|
Vol. 13, #30 - Jul 21, 2008 - Issue #684
|
|
Virtualization Survey Results
|
| This issue of WServerNews is sponsored by |
|---|
 |
- Editor's Corner
- Virtualization Survey Results
- Webcast: Affordable, Enterprise Email Archiving
- Quotes of the Week
- Admin Toolbox
- Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without
- Tech Briefing
- Here's The Big Question. Allow iPhone 3G To Hook Up To Exchange?
- Pimp your iPhone With Sunbelt Skins
- Report: IT Admin Locks Up San Francisco's Network
- Virtual Private Network (VPN) Setup Requirements
- Tip: How To Rebuild The SYSVOL Tree In Active Directory
- E-Book: The Windows Manager's Guide To iSCSI SANs
- Tip: Slipstreaming Microsoft Office 2007 Deployments
- Migrating from Microsoft Virtual Server to Hyper-V
- Windows Server News
- Virtualization Survey Executive Summary
- Windows Update Servers Score 100% Uptime, Beat Mac OS X, Ubuntu
- WServer Third Party News
- NetworkWorld Study: Email Archiving Most Important To Deploy
- Famatech Releases Free Utility: Radmin Deployment Tool
- WServerNews FAVE Links
- This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.
- WServerNews - Product of the Week
- Helpdesk Driven Mad By Password Reset and Locked Account Calls?
|
Why did 85,000 Admins download rDirectory?
|
They needed an easy-to-use internal Employee Directory with headroom. Why?
Access Management was not well controlled and they wanted something that
could evolve in a real Resource Management app. In a nutshell, they
wanted to unleash Active Directory but not be locked into a small point-
solution silo. Find out what rDirectory can do for your organization!
Download the free Community Edition now:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Namescape
|
|
 |
Editor's Corner |
|
Virtualization Survey Results
It's been a busy summer so far, for all of the virtualization vendors -
VMware in particular. The company waited until after the Fourth of July
to set off fireworks, but the explosive news reverberated throughout the
industry. The week of July 7th, VMware ousted founder and CEO Diane Greene
and replaced her with former Microsoft marketing executive Paul Maritz.
According to industry scuttlebutt, EMC president and CEO, Joe Tucci made the
management switch in order to better position VMware against the increasing
competition from a wide variety of competitors who are now making the
virtualization market very crowded. Maritz is a canny marketing executive;
he had a big hand in orchestrating the buzz around Windows 95 (those were
the days!) and he knows Microsoft well. Tucci and the VMware board of
directors hope that Maritz can work his magic for them and boost the company's
ailing stock price which is hovering at about $38 as we went to press. That's
a whopping 70% less than VMware's post IPO high water mark of $125.25, which
it achieved last Halloween. Investors are not happy.
The management switch wasn't the only news from VMware last week. The company
informed Wall Street that it will not meet its previously announced 2008 fiscal
sales growth projections of 50%; the company said it will be "modestly" less.
Wall Street financial analysts are expecting VMware's revenue growth to be in
the 40% to 50% range when it announces its financial results on July 22nd.
VMware also notified its distributors that starting September 2 it will raise
its prices by 10% in Europe. Australia and New Zealand businesses will also see
the same price hike later in the fall. What does all this news mean for you the
customer?
Over the next few months things should be status quo. None of these announcements
will impact VMware's core technology and products which remain strong. But it
is a good time to be shopping for bargains, talking to your resellers and
VMware account reps (if you're a large enterprise) about getting a better deal.
It can't hurt and the money you potentially save can fund other IT projects.
Meanwhile, we've got the Virtualization Survey results from Yankee Group.
Read the results in the Windows Server News Section. Enjoy!
Webcast: Affordable, Enterprise Email Archiving
Join us for a look at Sunbelt Software's Exchange email archiving and
compliance solution, Sunbelt Exchange Archiver. If you need a powerful,
easy to use, enterprise-class email archiving tool that automatically
enables you to comply with all requirements, and allows you or your
end-users to transparently retrieve any archived email, then don't miss
this webinar!
