|
|
|
In this Edition: Laptop give-away, 'Blade Runner: The Final
Cut', TechNet deploying 'Windows Vista and Office 2007' seminar,
'Application Virtualisation Project' feature article from guest
contributor.
Hi,
It's actually been a great stretch of weather here in Dublin recently,
you'd nearly think it was the month of May and we had a half-decent
summer coming our way! Moving on from being fooled by the Irish
climate, I do actually have loads of great content for you this week,
as well as a chance to win a Dell laptop and an invitation to a
screening of 'Blade Runner: The Final Cut'.
Feedback on Microsoft
First up, I wanted to urge you to give feedback to Microsoft Ireland
across our products, services and staff. By now, you should have
received an invitation, from IPSOS - our certified research vendor, to
the Microsoft Customer and Partner Satisfaction Survey. I'd really
appreciate it if you could please take the time to complete it.
|
My curiosity for the
TechNet community in Ireland never ceases - I am still trying to get
to know the TechNet Flash readers. This week I am giving away a
high-spec laptop, to encourage you to tell me a bit about you and
your technology interests. That's right, a sparkling new laptop is on
offer for one lucky reader who completes a simple survey -
all completed forms will be entered into a draw to win a Dell XPS
M1710 laptop.* The winner will be announced in the TechNet Flash
Newsletter edition of 23 October.
*To enter you need to log in with your Live ID (the same one you use
for registering for events or newsletters).
|
Blade Runner
I thought an ideal way of meeting some of you in an informal setting,
would be hosting a TechNet Ireland 'Movie Night'. To celebrate
the 25th anniversary of the release of Blade Runner, we are running a
special COMPLIMENTARY screening of 'Blade Runner: The Final
Cut'. Spectacularly restored and re-mastered from original elements
and scanned at 4K resolution, it contains never-before-seen
added/extended scenes, added lines, new and improved special effects,
and an all-new 5.1 Dolby® Digital audio track.
Where: Cineworld Dublin,
Parnell St, Dublin 1. Map. When:
Thursday 2 October - ticket collection from 6.30 p.m., the movie
commences at 7.20 p.m. (and runs for two hours). Allow another
couple of hours if you would like to join us in the bar after, to make
the most of the networking opportunities.
Register here for
the movie night. Again, part of the thinking behind this movie night is
for it to serve as an opportunity to introduce myself to the community.
It would be great if you could make the movie and join us in the Cineworld bar for
a complimentary drink once the movie concludes.
Virtualisation
Continuing with the Virtualisation theme I have tried to run with this
month, I am delighted to have a guest contributor sharing some learnings
based on an 'Application Virtualisation' deployment. Laurent Bouchery
is a senior consultant at Microsoft Ireland's Consulting Services, and
has been deeply involved in many virtualisation projects over the past
year. See below for Laurent's article. If you find this article
helpful, keep an eye on the Microsoft Consultancy
Services Team Blog for more useful tips and tricks from the field.
Virtualisation Seminar
Microsoft Virtualisation: From the desktop to the data centre,
discover how Microsoft Virtualisation empowers you to spend less money
and management time on your systems. Hear real-world case studies from
Irish customers about virtualisation in action and join our panel
discussion to understand how to get started. The seminar is primarily
intended for technical decision makers including CIOs, IT Directors and
IT Managers.
|
Date: 1 October
Location: DUBLIN - Microsoft Auditorium, Atrium B Building,
Carmanhall Road, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Dublin 18.
Date: 2 October
Location: BELFAST - W5 at Odyssey, 2 Queen's Quay, Belfast BT3
9QQ.
|
Office 2007 Compatibility
At this stage, most of you would be familiar with the Office 2007
Compatibility Pack, which enables Office 97-2003 users to open,
edit and save documents, workbooks and presentations in the file formats
new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007. Naturally, not
every recipient of the files you share in the new 2007 format will have
the know-how to find and download this compatibility pack. I was
speaking to a customer last week and he felt sharing Office documents
externally would be simpler if you were encouraged to save documents in
the old format. Here's an illustration of how you can quickly set
97-2003 to be your default format for saving new documents.
|
1.
|
Open
Word 2007 and click on the Office button on the top right
|
|
2.
|
A
drop-down will appear. Click on "Word Options"
|
|
3.
|
When
the next dialogue box appears, click on the "Save" option
button and you'll see a section titled "Customise how documents
are saved"
|
|
4.
|
Change
this to say "Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc)", and press OK.
|
That's it - all documents
from now on will be saved in the older format so that 2003 and earlier
versions can read them. The process is exactly the same for Excel and
PowerPoint.
