News from Microsoft Ireland: Server

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 Released: Microsoft Helps Customers Overcome Barriers to Virtualization and Get Virtual Now

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:08:05 GMT

Dublin: October 1st 2008 - Earlier today Microsoft’s Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer announced the final release and availability of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 at an event in London. In addition to the full availability of Hyper-V Server 2008, Microsoft also announced a new offering of specialised assessment and implementation services which will help customers adopt and deploy Microsoft’s virtualization solutions.

“We are completely focused on working with customers to help them have more control of their IT systems, helping them to reduce costs while being able to respond faster to changing business needs,” commented Bill O’Brien, Business Manager, Server & Tools Microsoft Ireland. “Hyper-V Server 2008 is already being used by Irish companies to take advantage of virtualization across servers, datacentres and desktops.”

Products, Services, Training and Certification Ease Use and Adoption

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, a hypervisor-based server virtualization product, is now available as a no cost Web download at http://www.microsoft.com/Hyper-VServer.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 provides a simplified, reliable, and optimised virtualization solution for customers to consolidate Windows or Linux workloads onto a single physical server or to run client operating systems and applications in server-based virtual machines in the data centre. Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 allows customers to leverage their existing provisioning, updating, management and support tools, processes and skills.

The provisioning and management tools are based on Microsoft System Centre suite, which provides centralised, enterprise-class management of physical and virtual resources across desktops and datacentres. One of these products is System Centre Virtual Machine Manager 2008, which is available as beta software and a final version will be released by the end of the month. System Centre Virtual Machine Manager enables customers to configure and deploy new virtual machines and centrally manage their virtualized infrastructure, whether running on a Microsoft hypervisor or VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.

Customers can now benefit from the Server Virtualization with Advanced Management offering from Microsoft Services to help maximise the value of server virtualization using Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and System Centre. This offering includes assessment of existing physical infrastructure, review of potential cost savings, and proof of concept implementation, followed by a full design, deployment, migration and operational integration of the virtualization infrastructure.

Building on the strength and valued reputation of the Microsoft Certified Professional programme, Microsoft is also delivering a new series of global virtualization training and certification offerings for IT professionals covering desktop, server and management environments. Complete details on these programs is available at http://blogs.technet.com/mslcommunity/.

New Microsoft Licensing and Support Eases Path to Virtualization

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:30:53 GMT

Customers “Get Virtual Now” with increased flexibility and broader support when virtualizing Microsoft server applications.

Dublin: 19th August 2008 - Microsoft is today announcing new licensing and expanded product support policies help business customers create more dynamic datacenters and enterprise IT systems with virtualization software. Beginning September 1st, 2008, customers will be able to move any of 41 Microsoft server applications between servers within a server farm as often as necessary without paying additional licensing fees, and they can take advantage of expanded specialised technical support.

“Microsoft recognises the momentum behind virtualization and its ability to make IT more dynamic and responsive to the business. We are making innovative changes to our licensing and support to enable customers make this transition and get virtual now,” commented Bill O’Brien, Business Manager, Server, Microsoft Ireland.

New Licensing Flexibility

Microsoft is updating its software licensing terms for 41 server applications, including Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise edition, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Standard and Enterprise editions, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Enterprise and Professional editions, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft System Centre products. With the new terms, the company is waiving its previous 90-day reassignment rule, allowing customers to reassign licenses from one server to another within a server farm as frequently as needed. For many customers, the change will reduce the number of licenses they need to support their IT systems, increase agility, and simplify the tracking of application instances or processors because customers now can count licenses by server farm instead of by server.

Expanded Technical Support

Microsoft has updated its technical support policy for 31 server applications so that customers can receive technical support when deploying those applications on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server or any other third-party validated virtualization platform. Now customers can get the same level of product support in a virtualized environment that they are accustomed to with non-virtual environments.

To enable this support policy, Microsoft launched the Server Virtualization Validation Program in June 2008. The programme is open to any software vendor to test and validate its virtualization software to run Windows Server 2008 and previous versions of Windows Server. To date, Cisco Systems Inc., Citrix Systems Inc., Novell Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Virtual Iron Software Inc. are participating in the program.

Microsoft Releases SQL Server 2008

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:00:36 GMT

Customers and partners worldwide confirm mission-critical applications, enterprise-class data warehousing support.

Dublin: August 6th, 2008— Microsoft today announced the release to manufacturing of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, the new version of the company’s acclaimed database management system. This version of SQL Server provides powerful new capabilities such as support for policy-based management, auditing, large-scale data warehousing, geospatial data, and advanced reporting and analysis services. SQL Server 2008 provides the trusted, productive and intelligent platform necessary for business-critical applications.

“Microsoft developed this release of SQL Server with the customer in mind,” said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft. “SQL Server 2008 is the only major database that includes comprehensive, tightly integrated functionality for data management as well as advanced business intelligence out of the box. By offering a complete solution, we save customers time and money and allow them to focus on deriving the most value from their data assets.”

With more than 450,000 customer and partner downloads of SQL Server 2008’s community technology previews (CTPs), more than 75 large-scale applications already in production and more than 1,350 applications being developed by nearly 1,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) on SQL Server 2008, it’s clear that customers and partners are excited about the capabilities now available in SQL Server 2008. Tim Whitehorn, founder and chief executive officer of event management software provider ServiceU Corp., said, “We selected SQL Server 2008 because we can entrust it with our critical business applications. SQL Server 2008 is highly secure and reliable, and offers the best value on the market today. In addition, it accelerates the time frame for deploying new features and enhancements, and that to us makes SQL Server a winner.”

A number of enterprise customers from various industries are testing SQL Server 2008 including Clear Channel Communications Inc., Fidelity Investments, Hilton Hotels Corp., Simon & Schuster Inc., Siemens AG and Xerox Corp., among many others.

SQL Server is an industry leader in both scalability and performance. It is the first and only database management system to be proven capable of delivering scalable results on

TPC-E, the Transaction Processing Performance Council’s (TPC) newest and most challenging online transaction processing (OLTP) benchmark, with 13 published benchmarks to date.Seven benchmarks are published on Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 by multiple hardware vendors, demonstrating strong price-performance and performance results, including IBM Corp.’s new No. 1 performance result using SQL Server 2008 on a 64-core System x3950 M2 server. Also demonstrating the performance of SQL Server 2008, Unisys Corp. and Microsoft set a new extract, transform and load (ETL) performance record by loading 1 terabyte of data in less than 30 minutes using SQL Server 2008 Integration Services. In addition, SQL Server 2008 has proven its scalability in large-scale data warehousing, as demonstrated by its recent 10-terabyte TPC-H benchmark.

“We saw a 35 percent improvement in throughput on the system that we upgraded to SQL Server 2008, with no code changes on our end,” said Gary Oberg, vice president of IT and development at Applied Discovery (a member of the LexisNexis group). “This translates straight to the bottom line for us, as the more documents we can upload, the more we can process.”

Microsoft is setting additional benchmark records with ISV solutions, including a world record on four-socket industry-standard blade servers in a three-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark, and demonstrated the largest benchmark ever on the Siemens Teamcenter digital product life-cycle management solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX and the Camstar Manufacturing Execution System solution.

SQL Server is a key component of the Microsoft Application Platform, a suite of products and technologies designed to help customers build, run and manage dynamic business applications. SQL Server 2008 is available in the following editions:

· SQL Server 2008Enterprise. SQL Server 2008 Enterprise is a comprehensive data management and business intelligence platform that provides enterprise-class scalability, data warehousing, security, advanced analytics and reporting support for running business-critical applications. With this edition, it is possible to consolidate servers and perform large-scale online transactional processing.

· SQL Server 2008 Standard. SQL Server 2008 Standard is a complete data management and business intelligence platform that provides best-in-class ease of use and manageability for running departmental applications.

· SQL Server 2008 Workgroup. SQL Server 2008 Workgroup is a reliable data management and reporting platform that delivers secure, remote synchronization and management capabilities for running branch applications. This edition includes core database features and is easy to upgrade to the Standard or Enterprise edition.

· SQL Server 2008 Web. SQL Server 2008 Web is designed for highly available, Internet-facing Web-serving environments running on Windows Server. SQL Server 2008 Web provides the tools necessary to support low-cost, large-scale, highly available Web applications or hosting solutions for customers.