The webinar will explain the features and benefits of implementing a
powerful email archiving solution for Exchange at an affordable price.
Learn how Sunbelt Exchange Archiver can help you:
- Improve Exchange performance
- Eliminate PST headaches
- Dramatically reduce backup times
- Use up to 80% smaller message store
- Meet compliance requirements
When: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 2:00 PM (EDT)
Please register here:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-SEA-Webcast
Quotes of the Week
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts
can be counted." -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in
practice, there is." -- Yogi Berra (1925- )
Thank you for being a WServerNews subscriber. Please
tell your friends about us. No trees were killed in the sending of this
message, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
They can subscribe here:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Subscribe
|
Sunbelt Exchange Archiver Wins Most Valuable Product Award
The in-depth review of SEA in Redmond Magazine said: "Sunbelt Exchange
Archiver makes e-mail archiving and retrieval accessible to the rest of
us. In particular, the installation and user documentation are among the
best I've seen, and help make the product very usable. If you have a good
reason for ensuring your e-mail archives are accurate and easily accessible,
Exchange Archiver may be the best way of achieving those goals."
Read the full review:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-SEA-Review
Register for a one-on-one product walk-through over here:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Sunbelt-Exchange-Archiver
|
|
|
|
Tech Briefing |
|
Here's The Big Question. Allow iPhone 3G To Hook Up To Exchange?
Now that 3G is out, some techies have had the chance to hook it up,
and there are some gotchas that have come out of the woodwork. Apple
has decided to only deploy certain features of Microsoft's ActiveSync
code.
It's in need of a few more badly needed features to come up to the level
of Windows Mobile, which granted is in its V5.0 rev. I would strongly
recommend to read Paul Robichaux's recent article about it, as he is
an expert in this particular field:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-iPhone-Article
Then a few hints and tips if you want to go ahead anyway. First, get
a 3G model to test with. Next, check that you can enforce the existing
policies you do on your BlackBerry environment with iPhone ActiveSync.
A big part of the iPhone 2.0 is the licensed Exchange ActiveSync code
from Redmond. Here are two PDF documents how to set it up:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-ActiveSync-Doc1
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-ActiveSync-Doc2
Next, here is the MS Exchange Team write-up.
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-MS-Exchange-Team-Writeup
Last but not least, you should also be aware that the new iPhone's most
sought-after feature -- 3G mobile broadband data performance -- is
available only within AT&T's limited 3G coverage areas. Check this map:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-3G-Coverage
Pimp your iPhone With Sunbelt Skins
New Sunbelt iPhone wallpapers. If you want to save an image in Safari with
the iPhone 2.0 software, simply touch it and hold. A dialog will appear
that offers Save Image or Cancel. Choose Save Image, and the image will
be stored in your iPhone's photo library, and will be transferred to
iPhoto on the next sync.
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Sunbelt-iPhone-Skins
Here are 11 cool new apps for the iPhone
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-iPhone-Apps
Report: IT Admin Locks Up San Francisco's Network
A network administrator has locked up a multimillion dollar computer
system for San Francisco that handles sensitive data and is refusing to
give police the password, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday.
More of this article at ComputerWorld:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Disgruntled-IT-Admin
Virtual Private Network (VPN) Setup Requirements
Before setting up a virtual private network to connect remote users to your
Microsoft Exchange Server organization, you must have the proper hardware
and software in place. This step-by-step guide walks you through the VPN
hardware and software requirements for a successful VPN setup.
(registration required)
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-VPN-Setup
Tip: How To Rebuild The SYSVOL Tree In Active Directory
Knowing how to rebuild the SYSVOL tree from scratch in Active Directory
isn't a skill that you'll use every day, but it's definitely one that
you'll be glad you have. Follow these five easy steps from SearchWinIT
to learn how: (registration required)
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Rebuild-SYSVOL
E-Book: The Windows Manager's Guide To iSCSI SANs
Learn about the benefits of using iSCSI SAN technology with Windows file
servers, SQL Server and Exchange Server 2007 with this e-book.