Continuing with the
Virtualisation theme I have tried to run with this month, I am
delighted to have a Virtualisation expert sharing some learnings based
on an 'Application Virtualisation' deployment. Laurent Bouchery is a
senior consultant at Microsoft Ireland's Consulting Services, and has
been deeply involved in many virtualisation projects over the past
year. If you find this article helpful, keep an eye on the Microsoft Consultancy
Services Team Blog for more useful tips and tricks from the field.
|
'Application
Virtualisation Deployment' Article
I had the opportunity recently to work one week for a
customer in the North of Ireland who wanted some advice and best
practices about 'Virtualisation
application', and more specifically about deploying a virtualised
Microsoft Office environment. This assignment gave me a new-found
appreciation for this technology and for its ability to make your life
easier and more exciting. Can you imagine taking an average of just 1 to
4 hours to 'sequence' any moderately complex type applications (and
basically 'sequencing' an application means 'packaging' it, having it
ready for deployment), as opposed to the days or weeks required for
packaging similar applications with the appropriate tools.
Most of the companies have now started or completed their 'Infrastructure
Virtualisation' projects (and by infrastructure I mean any operating
systems, networks and storage). It is not hard to see why, the
technologies are now mature and there are few projects that are as easily
justified to your CFO or CTO. However, the flip side is that
'Applications Virtualisation' projects are still few and far between.
I would love to go into a deep dive about the countless benefits that an
Application Virtualisation project would have on your company, but my
word count is limited for this article. So what I can do is leave you
with some nice and compelling numbers sourced from a great white paper ('Application
Virtualization: The Next Frontier') that should rest the case for
Application Virtualisation:
|
•
|
An 80% reduction in overall application life cycle
costs
|
|
•
|
A 40% consolidation of servers dedicated for your
applications
|
|
•
|
A 400% increase in user uptime
|
|
•
|
A 30% reduction in application-related help-desk
call volume and time
|
|
•
|
A 4 to 10 months project payback period
|
Once you have bought into the concept of Application
Virtualisation, the next step is to design the appropriate
infrastructure. Lucky you, the Microsoft IPD guides
(Infrastructure Planning and Design) have just been updated this
September to include a specific design guide for Microsoft Application
Virtualization 4.5 ("App-V 4.5", the Microsoft Virtualisation
application product, previously known as Microsoft SoftGrid). This
version of the product was also announced this September as RTM.
One of the first and most important steps in designing your own
Application Virtualisation infrastructure is to define which applications
you want to virtualise, and to which locations you want them to be
deployed. You have to keep in mind that some applications just cannot be
virtualised for technical or business reasons. For example:
|
•
|
The ones that require a device driver
|
|
•
|
The ones that are very tight to the operating system
like Internet Explorer or anti-virus software
|
|
•
|
The ones that are not supported by their vendors
when being virtualised
|
|
•
|
The ones that don't have any specific licensing
agreement when being virtualised
|
About the location definition, you will have to know
the number of users by location and the network bandwidth for each
location.
So, for designing the infrastructure that will best answer your needs,
you will have then basically three choices of model, that can be combined
within your organisation and dedicated for specific locations: the
Standalone Model, the Streaming Model, or the Full Infrastructure Model.
(Please note that all these models require a Microsoft Application
Virtualisation client to be installed.)
A - The Standalone Model: The standalone model is the simplest
model. It only consists of a sequencer (the machine use for sequencing
the applications), with no additional App-V infrastructure (like a
streaming server for example). This model allows virtual applications to
be MSI-enabled for distribution, without any streaming capabilities or
considerations ('application streaming' is the term used to describe the
process of obtaining content from a sequenced application package,
starting with minimum mandatory blocks, and then obtaining additional
blocks as needed, which allows the application to be quickly available on
demand by the user and be cached locally). This model could be useful for
remote locations (disconnected or with low network bandwidth) and can be
used when the company has already a method for publishing the
applications to clients (Microsoft SMS, Active Directory through Group
Policy Objects, CDs distribution...).
