Tag: Server2008

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Enterprise Tech Microsoft Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

How to Install SSL Certificates on Microsoft Servers – Free eBook

Windows administrators are continually tasked with securing servers and applications, including installing SSL certificates for authentication and encryption. This raises a number of questions for system administrators: which kind of SSL certificate should be used? How are SSL certificates installed? What is the Certificate Store? How does SSL work in Internet Information Server (IIS), Exchange Server, SQL Server and SharePoint?

How to Install SSL Certificates on Microsoft Servers How to Install SSL Certificates on Microsoft Servers by security expert Dan Sullivan provides detailed step by step instructions on how to select, install and maintain SSL certificates in Microsoft environments. Whether you are just starting out and need to know how to acquire a certificate, or you are looking for tips on troubleshooting and maintaining existing certificate configurations, this guide has pragmatic and detailed information to help you.

This complete book includes the following chapters:

  • Chapter 1: Getting Started with SSL Certificates in Windows Server
  • Chapter 2: Understanding the Microsoft Certificate Store
  • Chapter 3: Using SSL Certificates in Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)
  • Chapter 4: Installing SSL Certificates in Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SharePoint, and Microsoft SQL Server

Download the complete 71-page book today!

Note: You will need to create a profile in Realtime Nexus (The Digital Library for IT Pros) when you click the above link.

Courtesy: Realtime Nexus

You would also be interested in downloading these e-books:

Categories
Best Practices Enterprise Tech Microsoft

Download Best Practices Analyzers – Windows Server Enterprise Platform

Best Practice Analyzers are free tools available for most Microsoft Enterprise products and they are used to determine the overall health of your platform. The tools perform read only scans against your environment’s servers and identify items that do not conform to Microsoft best practices. They should be run on a regular basis as part of your standard operations maintenance plan. Here are some tools for the Windows Server platform which includes PAL, DHCP, Hyper-V, WSUS, Active Directory, Remote Desktop, File Services, and DNS.

  • Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) Tool – Ever have a performance problem, but don’t know what performance counters to collect or how to analyze them? The PAL (Performance Analysis of Logs) tool is a powerful tool that reads in a performance monitor counter log and analyzes it using known thresholds.

Also read –

Categories
Microsoft Tools Virtualization

Download Linux Integration Services v2.1 for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2

The Microsoft Virtualization team announced the availability of the Hyper-V Linux Integration Services for Linux Version 2.1. This release marks yet another milestone in providing a comprehensive virtualization. They have supported Linux as a guest operating system on the virtualization platform from the days of Virtual Server and continue to enhance the support in that regard.

The following features are included in the 2.1 release:

  • Driver support for synthetic devices: Linux Integration Services supports the synthetic network controller and the synthetic storage controller that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.
  • Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.
  • Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the host.
  • Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be gracefully shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
  • Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.
  • Heartbeat: Allows the host to detect whether the guest is running and responsive.
  • Pluggable Time Source: A pluggable clock source module is included to provide a more accurate time source to the guest.

Download the Linux Integration Services v2.1 for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 here

This version of the integration services for Hyper-V supports Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 / 5.3 / 5.4 / 5.5.

For support questions, please utilize the Linux Integration Services forum here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/linuxintegrationservices/threads

Categories
General Microsoft Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

Windows Server 2008 R2 Feature Components and Hyper-V Architecture – Poster

Windows Server 2008 R2 Feature Components – This poster provides a visual reference for understanding key technologies in Windows Server 2008 R2. It focuses on Active Directory Domain Services, Hyper-V, Internet Information Services, Remote Desktop Services (including Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)), BranchCache, and DirectAccess technologies. In addition, updates to core file services and server management are illustrated.

Download the Windows Server 2008 R2 Feature Components Poster Here [pdf  document]

Hyper-V Component Architecture – The Hyper-V poster is a great visual tool to help in the understanding of the key features and components. It highlights key Hyper-V components including, Architecture, Virtual Networking, Virtual Machine Snapshots, Live Migration, Storage Interfaces, Storage Types, Storage Location and Paths, & Import and Export.

Download the Hyper-V ComponentArchitecture Poster here [pdf  document]

This large-format poster provides practical visual depictions of the Windows Hypervisor, live migration process, cluster shared volumes architecture, VMQ data paths, disk storage I/O path, and much more.

Categories
General Microsoft Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

Download Article – Configuring High Availability for Windows Server 2008

Configuring High Availability for Windows Server 2008 Environments

System downtime can be very expensive in terms of lost revenue and reputation. Today’s global markets mean we need our systems to be available at the times our customers want to use them. The Realtime Nexus Publishers announce the release of The Essentials Series: Configuring High Availability for Windows Server 2008 Environments, authored by industry expert Richard Siddaway. In this excellent new series, you will learn what is meant by high availability, why it is needed, and its relationship to disaster recovery. 

In this series, you will  learn about advances in the failover clustering included with Windows Server 2008, as well as the latest non-native technologies used for Windows Server high availability, such as data replication, virtualization, application-controlled high availability, and synchronized systems.

This complete series is available for download and includes the following articles:

  1. The Art of High Availability
  2. Windows Server 2008 Native Technologies
  3. Non-Native Options for High Availability

You can download the Complete Series here – Click Here

(Courtesy: Realtime Nexus Windows Administration Alerts)

Categories
How-to Microsoft

Infrastructure Planning & Design Guides for Server 2008 R2

In support of the upcoming Windows Server 2008 R2 launch, Microsoft announced at the Worldwide Partner Conference 2009 this week the public release of Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides Series for Windows Server 2008 R2 – free best practice and guidance available to help Microsoft customers and partners accelerate their planning process of Windows Server 2008 R2 deployment projects.

The newly-released Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for Windows Server 2008 R2 outline the critical infrastructure design elements that are crucial to a successful implementation of Windows Server 2008 R2. You will be guided through the multi-step process of designing components, layout, and connectivity in a logical, sequential order. Following the steps in these guides will result in a design that is sized, configured, and appropriately placed to deliver the stated business benefits, while also considering the performance, capacity, and fault tolerance of the system.

The following guides in the Infrastructure Planning and Design series have been updated to reflect new features and capabilities available in Windows Server 2008 R2:

Active Directory Domain Services
Internet Information Services 7.5 (IIS)
File Services
Print Services

Download the IPD Guides now and select a guide or guides from the “IPD Guides for Windows Server” section under the IPD One-click Downloads, listed on the bottom right of the page.

Infrastructure Planning and Design streamlines the planning process by:

1. Defining the technical decision flow through the planning process.
2. Listing the decisions to be made and the commonly available options and considerations.
3. Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
4. Framing decisions in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive alignment with the appropriate business landscape.

Get IPD Guides now!

Download these 4 new IPD guides now (or check out our Virtualization and System Center IPD Guides) – they are all free!

Get other related Windows Server Solution Accelerators such as Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit and Offline VM Servicing Tool

Join the Beta
Additional Infrastructure Planning and Design guides are available as beta releases on the Connect Web site. They are open beta downloads. See below for instructions on how to access the beta guides. To join the Infrastructure Planning and Design Beta, follow these steps:

Visit the Infrastructure Planning and Design Beta at http://connect.microsoft.com.
Sign in using a valid Windows Live ID to continue to the Invitations page.
Scroll down to Infrastructure Planning and Design.

If you have not previously registered with Microsoft Connect, you might be required to register before continuing with the invitation process. If the link in step 1 does not work for you, copy the link and paste it into the Web browser address bar.

For sending your comments and feedbacks please send an email to satfdbk@microsoft.com.