My blog reached 50.000+ views. Thanks everybody, this really exceeded my expectation and motivates me even more to keep going. Special thanks go out to my fellow bloggers in my blogroll and to those who shared my posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.
Even though my blog exists since January 2012, I really started to blog actively around August and ever since I’ve tried to keep posting on a regular basis. At the start of 2013 I even intended to blog every day. I was able to keep it up for a short while, but it was just too time consuming. Now I try to blog something at least once every 5 days. The blog post count is now at 170.
Personally I think Microsoft is on the right track. I’m really looking forward to all new Microsoft product (preview) releases including Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 and you can expect some blog posts about this in the near future.
Popular posts
From the stats, it turned out these are the blog posts that are being viewed most, if you’ve missed any of them you might want to take a look at them:
Stats
For those interested in the view stats, here they are:
Comments and suggestions
If you have suggestions about what I can do to improve, please let me know. Also if you’d like to see some things covered more or in more detail, just leave a comment.
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Tags: Apple, blog, blog post, blogpost, Microsoft, milestone, Mountain Lion, Office 365, OS X, POST, Server 2012, Sharepoint online, views, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, wordpress
Roger Osborne has posted a great article with a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V best practices checklist.
I especially like the fact that it’s not just a checklist, but it also explains what it does and why it is considered a best practice to do it this way (in specific situations).
Additionally you might also want to take a look at “Top 20 Hyper-V Performance Metrics You Should Care About” and System Center Advisor.
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Tags: best practice, best practices, best practices checklist, check list, checklist, Hyper-V, Hyper-V 3.0, hypervisor, hypervizor, ICT, Microsoft, Server 2012, virtualisation, virtualization, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows Server 2012
Summary of what Windows To Go (WTG) is
In short, Windows To Go is a Windows 8 Enterprise feature that allows you to boot and run Windows 8 from a USB flash drive (USB stick).
Potential reasons and scenarios for using Windows To Go
There are many potential reasons and scenarios for using Windows To Go, but here are some of them from the top of my head:
Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Apple, BitLocker, boot, boot from usb, Bring Your Own Device, BYOD, dual boot, dualboot, encryption, Enterprise, flexible workspace, flexible workspace environment, Hyper-V, hyper-v server, mac, Microsoft, personalized desktop, removable, removable disk, SanDisk, SanDisk Extreme, Server 2012, test, USB, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, usb boot, USB Flash Drive, USB stick, Windows, Windows 8, Windows 8 Enterprise, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012, Windows To Go, WTG
In yesterday’s post I described that for my purposes it was still necessary to run VMware Workstation sometimes despite having Client Hyper-V installed on my Windows 8 machine.
What you have to keep in mind though, is that you’re already running a hypervisor when you have Client Hyper-V installed in Windows 8. Installing and running VMware Workstation might cause problems. So unfortunately you cannot run them at the same time. This is also true for other virtualization products like by example virtualbox.
As a workaround you can either uninstall or (temporarily) disable Hyper-V. When you want to switch between Hyper-V and VMware Workstation it is ofcourse best to just temporarily disable Hyper-V.
In this forum post, a couple of methods are described to (temporarily) disable Hyper-V. It includes creating a seperate boot menu entry to boot with Hyper-V disabled and modifying the setting either through registry or a command. All methods do require a reboot however.
PS:
- This kind of configuration is ofcourse not supported and should only be used for testing purposes in non production environments.
- Depending on both your hardware and what your planning to do, you might also want to consider:
- Running VMware ESXi from a USB stick
- Running Windows 8 from a USB stick with Windows To Go (WTG).
- It should also work on Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 and up, but I haven’t tested it.
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Tags: Citrix, Citrix XenServer, Client Hyper-V, ESXi, home lab, Hyper-V, Hyper-V 3.0, hypervisor, Microsoft, multiple hypervisors, nested esxi, nested hypervisor, Server 2012, test lab, virtualbox, virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, VMware ESXi 5.1, VMware Fusion, VMware vSphere, VMware vSphere 5.1, VMware Workstation, VMware Workstation 9, Windows, Windows 2012 Server, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows To Go, workstation, WTG, XenServer
As a passionate ICT person, I work with multiple virtualization products including Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere.
