A full day seminar presented by Mike Sterling and John Kelbley. This workshop is being coordinated by Dr. Mark Srite, Associate Professor in Management Information, Lubar School of Business, UW-Milwaukee

Overview

IT organizations are abuzz with virtualization efforts of all forms to reduce cost and increase agility. What exactly is all this virtualization good for, and how can you make the most of it in your organization? This interactive workshop will begin by reviewing and discussing common forms of virtualization both deployed and emerging. The majority of the day will be spent diving deep into server virtualization scenarios using Microsoft’s hypervisor technology--Hyper-V---the high-performance virtualization role included in Windows Server 2008 at no additional cost.

The workshop explores the topic from the perspective of an organization journeying down the virtualization “road.” New technologies like virtualization provide great value but also disrupt existing business practices and technology processes. Before starting to implement virtualization, it’s critical that a clear plan be put in place so the power of virtualization doesn’t lead to the dreaded “server sprawl.”

Topics

• Virtualization End-to-End. This session provides an introduction to Hyper-V and related virtualization technologies from Microsoft. Additionally, we’ll go into an in-depth architectural review of Hyper-V so you can see how it works from the ground up. Key subtopics to be covered and/or explained with demonstrations: Hyper-V, Windows Virtual PC, App-V/MDOP, Common Architectures, and Use Cases

• In the Beginning: There Was Server Consolidation. The Honeymoon: Once you’ve decided on a virtualization solution, there are a number of things that need to be considered. How will you set this up, configure it, make sure it’s secure, and ensure that it’s available? There are a variety of tools here that help ensure your virtualization environment runs to its full potential. Key subtopics to be covered and/or explained with demonstrations: Hyper-V Setup, configuration, security management, High Availability (H/A), host migration (P2V)

• The Honeymoon Is Over: Settling in with Virtualization. Congratulations! You’ve deployed Hyper-V in your organization. It’s time to start looking at more advanced topics and situations that you may not have considered as you rushed into virtualization. How do you simplify (automate) the creation of new virtual machines? Why has cost for tape backup media suddenly tripled? What new techniques are required for troubleshooting? How to determine if remote system is physical or virtual? What physical host is home for a system? Key subtopics to be covered and/or explained with demonstrations: Scripting for Hyper-V, operational challenges including managing user expectations, VM Sprawl, charge backs, performance considerations (disk IO), backup and recovery, alternative platforms support (UNIX and Linux)

• Agile Infrastructure: Soaring with Eagles Using Integrated Management. It’s All About Management --ensuring your infrastructure stays up and running is crucial but even more so when it comes to virtualization. Using the right tools to efficiently and securely monitoring and managing your virtualization environment is the ultimate goal. Microsoft’s System Center family of products offers an integrated approach to optimizing virtualization infrastructure management to save precious time and resources in challenging economic times. Key subtopics to be covered and/or explained with demonstrations: System Center Virtual Machine Manager, System Center Operations Manager, System Center Data Protection Manager Note: MSIT deploying all workloads by default as VM’s unless GM-level justification

• Bonus Topics - any questions or situations you’d like to challenge the workshop speakers with. If they do not have time to cover them during the workshop, they will follow up with you through e-mail after the session.

About the speaker

Mike Sterling is a program manager in the Windows Server and Solutions Division at Microsoft, where he focuses on Hyper-V functionality in Windows Server 2008. Mike promotes Hyper-V through his blog and speaking engagements. Mike is one of the authors of “Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V: Insiders Guide to Microsoft’s Hypervisor.”

John Kelbley is a Senior Technical Product Manager at Microsoft and part of the Windows Server Platform Strategy team, with more than 20 years experience focused on IT infrastructure. John is involved in high performance computing and virtualization. When not working with Microsoft customers and technology organizations, he is a frequent speaker at conferences and a TechNet Magazine contributor. John is one of the authors of “Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V: Insiders Guide to Microsoft’s Hypervisor.”

Who should Attend?

This workshop is for IT infrastructure professionals and technical managers, including server administrators, messaging/e-mail administrators, development/testing resources, technical leads, technical architects. It is recommended that participants have experience with Windows administration.

Coordinator

Mark Srite, Associate Professor in Management Information Systems, Lubar School of Business, UW-Milwaukee