This week I got the chance to work with some x86 High Performance Computing hardware at the Donald Smits Center for Information Technology (CIT) at the University of Groningen. Their hardware typically contains more than 64 logical processors and TBs of RAM. 10Gb/s interconnects and loads of Solid State Disks (SSDs) are also not very uncommon in ...

I’ve seen a couple of vendors release backup products, specifically targeted at Hyper-V. Some solutions utilize the Hyper-V Volume Shadow Service (VSS) writer to make backups. The big question, however, is whether this type of backup is of any use to backup Domain Controllers for disaster recovery. Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of issues ...

One of the new and interesting features in the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC), mentioned a few days ago, is the ability to utilize a virtual Windows XP with Service Pack 3 environment for application compatibility. This feature is called Windows 7 XP Mode and builds on Windows Virtual PC 7. The new Virtual PC now offers features like clipboard ...

In the past I’ve mentioned a Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 is less susceptible to attacks than a full installation of Windows Server 2008: It has less code on disk and in memory, resulting in a smaller attack surface It requires less updates It doesn’t offer a built-in way to browse the web It is deployed by ...

Updating environments with Hyper-V can be more of a challenge compared to updating an environment that consists of mere physical servers. Not only the workloads need regular updating, but also the Windows servers and Hyper-V servers underneath them. The challenges Hyper-V relies on a Parent Partition, whether you're using a Full installation of ...

Hyper-V Server 2008 is Microsoft's free server hardware virtualization product. You can  deploy this Microsoft product  like a Windows product with your favorite deployment suite. When you use Windows Deployment Services (WDS) or Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT)to deploy Microsoft's Hyper-V Server 2008 however, you are prompted to ...

Microsoft released a new server hardware virtualization product yesterday: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. I've already discussed this product in full detail a while ago, so today I'll show you how to install this free and optimized Hyper-V product in five easy steps: Step 1 Choose a good box to use. The processor should be a recent x86-64 one, ...