TechDays BeLux 2009 Day 1

Session 1: Architectural Principles for Software+Services (Miha Kralj)

The opening keynote was entirely devoted to Software+Services and the differences between on-premises, hosted and cloud computing.

Session 2: Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Virtualisation (Ilse van Criekinge & Arlindo Alves)

Arlindo kicked off the presentation with an overview of the Hyper-V architecture. Afterwards Ilse discussed Microsoft policy for virtualising Exchange Server (basically E2K7SP1 on W2K8 only).

Afterwards we we’re give a number of practical considerations:

• Performance: use passthrough disks, used fixed disks, monitor guest performance (not only the host), do not use differencing disks.
• Design: make your design as if it were a physical setup. Exchange is not “Hyper-V aware”
• Setup: setup is identical to a physical install
• Root config: separate LUNs, no snapshotting, no oversubscribing CPUs above 2:1 (virtual:physical), only install management tools in the parent partition and nothing else
• Guest config: don’t forget about the disk space needed for dumping the guests memory to disk
• Exchange Storage Config
• Backup: from within the guest
• HA & DR: either cluster the guest or the host, but not both!

After a demo of Live Migrating an exchange server (why not play a multimedia file from within a mailbox for this demonstration rather than using xcopy?) we were presented with a number of scenarios were MS believes virtualising exchange might come in handy.

More info on TechNet: Should You Virtualize Exchange 2007 SP1?

Session 3: Windows 7 Overview (Tony Krijnen & Daniel Van Soest)

I guess it’s not the first time Tony and Daniel present something together. Their brought us a very dynamic session which consisted almost entirely of demos showcasing the new features in Windows 7:

• UI improvements (shake it baby!)
• BrancheCache
• DirectAccess
• Security Improvements: User Account Control, IE8 Inprivate Browsing, Applocker, Bitlocker To Go, Network Access Protection
• Recovery Environment

Session 4: Take your Exchange Database anywhere (Ilse van Criekinge)

Yet another Exchange related session I was looking forward to. This time Ilse covered the Exchange 2007 Database Portability feature. She started off by refreshing the Exchange Database technology and continued with a bit of a comparison between the various continuous replication solutions available with E2K7SP1.

Using a real life scenario of dismounted store Isle ran us through the different options (Dialtone recovery) and tools (eseutil, isinteg) available. The demo ended with recovering the database file in a new exchange org.

Session 5: What’s new in R2 for network engineers (Corey Hynes)

Over to Corey again who showcased us the new features  in Windows Server 2008 R2:

• Hyper-V Live Migration
• Management & Operations: PowerShell V2, Server Manager improvements and Best Practice Analyzers
• Active Directory: ADAC (Active Directory Administration Center), Recycle Bin, Offline Domain Join
• Server Core: DISM, ocsetup, .net & asp.net

Session 6: Virtualisation Security (Kai Axford)

Kai Axford got us thinking out loud about how to secure a virtual infrastructure.

Some more pics: