Microsoft Days - Enterprise Management

Spent the day at a special Microsoft [MS] presentation focused on enterprise management solutions. The following is an on-the fly thoughts and impressions post (got love my iPod touch)! Some stuff on my Brightkite stream.

Session 1: application virtualization (originally Gridsoft) called App-V is presented by Microsoft and Intel as a solution to make image deployment and support easier. The idea being that the virtual apps as well as virtual environments are deployed centrally and made available to the user via either streaming or local virtual image push. The idea being that the apps no longer need to be installed locally and versioning is controlled centrally. As the apps are deployed in a virtual configuration they are also no longer dependent in the underlying OS (eg. run windows XP apps over Vista or Windows 7) when you include MED-V (ex. KIDARO). Security is also in theory improved by the use of encryption as well as a form of sandboxing.

Session 2: Deploying and benefits of App-V. Key points include streaming key code packages and centralized updates; easy application maintenance; co-existence of multiple versions of applications and supporting different middleware & libraries versions; workstation independence (environment becomes virtual); new delivery mechanisms that includes a light infrastructure and an offline distribution.

Session 3: Hyper-V in depth. Intel optimized the VT-x technology to fully support Hyper-V both from CPU to Network. Based on a microkernel hypervisor (this is alot like VMWare GDx or ESx). Some versions of newer MS OS has code optimizations for when they are running in as a guest OS also requires you to install new drivers, etc. The network component now supports switch virtualisation for VLAN.q supp

Plenary Session with S.Ballmer focused extensively on what MS is doing for what is more generally known as ubiquitius & cloud computing. The vision is to bring an Internet rich user environment based on .Net, Silverlight, Browsers & Vista (as a base) in all forms of devices supported by Services+Software (SAAS) built on MS core platform Windows Server 2008,Hyper-V,SQL2008 & the collaboration suite. Oh! And did I mention MS will be offering it's platform on a host device (Live everything ;-)).
This was also the official launch of MS Hyper-V technology and their Virtualization-360 (i.e. virtualize everything if possible) which covers server, desktop OS and applications.