· SQL Server 2008 Developer. SQL Server 2008 Developer allows developers to build and test any type of application with SQL Server. This edition features all of the functionality of SQL Server Enterprise but is licensed only for development, test and demo use. Applications and databases developed on this edition can easily be upgraded to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise.

· SQL Server 2008 Express. SQL Server 2008 Express is a free edition of SQL Server that features core database functionality including all of the new SQL Server 2008 data types, in a small footprint. This edition is ideal for learning and building desktop and small server applications, and for redistribution by ISVs.

· SQL Server Compact 3.5. SQL Server Compact is a free embedded database designed for developers and is ideal for building stand-alone and occasionally connected applications for mobile devices, desktops and Web clients. SQL Server Compact runs on all Microsoft Windows platforms, including the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems, and on Pocket PC and smartphone devices.

Pricing and Availability

SQL Server 2008 is now available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers and will be available for evaluation download on Aug. 7, 2008. SQL Server 2008 Express and SQL Server Compact editions are available for free download today at http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver. As previously announced, pricing for SQL Server will not increase with SQL Server 2008. More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/sqlserver.

Microsoft Takes Additional Steps in Implementing Interoperability Principles

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:42:00 GMT

Actions enhance opportunities for developers to work with Microsoft’s high-volume products.

Redmond, Washington: June 30th, 2008 — Microsoft today announced several new actions that deliver upon the commitments set in its Interoperability Principles to increase the openness of its products, drive greater interoperability, and provide increased opportunity and choice for developers, partners, customers and competitors.

Highlights of the actions announced today include: posting Version 1.0 releases of technical documentation for Microsoft protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007; posting nearly 5,000 pages of new technical documentation for the Microsoft Office binary file formats for Word, Excel and PowerPoint (.doc, .xls, .xlsb and .ppt); and making significant strides in the company’s efforts to foster more open engagement with other members of the IT community.

“Today’s actions represent Microsoft’s continued fulfillment of the commitments it made in its Interoperability Principles,” said Craig Shank, general manager of Interoperability at Microsoft. “Microsoft’s cumulative posting of approximately 50,000 pages of technical documentation on MSDN provides consistent, open access for all developers, which enhances the ease and opportunities for working with Microsoft’s high-volume products. Moreover, our work with partners, competitors and customers to engage in the technical nuts-and-bolts of real-world interoperability provides great ongoing opportunities for collaboration to address the challenges of today’s diverse IT environment.”

Ensuring Open Connections

As part of its commitment to ensure open connections to its products, Microsoft has posted on MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc216514.aspx) Version 1.0 releases of technical documentation for Microsoft protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Microsoft posted preliminary versions of this protocol documentation in April of this year, solicited input from the community, and factored this input into the Version 1.0 releases posted today.

As a result of the documentation, developers working with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 protocols will have additional resources to develop products that work with Microsoft Office 2007 client applications. In addition, developers working with Exchange Server 2007 protocols will have additional resources to build applications that directly communicate and store information related to e-mail, calendar, contacts, voice mail and task tracking with either Exchange Server 2007 or Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. This documentation provides comprehensive information about how these Microsoft products interact with other Microsoft products, which will assist developers creating new products and improving existing solutions.

“The protocol documentation has been very straightforward and has really enabled our developers to get up to speed on what they are looking at and implement the solutions in the Unified Access Control products as quickly as possible,” said Rich Campagna, senior product manager, Service Layer Technologies, Juniper Networks Inc.

In addition to posting this documentation, Microsoft also published a list indicating which of the published protocols built into the following products are covered by Microsoft patents or patent applications: Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), and Microsoft Windows Server 2008. In addition, Microsoft published the reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms and low pricing available to those who choose to take a license to the patents covering the protocols in these products that are used to communicate with other Microsoft products. This information is easily accessible at http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/intellectualproperty/protocols/default.mspx.

It is important to note that open source developers, whether commercial or non-commercial, will not need a patent license for the development of implementations of these protocols or for the non-commercial distribution of these implementations, according to Microsoft’s Patent Pledge for Open Source Developers.

Promoting Data Portability

Delivering on its interoperability principle of promoting data portability, the company posted on MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc216514.aspx) nearly 5,000 pages of new technical documentation for the Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint binary file formats (.doc, .xls, .xlsb and .ppt). Access to this technical documentation, in addition to documentation provided earlier this year, will make it easier for developers to enable applications to read and write files in these binary file formats, thus enhancing the ease of moving data from one application to another. This documentation is available to anyone on a royalty-free basis under Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise (OSP).

Fostering More Open Engagement

In addition, Microsoft made a number of strides in its effort to foster more open engagement with the IT community, in particular through its Document Interoperability Initiative, which kicked off earlier this year. Since then, Microsoft has hosted a series of regional roundtable events and labs around the world — in Seoul, South Korea; Beijing, China; and Munich, Germany — bringing together more than 30 partners and competitors to test interoperability between existing implementations of Open XML Format and the OpenDocument Format (ODF) on a variety of platforms and devices, including Mac OS X Leopard, iPhone, Palm OS, Symbian OS, Linux and Windows Mobile.

“Microsoft’s Document Interoperability Initiative event was a very productive, collaborative forum,” said John Addesso, senior project manager, DataViz Inc. “Working with colleagues in the industry to come up with real-world interoperability solutions was very gratifying and helped us in our product development efforts. We look forward to engaging in future opportunities.”

Based on input received through the DII and other events and forums, Microsoft is launching the following projects:

1. Working with Beihang University to develop Uniform Office Format (UOF) translators for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint so that users will have more options to open and save UOF documents in Microsoft Office 2007 and 2003; more information can be found at http://uof-translator.sourceforge.net.

2. Designing a new translator to read from Open XML to HTML, which will provide the opportunity for independent software vendors(ISVs) to enable their customers to launch Open XML documents using lightweight browser-friendly applications; more information can be found at http://www.codeplex.com/OpenXMLViewer.

3. Developing PowerTools PowerShell commands for Open XML to enable IT administrators to perform document management tasks; more information can be found at http://www.codeplex.com/PowerTools.

Continued Commitment to Expanding Interoperability

Today’s software users operate in an increasingly diverse IT environment that is rich with many products and services from many companies. Microsoft’s Interoperability Principles are part of the company’s broader effort to deliver real-world interoperability solutions to customers through product design, community participation, access to technologies, and engagement with standards bodies. The latest updates regarding Microsoft’s Interoperability efforts can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/interop.

Microsoft Releases Virtualization for Windows Server 2008

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:59:42 GMT

Customers reap the benefits of server consolidation and business continuity projects plus integrated management tools to manage physical and virtual resources.

Dublin: June 26th, 2008 - Microsoft today announced the release of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization technology that is a feature of select versions of Windows Server 2008. With nearly 1.5 million copies of the Hyper-V beta version distributed around the world, customer interest in virtualization is moving from evaluation to deployment in production environments.

Virtualization can help companies maximise the value of IT investments; from decreasing the server hardware footprint, energy consumption and the cost and complexity of managing today’s IT systems, to increasing the flexibility of the overall environment. Microsoft’s strategy and investments in virtualization, which span from the desktop to the data centre, help IT professionals and developers move toward Microsoft’s Dynamic IT initiative whereby they can build systems with the flexibility and intelligence to automatically adjust to changing business conditions by aligning computing resources with strategic objectives.

Hyper-V offers customers a reliable and scalable virtualization platform with high performance that plugs into customers’ existing IT infrastructures and enables customers to consolidate some of the most demanding workloads. In addition, the System Centre product family provides customers with a single set of integrated tools to manage both physical and virtual resources, enabling customers to create a more agile and dynamic data centre.

“Our Irish customers are finding that they can now consolidate workloads of underutilized server machines onto a smaller number of fully utilized machines. Fewer physical machines leads to reduced costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead, plus the creation of a more dynamic IT infrastructure,” commented Bill O’Brien, business manager, Server products at Microsoft Ireland.

The Integrated Approach

To accompany Microsoft virtualization technologies like Hyper-V, Microsoft’s System Centre family of solutions provides management tools to configure, operate, deploy and backup both physical and virtual servers from the data centre to the desktop, all from a single pane of glass. With proper management tools and processes, customers can control the power of virtualization and become agile, while still maintaining control. This can help prevent such issues as “virtual server sprawl”—one of the challenges that can be introduced by the increased use of server virtualization.

