IT Pro Tips : virtualization

Troubleshooting SoftGrid Applications

itprotipsadmin — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:01:00 GMT

By Michael K. Campbell

Following on the heels of a previous tip, Microsoft SoftGrid General Troubleshooting is a great lab that provides great insights into SoftGrid troubleshooting. Taken together, these two labs represent one of the best quick-starts into application virtualization with Microsoft SoftGrid. In fact, I wish that I had known about these resources when I started learning about SoftGrid – as they would have saved me hours of time trying to figure things out on my own and setting up my own testing environments.

Designed primarily for administrators who are just getting started with application virtualization with SoftGrid, this Lab starts off with a labcast that provides a brief recap of what SoftGrid is and then leaps right into an overview of some of the best practices for using SoftGrid.

TIP: While the labcast doesn't directly state it, following best practices (and accompanying explanations) outlined in this labcast can represent a great way to hopefully avoid needing to troubleshoot in a number of cases.

Once the best practices overview is complete, the introductory labcast then turns its attention to a technical overview of some of SoftGrid’s limitations. This is a hugely valuable section of the labcast – as it helps provide a lot of context around what you need to know about SoftGrid from a troubleshooting standpoint.

The labcast also outlines a ‘best practices’ flow, or approach to troubleshooting.

By following this flow, administrators can frequently identify simple issues and problems while learning a bit more about the sequencing process in general. Then, in the case of simple issues, administrators can simply apply fixes, or re-sequence applications as needed.

Of course, in many cases, troubleshooting is obviously going to require a bit more effort – and the best way to direct that effort is what this lab is all about. A big key, therefore, in troubleshooting, is setting up a viable environment that lets you view what’s going on – something the introductory labcast outlines in the form of using logging resources along with some great tools (which you’ll end up using yourself in the lab):

The labcast also provides some insight into some of the most common sources of problems before turning its attention to an overview of the lab.

The lab itself is very well set up and throws you up against a couple of problems immediately.

In my mind, not only does the lab do a great job in showing you how to solve some ‘actual’ problems – but it really does a great job in showing administrators just what kinds of tools and techniques are at their disposal when it comes to solving real-world problems they might run into. For example, to solve the first problem this lab throws at you, you’ll end up ‘injecting’ a highly-privileged command-prompt into the start-up of your sequenced application. Doing so lets you get around the fact that end-users on client machines don’t have direct access to locations that would be needed during troubleshooting.

Frankly, if for nothing else, being able to see how to ‘inject’ your own debugging code and processes into a sequenced application makes this lab totally worth it. But that’s just one of the things this lab has to offer. Other things that it addresses includes how to re-sequence applications to correct problems (meaning that this lab provides a start-to-finish approach to troubleshooting), as well as examples of how to remove features and functionality that might end up being ‘confusing’ to typical end-users.

All in all, the lab is well worth the time it takes to complete (most users should be able to complete it in 40 minutes or less), and provides a great overview of some of the tools and techniques available for troubleshooting applications. As such, I can heartily recommend Microsoft SoftGrid General Troubleshooting to anyone who is either interested in learning more about application virtualization with SoftGrid in general, or to anyone who is looking to troubleshoot their own applications.

Sequencing SoftGrid Applications

itprotipsadmin — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:01:00 GMT

By Michael K. Campbell

Application Virtualization is something everyone in IT should be excited about. It’s really going to change the way that IT manages and deploys applications. And if you haven’t heard much about, or if you’ve heard lots about it and haven’t really seen any good ‘hands-on’ demonstrations of what it can really do, then you need to go check out Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization: Sequencing Lab. I’ve played around with SoftGrid a bit in the past and written a bunch of different white-papers and other content extolling its virtues, but I haven’t really bumped into anything that does as great of a job of offering hands-on experience as this lab. In fact, I really wish I had had this lab around when I first started learning about SoftGrid.

The lab is primarily intended for people with virtually no background or experience on SoftGrid, and therefore starts out pretty basic with a review of some of the problems that we encounter in IT that would really necessitate a solution like SoftGrid – including a review of some of the pros and cons of various approaches to dealing with application complexity.

