Title: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions – From the Desktop to the Datacenter (Second Edition)
Author: Mitch Tulloch w/ the Microsoft Virtualization Teams
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Published: © 2010 by Microsoft Corporation
Pages: 480
File size: PDF 10.5 MB / XPS 22.6 MB
Price: FREE
Download URL: Click here for PDF or XPS

Description:

Learn about the benefits of the latest virtualization technologies and how to plan, implement, and manage virtual infrastructure solutions based on these technologies. Updated for Windows Server 2008 R2

Here’s another batch of new/updated SBS KB articles

SBS 2008 Recent KBs:

• KB #2097035 – SBS 2008 – Installation on Hyper-v Server fails with an Error "The User Role Cannot be found. Select a different User Role"
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;2097035
• KB #2291678 – SBS 2008 – Windows SBS Console may crash because of incorrect Environment Variables
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;2291678
• KB #2029384 – SBS 2008 – The Terminal Service Gateway may randomly disconnect machines
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;2029384
• KB #2028674 – SBS 2008 & SBS 2003 – Migration Preparation Tool (SourceTool) fails to update the schema on the source server
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;2028674

KYSBSUG August 2010 Meeting #78 –
SBS 2008 Disaster Recovery Using Hyper-V
Presenters: Tim Barrett & Kevin Royalty
Date: Wednesday August 18, 2010
Time: 6:30-8:30 PM Eastern
Venue: Money Concepts
Address: 323 Townepark Circle, Louisville, KY 40243
Map: Click here
Registration URL: Click here to register today!

Description:

Your customer calls and says, "Our server is completely destroyed, but we have the backups."

What’s your next move? Do you have hardware on standby? Do you have a well-documented plan so you can spring into action?  Or will you just wing it?

Join us this month for a joint presentation with CiNPA and KYSBSUG as we talk about disaster recovery of SBS and show how to restore an SBS 2008 native backup and ShadowProtect backups into Hyper-V. This talk is based on real-life recovery situations and personal experiences.

Registration URL:
Due to limited seating, registration *is* required.
Click here to register today!

Whitepaper Title: VHD Getting Started Guide
File name: VHD Getting Started Guide.docx
Data Published: May 27, 2010
Language: English
File size: 1.13 MB
Pages: 82
Download URL: Click here

Description:
This guide provides an introduction to virtual hard disks (VHDs) in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It includes an overview of technologies that you use to configure VHDs, as well as procedures to help guide you through deploying VHDs.

Contents:

• Virtual Hard Disks in Windows Server 2008 R2 & Windows 7
• What’s New in Virtual Hard Disks
• Getting Started with Virtual Hard Disks
• Introduction to Virtual Hard Disks
• How to Perform Common Tasks
• Appendix: Tools, Scripts and APIs
• FAQ: Virtual Hard Disks in Windows 7
• Power Management for Network Devices in Windows 7
• What’s New in Power Management for Network Devices

Source: Keith Combs’ Blog

This is one webcast you definitely don’t want to miss!

Title: “Third Thursday Webinar: Hyper-V 101”
Presenter: Wayne Small [SBS-MVP]
Date: Thursday 04/15/2010
Time: 5:00 PM Eastern Daylight (GMT –4)
Host: Third Tier
Link to attend: Click here for Live Meeting

Description:
Wayne Small from Sydney Australia, Third Tier consultant and owner of SBSFAQ.com has been deploying Hyper-V based solutions to 80% of his clients. Hyper-V can be simple to deploy, yet powerful enough for high availability applications. It is also technology that your clients really don’t understand at all. So how does he sell it to them? Wayne will tell us how to get up and running, the impact this technology can have your business and how to sell the idea to your clients.