Ironically enough, this virtual equivalent of physical server sprawl stems from the ease with which virtual machines can be created. Some IT teams have allowed multiple groups within the organization to create their own virtual machines, only to lose track of them later. This kind of uncontrolled usage can lead to legal and security concerns.

Scalability, Cost and Performance Benefits

Scalability and cost were prime considerations in today’s global market, the Irish economic market is no different.

Hyper-V’s scalability derives from its support for multiple processors and cores at the host level and improved memory limits at the host and guest level within virtual machines. This enables customers to scale their virtualization environment to support a large number of virtual machines within a given host and to take advantage of quick migration for high availability across multiple hosts.

Microsoft itself has been using Hyper-V in production environments, including heavy-traffic Web properties such as MSDN, TechNet and Microsoft.com. MSDN has over 3 million average page views per day; TechNet has over 1 million average page views per day; and Microsoft.com has more than 38 million average page views per day. By the end of June, Microsoft.com is targeted to be 50 percent virtualized with Hyper-V.

A Familiar Platform

A major differentiator for Hyper-V compared with alternatives is the familiarity of the Windows platform. Hyper-V has been designed as a Windows feature, which customers know, so those with Windows Server certification will be familiar with it; the people who have all the in-house skills on Windows Server will know how to use it.

To help both customers and partners assess if their existing servers are good candidates for virtualization using Hyper-V, Microsoft has released the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 3.1 Beta to help accelerate virtualization planning and deployment. The final release of MAP 3.1 is expected in July and will be available for free at: http://www.microsoft.com/MAP.

In addition, more than 130 independent software vendors (ISVs) have certified a total of 150 applications on Windows Server 2008. Symantec, Diskeeper and IBM DB2 are the first three vendors to achieve the new Hyper-V designation for Certified for Windows Server 2008. The Hyper-V designation identifies applications that have been independently tested to exploit Hyper-V capabilities and meet mission critical expectations in a virtualized environment.

Along the same lines, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) vendors such as Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens Corp., Fujitsu Limited, Hitachi, HP, IBM NEC and Unisys are already qualified to ship and create systems with Hyper-V. In all, 84 different systems from server and white-box vendors are already logo qualified for Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V. More information can be found at: www.windowsservercatalog.com.

The Road Ahead

Customers can now download the final version of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

There have already been over 1 million evaluations of Hyper-V and with this release, IT organizations everywhere can move it from the lab to production to fully experience the benefits that Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 can bring.Customers can also use System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, now in beta, to help them best configure and deploy their hypervisor-based environments.

New customers and partners can download Hyper-V at http://www.microsoft.com/Hyper-V today. Customers who have deployed Windows Server 2008 can receive Hyper-V from Windows Update beginning July 8.

Related Links:

- Hyper-V Download Web site

- Windows Server 2008 Web site

- Microsoft Virtualization Web site

- Windows Virtualization Team blog

- Windows Server Division blog

- Server and Tools Business News Bytes blog

Microsoft Launches Windows Server 2008 in Northern Ireland

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:33:36 GMT

New Microsoft Server technology set to save Northern Ireland businesses millions in annual energy costs
36,000 Servers in Northern Ireland today
Only 5% of business virtualized today
One Windows Server 2008 equivalent to Power of 16 Current Servers

Belfast: April 8th 2008 - The latest Microsoft Server product – Windows Server 2008 was launched today at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast. The event, was attended by over 300 IT professionals and software developers from businesses across Northern Ireland and marks Microsoft’s largest product launch in Northern Ireland.

Windows Server 2008 marks an incredible step forward in ‘Green Technology’ through increased efficiency and a new technology called virtualisation. Virtualisation enables companies to reduce the number of computer servers they use by having multiple servers in one physical server box. The launch, which incorporates three products; Windows Server 2008; SQL Server 2008; and Visual Studio 2008, is themed ‘Heroes Happen Here,’ to honour the thousands of IT professionals and developers around Northern Ireland who work tirelessly to bring the remarkable benefits of computer technology to their companies.

And as Bill O’Brien, Business Manager, Server and Tools for Microsoft Ireland explains the new server product can have a huge impact on the environment, “The issue of reducing our environmental impact is something that we are all aware of. New technologies such as Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 enable us to get more benefit from technology while at the same time reducing the power consumption of our computers resulting in less energy usage and a corresponding reduction in CO2 emissions. If we upgrade every server in Northern Ireland to Windows Server 2008 we would reduce CO2 omissions by approximately 1 million tonnes every year - to put in terms we may better understand, that is more than the emissions from 120,000 midsized cars on the road.”

Energy Savings

There are currently 36,000 servers in the Irish market with approximately 10,500 more servers per year scheduled to enter the market according to the IDC. The cost of running those servers 24/7 in terms of energy both in running cost and cooling systems annually is significant.

Early Adopters

Prior to the official launch of Windows Server 2008 a number of leading organisations throughout Ireland took part in an early adoption trail. UTV took the opportunity to be the first adopter in Northern Ireland and it has witnessed real benefits to its business operation since installing the new product.

“Windows Server 2008 has significantly enhanced our hosting customer propositions in UTV New Media” explains Jeremy Biggerstaff, Managing Director UTV New Media. “The hosting features available in the product have enabled us to continue to provide the most innovative range of products in the marketplace. All clients will find it easier to deal with us, whether they are business partners, first time customers, complex solutions or traditional SME’s. The new platform has strengthened our knowledge and our hosting business for the future”

He continued, “I am delighted with the way in which the early adopters programme was managed. The onsite installation was carried out by local IT specialist and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Northgate. Their expertise was invaluable and having dedicated access to them and Microsoft engineering specialists made the implementation process a lot smoother.”

Addressing delegates at the launch event, Peter Russell, NI Regional Manager with Microsoft stated, “This is an incredibly exciting time for Microsoft – these new enterprise products help customers more efficiently and securely manage their entire infrastructure and move to a virtualised environment while also delivering business intelligence and next-generation web experiences to boost business results.”

Microsoft Reaches Virtualization Milestone With Release Candidate of Hyper-V

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:22:30 GMT

Redmond, Washington: March 19th 2008 — Reaching the next major milestone in virtualization development, Microsoft today made broadly available a feature-complete release candidate of Microsoft Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization software available with various versions of Windows Server 2008. A beta of Hyper-V was included with Windows Server 2008 when it launched last month, and this release candidate provides updated, near-final code.

Hyper-V provides customers with efficient and cost-effective virtualization infrastructure software. It enables customers to reduce operating costs by increasing hardware utilisation, optimising infrastructure and improving server availability. Customers and partners can download the release candidate at http://www.microsoft.com/Hyper-V by 6pm GMT today.

“Hyper-V, as part of Windows Server 2008, will help our customers to consolidate their IT systems and enable them to respond quickly to the changing demands of their business and their market,” commented Bill O’Brien, business manager, Server and Tools at Microsoft Ireland. “At our recent launch event for Windows Server 2008 is was apparent that Virtualization is a priority for a growing number of Irish companies. In the past it has been too complex and too expensive, which is why less than ten percent of servers are virtualized today. With Hyper-V we are addressing that complexity with a technology that is both cost-effective and easy to adopt. In addition we are providing the systems management capabilities that customers need to manage traditional and virtualized IT environments.”

Customers who started evaluating Hyper-V during the beta process in December 2007 and as part of their Windows Server 2008 installation are already experiencing more flexible IT systems, greater control, increased business agility and higher performance.

“We have a range of hardware running Server 2000 and Server 2003 and because of this I've been looking at both the core editions and the full edition with the view to using the core edition on older hardware for student usage and using virtualisation on our newest hardware. So far with all editions I've found the install particularly easy and fast. The changing of password on first install is great reminder and the "Roles" made it easier to configure the machines for what I wanted to use them for,” commented Willie O'Connor, Computer Science Department in Trinity College in Dublin

Larry Doyle of Netforce in Dublin said, “I have been testing Windows Server 2008 for a while now and I like it - it's fast & quick to setup. I particularly like the roles element as I would normally spend a considerable amount of time "trimming" un-required services from a production server that are auto installed or auto started in Windows 2003 Server installs (saying that I don't usually use the manage server wizards in 2003 which might save a bit of effort). I haven’t timed it, but it seems like 2008 will save me hours for each install I perform (and I’ll be happy that the end result is what I actually wanted).”

