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10/14/2009
Quote by Eric Siebert : vExpert
What is virtualization?
If you work with virtualization for a living, inevitably you’ll be asked what virtualization is. Trying to explain it to someone who doesn’t work with computers can often be challenging, and after you explain it they still may not know what it’s about.
So how do you explain it to someone for the first time? I find that using analogies that anyone can relate to is a good way to explain things to people. Before I attempt a virtualization analogy I’ll try explaining it in basic computer terms.
Virtualization software, also called a hypervisor, emulates computer hardware allowing multiple operating systems to run on a single physical computer host. Each guest operating system appears to have the host’s processor, memory, and other resources all to itself. The hypervisor, however, is actually controlling the host processor and resources and allocates what is needed to each operating system, making sure that the guest operating systems (called virtual machines) cannot disrupt each other.
There are two types of x86 virtualization: bare-metal and hosted. Sometimes these types are referred to as Type-1 and Type-2 hypervisors respectively. Bare-metal means the virtualization layer (hypervisor) installs directly onto a server without the need for a traditional operating system like Windows or Linux to be installed first. “Hosted” means that an operating system must first be installed on a server, and the virtualization layer is installed afterwards, just like an application.
Bare-metal hypervisors include VMware ESX, Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V Server. Hosted hypervisors include VMware Workstation, Fusion, VMware Player and VMware Server, Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Server, and Sun’s VirtualBox. Some of the differences between hosted and bare-metal hypervisors are listed below.
Bare-metal hypervisors include VMware ESX, Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V Server. Hosted hypervisors include VMware Workstation, Fusion, VMware Player and VMware Server, Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Server, and Sun’s VirtualBox. Some of the differences between hosted and bare-metal hypervisors are listed below.
Hosted hypervisors
- Requires a host operating system (Windows/Linux/Mac), installs like an application.
- Virtual machines can use all the hardware resources that the host can see.
- Maximum hardware compatibility as the operating system supplies all the hardware device drivers.
- Overhead of a full general-purpose operating system between the virtual machines and the physical hardware results in performance 70-90% of native.
Bare-metal hypervisors
- Installs right on the bare metal and therefore offers higher performance and scalability but runs on a narrower range of hardware.
- Many advanced features for resource management, high availability and security.
- Supports more VMs per physical CPU then hosted products.
- Because there is no overhead from a full host operating system performance is 83-98% of native. There is a small bit of overhead from the virtualization layer of the hypervisor
Why is virtualization such a great thing? Because most computers do not fully utilize the resources (memory, CPU, disk, network) that they have which is very wasteful. Would you rather have 10 computers that are all using less then 20% of their total resources, or three computers that are using 70% of their resources?
You might think you could avoid this by simply installing more applications on one computer but this is often a bad idea as the applications may conflict with each other and cause problems, and a single OS crash will take down all your applications. Virtualization solves this by allowing the applications to run on the same physical computer, but separates them by allowing each one to have its own isolated guest operating system.
So those are the basics on what virtualization is. Now on to an analogy.
Imagine computers as cars on the road in motion. Each car has it own resources, such as fuel, heat/cooling, radio, etc. Most cars are never filled to capacity, and many have only one person in them which is wasteful.
Imagine virtualization as a bus, instead of many people driving in many cars you now have many people being moved around by a few buses. A person may only ride one bus at a time, but if a bus becomes inoperable due to a flat tire or an engine problem, the people may simply get off and transfer to another bus that has unused seats. In virtualization, this “transfer” happens because of features like High Availability (HA).
A person may also hop from one bus to another if it becomes too crowded while it is moving. In virtualization, this is called VMotion, if you’re using VMware, or Live Migration if you’re using Hyper-V. By utilizing buses that hold more people instead of cars, fewer resources are wasted, while all the people still get where they are going. Buying and operating one bus instead of 10 cars is a lot cheaper and more efficient.
-Rishi
10/11/2009
Quote from Brian Hall from Office 2010 Team!