Following a review of why SoftGrid is needed, the labcast introduction to the lab then continues on with a quick overview of what SoftGrid is and how Application Virtualization typically works. One thing I liked about the introductory labcast was the way the presenter used some great analogies to help viewers get a feel for what’s going on at various stages of application sequencing – which is the primary focus of this labcast and its associated lab.

In fact, the little ‘down to earth’ touches like the use of great analogies really helped to improve the approachability of this lab for anyone who’s curious about SoftGrid, or just wants to see how it works.

TIP: This introductory labcast to this lab lays out some great tips and guidance on what kind of system you want to configure for application sequencing - which is something that's left out of most other tutorials and approaches out there.

I also liked the way the introductory labcast did such a great job of providing a comprehensive overview of not only what you’ll be doing in the lab itself, but in describing a lot of what’s going on and why. In other words, not only did the introduction to this lab spend a decent amount of time in PowerPoint outlining key concepts and explaining some of the background and technology behind what’s going on during the sequencing process, but it also provided some great guidance in terms of the best way to think about different types of applications being sequenced, and how to best account for any special circumstances associated with different types of applications.

Best of all though, the introductory labcast also provides a very high-level walkthrough of the exact steps that you’ll be performing in the lab yourself. And, as these steps are presented, there’s more background information and guidance provided by the speaker. Being able to see what you’ll be doing, before you start doing it yourself, makes the lab very easy to execute on.

As for the lab itself, I found it to be very straight-forward – something that just about anyone could complete in 20-30 minutes in most cases. I also really appreciated how the lab walks you through sequencing on an XP box and then shows you how to deploy, or run, the sequenced application (Visio) on a Vista box. That was a cool touch that helps showcase just how powerful application virtualization can be.

So, if you’re curious to learn a bit more about SoftGrid, or haven’t heard much about it and want to know what all the ‘buzz’ is about with SoftGrid and Application Virtualization, then I guarantee that there’s no better way to jump-start the learning process than with this Lab: Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization: Sequencing Lab.

Virtual Server and HP: Better Together

itprotipsadmin — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:01:00 GMT

By Michael K. Campbell

A recent Ziff Davis study points out that 90% of companies today are talking about server consolidation and virtualization, while over 50% are currently implementing server consolidation. In other words, virtualization is taking the world by storm – and if you haven’t started evaluating its benefits, then it’s time to do so. Likewise, if you have started evaluating the benefits or have even started the consolidation process, then you need to be apprised of the types of options available. The webcast Virtual Server and HP: Better Together helps capture some of the expediency behind the move to virtualization being considered by many companies today, and also, obviously, showcases some of the ways that HP can provide additional benefits for customers looking to use Microsoft’s Virtual Server.

Starting off with an overview of Microsoft’s current virtualization offerings, this webcast points out that Virtual Server 2005 R2 is currently Microsoft’s consolidation solution – at least until the imminent release of Hyper-V when Windows Server 2008 goes live.

Of course, even once Hyper-V goes live, Virtual Server will still remain in service (and supported until 2014), and will remain an option for consolidation for many companies. As you would expect, this webcast makes sure to provide some slides of Virtual Server in action – helping to explain some of its key benefits as well.

One thing I really liked about this webcast was how the presenters took a few minutes to point out some of the changes and features that have been added in recent versions to help meet customer demand, such as VSS integration.

Following the introduction, however, is where this webcast starts to get really interesting. The first thing it addresses is a special ‘sizing’ application that HP has produced to help companies easily target, or plan (i.e. size) the kinds of hardware they’ll need in order to consolidate workloads with virtualization.

As you would expect, the sizing application has lots of cool features that let you specify the kinds of hardware you’ll be using (including things like specifying what kind of disk you’ll be using, how many processors, how much RAM, and so on), along with what kinds of workloads you’ll be virtualizing. You can then set parameters for how aggressive or conservative you want your workloads consolidated, along with a lot of other options.

TIP: The website tells you how to gain easy access to the sizing application on HP's website.