“I will be installing Windows 2008 for a couple of clients as soon as it is released...... to allow them to take advantage of new features such as increased security, faster IIS, improved management features, faster deployment time, improved performance, etc,” added Doyle.

Microsoft is working with partners to help them plan, build and test their own offerings built on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to address broad customer needs and expand and enhance the platform capabilities.

Hardware industry partners including AMD, Dell Inc., Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Hitachi Ltd., HP, Intel Corporation, IBM Corp., NEC Corp. and Unisys Corp. are also working with Microsoft to test and evaluate Hyper-V. Once final code is available, these partners plan to integrate support for Hyper-V into their virtualization offerings in ways that best fit their business, including pre-installation on servers, device support, solutions and services. These partnerships will further lower barriers for customers as they adopt virtualization solutions, making it easier to incorporate virtualization into their server infrastructures.

The release candidate features an expanded list of tested and qualified guest operating systems, which now includes Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2), Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3. Host server and language support has been expanded to include the 64-bit (x64) versions of Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter. The release candidate comes with support for more hardware configurations and offers improved performance and scalability. It also includes the option for installing Hyper-V Manager Microsoft Management Console on Windows Vista SP1 for remote management.

Deployment and management capabilities are essential when building a scalable virtualization infrastructure. With the Microsoft System Center suite and the next version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager, available in the second half of 2008, customers can seamlessly manage their physical and virtual servers with a single set of consistent, compatible tools. Customers will be able to rapidly provision and configure new virtual machines and centrally manage their virtual infrastructure, regardless of whether they are running on Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, VMware ESX Server or VMware Infrastructure 3. A future release of System Center Virtual Machine Manager will also add support for the Xen hypervisor.

The final version of Hyper-V remains on target for release by August 2008, which aligns with the previously stated timing for delivery within 180 days of the Windows Server 2008 release to manufacturing. More information about Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/virtualization-consolidation.aspx, and more details about the Hyper-V release candidate can be found on TechNet blogs at http://blogs.technet.com/stbnewsbytes.

Windows Server 2008 Could Save Irish Business €53 Million in Annual Energy Costs

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:14:36 GMT

Dublin: March 11th 2008 - Today at the TriPod in Dublin over 2,500 IT professionals and software developers from businesses across Ireland are attending the Irish launch of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 - Microsoft’s largest launch this year. Windows Server 2008 marks an incredible step forward in ‘Green Technology’ through increased efficiency and a new technology called virtualisation. Virtualisation enables companies to reduce the number of computer servers they use by having multiple servers in one physical server box. The launch, which incorporates three products; Windows Server 2008; SQL Server 2008; and Visual Studio 2008, is themed ‘Heroes Happen Here,’ to honour the thousands of IT professionals and developers around Ireland who work tirelessly to bring the remarkable benefits of computer technology to their companies.

Pictured: Some heroes from the Windows Server 2008 launch in Dublin!

“The issue of reducing our environmental impact is something that we are all aware of,” commented Bill O’Brien, Business Manager, Server and Tools for Microsoft Ireland. “New technologies such as Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 enable us to get more benefit from technology while at the same time reducing the power consumption of our computers resulting in less energy usage and a corresponding reduction in CO2 emissions. If we upgrade every server in Ireland to Windows Server 2008 we will stop putting out over 2 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. That is about the same amount of CO2 emissions that the Poolbeg power station puts out annually or to put in terms we may better understand, that is more than the emissions from 392,000 midsized cars on the road.”

Energy Savings

The energy savings estimate is based on the average computer server using 350 watts per hour and the standard business & residential charge from ESB at .153 cents per Kilowatt hour. A standard server on the market uses 3066 kilowatts per hour per year at a cost of €469.10 per year per server. There are currently 120,000 servers in the Irish market with approximately 35,000 more servers per year scheduled to enter the market according to the IDC. The cost of running those servers in terms of energy both in running cost and cooling systems is over €56 million per year.

“The amount of CO2 emissions generated from that kind of usage is staggering,” added O’Brien. “It’s estimated that only 5% of business are virtualised today, that represents a tremendous growth potential and an incredible saving in terms of businesses expenditure on energy year on year. This has the potential of making a real and significant contribution by offsetting carbon emissions by over 2 million tonnes and reducing cost to business from €56 million per year to just over €3.5 million a year.”

Early Adopters

A significant number of early adopters are very enthusiastic about these latest products. Nissan Ireland is implementing Windows Server 2008 in their new premises because of the incredible saving in energy costs. “Virtualisation with Hyper-V will allow us reduce power consumption, build an R&D environment and will form a core part of our business recovery plan,” commented Rory Donnelly, CIO, Nissan Ireland.

Companies like Ryanair, UTV, University College Cork, Hosting 365, Netforce and Merrill Lynch are just a few who have embraced the new products and are moving forward with their plans of upgrading and utilising the time and cost savings of upgrading to Windows 2008 and utilising the added applications and abilities in developing across platforms with Visual Studio 2008.

Merrill Lynch, who has invested €30 million in their global Research, Development and Innovation Centre in Ireland, needed a solution which increased their speed, accuracy and agility while reducing cost. “There is a traditional view about the provisioning of hardware that doesn’t work in a fast moving and agile innovation process,” explained Mark Greville, Lead Architect for the Merrill Lynch RDI Centre, “so we began to look at virtualisation to help us provision things more effectively.” They have seen two key benefits to date. “The first is that when new projects come along we have been able to provision their development much faster. And the second is that we are able to get at data more quickly.” This means that the RDI Centre can focus more resources on new innovations to increase revenue and further reduce costs across Merrill Lynch. Going forward, the virtualisation features of Windows Server 2008 will also enable the RDI Centre to get a taste of things to come, installing early versions of a new technology in an environment where they can be safely evaluated.

The Products

“We’re taking a new approach to virtualization with an eye toward helping customers to realize its potential. We’re offering products that enable virtualization at all layers of the computing stack, From the beta of Hyper-V, the hypervisor that is a key feature of Windows Server 2008, to virtual desktops (with Virtual PC 2007), applications (with Microsoft Application Virtualization) and presentation virtualization (with Terminal Services). We’ve developed a toolset of virtualization products that can be deployed to meet the unique needs of our individual customers. This makes Microsoft unique in its breadth of capabilities and puts us in a position to be central to the virtualisation strategies of our customers in Ireland,” added O’Brien.

Citrix, as Microsoft’s platinum partner and a sponsor of the Irish launch, have developed the Citrix XenApp. This is the company’s flagship application virtualisation product line – previously known as Citrix Presentation Server™. The Citrix XenApp delivers Windows-based applications with performance, security and cost savings. “Thinking green is the only way forward for any business looking to compete in a global market. Citrix along with Microsoft are working together to ensure that we have a sustainable future. Revolutionary innovations like Windows Server 2008 and Citrix XenApp show just how our ‘Heroes’ are truly working to not only provide the world with the best IT solutions and applications but real solutions to reduce our carbon footprint,” commented Patrick Irwin, product marketing manager, Citrix Systems UK, Ireland and South Africa.

To find out more about Windows Server 2008 visit the launch web site.

Wave of New Microsoft Enterprise Products Brings Big Benefits to IT Professionals and Developers

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:48:58 GMT

Largest enterprise launch in company history includes Windows Server 2008, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008; focuses on security, Web, virtualization and better business intelligence.

Los Angeles, California: February 27th 2008 - Microsoft’s chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer, today kicked off the launch of the next generation of Microsoft’s infrastructure and application platform products, including Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 at the global launch event in Los Angeles. The Irish launch events take place in Dublin on March 11th 2008 and in Belfast on April 8th 2008. Over 2,500 people have already registered for the Irish events at: http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/heroeshappenhere/

The launch represents a major milestone to help customers on the road to Dynamic IT – Microsoft’s initiative to help customers optimise their people, processes and technology – and in turn position IT as a strategic asset for the business. These new enterprise products help customers more efficiently and securely manage their entire infrastructure and move to a virtualised environment while also delivering business intelligence and next-generation web experiences to boost business results. The theme of the events, “Heroes Happen Here,” highlights the outstanding work that IT professionals, developers and partners do every day to create solutions and cutting-edge applications that keep global commerce and industry running.

There are over 2,500 people registered for the Irish launch events and the new products are already being used by local IT professionals and businesses.