Office comes to Windows Live – starting today
Today is a real milestone for people who use Microsoft Office or Windows Live. Starting today, a select group of SkyDrive customers will be invited to try out a technical preview of the online versions of Microsoft Office Excel, Word and PowerPoint, also known as the Office Web Apps, integrated right inside their Windows Live SkyDrive experience. Over time, as the final version is released, the Office Web Apps will become available to all 500 million+ users of Hotmail, Messenger and other Windows Live services.
While the tech preview doesn’t have all the cool features that will be available in the final offering, it does show off the exciting potential of having online versions of Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, and how you can easily access and work with your Office documents from anywhere with an Internet connection.
When those of you participating in the Tech Preview upload or create a new document, you’ll be able to view them much like you do today when using the full Office programs—without the loss of formatting or data and with the familiar Office 2007 ribbon. And it will be very easy to share your documents in password-protected folders and give permission to whoever you want to have access – just like with any other SkyDrive files.
Personally, I’m excited that, in the final release of the Office Web Apps, I’ll be able to access Office documents from any PC and then be able to share them, show them, edit them, and collaborate on them with people around the globe. I do a lot of presentations so it will be particularly helpful for giving presentations right from Internet Explorer (or Firefox or Safari). Because I’m kind of an Excel geek, I’ll be able to share my spreadsheets in all their glory – with conditional formatting, charts, and more. In the final release, I will also be able to share notes from OneNote in real-time with others.
Over the coming months here are some of things you can expect to be able to do in later versions of the Office Web Apps:
Why are we making Office Web Apps available as part of Windows Live?
We all use a lot of different services online – e-mail, social networks, photo sites, video sites, and so on. In many cases, we use more than one service for very similar purposes, using Facebook, MySpace , StudiVZ, Mixi or many others for social networking; Hotmail, Yahoo!, or Gmail for e-mail; Flickr, SkyDrive, FotoLog, or Photobucket for sharing photos.
That said, there are certain things we really just want one of. I really just want one place for storing contact info, one personal calendar I can share with my family, one primary mail service that also allows me to check all of my e-mail accounts, one place to get updates from all of my social networks, and one place to store, share, and manage my massive and ever-growing collection of photos, documents, music, and videos.
I can get all of that at Windows Live. And now, with the addition of Office Web Apps, I’ll soon be able to go to Windows Live to create, edit, share, and collaborate on Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, OneNote digital notebooks, and Excel spreadsheets – all in high fidelity and all online regardless of which PC I’m using and whether that PC has Office on it.
I’m super excited about today’s release and the future of Office Web Apps.
Today’s a great start on terrific things to come.
Stay tuned.
- Rishi
10/7/2009
Finally, everyones waiting has ended for the right nevertheless simple and power total Antivirus, Antispyware, Antimalware etc... solution only comes from Microsoft and it's free for their end-users/customers. Here is the weblink :- http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
Microsoft has released a free version of complete malware protection software today. This software is branded as “Microsoft Security Essentials” (MSE). MSE is supported on Windows XP/Vista/7. Click here to know more about it. Download link is also available there.
Pl GoAhead with MSE free security solution and be the one to secure your PCs..
have a grt day............... 9/15/2009 There we go; 1) Run regedit- select file- connect network registry- enter the name of the remote computer & select check names. 2) Go to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server-- fDenyTSConnections=1 3) Change the fDenyTSConnections value to 0 4) Then your session will be enable. Enjoy……………….. - Rishi
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Thick vs. Virtual Clients
I almost laugh at companies that think they can save all kinds of money with a virtualized their desktop. Most companies have little or no business reason for virtualizing their desktops; they just think it has a less TCO than supporting physical desktops. I really try to dig down to why customers are looking or piloting a virtual desktop environment. Is it centralized management of disks? Or is it flexibility of hot-desking with applications and the desktop state still running as a service? Is it for security so that data and applications never leave the data center? Or really, is it a shiny new toy for IS to figure out? I do believe there is a scenario for virtualized desktops. For instance I worked with a large bank who wants to keep their IP local to the US but have offshore developers manage the code and need access to virtual boxes for development and test. The scenarios for a valid virtual desktop is limited and most customers will be swayed away from virtual desktops when they are briefed on better ways to address their pain points of well managed desktop or moving to terminal server architecture. I asked most companies looking at a VDI methodology what kinds of clients were used to access the VDI desktops and without hesitation they said desktop PC’s. So when looping back to their original business case of moving to a VDI approach, they start to understand that virtualization sprawl is not necessarily a good thing because now they need to support double the desktops for their solution instead of using presentation virtualization for their desktops or applications which would meet their business needs and keep their supported desktops to a minimum.
