Tech Ed EMEA IT 2008: Day 1 - Keynote

author Rik Hepworth calendar Nov 3, 2008 · 3 min read · Uncategorised  ·
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So, the keynote was interesting. Much of the content I had seen before, but there were some demos that were interesting and a few snippets that made me take note.

For example, I had not understood that the acquisition of Kidaro will enable interaction between applications running within a virtual machine and the host desktop in ways that are not currently achievable. That the technology will ship as part of a new Desktop Optimisation Pack was news. I believe the technology is name MEDV - Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation.

Softgrid was also mentioned as solid way to achieve application virtualisation - a technology that I have not previously had chance to play with, but which is most definitely on my To Do list - I think of a few specific practical uses for us. One of the 'announcements' of the keynote was the RTM of Application Virtualisation 4.5 (I believe, the solution formerly known as SoftGrid). Critically, the team behind application virtualisation are working on virtualising the server applications. That has big implications for simplifying the deployment of new virtualised solutions and the stack of differencing disks and other VHDs needed.

Also of note - Server 2008 R2 includes the ability to live migrate virtual machines. What I did not know until today was that Server 2008 R2 M3 is available for download. I can feel some testing coming on...

On the subject of virtualisation, the release of System Centre Virtual Machine Manager including support for Hyper-V was also 'announced'. I believe we've been running that for about a week now and I am pretty impressed with it (we're currently migrating our Virtual Server 2005 VMs to Hyper-V - I'll post about that experience another time).

What was new to me was the idea being worked on of using M - the modelling language launched as part of Oslo - to create models of systems which can then be provisioned using SCVMM. For the creation of development and test environments that sounds cool!

All of this is part of a concerted (if a little low-key, I thought) push to position Microsoft as the cost effective (read, cheaper!) solution for virtualisation and virtualisation management.

A couple of enviro-quickies:

  • Microsoft is the largest commercial purchaser of servers in the world and is brining a new datacenter on-stream roughly once per quarter.
  • Their new DC in Quincy, WA is built next to a hydro-electric dam to ensure a clean source of energy.
  • The upcoming Dublin, Ireland DA will use natural air cooling, not air-con (and I'd love to hear more about that).

Announcement quickies:

  • SCOM 2007 R2 beta will be available for download at the end of November.
  • Centro - Essentual Busines Server will be 'announced' on November 12th.
  • Identity Lifecycle Manager '2' RC is now available

A key new feature in Server 2008 R2 is the availability of ASP.Net on Server Core. That has big implications for SharePoint and you can bet I will be talking to the guys from Microsoft about that one later!

Also interesting were a few new Server 2008 R2 features:

  • DirectAccess - device can connect securely over internet without requiring VPN. We currently use ISA server but there are limitations. This might be handy...
  • Bitlocker to Go - encryption for USB drives (and other removable storage, I assume). Definitely interested in that one.
  • BranchCache - branch office caching solution for data. Sounds like WAN acceleration a la Riverbed to me, and the demo did nothing to change that view. Does this mean the caching server has to be the gateway for the WAN? What does it support in terms of applications, protocols etc? Another one to discuss during the week.