“In Ireland the response and early adoption of these new products by our customers has been phenomenal,” commented Bill O’Brien, Business Manager Server and Tools, Microsoft Ireland. “We’ve had an amazing response to our local launch events with over 2,500 registrants from across the country and we’re also seeing a strong demand with many customers already taking advantage of the new features.”

“I have been testing Windows Server 2008 for a while now and I like it - it's fast and quick to setup. I particularly like the roles element as I would normally spend a considerable amount of time "trimming" un-required services from a production server that are auto installed or auto started in Windows 2003 Server installs,” said Larry Doyle, IT profession with Netforce, Dublin. “I haven’t timed it, but it seems like 2008 will save me hours for each install I perform. I will be installing Windows 2008 for a couple of clients as soon as it is released...... to allow them to take advantage of new features such as increased security, faster IIS, improved management features, faster deployment time, improved performance, etc.”

Irish developers are also seeing the benefits of Visual Studio 2008:

“We were impressed at how easy it was to create, customise and compile a suite of data bound web-tests that could then be incorporated into a mix and used as load testing scenarios. We found that that the web test cases were easy to create and run and that it was quite easy to bind CSV and XML files to these web-tests. As our web based Insurance applications are heavily data driven this ability to quite easily bind a web-test to dynamic data is a major plus for us and it means that we can now functionally test our web applications more thoroughly with a more complete range of data than ever before,” commented Peter Buckley, Test Team Lead, DeCare Systems Ireland

Claudio Perrone, Chief Technology Officer of InnerWorkings said, “We chose Visual Studio 2008 for its enhanced and time-saving tooling support. Its ability to target multiple versions of the .NET framework made our transition worthwhile and practically risk-free, even for our most critical existing applications. Today, our newest projects are all based on the .NET Framework 3.5 and exploit the richness, elegance and compactness of the latest language enhancements.”

These companies are just a sampling of the more than 3 million customers around the world that participated in early feedback programs or as beta testers during product development.

At the global launch, Microsoft’s chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer commented: “IT professionals and developers have told us that they spend too much time and money on managing existing systems and not enough on investing in new innovations that will make them more competitive. Taking that feedback to heart is at the core of our new wave of products. The overwhelming response from thousands of IT professionals and developers around the world on this new platform has been that it will simplify management and offer the most secure enterprise platform and tools we have ever delivered.”

Big Benefits for Early Adopters

Researchers at consulting agency, Capgemini, looked at companies and institutions in the financial services, education, retail, and high technology industries using Windows Server 2008 in a mix of geographies. They found that the new operating system quickly adds value to IT operations through improvements in management, security, and reliability. On average, deployment duration was reduced by up to 60 percent and IT reduced costs by up to $124,000 per year. Cost reductions resulted from a wide range of areas including the recovery of five IT staff hours per server and 91 percent less downtime. A whitepaper detailing usage scenarios and data on the impact of deploying Windows Server 2008 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/product-information.aspx.

High Performance Products

The performance improvements and enterprise-class features of SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 have resulted in record-breaking results. Today Microsoft disclosed new world-record performance results on TPC-E and SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application 3-tier benchmarks running on four-socket industry-standard blade servers.** Microsoft also published breakthrough performance benchmarks for several customer scenarios, including leading results on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Siemens Teamcenter and Camstar Manufacturing Execution Systems.

Microsoft also announced that Microsoft Windows Server 2008 with .NET Framework 3.5 delivers faster throughput compared to IBM WebSphere 6.1 on RedHat Linux as shown through two new benchmark tests measuring scalability and performance in mission-critical enterprise scenarios. The sample application shows 117 percent better throughput of Windows Server using the IBM-designed Trade 6.1 benchmark; and Sun Microsystems’ WSTest web services benchmark demonstrates 94 percent better throughput on Windows Server on processing Web Service requests. More information on results is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/heroeshappenhere/docs/BenchmarkFS.doc

Further demonstrating support for the new products, more than 40 companies are making announcements today and more than 80 partners are participating in launch events around the world, including platinum sponsors AMD, CA, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, Intel, Quest, SAP and Unisys. Highlighting the opportunity for partners, a 2007 IDC study ** predicts that for every dollar Microsoft earns from Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 this year in the U.S., the “ecosystem” beyond Microsoft – software and hardware vendors that support or incorporate the products -- will reap about $18 in revenues. In 2008, this ecosystem is predicted to sell more than $120 billion in products and services revolving around Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Product Availability and Information

Windows Server 2008, including a beta version of the Hyper-V virtualization technology, and Visual Studio 2008 are available today. The feature-complete, February community technology preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2008 is also now available with general availability expected in the third quarter of 2008.

Later this year, Microsoft will release the Windows Essential Server Solutions family of products for small and midsize companies built on Windows Server 2008 and the newest Microsoft server technologies and services: Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008. Windows HPC Server 2008, the successor to Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, is on track for availability in the second half of 2008 and is designed to increase productivity, scalability and manageability for high-performance computing scenarios. Additionally, Windows Storage Server 2008, the next-generation storage solution based on Windows Server 2008, will be available by the end of the year.

Additional Resources:

You can find more information on the Irish launch events here:
http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/heroeshappenhere/
You can find more information from the global launch at:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/heroeshappenhere

As Windows Server 2008 is Released to Manufacturers, Customers and Partners Prepare to Deploy the Server Operating System

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:00:11 GMT

Dublin: February 4th, 2008 – Sailing towards the company’s largest enterprise launch in its history, Microsoft reached another important milestone today with the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Server 2008 ahead of the Irish launch of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 which takes place in Dublin on March 11th, 2008 and Belfast on April 8th 2008.

One indication of the momentum that is building around the latest server operating system is the number of beta and evaluation versions that customers and partners have obtained: more than two million.

IT professionals face increasing pressure from rapidly changing technology, increasing costs and security concerns, and expanding business needs. Windows Server 2008 helps alleviate these pressures by automating daily management tasks, tightening security, improving efficiency and increasing availability. It also offers virtualization solutions that will enable IT professionals to reduce costs, increase hardware utilization, optimize their infrastructure, and improve server availability.

How is the Lone Server preparing for upgrade?

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Furthermore, because Windows Server 2008 was developed in tandem with the Windows Vista code base, it has most of that operating system’s advanced management and security features, such as integrated Network Access Protection (NAP) and Group Policy. Customers will also see system-wide performance improvements from an integrated system architecture, including network file sharing, managed quality of service and reduced power consumption. Common tools and processes across both operating systems will result in efficiencies for IT organizations.

“We’ve been working with Irish partners and Irish customers throughout the development of Windows Server 2008 and there are already a large number of organizations adopting the new platform,” according to Bill O’Brien, Server Business Group Lead at Microsoft Ireland. “Irish developers and IT Pros are keen adopters of these products and the launch is hugely anticipated and generating great excitement. We are expecting a tremendous local launch event in Dublin on March 11th.”

“Windows Server 2008 is the easiest server operating system to deploy so far. It’s the most secure by default and it will offer solutions to business problems that companies with branch office infrastructures currently face,” commented Aidan Finn, Independent Infrastructure Consultant, Leader of Windows 2008 Server Group Ireland. [For more information visit: http://ws-ugi.spaces.live.com.]

Microsoft is also offering customers a Go Live License, which permits them to deploy beta releases of Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS 7.0) into live production. So far, 28 worldwide hosters have created and launched offers using this program, and hundreds more have downloaded the Windows Server 2008 beta and begun testing.

With Windows Server 2008, Microsoft is also embracing PHP hosting on Windows via the FastCGI module for IIS 7.0. PHP is a popular open-source scripting language used to build dynamic web applications. This allows IT Professionals to host PHP and ASP.net applications side by side. As a result of these efforts, the PHP community will be able to take advantage of the increased reliability of PHP on Windows and simplified administration available on the Windows platform.

Customers: On Your Mark…

To help IT professionals evaluate the migration-readiness of their existing networks, Microsoft has created four automated assessment tools, or “solution accelerators:”

the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) tool, which helps evaluate installed applications on servers, performs hardware assessments and makes recommendations regarding server virtualization;
the Infrastructure Planning and Design guides, which describe the architectural considerations involved in implementing the upgrade to Windows Server 2008;
the Windows Server 2008 Security Guide, which provides best practices and automated tools to help strengthen the security of servers running Windows Server 2008, and
the Microsoft Deployment tool, which decreases the cost of client and server deployments by providing detailed guidance and job aids for every organizational role involved with large-scale deployment projects.

