Category Hyper-V

Booyah! Did you hear that? Booyah!

And my good friend Rick Scherer has said:

Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 have been RTM

The Windows Blog has said this:

Windows 7 Has Been Released to Manufacturing

While the Windows Server blog has said:

WINDOWS SERVER 2008 R2 REACHES THE RTM MILESTONE!

So what does this mean? Well, here is a little caption borrowed from the Windows Blogs

The RTM code will be delivered to our partners within the next few days who will then start preparing to deliver some amazing new products timed to hit at General Availability (GA) of Windows 7 on October 22nd. And going forward, I expect to be showcasing MANY of these new products here on The Windows Blog.

What does this mean for me? As soon as it hits TechNet (hopefully in the next 7 days) I’ll be reloading my production machine I use 99% of the time with Win7, using my SSD drive.  Oh, did I mention Booyah? yea!

*Update!* Word on the street is, TechNet subscribers get it on August 7th.. so there we go!

Press Release: Microsoft Releases Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

What? Seriously?! Is everyone giving away free trips to VMWorld? Well, no. This is not a free “Trip!” this is a free “Ticket!”, thus entrance into VMWorld forgoing the $2000 fee for entry!

(Or you could win a free 8GB iPod Touch… :))

Please take the survey – click here
The goal of this survey is to better understand which applications (commercial or in-house developed) you use or develop to manage the VMware vSphere Platform. We need your feedback as it will help us understand which 3rd party vendors or tools VMware needs to focus on.
This survey should take approximately 22 minutes to complete.
We will be awarding great prizes to lucky winners.
Grand Prize – 1 Full Conference Pass to VMworld San Francisco 2009
First Prize is – 1 iPod Touch 8GB
Winners will be chosen in a random drawing
Please review the contest rules, terms, and conditions below.

Contest Information and Rules
o Survey Starts: June 17, 2009 11:59 PM PST
o Closes: Monday August 3rd, 2009 10:00 PM CST
o Winners will be announced on the Developer Center Blog: Friday August 7th 2009
o VMware employees are excluded from entering
o One entry per person
o Raffle participants must fully complete survey
o Winners will be chosen at random by VMware
o You must provide a valid corporate email address – no personal email addresses please
o This contest is for VMware customers, there is no purchase necessary to participate
o Terms and Conditions

Oh, and go here which has all the original details!

VMware vSphere & VI 3.x Management Survey – Cool prizes 1- VMworld Pass, 1- iPod 8 GB Touch

Come on down June 2nd to the Chicago Microsoft Office to learn how to not only cut costs by virtualizing your datacenter but by learning so much more, and my good friend Ray LaMarca who will be presenting at the AON Center in Chicago on June 2nd!

The rest of the locations I’m sure will be an absolute blast, but considering I live in Chicago and personally know Ray, I think you should step up and take the morning to attend, learn, and perhaps win!   Do go sign up, the registration is handled through APC’s site, so don’t be surprised! :) 

Wow! Welcome to Exton, Pennsylvania! We drove tirelessly from Greensboro, NC all through the night to end up here in PA this amazing (rainy) day.    But What a day and what an event that lay before us as we arrived!   It started with a wonderful greeting in the rain!

Ken Rosen shakes hands here with Nadine Sievers and Certified Trainer, MCT, MCTS Project server and Project, Melanie Rosen (Oh, did I mention Professional Photographer?! :))

Bruce Cooper starts off Springhouse TechFest 2009 to a full room. Full crowd on a Sunday!

The whole crowd was great, they all seemed eager to learn, and learn they did!   The day ended with the whole Springhouse team taking a photo in front of the bus in the rain, and many conversations and connections were had by all!

I encourage you to check out Springhouse’s blog, and you can also follow them on Twitter @springhouseeduc and Facebook!

So, You notice I mentioned above that there were great conversations and learning to be had by all right? Well, allow me to share with you some insight of those conversations that I found

I was fortunate to get to know the type of character and culture which makes up not only the organization of Springhouse, but also how their mission around Education and Consulting is above all one of the best I’ve seen!   Their focus on full value solutions and ensuring that you are taken care of in the long run, whether consultatively or educationally is awe inspiring and not the type of behavior you see from other training organizations.

The relationship they have with their own internal staff has people coming back for more and more, and the things I heard about the types of training they offer and their educational guarantees left my speechless!

I definitely encourage you to check them out at their website, because these are seriously great folks and while they’re doing amazing things today, I know we can expect them to grow on that in the future.

Hey, are you going to TechEd? Stop by and visit NetApp (and me! :))

Join NetApp at Microsoft TechEd 2009

Booth 417

Join us at booth 417 to discover how you can do more and store less with NetApp. Guaranteed.* See how our comprehensive portfolio of storage and data management solutions can help you reduce costs, reach new levels of efficiency, and increase data protection in your Microsoft environment.

You’ll also have the opportunity to meet with our executives and technical experts. Together, we’ll look at how our innovative solutions for Microsoft Hyper-V™, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server®, and Microsoft SQL Server® can help your company go further, faster.

In addition to learning about NetApp® storage and data management solutions for Microsoft environments at the NetApp booth, you’ll get a free NetApp t-shirt and a chance to win an Amazon Kindle 2 and a $200 Amazon gift certificate in our daily raffle. You’ll also be entered to win our grand prize—a $5,000 AMEX gift card!

If you would like to get more in-depth information on our innovative storage and data management solutions for Microsoft environments while at TechEd, fill out the form to request a meeting with our executives or technical experts.

Furthermore, the kinds of things which will be covered?!

NetApp virtualization solutions for Hyper-V:  Enabling customers to realize the promise of a flexible, scalable, and efficient data center by eliminating common challenges with storage provisioning and data protection encountered when transitioning to a virtualized environment.
NetApp storage and data management solutions for Microsoft Exchange:  Helping customers reduce costs, increase availability and simplify management of their enterprise messaging systems.
NetApp storage and data management solutions for Microsoft SharePoint Server:  Helping customers reduce costs and improve availability by improving ways of managing and protecting their data in collaboration portals and document repositories across the enterprise.
NetApp solutions for Microsoft SQL Server: Enabling customers to reduce costs and increase availability using our highly efficient, scalable storage and data management solutions.

NetApp Birds-of-a-Feather session

NetApp will be hosting a Birds-of-a -Feather session, “Gaining Efficiencies with Virtualization” on Wednesday, May 13^th from8:00 pm – 9:00 pm.

So, come on down, and I’ll be there as well! Feel free to tweet me, or find me around!