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-iSCSI-SANs
Tip: Slipstreaming Microsoft Office 2007 Deployments
When image-based deployments aren't feasible, administrators must manually
set up large deployments. Slipstreaming service packs onto software
applications, such as Microsoft Office 2007, prior to deployment can be
a huge timesaver. In this tip, SearchExchange.com contributor Brien Posey
explains how to slipstream Service Pack 1 onto Office 2007.
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Slipstreaming-Office-2007
Migrating from Microsoft Virtual Server to Hyper-V
Platform migrations can be tedious, complicated and long processes, but are
often worth the split hairs. In this tip from SearchServerVirtualization.com,
learn what questions to ask when considering the move to Hyper-V and get a
detailed "how-to" for a successful migration from Microsoft Virtual Server
to Hyper-V. (registration required)
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Virtual-Server-to-Hyper-V
|
|
Windows Server News |
|
Virtualization Survey Executive Summary
Thanks to all of you who took the time to participate in our Virtualization
survey. As usual, your responses were extremely intriguing and your essay
comments were frank and insightful. We appreciate it!
Those of you who messaged Ldidio@yankeegroup.com for a complimentary copy
of the Virtualization and Apple Macintosh Reports as a thanks for your
participation, can expect to receive those reports within the next week or
so. Look for the Apple Macintosh Report first. And for those of you who
completed the survey and wanted a copy of the Report(s) message Laura at
the above Email address.
The results of the latest survey indicated that corporations are moving
beyond server virtualization and moving up the stack to virtualize their
corporate desktops and applications along with their storage and networks.
The results reveal that nearly 3 out of 4 businesses or 72% of the survey
respondents companies, are already using or plan to deploy server
virtualization. The independent, non-vendor sponsored Web-based survey
polled 750 IT managers and C-level executives across a wide variety of
vertical and horizontal businesses worldwide during June and July.
The latest survey results validated the findings of Yankee Group's earlier
2006 and 2007 virtualization polls that indicated that for the overwhelming
majority of corporations, the major question is when, not if, they will
implement virtualization in the corporate data center. Only 12% of the
respondents said they had no plans to install a virtualization solution.
And of the 72% that affirmed they will deploy virtualization, a two-thirds
majority -- 66% -- already has a virtualization solution in place or is
in the process of migrating. Another 15% indicated they will install
server virtualization within the next 12 months.
This year's results also saw a continuation of some deployment trends,
including:
- An overwhelming majority - close to 75% of businesses -- affirmed they
will deploy virtualization in their data centers. This figure remains
unchanged from the 2006 and 2007 surveys. Additionally, two-thirds of
the organizations that plan to deploy virtualization, are already using
the technology in test and production networks at their sites.
- As with the earlier 2006 and 2007 surveys only a very small 4% minority
said they would not deploy virtualization in their data centers.
- Disaster recovery, backup and server and licensing consolidation,
which in turn, serve to lower TCO and accelerate ROI, remain among the
primary reasons corporations opt to virtualize their data centers.
- Nearly 50% of respondents said their firms achieved directly
attributable TCO cost reductions as a result of virtualization; only 3%
said "No". These results are nearly identical to the responses in the
2006 and 2007 virtualization surveys.
- Two out of five users or 40% of those polled said their businesses
realized ROI from virtualization deployment in less than one year.
Nearly one-quarter said they achieved measurable ROI within the first
three months or less.
- Two out of five users or 40% are deploying virtualization solutions
from two or three different vendors
- VMware is still the clear market leader in terms of features; however
other vendors notably Microsoft, Citrix, Oracle, Parallels, Virtual Iron
and Sun Microsystems are making significant advances and closing the
gap. VMware's 2 year lead has now been cut to six to 9 months depending
on the vendor and their particular features and offerings.
- The cost of the hypervisor continues to decline across the board;
the operating system vendors offer it for free or nearly free. The
continued commoditization of the server based hypervisor will have
the biggest impact on VMware. Its ESX Server is still its bread and
butter product, and this could account for why VMware's revenues are
projected to decline by 50% this year.