Enterprise customers planning to upgrade should take the following steps when preparing to install Windows Server 2008:

Use Microsoft’s free tools to assess their enterprise’s current servers and determine which can be upgraded and which servers will require a “clean install. “
Engage with their application suppliers for prescriptive guidance.
Test applications they’re planning to run for compatibility with Windows 2008.
Research certified hardware and software solutions in the Windows Server Catalog (http://www.windowsservercatalog.com).

Upgrade Options

Windows Server 2008 uses image-based deployment to make the installation process as efficient as possible. Installation images are the fastest way to deploy an operating system. Image-based setup also is less error-prone than a scripted installation process.

Customers upgrading from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 will follow one of two methods, depending upon their current environment. Servers that are running only software applications that came with Windows Server 2003, such as Active Directory, Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), are the best candidates for a simple upgrade.

Microsoft recommends that customers follow IT community best practices and perform a “clean install” of Windows Server 2008. A clean install involves loading Windows Server 2008 on a partition that is not running an existing operating system. Microsoft advises those customers who want to pursue an upgrade to first contact the software manufacturer for prescriptive guidance.

Customers running applications whose manufacturers do not provide support during the upgrade process, that did not ship with Windows Server 2003 or that weren’t delivered to Windows Server via Windows Update should remove those applications first, perform the upgrade to Windows Server 2008, verify the applications are supported on Windows Server 2008 and then reinstall the applications.

Windows Server 2008 also offers a barebones installation option called Server Core, in which only the services required to perform the Active Directory Domain Services, Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS), DHCP, DNS Server, File Services, Print Server, Streaming Media Services, Web Server (IIS), or Hyper-V (Virtualization), roles are installed. A Server Core installation offers base-level server functionality without any extra overhead, so it will typically require less maintenance and fewer updates than a full installation.

Ensuring Compatibility

To help original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), independent hardware vendors (IHVs), independent software vendors (ISVs) and other developers build solutions that IT professionals can deploy immediately with confidence, Microsoft created the Windows Server 2008 Logo Program. Over 1,000 software and hardware partners have worked with Microsoft to help ensure that their products take full advantage of the capabilities and features of Windows Server 2008.

Windows Server 2008 software certification comprises approximately 100 test cases that independently confirm an application’s compliance with best practices for compatibility, security, reliability, and availability on the server operating system. The certification identifies top-performing technologies that are ready to deploy in mission-critical environments.

The program features two designations – the “Works with Windows Server 2008” designation ensures that an application is in compliance with best practices for the most common Windows Server 2008 functions, while the “Certified for Windows Server 2008” logo supports rigorous standards for stability, security, reliability and overall performance.

Microsoft expects there to be at least 80 software applications certified for Windows Server 2008 by the end of February, and roughly 300 more that are considered ready for the new platform. A complete list of compatible hardware and software products is available at http://www.windowsservercatalog.com.

In addition to encouraging customers to look for the certification logo when they make purchasing decisions, Microsoft has done something new for Windows Server 2008. The company has made the same tools that ISVs used to test their products for compatibility available to IT professionals so that they can test both commercial applications and custom applications they’ve developed in-house. The tools are downloadable at http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/ready

There is also a Windows Server 2008 Developer Center site that is a portal for both ISV developers and enterprise developers working on custom applications. The site provides how-to videos, interviews with Microsoft engineers and related documents. It also links to a moderated technical forum for application readiness and certification discussions and questions (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/default.aspx)

Irish Launch Event for Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 Announced

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:47:18 GMT

Dublin: The Irish launch event for Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 will take place in Dublin on Tuesday, March 11th 2008 at the Tripod venue in Harcourt Street, Dublin.

At the event attendees will be brought through a two hour experience, which includes an introduction of the three products and a tour where you can observe demonstrations and gather information on your specific areas of interest.

There are three sessions to choose from:

12.00-14.00 Register Now!
15.00-17.00 Register Now!
18.00-20.00 Register Now!

You can find out more about the launch event at: http://www.microsoft.ie/launch2008

Microsoft Announces Vision and Strategy to Accelerate Virtualization Adoption

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:32:24 GMT

Company announces acquisition of Calista Technologies, expanded alliance with Citrix Systems and initiatives to enable virtualization from the desktop to the datacenter.

Dublin: January 22^nd 2007 - Microsoft has articulated an expanded role for virtualization as a key enabler of its Dynamic IT vision and outlined a companywide strategy to help accelerate the broad adoption of virtualization. To help drive its strategy, the company also announced the acquisition of Calista Technologies Inc. to improve the end-user experience for virtualized desktops and applications; an expanded alliance with Citrix Systems Inc. in the areas of client and server virtualization; more flexible licensing options for virtualization using Windows Vista; and new tools that provide best practices to deploy Microsoft virtualization software.

“The hottest topic in the IT industry is virtualisation. At Microsoft, we’re taking a new approach to virtualization with an eye toward helping customers to realize its potential. We’re offering products that enable virtualization at all layers of the computing stack, From the beta of Hyper-V, the hypervisor that is a key feature of Windows Server 2008, to virtual desktops (with Virtual PC 2007), applications (with Microsoft Application Virtualization) and presentation virtualization (with Terminal Services). We’ve developed a toolset of virtualization products that can be deployed to meet the unique needs of our individual customers. This makes Microsoft unique in its breath of capabilities and puts us in a position to be central the Virtualisation strategies of our customers in Ireland,” commented Bill O'Brien, Business Group Lead, Server & Tools, Microsoft Ireland.

“Very few customers are able to reap the benefits of virtualization today,” said Bob Muglia, senior vice present of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. “We estimate that less than five percent of companies are utilizing virtualization technology because it is simply too cost-prohibitive and complex. We believe Microsoft’s comprehensive approach — from desktop to datacenter — is unique to the industry by delivering solutions that address virtualization at the hardware, application and management levels. Our approach is not only one of the most comprehensive in the market today, but we believe it is also one of the most economical. This combination brings a big strategic advantage and cost savings to customers.”

In an e-mail message to 300,000 customers and partners, and at the company’s Virtualization Deployment Summit, Muglia and other executives expanded on these comments and discussed the challenges facing businesses — from the high costs and complexity associated with managing today’s IT environments to space constraints and the ability to get the most out of existing IT investments. Microsoft also articulated how its strategy and investments in the area of virtualization are a key part of the company’s overall vision and long-term technology strategy for IT professionals and developers. This vision, called Dynamic IT, is aimed at delivering the right computing resources to people virtually anytime and anywhere, and creating an IT environment that is more efficient, flexible and cost-effective. With virtualization technology as a key driver of its Dynamic IT vision, Microsoft stressed the importance of the technology to its customers, reiterated its commitment in this area and outlined these areas of investments:

Flexible client and server solutions
Integrated management solutions
Accelerated broad customer adoption

Flexible Client and Server Solutions

Microsoft’s strategy for client and server virtualization is to provide the best value in the industry with a complete set of virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. For example, customers can virtualize nearly all components of their desktop — including operating system, applications, data and preferences — and make them accessible from virtually anywhere and on virtually any machine. The result is tremendous flexibility for users, combined with new levels of efficiency and agility for IT departments. The following announcements were made today in support of this strategy:

Acquisition of Calista Technologies. Microsoft has completed the acquisition of Calista Technologies, a leading provider of graphics technologies for next-generation desktop and presentation virtualization solutions. Calista software improves the user experience of 3-D and multimedia delivery for Microsoft multimedia applications, virtualized desktop deployments, and server-hosted virtualized desktops or applications using Windows Server Terminal Services. The addition of Calista’s technology to future Microsoft presentation and desktop virtualization products will enable remote workers to receive a full-fidelity Windows desktop experience without the need for high-end desktop hardware, while enabling software vendors to deliver additional capabilities. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Calista Technologies, based in San Jose, Calif., is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft.
Windows Optimized Desktop solutions. Microsoft introduced solutions that help make overall desktop management, user migration, and change management more efficient and flexible so customers can get the applications and data they need. Customers can use a range of Microsoft products, such as Windows Vista, the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, Windows Vista Enterprise Centralised Desktop and Terminal Services in Microsoft Windows Server 2008, to meet the needs of their unique client computing scenarios. More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization.