Of course, since the sizing application is provided by HP, it also provides you the option to specify which HP servers you’d like to host your consolidation efforts on, and will ultimately even give you a parts manifest once you fine tune the solution to your needs. Frankly, that’s not a bad option if you’re getting serious about consolidation – as it can give you a quick insight into how much it would cost to virtualize your datacenter.

Following the overview of the sizing tool, this webcast then takes a look at some of the benefits of HP’s line of ProLiant servers and showcases some of the ways they’re well suited for not only virtualization, but consolidation as well. Initially I was pretty skeptical of this section of the webcast, but as it progressed, I had to agree that HP does provide some great features that will benefit companies looking to consolidate their servers – things that I really hadn’t thought about too much since my own experience with virtualization typically lies in the ‘digital’ realm instead of in the realm of laying cables and provisioning hardware.

Where I really got interested though was when HP started talking about management options – which actually took up close to half of this webcast. The reason I found this interesting though is because I personally think that Virtual Server’s user interface is currently just plain unacceptable. System Center Virtual Machine Manager will make that problem go away, but HP also provides a lot of different options as well.

The webcast also provided a good overview of some of the ways that HP’s Insight Manager has been designed to work with virtualization. The webcast also went into decent detail on a bevy of other pertinant topics, such as automatic discovery and policy enforcement, P2V and V2V (as well as P2P) migration options, and even an overview of how HP’s solutions that build upon Virtual Server can give companies the abililty to ‘fast-move’ virtual machines in order to ensure high availability (in similar manner to what VMware’s VMotion offers – but at a fraction of the cost and complexity/difficulty). But, if you’re interested in those kinds of important details, then you’ll need to drop your own skepticism and go watch Virtual Server and HP: Better Together for yourself.

A 360 View Inside the Virtual World (Level 200)

itprotipsadmin — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:01:00 GMT

By Will Kelly

Virtualization has been a real hot topic in some professional circles I run in, thus I wanted to come up to speed with the new features in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 and wanted to get an overview of Microsoft’s approach to Server virtualization.

Enter the Technet Webcast: A 360 View Inside the Virtual World presented by Adam Bogobowicz, a senior product manager for Microsoft Corporation. I find briefings and presentations from Microsoft product managers like Bogobowicz because the information is coming directly from the source responsible for leading product development.

Tip: Download the presentation and you can play it from any Windows Media compatible player at your leisure.

The Webcast starts out with a refresher on server virtualization including the technologies, economics, and security drivers that make a server virtualization solution a must have for your organization. The coverage of Microsoft’s Dynamic System Initiative also helped bring home Microsoft’s virtualization strategy for me. His coverage of Microsoft’s virtualization roadmap also illuminated a picture of their strategy and how they plan to keep pace in the white hot virtualization market.

After breaking down the concepts underlying Microsoft’s virtualization strategy, he walks through a common usage scenario of application migration and server consolidation with an eye on conserving IT costs. The Bogobowicz fires up Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 and walks through some common virtualization scenarios that should ring true for IT managers seeking to leverage the benefits of server virtualization.

Desktop deployments can be a pain point and Bogobowicz uses an Office 2003 deployment and demonstrates the ease of deploying the Office suite through Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007:

Next, the Webcast takes on the features of the TS RemoteApp Manager with Bogobowicz’s expert introduction to this important management tool:

Once Bogobowicz finishes with the TS RemoteApp Manager he delves expertly into the Virtual Machine Manager Overview – a valuable management tool for managing virtual servers:

Managing virtual hosts is integral to a virtualization solution like Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 and Bogobowicz walks through the host management options:

His attention and smooth pace walking through the Wizard step by step for configuring a virtual server makes it look easy for even new users:

He also walks through the Systems Center Operations Manager console, the core management console for the product with its clean interface:

The Webcast ends with Bogobowicz covering disaster recovery and summarizing the Webcast plus benefits of virtualization with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. He also drives home the benefits of server virtualization one last time making you want to learn more about Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 above and beyond this well done Webcast.

You can view the Webcast yourself here: A 360 View Inside the Virtual World