The latest beta release from the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) team provides organizations with more assessments and reporting for simplified IT infrastructure planning. Simplify planning for upgrade or migration to the latest Microsoft products and technologies with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.5 Beta.
This multifaceted tool is now even better—with assessment for easier migration to Windows Azure and SQL Azure, heterogeneous database discovery for SQL Server migration projects, Internet Explorer 8 upgrade assessment, and much more—MAP 5.5 Beta includes new features to help you streamline planning for your next migration project.
This program is now open. The beta review period will run through mid-January, 2011. Join the MAP 5.5 Beta.
What’s new with MAP Toolkit 5.5?
- Assess your environment for upgrade to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 (or the latest version).
- Identify and analyze web application, and database readiness for migration to Windows Azure and SQL Azure.
- Discover heterogeneous database instances for migration to SQL Server.
- Enhanced server consolidation assessments for Hyper-V.
As many of the internet user knows that Windows 7 Service pack 1 has been leaked to Torrent sites. The leaked Windows 7 SP1 release has the build number 7601.16562.100603-1800 and it was originally distributed to select beta testers, and will expire in-between April – July 2011.
Users, who don’t like to download the leaked Service Pack 1 beta (7601.16562.100603-1800) from torrents and other file sharing sites, can now officially download Service Pack 1 directly from “Softpedia”.
Links : ]]>
Now no more wait, Microsoft has announced the imminent availability of public beta version of Service pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 at TechEd 2010 annual conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (June 7-10 2010).
” Today, at TechEd, we are pleased to announce that by the end of July we will be releasing the public beta of Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. ” - Microsoft Corporation
According to them expectation seems that we will be having SP1 Public Beta in the next one or two weeks.
Current assembly build tag for Windows 7/ Server 2008 R2 SP1 as follows : 6.1.7601.16562.win7sp1_beta.100603-1800 – actual build in win7sp1_beta branch 6.1.7601.16561.win7sp1_beta.100527-1447 – previous build 6.1.7601.16560.win7sp1_beta.100524-1800 – previous build 6.1.7601.16559.win7sp1_beta.100506-1349 – previous build
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According to my previous post, SP1 includes all previously released updates for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 which contains the update patches for certain components of operating System.
Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 represents Microsoft’s continuing commitment to quality. While many of the updates contained in SP1 are available as individual downloads, the integration of these updates in SP1 enhances the ease of deployment for IT administrators. This functionality coupled with advanced new virtualization features such as Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX, demonstrates how SP1 continues to provide ongoing improvements that organizations have grown to expect from Microsoft.
Changes Specific to Windows 7 SP1
- Additional support for communication with third-party federation services.
- Improved HDMI audio device performance.
- Corrected behavior when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents.
Additional support has been added to allow Windows 7 clients to effectively communicate with third-party identity federation services (those supporting the WS-Federation passive profile protocol). This change enhances platform interoperability, and improves the ability to communicate identity and authentication information between organizations.
A small percentage of users have reported issues in which the connection between a computer running Windows 7 an HDMI audio device is lost after a system reboot. Updates have been incorporated into SP1 to ensure that connections between Windows 7 computers and HDMI audio devices are consistently maintained.
Prior to the release of SP1, some customers have reported difficulty when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents (documents containing pages in both portrait and landscape orientation) using the XPS Viewer, resulting in all pages being printed entirely in either portrait or landscape mode. This issue has been addressed in SP1, allowing users to correctly print mixed-orientation documents using the XPS Viewer.
Changes Specific to Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
- Dynamic Memory
- RemoteFX
- Enhancements to scalability and high availability when using DirectAccess.
- Support for Managed Service Accounts (MSAs) in secure branch office scenarios
- Support for increased volume of authentication traffic on domain controllers connected to high-latency networks.
DirectAccess is a new feature in the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems that gives users the experience of being seamlessly connected to their corporate network any time they have Internet access. In Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, improvements have been made to enhance scalability and high availability when using DirectAccess, through the addition of support for 6to4 and ISATAP addresses when using DirectAccess in conjunction with Network Load Balancing (NLB).
SP1 enables enhanced support for managed service accounts (MSAs) to be used on domain-member services located in perimeter networks (also known as DMZs or extranets).
As a greater volume of IT infrastructure migrates to cloud-based services, there is a need for higher thresholds of authentication traffic to domain controllers located on high-latency networks (such as the public Internet). SP1 allows for more granular control of the maximum number of possible concurrent connections to a domain controller, enabling a greater degree of performance tuning for service providers.
Changes Common to both Client and Server Platform
- More efficient power consumption
- Change to behavior of “Restore previous folders at logon” functionality
- Enhanced support for additional identities in RRAS and IPsec
SP1 introduces functionality that enables user-mode use of the invariant Time Stamp Counter (TSC). When utilized by application workloads such as SQL Server, the invariant-TSC provides a high resolution multimedia timer (necessary for functionality such as OLTP, data warehouse processing, and so on) at far greater power efficiency than previously available alternatives.
SP1 changes the behavior of the “Restore previous folders at logon” function available in the Folder Options Explorer dialog. Prior to SP1, previous folders would be restored in a cascaded position based on the location of the most recently active folder. SP1 changes that behavior so that all folders are restored to their previous position.
Support for additional identification types has been added to the Identification field in the IKEv2 authentication protocol. This allows for a variety of additional forms of identification (such as E-mail ID or Certificate Subject) to be used when performing authentication using the IKEv2 protocol.
Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes all previously released updates for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. Many of these updates are available to the public on the Microsoft Download Center and Windows Update, while others are only available to specific customers or partners. It is standard practice to include all of these updates in a Service Pack and as such they are included in Windows Server2008 R2 SP1 and Windows 7 SP1.