Have you heard all the hype about Hyper-V?  Want to get your clients up and running on Hyper-V in an hour?  Want to know the key things to look out for with Hyper-V and how to avoid the pitfalls?  This session will run through all of the basics on Hyper-V as it relates to our SMB clients.  It will cover the various flavors of Hyper-V available, what to use when and how to get your first Hyper-V client quoted, and installed.  Wayne will walk through a typical scenario that he’s deployed in the past and how he’s addressed the clients concerns and taken advantage of Hyper-V to save the customer money, and increase their uptime.

It’s been a busy month in Louisville already with TechNet and MSDN here last week on March 4, 2010. And we’ve got some more stuff coming your way:

**First March 2010 Meeting**
6-YEAR KYSBSUG ANNIVERSARY
Date: Wednesday March 17, 2010
Time: 5:30 – 7:30 PM Eastern (or whenever everybody leaves)
Venue: Howl At The Moon
Address: 4th Street Live, Louisville, KY
URL:  Click here

Parking: 423 South 5th Street
(Usually $3-$5, or free after 6PM)

Door Prizes: There are no door prizes for this meeting, but there are lots of low/no cost stuff to enjoy

• Free cover charge for KYSBSUG attendees
• Free buffet 5:30 – 7:30 PM
• Attendees receive first two drinks for $0.50 / each (well drinks, long island teas, domestic beer, house wines, house margaritas, DeKuyper cordials)
• ½ off all drinks until 9 PM

Registration for this event is NOT required for this event, but you must be over 21 to enter the venue.

**Second March 2010 Meeting**
KYSBSUG Meeting #73 – Windows Server 2008 R2 IT Pro Tour
Presenter: Matt Hester, Microsoft TechNet Presenter (in person)
Date: Monday March 29, 2010
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 PM Eastern
Venue: Money Concepts
Address: 323 Townepark Circle, Louisville, KY 40243
Registration: We will be providing dinner and door prizes, so registration IS required.
Registration URL: Click here

Description:

Here’s your chance to connect with your local IT Pro Community AND meet Matt Hester, your local IT Professional Evangelist! Now that the dust has settled and the boxes are mostly unpacked from Matt’s relocation to Ohio.  He wants to meet you and get to know you! What a better way than with Windows Server® 2008 R2, giveaways and food!!

Matt Hester will be talking about the many administrative benefits of Windows Server® 2008 R2, including improvements to Active Directory, PowerShell, Group Policy and much more.  He will also talk about his experiences with his recently published book Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration Instant Reference. Ultimately, this evening is for you – so bring your questions, prepare to have some fun and expect to learn more about Windows Server® 2008 R2.  This should be a fun and exciting evening!

Matt will have a couple copies of his book to give away and other fun stuff. Be sure to attend and learn more of what Windows Server® 2008 R2 has to offer!

This is your chance to give feedback on how Matt and Microsoft can help your local community efforts. We hope you’ll join us for an evening of fun and peer-to-peer networking with your local IT Pro Community!

Special Thanks:

We’d like to thank the folks that helped bring this month together.

• Jeff Slyn of SLYN Systems & Peripherals for doing an AWESOME job once again of pulling together the venue and specials for the first meeting on the 17th.
• Mallory Sizemore from Howl At The Moon for hosting our meeting on the 17th.
• Matt Hester of Microsoft for coming to Louisville for the second meeting to present and for providing dinner on the 29th.
• Lee Johnson of Sentry Computer Systems for hosting us at Money Concepts again on the 29th.

I hope to see many of you this month as we wrap up our 6th year of free monthly meetings, and jump right into our 7th year!

Nowadays you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting someone who’s talking about virtualization. I’m guessing that your technicians are up-to-speed with virtualization, but are your sales folks?

Microsoft has a great series of webcasts for Microsoft Partners to give them the basics of virtualization with the following 4-part (6 segment) series with Ronald Grattopp and Bryan Von Axelson:

“The Ultimate Sales Guide to Microsoft Virtualization”

• Part 1 – The Basics (38 minutes)
• Part 2a – Server Virtualization Solutions (52 minutes)
• Part 2b – Desktop Virtualization Solutions (37 minutes)
• Part 2c – Microsoft Virtualization Management Solutions (29 minutes)
• Part 3 – Understand Microsoft Virtualization Licensing (35 minutes)
• Part 4 – Microsoft Virtualization and the Competition (32 minutes)

Note: You must have a Microsoft Partner ID linked with your Windows Live ID and sign in to view these webcasts.

