Microsoft IT Professional Blog

Hi all, I’ve been missing for quite some time busy with different topics.  About a month ago I became VMWare VCP certified on VI3 and today I had the opportunity to take part in the beta test for the new 70-652 Microsoft certification focusing on Hyper-V, I must say it was a definetly a very interesting exam very complete in my opinion and the foundations that I learned with VMWare helped understand some of the topics the exam outline covered when I was studying for it.

Since I can’t share with you what was in the exam due to the NDA’s you accept when you undertake any type of technical certification I’m able to share with you the materials I used for studying for it all of them freely available from different blogs or technical resources provided by Microsoft.

• Preparation Guide for Exam 70-652
• How to Install Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
• Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started with Hyper-V
• Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V FAQ
• Windows Virtualization Team Blog
• The Virtual PC Guy Blog
• Jose Barreto’s Blog
• Performance Tunning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008
• Windows Deployment Services Step-by-Step Guide
• Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Windows Virtualization

In order to complement my reading I did several labs with Hyper-V in cluster scenarios, the scenarios I used for my lab where all using iSCSI storage my scenarios where based of on this 2 posts:

• Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V failover clustering options
• How to create a Windows Server 2008 Cluster within Hyper-V using simulated iSCSI storage 

Aside from setting up a clustered enviroment I toyed around some with both System Center Virtual Machine Manager and System Center Operations Manager, I really did not have too much documentation or how to guides for these except for this:

• SCVMM How To Videos
• Clive Watson’s Weblog
• How to Integrate SCVMM and SCOM

Finally I reviewed some excellent on-demand webcasts Microsoft has available on Hyper-V and SCVMM, those are listed bellow:

• Windows Server Virtualization Under the Hood (Level 200)
• Server Virtualization  with Hyper-V Features and Architecture (Level 200)
• Managing Hyper-V (Level 200)
• Examining Virtualization with Windows Server 2008 (Level 300)
• High Availability with Hyper-V (Level 300)
• Overview of the Next Version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager Beta (Level 200)
• Jump-Start Your Virtualization Projects with Microsoft Solution Accelerators (Level 200)
• Planning for Hyper-V and Terminal Services (Level 300)
• Windows Server 2008 Server Virtualization Solution Scenario (Level 300)
  

Hope this links prove themselves useful to you when you are getting ready to understake your cert, good luck.

I’ll let you know if I passed when MS notifies me once the beta test results are out.

As some of you might know Windows Server 2008 RTM’d on February 4th, for those of you that have an MDSN or TechNet Plus subscription you might want to go ahead and check it out if you have not done so already in one of it’s previous release candidate or beta forms.

So now that the product is out and the official worldwide date for the release of it is February 27th it might be a good moment to start playing around with it and documenting yourself on how it might fit in your enterprise or it shop environment. A good place to start out and get a good feel for it might be the TechNet Virtual Labs, some of the featured labs include:

• Managing Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 and Windows Vista using Group Policy
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Server Core Beta 2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Beta 2 Server Manager
• Deployment Services (WDS) in Windows Server 2008 Beta 3
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Failover Clustering Lab
• Managing Terminal Services Gateway and RemoteApps in Windows Server 2008 Beta 3
• Managing Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 using New Management Technologies
• Using PowerShell in Windows Server 2008 Beta 3

Or maybe you would like to watch first some demo’s of the features that can be used in Windows Server 2008 and then try them out for this Microsoft made available the Windows Server 2008 Test Drives.

Personally I enjoy watching the Microsoft On-Demand webcasts as I get to hear the experiences of the different individuals that made this excellent product happen, some of the webcasts I recommend for starting out with Windows Server 2008 are:

• Introducing Windows Server Code-Named “Longhorn” (Level 200)
• Overview of Windows Server 2008 (Level 200)
• What Is New in Windows Server Longhorn (Level 300)
• Installing, Configuring, and Managing Server Roles in Windows Server 2008 (Level 300)
• Overview of Server Manager and Windows PowerShell in Windows Server Longhorn (Level 300)

Another item I like to use to learn about new products and technologies is online courses and Microsoft has made available some very insightful e-learning style clinics that focus on Windows Server 2008 for free, the series is titled Collection 5934: Introducing Microsoft Windows Server Code Name “Longhorn” (Beta 3), and includes the following topics:

• Introducing Server Virtualization in Windows Server 2008
• Introducing Security and Policy Management in Windows Server 2008
• Introducing Branch Office Management in Windows Server 2008
• Introducing Centralized Application Access in Windows Server 2008
• Introducing Server Management in Windows Server 2008

And for those of you that like the traditional way of learning I might suggest Microsoft Press book by Mitch Tulloch’s book Introducing Windows Server 2008, this book is based on Beta 3 but all of the information it’s still pretty relevant and valid, probably what I liked about this book aside from other MS Press books is the interaction the author did with the different development teams within Microsoft that worked on the product and that he allowed to write part of the book in what he calls “From the experts” sidebars.

Whichever is the way you prefer to get ready and start out with Windows Server 2008 please leave a comment in this post with your experiences on the product and your tips and favorite resources for information regarding it.