Integrated Management Solutions for Virtualization

In IT departments, virtualization software is transforming individual servers into dynamic datacenters where applications are added in real time, enabling much greater flexibility and more efficient use of resources. Microsoft offers infrastructure virtualization software as part of the Windows platform, such as Hyper-V and Terminal Services available within Windows Server 2008, along with a comprehensive management platform, such as Microsoft System Center, to manage both virtual and physical infrastructure and applications. Microsoft delivers a simple, integrated management solution to manage across customers’ infrastructure: from the physical to the virtual; from the hardware to the application and services. The following announcement was also made today:

Hypervisor and management interoperability with Citrix. Citrix is developing a software tool that will allow customers to easily transfer virtual machines between Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to help ensure greater interoperability for customers. A test version of the tool will be available in the second quarter, and a final version will be available with the release of Hyper-V. More details on this and other areas in which Microsoft and Citrix have expanded their alliance are available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass.

Accelerated Broad Customer Adoption

Virtualization has been around for more than four decades, but in many ways customers are just beginning to understand the full implications as a way to provision and manage computing resources. Greater economic and infrastructure advantages, as well as integrated tools to manage new configurations, are required to broaden the customer adoption of virtualization software. Microsoft is focused on a range of initiatives to help customers accelerate the adoption of virtualization to build a Dynamic IT environment. The following announcements were made to further accelerate the adoption of server and client virtualization:

Desktop virtualization alliance with Citrix. Microsoft and Citrix will co-market a broad portfolio of new client computing offerings so that customers have simple, flexible and low-cost client computing options. These offerings will be based on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Optimized Desktop solutions, extended with Citrix’s XenDesktop and Presentation Server products and managed by System Center. Microsoft and Citrix will work together to help ensure the Citrix XenDesktop connection broker works well with Windows Optimized Desktop solutions. More details on this and other areas in which Microsoft and Citrix have expanded their alliance are available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass.
New Microsoft Virtualization Solution Accelerators. To help customers evaluate, plan, secure and deploy Microsoft virtualization technologies across desktops and datacenters, Microsoft introduced four new Virtualization Solution Accelerators that will be available with the Windows Server 2008 launch in February. This set of free guidance resources and tools can help customers effectively plan and deploy virtualization technologies, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services and Microsoft Application Virtualization. Details can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators.
Increased licensing flexibility with Windows Vista. For businesses, Windows Vista Enterprise Centralised Desktop provides unique licensing and flexibility to run Windows in virtual machines on servers and access them from either PCs or thin clients. Assurance for Windows Client. For consumers, Windows Vista Home Basic and Windows Vista Home Premium are now licensed for use in a virtual machine environment, and the updated end-user license agreement is available at http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx.
Microsoft Office system support for Microsoft Application Virtualization. Microsoft announced today that the 2003 and 2007 versions of the Microsoft Office system are supported when running in both Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 and SoftGrid Application Virtualization 4.2. This support enables customers to run multiple versions of Office on the same device side by side, easing and accelerating the deployment of Office, reducing total cost of ownership, and enhancing mobility and business continuity for millions of information workers. Customers can learn more at http://www.windowsvista.com/optimizeddesktop.

Microsoft and Industry Partners Gear Up for Biggest Enterprise Launch Wave in the Company’s History

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:27:01 GMT

Microsoft delivers next milestone for highly anticipated Windows Server 2008, makes RC1 (release candidate one) ready for testing

Dublin: December 5th, 2007 — Reaching a major milestone in development, Microsoft today made available the Windows Server 2008 release candidate one (RC1) for customers to download and evaluate. The launch, early next year, features Windows Server 2008, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, and the theme is focused on celebrating the incredible work that IT professionals and developers do to deliver heroic results to their organizations, colleagues and customers.

“Irish customers are excited and already adopting these products and Microsoft Ireland will be making this the biggest launch in our history said Bill O’Brien, Server Business Group Lead at Microsoft Ireland. “Irish developers and IT Pros are keen adopters of these products and the launch is hugely anticipated and generating great excitement.”

“We are excited about the innovations in Windows Server 2008 and the business opportunity it will create for us. The demands in the Irish market for these are huge” said Novosco Sales Director Eddie O’Rourke.

Windows Server 2008 RC1

Windows Server 2008, which is scheduled to release to manufacturing (RTM) by February 27th, reached the RC1 milestone today and is available to customers for download at http://www.microsoft.com/ws08eval. With RC1, Microsoft is enhancing Group Policy with Group Policy Preferences, formerly known as PolicyMaker Standard Edition and Policy Share Manager. As the code approaches final signoff, RC1 is one of the last opportunities for customers and partners to evaluate it and provide feedback. So far, more than 1.8 million customers have obtained Windows Server 2008 evaluation code.

Industry Partners Kick Off Windows Server 2008 Launch Wave

As the industry gears up for the new enterprise and developer platform, thousands of industry partners have been working with Microsoft on product testing and evaluation, and are currently developing new applications, device drivers, services and solutions. Partners are also participating in a multitude of training activities on the suite of products and working to train customers in preparation for the launch. More than 40 hardware and software partners have committed to supporting and participating in hundreds of events worldwide. To date more than 140,000 IT professionals and developers have been trained on Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, and SQL Server 2008 and 3,100 certifications have been granted on Windows Server 2008.

Tools to Improve the Partner and Customer Experience

Based on its active solicitation of partner and customer feedback throughout the product development cycle, Microsoft has re-engineered its software certification program to help partners deliver solutions that customers can immediately deploy with confidence on Windows Server 2008.

To help partners prioritize application compatibility with the new platform, Microsoft created the “Works with Windows Server 2008” program and free supporting test tools. The tools help partners ensure an application delivers a predictable experience, while giving customers the first-ever industry-standard test tools gauging an application’s compatibility with the Windows Server 2008 operating system.

Partners whose applications pass the “Works with” tests can submit test results to an authorized test vendor for independent validation, creating a stepping stone toward “Certified for Windows Server 2008” status. Certification represents a higher technical bar addressing security, reliability, stability, Windows fundamentals and availability, in addition to basic compatibility.

Already, more than 300 partners have enrolled applications in the Microsoft Early Access Program supporting software certification and “Works with” validation. Partners and customers have downloaded well over 5,000 copies of the software certification program test tools from http://www.innovateonwindowsserver.com/resources.aspx since July.

Microsoft also recently announced plans to make additional investments in the Visual Studio partner ecosystem. To provide better support for interoperability with other developer tools and cross-platform scenarios, Microsoft changed licensing terms, no longer limiting partners to building solutions only on top of Visual Studio for Windows and other Microsoft platforms. The licensing change will be effective for the release of Visual Studio 2008 and the Visual Studio 2008 Software Development Kit. In addition, Microsoft announced plans to create a shared source licensing program for premier-level partners in the Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program. The program will provide these partners with the ability to view portions of the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment source code for debugging purposes and simplify the process of integrating their products with Visual Studio 2008.

As SQL Server 2008 moves into areas such as spatial data support and business intelligence, specialized partners are already adopting the technology to better meet the needs of their customers. For partners building applications for SQL Server 2008, new and innovative methods of product education are readily available. This includes resources available through the INNOVATE ON program as well as Academy Live, a managed webcast series that enables partners to connect with peers and subject matter experts in a virtual learning environment. In addition, SQL Server 2008 Virtual Labs, a new offering available on Microsoft TechNet, provides a deeper dive into specific areas of SQL Server 2008.

ChangingWorlds Changes to Microsoft with Increase to Productivity

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:42:23 GMT

Dublin: November 19th 2007 - ChangingWorlds, the market leader in providing intelligent personalization and mobile portal products to the telecommunications industry needed a best-of-breed solution to increase productivity and to meet the expectations of their ‘techno savvy’ global customers. They replaced their previous Novell/Linux SUSE infrastructure with Microsoft’s Exchange Hosted Services and Office solutions.

The demands of their business required coordinated calendaring, mobile email and an efficiently managed reliable IT infrastructure. The change over from one operating environment to another was a major step. The benefits for ChangingWorlds arose out of standardisation, centralisation and the deployment of robust Microsoft systems. There IT management saw a dramatic change with improved services to users and significant increase in productivity.

