Category Archives: Microsoft

ODX Speed Up VHDX Creation Times On Windows Server 2012 (R2)

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Some technlogies you just need to see in action instead of reading about it. I have posted a video on Vimeo that shows ODX in action on Windows Server 2012 R2 and a DELL Compellent SAN running Storage Center 6.3.10 firmware that supports UNMAP & ODX. Watch the video here or on Vimeo itself for a better experience. It’s a rerun of the demo scripts used in my TechNet Belux Live Meeting of this week.

We demonstrate the amazing speeds at which we can create VHDX files on both a traditional clustered disk and a Cluster Shared Volume. If you have ever tried to create a lot of fixed VHD/VHDX files, especially larger one, then you really need to check out ODX and its potential. If you have a SAN or think about acquiring one make sure you get this feature and be sure that it works as advertised.

I hope you enjoy it and inspires you to look where you can leverage this technology in your own environments.

Join me for aTechNet Live Meeting: Hyper-V Storage Efficiencies & Optimizations in Windows Server 2012 R2

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So you have been  playing with or down right seriously testing Windows Server 2012 and perhaps even Windows Server 2012 R2. That’s great. Many of you might have it running in production or are working on that. That’s even better.

Windows Server 2012 has brought us unseen capabilities & performance enhancements that make it a future proof fundament for many versions to come and it is ready for the ever accelerating pace of hardware improvements. R2 has fine tuned some points and added improvements that are stepping stones to better today and even greater in vNext. I’d like to invite you to a free TechNet Live Meeting on Hyper-V Storage Efficiencies & Optimizations in Windows Server 2012 R2 and look at some of these capabilities with me.

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As a virtualization guy two subjects are very dear to me and that is networking & storage, and this event is about a subset of the storage improvements. You might have heard about ODX and UNMAP but you have not had the change to play with it. You have read about the tremendous scalability of the IOPS in a VM and about large sector support for the next generation of hard disks drives. Well some of these we’ll demonstrate (ODX, UNMAP, Dynamically expanding VHDX performance) if the demo gods are with us. Others we’ll discuss so you’ll know where this comes into play and how you’ll benefit from them even without realizing you do. So without further delay register for the free TechNet Live Event here.

Windows Server 2012 R2 & Windows 8 .1 RTM Available on TechNet & MSDN Today

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The Windows 8.1 (Pro) and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM builds are available right now to the IT Pro & Developers communities via MSDN and TechNet subscriptions. Windows 8.1 RTM Enterprise edition will be available later this month.

Microsoft has decided to get the bits into our hands earlier due to our feedback that we need them to prepare for roll outs & test applications. This is great news and I’m happy Microsoft acted on the feedback they got from us.

So I’m already downloading …

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So it seems the next weeks will get even busier than we had bargained for. Happy testing and remember, we weren’t born to follow Winking smile

See Microsoft’s announcement here

Hands on with Hyper-V Clustering Maintenance Mode & Cluster Aware Updating TechNet Screencast

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I’ve blogged and given some presentations on Cluster Aware Updating before and I also did a web cast on this subject on Technet. You can find the video of that screencast right here Hands on with Hyper-V Clustering Maintenance Mode & Cluster Aware Updating.

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I hope you get something out of it. Once I got my head wrapped around around the XML to make the BIOS, firmware & driver updates from DELL to work as well as the pre configured inbox functionality (DGR & QFE updates) it has proven equally valuable for those kinds of updates.