Download : SP1 Knowledge Base list
This document contains a list of these updates with links to their descriptive webpages on http://support.microsoft.com. There are other updates in Service Pack 1 which have not been released as updates and therefore are not presented in this list. This list is pre-release and is subject to change.
]]>Microsoft RemoteFX will enable users of virtual desktops and applications to receive a rich 3-D, multimedia experience while accessing information remotely and Microsoft Dynamic Memory will allow customers to adjust memory of a guest virtual machine on demand to maximize server hardware use.
Microsoft remoteFX and Dynamic memory are not the standalone application of microsoft rather they will be shipped as the update package of Windows server 2008 R2 Service pack 1.
]]>Within this session Microsoft outlined improvements that make it easier to access desktop virtualization. Like New technology agreement with Citrix Systems, features coming in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and about Windows XP mode.
Microsoft had included Windows XP mode in Windows 7 to access the backward compatible application in Windows 7 with the help of hardware visualization technology which force people to upgrade a new infrastructure to run the XP mode and leads to high drop on financial budget.
But now by having a eyes on IT cost savings, Microsoft has decided to give the support for Windows XP Mode that will no longer requires hardware virtualization technology.
This update is not available now but for more information which will go live later at Windows XP mode Homepage.
]]>The Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems introduce BranchCache, which enables content from file and Web servers on a wide area network (WAN) to be cached on computers at a local branch office. It not only speeds up access to data and documents from Web and file servers by reducing web and file access over a WAN link, it frees up bandwidth over the WAN link for other uses.
BranchCach has two operating modes:
- Hosted Cache mode
- Distributed Cache mode.
Hosted Cache mode specifies a local server for caching content downloaded form a content server over the WAN. Caching occurs at the very first request from a user in a branch office. A user from the same branch office subsequently requests for the same content will establish a connection with and retrieve the cached content from the local Hosted Cache server. Host Cache mode is recommended for a branch with more than 50 clients and does require some form of infrastructure for caching and accessing the content in a local server.
Distributed Cache mode, on the other hand, is for a small branch without a local file server that can be used as a hosted cache server. This configuration caches content downloaded from a content server over the WAN at a user’s computer. Caching occurs at the very first request from a user in a branch office. A user from the same branch office subsequently requests for the same content will locate the cached content by broadcasting, and then retrieve the content from that user’s computer in the local area network. Peer-to-peer sharing is the basic idea. There is no central repository in the branch. There are no requirements for servers or services in the branch office beyond client computers running Windows 7.
This is how the BranchCache™ process works:
- A Windows 7 client connects to the content server in the central office and requests a file (or file segment) exactly as it would if it were retrieving the file without using BranchCache™.
- The content server authenticates and authorizes the client exactly as it would without BranchCache™. If successful, it returns content metadata over the same channel that data would normally have been sent. If this is the first time any client from the branch office network is requesting a file not already cached on the local network, the client retrieves the file directly from the content server.
- In Distributed Cache mode, the client sends a request on the local network for the required file by using the Web Services Discovery (WS-Discovery) multicast protocol. The segment hashes provide a unit of discovery. This helps reduce the total number of lookups performed for a given piece of content (versus looking up each block). The client that previously cached the file sends the file to the requesting client. The data is encrypted using a key derived from the hashes sent by the content server, as part of the content metadata. The client decrypts the data, computes the hashes on the blocks received from the first client, and ensures that it is identical to the block hashes provided as part of the content metadata by the content server. This ensures that the content has not been modified.
While in Hosted Cache mode, the client uses the hashes in the metadata to search for the file in the Hosted Cache server. A key difference in Hosted Cache mode is that a client establishes an SSL connection with the Hosted Cache server, and it offers content identifiers over this encrypted channel. The Hosted Cache server connects to the client and retrieves the set of blocks that are not cached.
To implement BranchCache, client computers must be running Windows® 7, with the BranchCache feature enabled. Web servers and file servers must be running Windows Server 2008 R2, with the BranchCache feature enabled
Useful Links :
Download
- BranchCache Executive Overview (.doc)
- BranchCache Technical Overview (.doc)
- BranchCache Security Guide (.doc)
]]>Video guide
- A public beta version of our next Windows Server OS MP release which provides support for Server 2008 R2 (aka Win7 Server), monitoring for logical disk fragmentation and various bug fixes.
- A known issues list for monitoring Server 2008 R2 with OpsMgr 2007 SP1.
If you are already a member of either of those programs then please feel free to deploy the MP, begin managing Server 2008 R2 systems, follow the steps in the evaluation guide included in the MP package, and send us feedback via Connect and any issues you encounter.
Continue @ System Center Operations Manager
]]>If you have set up Hyper-V host clustering previously, it is quite easy to set up and utilize the new features in R2. If you haven’t previously worked with host clustering, be sure to follow the step by step guide closely and it shouldn’t take long before you are up and running.
Windows Server 2008 R2 & Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 – Hyper-V Live Migration Overview & Architecture “One of the most highly anticipated new features in Windows Server® 2008 R2 Hyper-V™ is live migration. This document describes the live migration feature of Windows Server® 2008 R2 Hyper-V™ in detail, including how live migration moves running VMs and requirements for implementing live migration” Download
Hyper-V: Step-by-Step Guide to Using Live Migration in Windows Server 2008 R2 “This guide details the steps required to perform a live migration of Hyper-V™ virtual machines from one node in a Windows Server® 2008 R2 failover cluster to another node.” Download]]>