Among the items of interest in terms of changing trends and survey surprises:
- The percentage of VMware users that are deploying the "free" version
of their hypervisor - the VMware Server - rose to 40% in this survey while
50% are deploying the ESX Server. In the initial 2006 virtualization survey
90% of respondents were using the ESX Server compared to only 10% using the
free VMware Server.
- VMware is suffering market share erosion mainly from the smaller niche
market players: including Citrix, and large vendors like Oracle, IBM, HP
and Sun Microsystems as well as niche market players like Parallels
(formerly SWSoft). Oracle, IBM and HP each have about 3% to 4% market
share. And Oracle in particular is poised for explosive growth in the
application virtualization and virtual appliances segments given its
recent acquisition of middleware vendor BEA.
- Citrix' market share (XenServer) jumped to 11% and when you add the
6% market share from the open source XenSource (which are separate and
distinct from the Citrix offering) solutions that are embedded in the
Novell, Red Hat and other Linux and open source products, it adds up
to 17% market share. This represents the biggest market share jump for
any virtualization hypervisor solution. In the initial 2006 survey,
the Xen solution - then marketed by XenSource, which was acquired in
January 2008 by Citrix - only accounted for 3% of the installed base
of hypervisors.
- Microsoft is a solid #2 and their market share appears to be holding
steady at 26%. The good news for Microsoft: some 22% of those polled
said they planned to use the 64-bit Hyper-V solution - and the product
won't ship for another two months!
- Another big surprise was the extent to which organizations are deploying
Apple products for virtualization! Approximately 23% of businesses said
they are using Macintosh servers to virtualize their Windows XP and Windows
Vista desktops. This helps them circumvent the spyware, viruses and other
issues that plague Windows desktops.
- The use of Mac hardware also accounts for the big jump in Parallels
market share. It rose from 1% in the 2006 survey to 9% in the current
2008-2009 poll!
- Given the continued tough economic climate, pricing will be a
significant consideration for the majority of users. Again, these
pricing concerns will have the biggest impact on VMware which currently
commands a 35% to 70% retail price premium over all other competitors.
Only 12% of the respondents that use VMware indicated they are willing
to pay any price premium for the company's products.
Windows Update Servers Score 100% Uptime, Beat Mac OS X, Ubuntu
When it comes to update server uptime, Microsoft's Windows beat rivals Mac
OS X and Ubuntu during three months of monitoring by Pingdom AB, a Swedish
uptime monitoring firm. More at:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Windows-Update-Server-Uptime
|
|
WServer Third Party News |
|
NetworkWorld Study: Email Archiving Most Important To Deploy
They conducted a study recently and asked decision-makers in midsized and large
organizations in North America about how concerned they are on a variety of
issues. They asked them whether they are more, less or equally concerned
about each issue now compared to 12 months earlier.
A whopping 36% of decision-makers are more concerned about the need to
archive e-mail today than they were 12 months ago. Similarly, 30% are more
concerned about e-discovery issues than they were a year ago. Only 12% and
13% of decision makers are less concerned about e-mail archiving and
e-discovery, respectively. The article also reports about security matters
like viruses, web-based threats, spyware and mobile security.
Concerns about the need to archive e-mail - and one of the primary drivers
for archiving and e-discovery - are becoming very top of mind for decision
makers. It's not a totally clear-cut area though, there is much more "gray"
with archiving and e-discovery than with security and, hence, more concern,
particularly in light of recent court decisions interpreting the Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure, the admissibility of e-mail as evidence and other rulings.
Article:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Email-Admissibility
An excellent, affordable, MVP-award winning Exchange Archiving Tool:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Exchange-Archiving-Tool
Famatech Releases Free Utility: Radmin Deployment Tool
RDT makes Radmin Server installation and setup very fast for the entire
computer network. Radmin Deployment Tool also accomplishes local network
scanning, viewing of the computers that have Radmin Server installed, and
upgrading and re-installation if necessary. RDT consists of Radmin Deployment
Tool 1.0 and the new version of Radmin Activation Server 1.1. It is available
for download at Famatech's website:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Radmin
Radmin 3.2 Corporate Package contains installation files required to deploy
Radmin remotely on any number of computers. Radmin Corporate Package is
recommended to IT professionals at medium and large enterprises:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Radmin-Corporate-Package
|
Live In Europe? Check this Product Overview
For All Europeans
Products overview
TimeData: Continuous Data Protection for Windows-based servers.
