Windows 2008

EnergizeIT 2009

So Microsoft has a bunch of events running across Canada soon. These are the EnergizeIT 2009 events. Durings these events they will be discussing Windows 7 and Windows 2008 amongst other things.

This will be a good opportunity for you guys in the IT community to get out there and see what’s new on the horizon. After the whole Vista debacle, it’s nice to see a product like Windows 7 on the horizon. From my experiences using it (as I’ve blogged about before), I can’t wait for it to be released. As a matter of fact, it’s so popular there are petitions circling the Internet for Microsoft to release it even sooner. I think this wouldn’t be a good idea because even though we hate Vista, we don’t want Microsoft to rush Windows 7, we want them to get it right instead.

The nice thing about this EnergizeIT event is that the day before the event you can go to a local user group forum regarding the event, and then the day after the event you can go to what they’re calling an “Installfest” for Windows 7. Basically you get to install and play around with Windows 7 with techs on site to help you out and answer any questions you might have. Sounds like a great idea to me!

-RP

The Confusion with Hyper-V and 32 bit vs 64 bit

Now that Hyper-V is available, I know a lot of people are raring to go ready to try it out. I know a few people have been bit by not knowing the system requirements, especially in regards to 32 bit vs 64 bit so I figured I’d mention a bit about it here.

Hyper-V as many people know is available with Windows 2008. You can also get a version of Windows 2008 without Hyper-V. I suspect this is due to trying to avoid any anti-trust issues. Anyways, the Hyper-V component is available in both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows 2008. This is where the confusion comes in. If one doesn’t read the available documentation clearly, one would assume that Hyper-V works in both 32 bit and 64 bit 2008, but then that person would be wrong. You see the tools available to manage Hyper-V are available in both 32 bit and 64 bit Windows 2008, however you can only run Hyper-V on a Windows 2008 64 bit box. If you were to try and do this in a 32 bit environment it just would not work.

 You can however run a guest os (a guest os is an operating system you run inside a virtual machine) in 32 bit mode inside of Hyper-V. If you want to run a 64 bit guest os you can do that as well. So if you want to build a cheap test box for yourself then you will have to buy a 64 bit processor and build a workstation for yourself and install Hyper-V on that. There will be no reusing of an old 32 bit system to run a Hyper-V test box.

If you do want to virtualize in a 32 bit environment I  suggest you check out VMWare, you can easily do it with any of the VMWare products. Until next blog, have fun virtualizing!

 -Cheers, RP

Check your thermals…

With it being summer, it’s got me thinking about heat on a daily basis. Especially server room heat. I’ve been through my fair share of server rooms and I’ve seen all sorts of solutions to the ever increasing heat problem. It seems more and more applications require a specific server to run; and more and more software requirements state that this piece of software can’t run on the same box as that piece of software. This leads to purchasing more servers and ends up leading to a lot of power draw and more heat in your server room.

Some people decide to cool servers the proper way by installing the proper cooling units into their server rooms, and other people decide to go the old fashioned way by leaving the server room door open or by putting a lot of home based oscillating fans in the room. Unfortunately this leads only to two very bad things, poor physical security and recirculation of hot air over the already warm servers.

If you need to cool your server room and don’t have the proper cooling, you seriously need to figure that into your next budget so you can have it. Also see what you can do to consolidate the roles of your servers so you have less servers taking up valuable space in your server room and also less servers generating heat.

 As I’ve mentioned before, Blade servers and VMWare are a very good idea for server consolidation. Not only are they good for saving power but they are great for keeping the heat down. Also with Windows 2008 out now and Hyper-V, there really is no reason not to try and virtualize even if you are not a VMWare expert. Any way you slice it the thermal savings will be substantial.

 -RP