Most companies when looking at a virtual desktop are still looking at sustaining the virtual desktop just like they did the physical desktop. So the effect of a virtual desktop is the extraction of the dependencies of the operating system from the hardware. This will give them the ability to dramatically reduce the amount of images they have to maintain and will allow for dynamic provisioning of images. Again, this is not a great argument, with Windows Vista and Windows 7; companies can maintain one image that is hardware independent and can be deployed to virtual or physical computers and have indexes that dictate the applications that get deployed to the target pc. Yes this is physical or virtual however, it starts to lead down the path of where the true focus in this argument should take place, and it’s about the applications not the operating system that companies run on.
The customers might see better availability by running the desktop in the data center because in my opinion, the data centers tend to maintain better SLA’s due to tighter change and control procedures but customers can also see improved physical desktop reliability numbers with better change and control procedures applied to the desktop PC’s. Customers looking at virtualizing the desktop have been looking at virtualizing the wrong area in the OSI layer; these customers need to really be looking at virtualizing the applications. Once they see how by virtualizing the applications can provide them greater application compatibility, agility and dynamic deployment of applications on thin-trim-thick clients they understand that they are looking in the wrong area of virtualization.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Desktop Virtualization. VMWare has a TCO tool that produces a very nice Excel spreadsheet that shows the TCO cost savings using VMWare for virtual desktops. This tool uses a a model of a typically managed desktop and compares it to a well managed virtual environment. It is interesting if you add the well managed desktop numbers into the spreadsheet, you get an almost identical cost for a well managed desk and depending on the workload, and a well managed thick desktop is cheaper than a VDI Light and Heavy Workload. It really comes down to how many clients can be on a single core. VMWare says that they can handle 50 users per core but customers are experiencing about 6-8 users per core where as a 64 bit terminal server documentation says it can handle about 150 user per core but in reality customers run approximately 100 users per core.
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Thick vs. Thin Clients
First of all, thin client computers do not have a lower TCO and are not Greener than Windows laptops.
Companies can realize some cost savings in moving from thick to thin, in analyst studies say that the cost savings is around 8%. Let’s look at what 8% savings actually costs the business that implement a thin client architecture; poor video streaming, no audio upstream, limited peripherals, limited mobility, sporadic performance of shared computing architecture. Regarding the acquisition cost, the thin clients cost around ~$300US where a bottom of the line Windows PC cost ~$500. Also, many customers don’t like to discuss soft cost savings, when you remove the soft cost from the equation; a well managed rich desktop has a lower TCO than thin client architecture. When competing in a TCO discussion, the greatest savings a customer can realize is not moving platforms or architectures, but moving across an IT maturity model of best practices.
Some competitors talk about how thin is more green than thick. This is also a lie. It’s true that the SunRay client only uses 4W of power, but they also use middleware servers that host about 40 – 50 clients per server. In a 1,000 user environment, the middleware servers pull about 18,000W of power. Most customers redirect the SunRay servers back to Windows Terminal server architecture anyway. So if the customer just used a Wyse devise which pulls about 4.5W of power going directly to a Windows Terminal server architecture saves 18,000W of power. Windows GPO settings will only cost a company about $12 per PC (excluding monitor.) 9/8/2009 Here is the link for the site Microsoft Security Essentials Beta Home from where we can check-it back further. Go Ahead and simply take a look on the new security software prospective for the PC’s with Microsoft. Enjoy the great news…………………
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TCS partners Microsoft for setting up virtualisation centre - Business News - News - MSN India
Mumbai: IT outsourcing firm Tata Consultancy Services has entered into an alliance with Microsoft India to launch a virtualisation Center of Excellence (CoE) in Chennai.
