/snip]

Reporting the battery status seems to be working properly, and ditto for the paravirtulization "stuff" with VMWare 6.0

Next goal: ESX 3.0.2 in a VM under Workstation 6.0 - I actually have a reason for wanting to do this, honest.

Almost a year after ESX 3.0.1 came out, ESX 3.0.2 is now released!
You can read the release notes here.

Consolidated Backup 1.0.3 also came out. Read the release notes for that here.

A few days ago, VirtualCenter 2.0.2 came out too. Read the release notes for that here.

To download the new versions, go here.