B - The Streaming Model: The Streaming model is a medium model. It
consists of a sequencer, and one or more streaming servers, without
specific infrastructure requirements (like Active Directory or a SQL
database). As with the previous model, applications are sequenced using
the App-V sequencer. However, instead of being packaged with an MSI file,
the App-V-enabled applications are placed on a streaming server, which
can be a file server, an IIS server, or System Center Application
Virtualization Streaming Server. This model is recommended for companies
that want to use streaming capabilities but might not have or want
advanced infrastructure management. Please note that they can still
increase the capability and capacity of this model by using additional
technologies and tools like clustering, load-balancing, DFS or SCOM 2007
(System Center Operations Manager can be used to publish and deploy
streaming applications).
C - The Full Infrastructure Model: This model is the more advanced
model. Additionally to a sequencer and one or more streaming servers, it
consists of one or more Microsoft System Center Application
Virtualization Management Servers as the core of the App-V system
architecture, but also requires Active Directory (for user authentication
and application security management), one or more Microsoft SQL servers
(for App-V configuration data), and a server running the App-V Management
Server Service (for management and reporting purposes). This model is
recommended for companies that want advanced features for applications
publishing, licences management, reporting and security. Please note also
that some fault tolerance and scaling considerations can be increased as
it is with the previous model.
To summarise, if you already have a method for publishing applications to
clients, then the Standalone or Streaming Models may be enough, and you
consider then if you want or need streaming capabilities. If no
infrastructure is in place to publish applications or if the advanced
management features provided by the App-V Management Server sound
interesting to you, then the Full Infrastructure Model should be your
choice.
The additional questions that you could have in mind regarding your
infrastructure installation could be relative to your clients types (the
classic App-V desktop client or the App-V Terminal Services Client), or
the types of machine that you will install your sequencer on (physical
machines or virtual machines), but they will not affect your design
model.
So did you pick your design or combination of models?
I will now leave you in peace to build it. Have fun!
Laurent Bouchery, senior consultant at Microsoft Consulting Services,
Ireland
Thanks for reading!
Enda Flynn
TechNet Manager
Microsoft Ireland
Support
and Troubleshooting
See a selection of new Knowledge Base (KB)
articles on the TechNet website. KB articles feature an Article
Translations box in the right-hand column. You can select a language from
the drop-down list and read the article in the selected language.
Also available via RSS 
Radio: What's New in the Visual Studio Team System
2008 Database Edition GDR?
WMA | MP3 High | MP3 Low
Received
TechNet Flash from a Friend?
TechNet Flash is full of pointers to
in-depth technical information that we encourage subscribers to forward
to friends and co-workers. If you've received this issue from someone by
email and would like to receive the freeTechNet Flash
newsletter biweekly, all you have to do is register.
|
|
|
|
Volume 10, Issue 18
29 September 2008
|
|
An
Introduction to Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008
The introduction of Hyper-V makes virtualisation an even more
compelling solution for IT environments. Get an overview of today's
virtualisation market and see how Hyper-V improves the manageability,
reliability and security of virtualisation.
Getting
Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization
Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) allows you to deliver
virtualised desktops to client systems throughout your organisation.
Take a close look at how App-V works and discover how you can deploy it
in your organisation.
|
National and Global Events
PASS
Community Summit 2008
18 - 21 November
Seattle, WA
Attend the don't-miss event of the year for Microsoft SQL Server
community professionals. The Summit delivers three full days of
in-depth learning, unparalleled access to the Microsoft SQL Server
development team, and face-to-face networking in a fun, focused
environment.
Virtualisation
Congress
14 - 16 October
ExCeL Centre
London, UK
Hear about all the latest products and technologies on the market
without prejudice. Come see Mark Russinovich discuss Microsoft's
Virtualisation Plans: From Desktop to Datacentre and the Clouds. We're
glad to offer you a 25% discount code. At registration, enter
PartnersAtVC2008.
|
|
•
|
Full library of
Microsoft software for evaluation without limits
|
|
•
|
Immediate access through
subscriber downloads
|
|
•
|
Two Professional Support
incidents
|
|
•
|
Access to beta software
before public beta releases
|
|
•
|
Exclusive tools and
utilities
|
|
|
|
|
|
Let us know your technology interests. When you personalise
your Flash experience, additional content for your selected topics
can be found in every edition in Your Featured Content.
|
|
|
