leedesmond’s blog

Running Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in a Virtualized Topology:
Best Practices and Performance Considerations (link)

This is an update of the Microsoft white paper describing the virtualization support policy for Office Communications Server 2007 R2. In a nutshell, the supported workloads remain unchanged i.e. Instant Messaging, Presence and Group Chat. The product is not designed to support virtualized real-time traffic as there is no guarantee of stable performance and scalability for production use nor consistent, acceptable user experience at this point in time.

To quote …

Enterprise Voice, Remote Call Control (RCC), Response Group Service, dial-In conferencing, audio/video conferencing, Web conferencing, and Communicator Web Access desktop sharing workloads are not supported in a virtualized Office Communications Server 2007 R2 deployment. This occurs because of several factors, including packet loss, delay, jitter, and clock skew.

Further …

Desktop virtualization is not supported. The client should be installed on physical client computers.

Depending on your strategic goals, environment and user base, this may not necessarily be of any relevance, importance or concern from a usability or (official Microsoft) supportability perspective. Obviously your mileage may vary and the risks associated with deploying a virtualized topology may be tolerable for a limited number of concurrent users running any form of time sensitive traffic.

Technorati tags: LCS/OCS, OCS 2007, Virtualization

No Comments »

The monthly Swiss IT Pro User Group event took place on Tue 7 Jul 2009 with guest speakers from Microsoft and VMware. The fully booked event (delivered in person and via Live Meeting) covering technical insights into the hot topic of virtualization was a great success - thanks to you for your enthusiastic support!

You can now log in with your free account at swissitpro.ch, download the presentation materials and check out the photo highlights using the Members Only link. Watch this space for details on the next Tue 1 Sep 2009 event with tentative topic on Unified Communications in the Practice / Powershell 2.0.

Volunteer speakers wanted - contact us with your ideas today!

Technorati tags: Community/User Group, Events

No Comments »

Additional seats have been allocated for our hot Swiss IT Pro User Group event this coming Tue 7 July 2009 in Zurich. Speakers from Microsoft and VMware will deliver technical presentations on Hyper-V v2.0 and vSphere 4.0 respectively in German. Take this opportunity to meet and speak with the experts, socialize and network with your IT Pro peers and the core swissitpro.ch team.

If you are unable to personally attend, this free event will also broadcast live over Live Meeting. To receive the meeting details, simply register your first and last name with an email to info {a+} swissitpro (d0+) ch using the subject “swissitpro.ch: 7.7.09 Event Registration”. For more information, surf right over here.

Technorati tags: Community/User Group, Events

No Comments »

Speakers from virtualization powerhouse VMware and Microsoft are our special guests at next month’s Swiss IT Pro User Group event. This will take place at the same place and time (from 1745 hrs CET+1) on Tue 7 Jul 2009 in Zurich. Exciting topics on the latest vSphere v4.0 and Hyper-V v2.0 features and technical discussions await you.

Come join your peers, friends, colleagues and take the chance to network with the core team of swissitpro.ch volunteers and techies from Microsoft and VMware. Surf over here for details and remember to register early to avoid disappointment!

Technorati tags: Community/User Group, Events

1 Comment »

The industry-leading VMware ESX 3.5 update 2 (ESX 3.5u2) hypervisor is the first hypervisor to be listed under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP). VMware customers with support policies in place deploying Microsoft Windows Server and applications - running on validated, non-Microsoft server virtualization software - will gain access to co-operative technical support both from Microsoft and VMware.

Outside of SVVP, customers can continue to work directly with VMware for support. This extra layer of additional protection enables VMware to rapidly escalate application issues and work directly with Microsoft engineers to expedite problem resolution.

Read more from source.

TIP: Search for my previous blog entry “Virtualizing Exchange 2007″ for additional information which also covered Microsoft support policy on virtualization.

Technorati tags: VMware, Windows Server Virtualization, Hyper-V

No Comments »

Running Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on Microsoft Hyper-V or hypervisors validated under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) is now officially supported. In addition, licenses for virtualized Exchange can be freely moved between servers within a farm as often as necessary. Previously this was limited to a 90-day period (read more).

Consult the authoritative article on this subject entitled “Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments” for more information.

You should also read the updated articles covering Microsoft’s support policy on virtualization in general:

- Support policy for Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software
- Support partners for non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software
- Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments

Technorati tags: Exchange Server, Virtualization, VMware, Windows Server Virtualization, HyperV

No Comments »

Latest VMware email on ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2, quoted here for your info and action:

ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2

Dear VMware Customer,

We have re-issued the entire ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 release (ISOs, upgrade tar and zip files, and patch bundles). They are available for download at http://www.vmware.com/download/.

Please note this update is only relevant to customers who did not install the impacted release of ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908) or ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103909). If you have installed either of these please visit http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/esxexpresspatches.html and install the express patch.

Thank you,

The VMware ESX Product Team

Technorati tags: VMware, Security

No Comments »

The express patches for the ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 product expiration issue has been released. You can find knowledge base articles and the corresponding patches for the affected products as follows:

KB 1006716 - fix of virtual machine power on failure issue
KB 1006721, Express Patch - ESX VI 3.5 deployment consideration and instruction
KB 1006670, Express Patch - ESX VI3.5i deployment consideration and instruction

Reference: ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 - Express Patch Download

Technorati tags: VMware, Security

No Comments »

Reports have been pouring in concerning the failure of virtual machines to power on or VMotion successfully much of today. This bug shows up in the ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 and its seriousness prompted VMware to issue an urgent email notification. In the affected VM’s vmware.log file, the following message is logged:

This product has expired. Be sure that your host machine’s date and time are set correctly. There is a more recent version available at the VMware web site: http://www.vmware.com/info?id=4.

The incident has been identified to be caused by a build timeout that was mistakenly left enabled for the RTM build. Technical details about this extremely critical bug have been published at the following locations:

kb.vmware.com/kb/1006716
www.vmware.com/support/esx35u2_supportalert.html

A patch is expected sometime later today at 1800 hrs PST (0300 hrs CET next day). In the meantime, recommended workarounds are quoted here:

1. Do not install ESX 3.5 U2 if it has been downloaded from VMware’s website or elsewhere prior to August 12, 2008.

2. Set the host time to a date prior to August 12, 2008. This workaround has a number of very serious side affects that could impact product environments. Any Virtual Machines that sync time with the ESX host and serve time sensitive applications would be broken. These include, but are not limited to database servers, mail servers, & domain administration systems.

See also: All your VM’s are belong to us, VMTN Blog

Technorati tags: VMware, Security

No Comments »

Attention VMware administrators. Exploit the amazing flexibility and strengths of PowerShell to manage your VI3 virtualization infrastructure from the command line today! You can download the recent official 1.0 release (build 103777) of VMware Infrastructure Toolkit for Windows for free over here.

“Do you think you have what it takes to be the best PowerShell scripter?” - this is VMware ’s challenge to you for a chance to win the top prize of an all expenses paid trip to VMworld Las Vegas. Last submission date is 30 August 2008. More information here.

Technorati tags: VMware, PowerShell

No Comments »