The Microsoft-TCS virtualisation CoE is a joint initiative by the companies to accelerate the adoption of virtualisation technology in India, TCS said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange today.
"Virtualisation is one of the most disruptive technologies in the world today. Through our partnership...We will address this crucial market need and help customers lend the benefits of virtualisation technology," Microsoft India Managing Director Rajan Anandan said.
Virtualisation is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an operating system, a server, a storage device or network resources. This helps companies in cutting costs and optimising resources.
"We are always looking to enhance the services we provide to our customers. The Microsoft-TCS virtualisation CoE is an initiative aimed at enabling our customers rapidly realise the advantages of this technology," TCS Infrastructure Services, Vice President & Global Head PR Krishnan said. 8/30/2009 Citer le message précédent Microsoft Contributes Device Driver to Linux Community
I think this is significant. Microsoft has been working with Linux and other OSS communities for quite some time. But this is a major development towards Microsoft’s active participation with open source communities. Microsoft has released 20K lines of device driver code to Linux community. You can read the details here. Hyper-V, Linux Quote Windows 7 Memory Usage
Windows 7 Operating System Ultimate SKU clean install (with all default services running) occupies only 150-200 MB of RAM on your PC!  Quote Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V R2
Windows Server 2008 R2 includes Hyper-V R2 and is available only in x64 edition. I moved my primary lab machine to WS2008 R2 and is really benefitting from these features - I can create VHDs and mount them as drive letters using “Disk Management”. So I can add/remove files to VHDs without using virtual machines
- VHD files can now be added to virtual machines while they are running. So no need to shut down virtual machines if I want add more storage to it.
- Though I’m not using it very often “Live Migration” is the killer feature. This is a fitting reply to VMWare “vmotion” feature. It comes “free” with Windows server license. More importantly it works on almost any hardware and takes less than 15 minutes to configure.
- The “processor compatibility” feature is allowing me to perform “live migration” between computers with different processor numbers
8/17/2009 Productivity Power by rishi on June 9, 2009 One of the most powerful ways to increase your personal productivity is a technique I call Single-Point-Focus. 
The easiest way to understand the concept of single-point-focus is to think of your mind as a desktop computer. If you use a computer regularly, you’ll know from experience that when you open ten different applications at once, your computer slows down and becomes less responsive. The same thing happens with your mind. Just as a computer runs applications, your mind runs ‘thought processes’ and when you try and run multiple thought processes at the same time, your mind becomes less responsive. For example, when you’re sitting at your desk at work, your mind might be running the following thought processes: - The report that is due in two days time
- The argument you had with your husband last night
- The problems with your father’s health
- Your son’s difficulty with making friends at school
- Renovating the upstairs room
With all of these thought processes running concurrently, your mind slows down and becomes clouded. You’ll also find that continually running multiple thought processes also leads to mental and physical fatigue. So what’s the answer? Well… just as your computer becomes more efficient as you reduce the number of applications you are running, your mind becomes more efficient as you reduce the number of thought processes you are trying to run simultaneously. This means that one of the best things you can do to increase your productivity is to learn to close down your extra thought processes until you have a single-point-focus. In the example above, when you’re at work, your single-point-focus would become ‘The report that is due in two days’ and you would close down all the other thought processes that are clouding your mind. Then when you go home, you can close down the thought process relating to your report and change your single-point-focus to your relationship with your husband. As you practice having a single-point-focus, you’ll find that you gradually eliminate the fog that clouds your mind and your effectiveness and productivity will increase expotentially. So today I’d like to encourage you to develop the habit of asking the following question: "What should my single-point-focus be right now?" As soon as you have an answer to this question, imagine closing down all the other thought processes running in your mind as though you were closing down applications on your computer. Finally, direct your full and undivided attention on your single-point-focus and watch your productivity soar! Until next time, Dare To Dream! Rishi How To Build Your Self Confidence by rishi on April 8, 2009 One of the most important steps to achieving your goals in life is to develop a strong sense of self confidence. This does not however involve becoming loud or arrogant. On the contrary, people with genuine self confidence are usually calm and self assured and do not need to ‘big note’ themselves. 