“My job has been simplified by Microsoft’s Active Directory and the productivity of staff has increased due to the greatly improved email systems and centralised calendaring supplied by Microsoft.” Noel Brannigan, IT Manager, Changing Worlds. “This has proved to be an easy to manage scalable and reliable server infrastructure. Active Directory enables user details including permissions to be entered once in place of the multiple entries required under the previous system.”

Ward Solutions, an experienced Microsoft Gold partner, implemented the roll out the system with Microsoft’s Windows Server 2003 and replaced OSS applications with Exchange 2003 server, Microsoft’s Office Suite including Outlook and Microsoft’s system management tools were also implemented. “ChangingWorlds with their own technological expertise needed a dependable solution to meet their stringent demands. They wanted a guaranteed a 99% up-time and Microsoft Server Systems would exceed that need,” commented Pat Larkin CEO, Ward Solutions.

Productivity, reliability and scalability of IT infrastructure are key for many organisations especially those at the cutting edge of IT technology that supply services to other “techno savvy” customers. Productivity is dependent on many factors including best-of-breed communications, Ward helped us to deliver that with Microsoft Servers and Solutions,” added Noel Brannigan.

About ChangingWorlds

ChangingWorlds is the market-leading provider of intelligent personalization and wireless portal products to the telecommunications industry. Based on advanced artificial intelligence technology, the company’s ClixSmart™ Intelligent Portal platform offers a personalized content discovery solution that enhances content relevance and optimizes the user experience of the wireless internet, resulting in greater ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) for the network operator.

Proven in market as a high-performance, scalable and carrier-grade wireless portal solution, ClixSmart is used by over 40 wireless operators worldwide including Celcom Malaysia, Hong Kong CSL, O2, TeliaSonera and Vodafone Group. ChangingWorlds was founded in 1999 and is privately owned. The company now employs over one hundred highly qualified staff in Ireland (Dublin), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) and USA (San Francisco).

Microsoft Unveils Windows HPC Server 2008

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:00:26 GMT

Dublin: 13th November 2007 - Microsoft today released the first public beta of Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008, a server operating system and tools designed for the fast-growing high-performance computing (HPC) market. Microsoft also created the Parallel Computing Initiative, a program creating a set of common development tools across multi-core desktops and clusters.

Windows HPC Server 2008, the successor to Windows Computer Cluster Server 2003, is based on the Windows Server 2008 operating system and is designed to increase productivity, scalability and manageability. Windows HPC Server 2008 has been renamed to reflect its readiness to tackle the most challenging HPC workloads. Key features include new high-speed networking, highly efficient and scalable cluster management tools, advanced failover capabilities, a service oriented architecture (SOA) job scheduler, and support for partners’ clustered file systems. The beta is available for download today at http://www.microsoft.com/hpc; the final version will be generally available in the second half of 2008.

“The focus for Windows HPC Server 2008 is providing customers with the combination of the highest levels of scalability and performance with dramatic improvements in productivity in terms of deployment and integration within the customer’s environment,” said Bill O’Brien, Server Business Group Lead at Microsoft Ireland. “Our internal deployment of Windows HPC Server 2008 across our core production test cluster saw a 30% increase in performance and the deployment across over 2,000 servers took less than two hours straight out of the box. We see Windows HPC Server 2008 bringing high performance computing to a broad range of enterprise applications including support for for high throughput Service Oriented Aapplications with its advanced web service routing capability.”

Adding to performance, Microsoft is also showcasing how cluster administrators, end-users and developers can increase productivity with a common set of tools that span desktop and cluster. Cluster administrators can save time with Microsoft System Centre for application-level monitoring and rapid provisioning; and SQL Reporting Services for capacity planning and auditing. End-users can save time with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for data collaboration; and the Windows Workflow Foundation for automating processes across workgroups.

Mixed, dual-boot clusters can also improve cluster efficiency; because dual-boot clusters flexibly service both Linux and Windows users, they increase utilization rates by expanding their number of addressable users. Examples of customers deploying large mixed clusters include the University of Iowa, Cambridge University, 3M and Baker Hughes. Leading partners that have announced mixed cluster support for Windows HPC Server 2008 include Altair, Cluster Resources, and Platform Computing. Clustered file system vendors that have announced support for Windows include Panasas, Quantum's StorNext, HP PolyServe, Sanbolic, and IBM has plans to support IBM GPFS on Windows.

Multicore and the Future of High-Performance Computing

Deepening its investment in developer productivity, Microsoft also created the Parallel Computing Initiative, which encompasses the vision, strategy, and innovative developments in systems, runtimes, programming models, libraries, language extensions, and development tools across the desktop and cluster. Designed to simplify and enable parallelism for a broad set of commercial applications, this initiative adds to standard-based tools available today like MPI and OpenMP, and native parallel debugger support in Visual Studio 2007. New technologies include the Parallel Extensions to the .NET Framework that will enable developers to express parallelism and improve efficiency and scalability of parallel applications. Over the next six months, Microsoft will ship customer technology previews (CTPs) of this technology.

Demonstrating how Microsoft’s investment into parallel programming is expanding the high-performance computing market, market leaders in the actuarial insurance software market, like Milliman and Towers Perrin, have already announced native support for Windows HPC, introducing a large new segment of performance-sensitive customers to the benefits of parallelism.

These major investments from Microsoft in high-performance computing and parallel programming will enable a broader set of commercial application vendors, as well as corporate and research programmers to embrace parallelism and take full advantage of the potential performance gains that are made available through adoption of multi-core processors and server clusters.

For more information on Windows HPC Server 2008, see the following website: www.microsoft.com/hpc.

Royal Hospitals Score a First in IT Excellence

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:52:31 GMT

Belfast: 28th September 2007 - The Royal Hospitals (Belfast Health & Social Care Trust – BH&SCT) has become the first organisation in Ireland to deploy ‘Microsoft System Centre Operations Manager 2007’. Based on the latest technology, this new and cost effective IT management system is now delivering a range of benefits to over 6500 users working across the hospital’s four main sites.

The health service like many other public sector bodies is under tremendous pressure to deliver world-class services more efficiently but with finite resources. In a sector were the flow and speed of information can make a huge difference to the way in which a hospital delivers patient care, the reliance on IT infrastructure has never been greater.

And as Gavin Sinanan, IT Support Manager at the Royal Hospital (BH&SCT) explains this was a key consideration, “In introducing Microsoft Operations Manager 2007 the hospital took part in Microsoft’s ‘Technology Adoption Programme (TAP). This meant that not only did we receive an updated IT management system but we also received support and technical advice directly from the Microsoft product development team, in addition to local consultancy expertise.”

Mr. Sinanan continued, “One of our main objectives was to find a solution that could deliver line of business application monitoring to improve key hospital processes. Operations Manager does exactly this, providing us with real-time information on our IT (services) showing alerts on potential issues, as well as up to date details on performance, availability and capacities, allowing potential problems to be resolved before they ever have a chance to impact upon the end user.”

As the first Microsoft customer to fully incorporate the new System Centre Operations Manager 2007 the Royal Hospitals (BH&SCT) has witnessed a dramatic transformation in its IT operations. Previously systems and staff were reactive, responding to alerts and faults, now it is much more proactive. The IT team now monitors user applications and infrastructures to ensure that each functions.

From a Microsoft stand point the new System Centre Operations Manager is having a positive impact on client operations as Mark Hopkins, Microsoft Business Manager NI Public Sector explains “System Centre Operations Manager has played a vital role in helping the Royal Hospitals (BH&SCT) centralise more of its IT service provision. Its implementation has increased efficiencies by building on existing knowledge skills, whilst adding scale in terms of the numbers of servers and applications that are proactively supporting the team. The implicit knowledge transfer gained by the hospital’s staff as a result of working closely with our consultants has allowed the team to get a head start proactively managing their Microsoft environment.”

Microsoft Announces 2008 Global Launch Wave

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:36:38 GMT

Denver: July 10, 2007 —Today at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, COO Kevin Turner announced that the company will jointly launch Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 in Los Angeles on February 27, 2008. As the most important enterprise launch in company history, February 27 will kick off a “launch wave” of hundreds of events that Microsoft will host worldwide. The company is also conducting broad outreach to IT pros, developers and partners about the new products, including training, virtual events and extensive online resources.

Together Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 provide a secure and reliable enterprise platform, the foundation for the next generation of web-based service applications, and support for virtualization and business intelligence.

You can evaluate Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 at: http://www.microsoft.com/getbeta3