Microsoft Desktop Virtualization Sweepstakes

In addition to some great (and free) information, Microsoft is providing an incentive for Microsoft Partners to attend these trainings. They are giving away:

• Two (2) HP EX90 MediaSmart Servers
• Eight (8) Sony Touch Readers

Webcasts in bold above are eligible for the Desktop Virtualization Sweepstakes. Sweepstakes ends April 12, 2010. See official website for details.

You can also stop by the Microsoft Virtualization portal:
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization

If you’ve been wishing for some structured Windows Small Business Server 2008 training offered by Microsoft, wait no more.  Microsoft has announced a set of four hands-on labs for SBS 2008, and (it gets better) it’s free!

Title: Windows SBS 2008 Hands-On Labs for Partners
Release Date: 9/25/2009
Version: 2.0
Download Size: 12.5 GB

The courses available are:

1. Windows SBS 2008 Admin Console
2. Windows SBS 2008 Working with Clients
3. Windows SBS 2008 Installation
4. Windows SBS 2008 Migration from SBS 2003

The downloads are available from the Microsoft Connect site:

URL: https://connect.microsoft.com/directory/
Invitation Code: SBSP-62B6-K3TH

System Requirements:

• A machine that supports Hyper-V*;
      a server class** dual- or quad-core CPU is highly recommended
• 5 GB of RAM min. (6-8 GB would be better);
      SBS 2008 requires a minimum of 4 GB of RAM, 
      Parent partition (Hyper-V host) requires 1 GB
• 80 GB of free hard drive space;
      15 GB will be used initially but the VHDs could grow to a max. of 80 GB
• Optional – router that will function between the SBS server and the Internet/corporate network
• Optional – second physical network adapter to connect the SBS virtual machine to the router

Here’s a screen shot of the file downloads in the kit:

* Note: If you’ve never installed Hyper-V before, I’ve got a short video
(4:18 minutes) on YouTube demonstrating the installation.

** Server-class hardware is recommended, but not required since this is a HOL and not a production box. For example, here are my demo Hyper-V box specs:

• HP Compaq dc5800 microtower
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33 GHz
• 8 GB RAM
• 1 ea. 149 GB SATA drive (OS)
• 1 ea. 1 TB SATA drive (ISOs and VHDs)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

To make sure that your machine supports Hyper-V (both in the BIOS and on the processor) check out the SecurAble download from GRC.com that tests hardware virtualization: http://www.grc.com/securable.htm

Props: Sean Daniel’s blog

You’re invited to attend the November 2009 KYSBSUG meeting next week:

Group: Kentucky Small Business Server User Group
(KYSBSUG)
Meeting #: 69
Date: Wednesday November 18, 2009
Start Time: 6:30 PM Eastern (GMT -5)
Location: Money Concepts
Address: 323 Townpark Circle, Suite 100, Louisville, KY 40243 USA
Map: Click here for map on Bing.com

Topic: SBS 2008 Build in Hyper-V
Presenters: Lee Johnson & Tim Barrett

Description:

This month we’re doing a live build of Windows Server 2008 R2 on physical hardware, installing the Hyper-V role, and then installing Windows Small Business Server 2008.

While the SBS build progresses we’ll also have another Hyper-V box on hand to show various operating systems, including Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 & Ubuntu, plus some Hyper-V best practices.

We’re also bringing a copy of Beatrice Mulzer’s new book for you to check out:

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-653): Configuring Windows Small Business Server 2008
http://www.amazon.com/MCTS-Self-Paced-Training-Exam-70-653/dp/0735626782/

Registration URL: Registration is not required for this event.