Here are my top ten tips for building your self confidence: 1. Visualise Yourself As The Person You Want To Be Each morning spend a few minutes visualising yourself as the person you want to be. Think about the way you dress, the way you carry yourself and the way you interact with other people. Seeing yourself as the person you want to become is the first step towards building self confidence. 2. Self Confidence Statement After visualising yourself as the person you want to be, read the following statement out loud: "I know I have the ability to achieve my major goal in life. Therefore today,
I demand of myself persistent and continuous action towards achieving my goal" Reading this statement out loud is a great way to start your day in a confident state of mind. 3. Dress Well One of the most effective ways to instantly improve your level of self confidence is to dress well and to make the decision to always be well groomed. This does not mean you have to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe. Instead, just focus on gradually building up a small collection of good quality clothes. Also remember that simple accessories such as a tie clip or necklace can make a big difference to the way you look and feel. 4. Positive Posture Another powerful way to build your sense of self confidence is to stand up straight and lose the slouch that many of us have acquired over the years. While you may be able to make a change to your posture by simply becoming aware of it, the best way to make a long lasting change to your posture is to practice yoga or pilates. 5. Move With Purpose A simple but effective tip for increasing your levels of self confidence is to always move with a sense of purpose. In his book ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’, David Schwartz recommends walking 25% faster than normal. Having a spring in your step lets people know that you have important things to do and actually makes you feel more confident as you go about your daily business. 6. Become A Participant Have you ever noticed that in most meetings or groups, people immediately head towards the back of the room so that they can remain as inconspicuous as possible? A great way to increase your visibility and sense of self confidence is to make the decision to always sit towards the front of the room and be a participant. When you have something to say – don’t be afraid to say it. 7. Connect With Confidence Another way to quickly improve your self confidence is to practice making a strong first impression. When you meet someone face-to-face, look them directly in the eye, smile broadly, shake hands firmly and say, "Hi Jim, nice to meet you". Similarly, you can sound more confident on the phone by answering, "Good morning Carol Jones speaking" instead of simply saying "Hello…" 8. Build Your Success File Occasionally your self confidence will take a hit when something doesn’t work out the way you hoped. One of the best ways to repair your self confidence in this situation is to keep a folder outlining your past achievements and successes. You should also include any positive feedback that you’ve received from others. As you review your success file and fill your mind with positive comments, your doubts and insecurities will quickly disappear and your self confidence will be restored. 9. Preparation The BIG secret to being self confident that people rarely talk about is – preparation. The more you prepare and practice for an event, the more self confident you will become. If you are worried about an upcoming event, use your apprehension as a stimulus to take action and practice, practice, practice. The simple but powerful truth is that self confidence grows through repetition and experience. 10. Toastmasters My final tip for developing self confidence is to join a Toastmasters group. Toastmasters is a non-profit organisation that helps people from all walks of life to develop their public speaking and leadership skills. In my experience Toastmasters offers a safe and relaxed environment to step out of your comfort zone and develop the invaluable skills of being able to think on your feet and speak in public. So there you have it! If you implement some or all of these 10 techniques you’ll gradually develop a greater sense of self confidence which in turn will help you to pursue and achieve your most important life goals. Until next time, Dare To Dream! Rishi
8/7/2009
Older Version of Windows
Tip: Use Terminal Services to Manage Hyper-V from an Older Version of Windows
If you want to manage Hyper-V servers from a computer running an earlier version of Microsoft Windows, such as Windows XP Professional, you can do so by using Terminal Services RemoteApp to publish the Hyper-V Manager application on the Hyper-V server using Terminal Services. In brief, the procedure for doing this is as follows:
1. Install the Terminal Services role on a server running a Full installation of Windows Server 2008. Be sure to include the Terminal Services Web Access role service in your Terminal Services role installation.
2. Install the Hyper-V role or Hyper-V role management tools on the terminal server.
3. Configure user/group membership as needed for the Remote Desktop Users and Terminal Services Web Access Computers security groups. Also, configure RDP and security settings as needed.
4. Launch the RemoteApp Wizard from Terminal Services RemoteApp Manager, and add the Hyper-V Manager console (Virtmgmt.msc) to the list of published applications on the terminal server.
Now, from the computer running the earlier Windows operating system, connect to the terminal server using Terminal Services Web Access, select the remotely published application (Hyper-V Manager) to launch the connection screen, and authenticate with the terminal server.
At this point, the Hyper-V Manager console will be running on your computer—it will look and work just as if the console was installed locally on your computer, with the exception of the word Remote in the title bar indicating that it is a RemoteApp and not a local program.
Note:- From the Microsoft Press ebook Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions: From the Desktop to the Datacenter by Mitch Tulloch.
8/6/2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Facebook is world's fourth most trafficked website
San Francisco, Aug 5 (Xinhua) Social networking website Facebook continues its rapid rise and has already become the fourth most trafficked website in the world, technology blog TechCrunch has reported.
In June this year, Facebook attracted a total of 340 million unique visitors globally, trailing only Google, Microsoft and Yahoo sites, the report said, citing latest results from market research firm comScore.
According to the report, Facebook grew 157 percent in the past year alone, gaining 208 million visitors.
The social networking website surged past Amazon in August last year in terms of worldwide unique visitors. In the first half of this year, it beat eBay, AOL and Wikimedia Foundation sites.
Facebook still has some way to go before it catches up to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, each of which has between 240 million and 500 million more monthly global unique visitors.
Facebook itself officially acknowledged in July that it now has 250 million active registered users worldwide. 7/31/2009
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Windows 7 Boot from USB / Pen Drive
1. Insert the Windows 7 DVD or have a dump of Windows 7 Installation files ready in your HDD or somewhere in the netwrok.
2. . Just plug in a USB stick with enough space to store Windows Installation files.
3. Download Diskpart utility from here.
4. Run Diskpart.exe as administrator.
5. Execute the following commands:
6. Now just Copy the windows installation files from the DVD to the USB stick, boot from USB stick and happy installaton!!
-:)
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Bye Bye VPN ! Welcome DirectAccess !
Do you 'work from Home' quite often? Do you wish you could beconnected to your Corporate LAN anywhere anytime? Even while sipping coffee in the nearby cafe? R you tired of slow internet access after you make a VPN connection? Are you tired of the process of connecting to Corp LAN via VPN? Welcome DirectAccess.
DirectAccess provides users transparent access to internal network resources whenever they are connected to the Internet.
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 introduce DirectAccess, which enables users to have the same experience working at home or at a wireless hotspot as they would in the office. With DirectAccess, authorized users on Windows 7 computers can access corporate shares, view intranet Web sites, and work with intranet applications without going through a VPN. DirectAccess uses IPv6 to provide globally routable IP addresses for remote access clients. DirectAccess authenticates the computer before the user logs on, allowing IT professionals to manage the computer when the Internet connection is established. DirectAccess uses IPsec to provide authentication and encryption for communications across the Internet. . With DirectAccess, IT professionals can configure the internal resources to which each user can connect, granting unlimited access or allowing access only to specific servers or networks.
DirectAccess uses split-tunnel routing, as shown, which reduces unnecessary traffic on the corporate network. Split-tunnel routing sends only traffic destined for the enterprise network through the DirectAccess server.
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DVD Image Burning in Windows 7
Windows 7 includes a DVD image Burning software that recognizes the ISO image file format and lets you burn it on a DVD easily in a few steps:
1. Download the ISO image file you want to burn on a DVD and store it in your HDD.
2. Start Windows Disc Image Burner from the Menu Bar
3. Insert a Blank DVD and start burning. Image can also be verified after burning.
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