At home I’m running Server 2012 with Hyper-V in my home lab and even though it works perfectly, I miss the option to be able to run multiple other hypervisors beneath it like by example multiple Hyper-V, VMware ESXi or Citrix XenServer instances.
With VMware products like VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation you can enable this with only a couple of minor adjustments as described in these great articles:
For me personally, I’ll stay with my Hyper-V based home server and my Windows 8 Client with Client Hyper-V installed. For testing purposes however, I’ll have to use VMware Workstation 9 on my Windows 8 machine. (even though I have Client Hyper-V installed). This way I can still run other hypervisors when needed.
I still hope though that Microsoft will add a similar feature to Hyper-V in the future.
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Tags: Citrix, Citrix XenServer, Client Hyper-V, ESXi, home lab, Hyper-V, Hyper-V 3.0, hypervisor, Microsoft, multiple hypervisors, nested esxi, nested hypervisor, Server 2012, test lab, virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, VMware ESXi 5.1, VMware Fusion, VMware vSphere, VMware vSphere 5.1, VMware Workstation, VMware Workstation 9, Windows, Windows 2012 Server, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, workstation, XenServer
Since I’m currently working with System Center Operations Manager 2012 (also often referred to as SCOM 2012 or OpsMgr 2012), I needed a testing environment.
Because time is precious, I want to minimize the time and effort needed to set it up. This is what I did:
- Install and configure Hyper-V on my Windows 8 laptop.
- Deploy a VM with Server 2012 Datacenter edition.
Configure a static IP address.
Configure AD DS / domain controller role.
Configure DHCP server role.
Configure DNS server role (if desirable, include DNS forwarder for internet DNS queries).
- Download and extract the pre-configured SCOM 2012 SP1 beta VHD (running Server 2012 Datacenter edition). System Center 2012 SP1 adds Windows Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 Support.
- Create a new VM for SCOM and configure it to use the downloaded pre-configured VHD.
Configure it with sufficient virtual CPUs and memory for the DB and the SCOM components.
- Start the SCOM VM, and follow the onscreen instructions. NOTE: First time configuration took about 1-2 hours, but this might be related to my hardware. Still it might be smart to plan the installation.
- Convert the Server 2012 Datacenter edition from ServerDatacenterEval to ServerDatacenter by running an elevated CMD as administrator and issuing the following command:
DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerDatacenter> ProductKey:<productkey> /AcceptEula
Reboot.
- Replace the SCOM 2012 evaluation license with your own license using Operations Manager Shell:
Set-SCOMLicense -ProductId “yourlicensekey“
Reboot
Check the license using the Operations Manager Shell:
Get-SCOMManagementGroup | ft skuforlicense, version, timeofexpiration –a
- Shut down your SCOM 2012 VM.
- Shut down your AD DS / domain controller VM.
- Create a snapshot and/or export of both VM’s so you can more easily revert to a good starting point.
Also be sure to read Stefan Stranger’s blog post that goes into more detail with regards to the domain controller and automating the task for setting it up. It also includes screenshots to give you a better idea of the process.
PS: I love how Microsoft provides these pre-configured VHD’s. This has been great in the past, but now with client Hyper-V 3.0 in Windows 8 it saves me even more time because I don’t have to boot to Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012 for Hyper-V.
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Tags: Beta, blog, Hyper-V, Hyper-V 3.0, ICT, lab, Microsoft, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2012, operations management, operations manager, Operations Manager 2012, OpsMgr, OpsMgr 2012, OpsMgr2012, SCOM, SCOM 2012, SCOM 2012 SP1, SCOM 2012 SP1 Beta, SCOM2012, Server 2012, service pack 1, SP1, System Center, System Center Operations Manager, System Center Operations Manager 2012, test, testing environment, virtual lab
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