Point-in-time data recovery for Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange Server and Windows File Server.
TimeData is a Windows-based, cluster-aware application that protects files on NTFS volumes, SQL Server ® databases and Exchange Server mailbox stores. TimeData software provides file-based Continuous Data Protection (CDP) with Zero Data Loss technology, which means that no data is ever lost or corrupted.
Learn about benefits and systems requirements of TimeData:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-TimeData
*** NEW ***
In order to help you understand better Double-Take visit our Brand New Websites!
- For everyone based in the U.K, the Nordics, Benelux and Eastern Europe: www.doubletake.en
- For everyone based in France: www.doubletake.fr
- For German speakers: www.doubletake.de
Coming soon: Spanish and Italian Websites by the New Term: September 2008! www.doubletake.es and www.doubletake.it
|
|
<
|
WServerNews FAVE Links |
|
This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.
- Amazing pictures from above. Click on Earth From Above. Terrible navigation
on the site, but after a bit of poking around you can start to see a treasure
trove of images -- truly magnificent stuff captured from the air:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Earth-from-Above
- Go to Prison in Germany? Well, check out this slide show. This looks even
better than a modern high tech hotel:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-German-Prison
- Rock Port, Missouri becomes the first U.S. town solely powered by wind energy.
Four turbines supply electricity to its 1,300 residents, with enough power left
over to feed to a nearby town:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Wind-Power
- The spread of Walmart. I believe North Dakota comes in last place with only 8
or so of 'em. Course it doesn't show Alaska or Hawaii. Or Guam for that matter:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Walmart
- New service tracks missing laptops for free. Researchers have developed a free
open-source tracking system for laptops, called Adeona:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Adeona
- Amazing 3D renderings of the inner workings of the body:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-3D-Body-Animations
- Welcome to the "Periodic Table of Videos". Tables charting the chemical
elements have been around since the 19th century - but this modern version
will have a short video about each one.
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Periodic-Videos
- Amazing 50's film of police motorbike riders showing off their coordination
skills in Rome, Italy:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Police-Motorbikes
- The Beijing China 2008 Summer Olympics Song (with English subtitles)
Seven minutes of PR, Chinese style. It's about five minutes too long:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Olympic-Song
- Saturn holds a secret, mysterious hexagon over the north pole. Even
NASA can't explain it:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Saturn-Polar-Hexagon
- Complete Telephone Central Office (DCO) for sale on eBay for just one grand.
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-eBay-Central-Office
- How many people can fit into a Smart Car? How about 15?
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Smart-Car
- Now Japan has a water-powered car. Just water, nothing else. Getting kinda
hard to hang on to oil, I would say. This one sounds too good to be true
though. Video on Reuters:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Water-Powered-Car
- One of our spacecraft made a video of the moon passing in front of Earth.
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-EPOXI-Transit
- Steve Jobs speaks at Stanford University graduation with three stories
of his life. Motto: "Stay hungry, stay foolish."
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Steve-Jobs-Motto
- How to get started in virtual-world operations. Sunbelt did most of this.
Find us in Second Life and learn how to build at Sunbelt University:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-Sunbelt-University
|
|
WServerNews - Product of the Week |
|
Helpdesk Driven Mad By Password Reset and Locked Account Calls?
The two most common problems in self-service password management are:
- Getting users to fill out their Password Reset Profile
- Securing the issuance of new passwords by the Helpdesk
myPassword is a great self-service Active Directory Password Reset tool.
You configure it to send an email to a user to verify identity and provide
an easy means of resetting passwords, unlocking accounts, or edit their
password reset profile. It even has OWA Support. Find out about the
excellent security features, as users struggle to remember their growing
collection of credentials. Eliminate Help Desk calls by 70%. Quick ROI.
Click here for an evaluation copy:
http://www.wservernews.com/080721-myPassword-Software
|
|
|
|
|
Email me: