Anyone supporting server 2008 yet?

[zkaudio]

I have it setup to play around with at my house, but now I'd like to have it installed and admin'd at my company along with the new exchange and I can't find an IT in the entire LA area who has any experience with the OS yet...

Any of you guys who work in the industry supporting 08 yet or am I chasing a ghost?


thx.

 

[rudder]

I have a test box running at work. It cannot go into production because I cannot add any 2008 servers to our NT domain.

 

[loup garou]

Yes, we are using it right now to publish apps over the web for several clients using Terminal Server RemoteApp. I really like it. Much easier to admin than Citrix. We are about to switch over to Server 08 and Exchange 07 internally as well, I'm probably going to do the migration next week.

 

[zkaudio]

I think i'm going have our domain and user accounts rebuilt from scratch, our user permissions are a disaster and the original IT who set up our sbs 2003 server didn't know what he was doing and we've been slowly working through the mess for 5 years now. I'm going to use server 2008/exch 2007 as the jumpoff point to a "well" designed system. Feel free to PM me if anyone has recommendations for anyone in the LA area who has mastery over exch 07 and server 08.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: zkaudio
I think i'm going have our domain and user accounts rebuilt from scratch, our user permissions are a disaster and the original IT who set up our sbs 2003 server didn't know what he was doing and we've been slowly working through the mess for 5 years now. I'm going to use server 2008/exch 2007 as the jumpoff point to a "well" designed system. Feel free to PM me if anyone has recommendations for anyone in the LA area who has mastery over exch 07 and server 08.

If you're replacing an SBS 2003 server, I'd advise waiting for SBS 2008 later this year, unless you're bumping up on the 75 user limit.

 

[RebateMonger]

I've been a Beta tester for SBS 2008 for a while, but. no, you aren't going to find many small business IT consultants with significant Server 2008 experience yet.

 

[zkaudio]

I assume sbs 2008 won't have the stupid max ram limit of 4gb? I have a dual quad core box w/ 16gb of ram waiting for sbs 2008, let's hope it will take advantage of all that hp

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: zkaudio
I assume sbs 2008 won't have the stupid max ram limit of 4gb? I have a dual quad core box w/ 16gb of ram waiting for sbs 2008, let's hope it will take advantage of all that hp

SBS 2008 handles memory above 4 GB. It's 64-bit-only because Exchange 2007 (which is 64-bit-only) is part of it.

 

[zkaudio]

will wait thanks for saving me from reading the technotes on ms

 

[Genx87]

I run it at home with two virtual machines. I use it at work mainly as a test bed for Hyper V. I have two Virtual machines running on it.

When Hyper V goes into production and we finall get our SAN. This fall Ill have a pair of Win08 boxes running about 14 virtual machines.

 

[0KittyKittyKitty]

Originally posted by: Genx87
When Hyper V goes into production and we finall get our SAN. This fall Ill have a pair of Win08 boxes running about 14 virtual machines.

Pretty amazing stuff, huh? Who'd have imagined ten years ago? This stuff is almost as revolutionary as Doom. But not as fun.

 

[zkaudio]

When you say virtual machines, do you mean like terminal service clients? As in 14 people can connect remotely to the box simultaneously?

 

[SergeC]

Yes, we run server 08.

^ Virtual machines are just that - a virtual system. It lets you run more than one concurrent OS/system on the same piece of hardware. Awesomely useful.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: zkaudio
When you say virtual machines, do you mean like terminal service clients? As in 14 people can connect remotely to the box simultaneously?

No, as in 14 seperate instances of an OS running on a single piece of hardware. This hardware will be be clustered for failover though.

 

[Czar]

Not yet, we are having the same problems as zkaudio has, old old domain, lots of legacy crap so we are going to start fresh with Win2008 and Exchange2007. Alot of work but it will be worth it even if only just for the documentation that has to happen because of it.



Genx87,
Why use hyperV instead of VMware?

I have 6 ESX hosts with 38 VM's at work, all automated. Later we will probably go with a secondary san and the VMware Disaster Recovery solution so it can failover if the SAN fails and fail then over to a different location. Then I will finaly be at ease

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
I've been a Beta tester for SBS 2008 for a while, but. no, you aren't going to find many small business IT consultants with significant Server 2008 experience yet.

What are your thoughts? I'm going to be downloading a copy later this week to start testing too.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Czar
Not yet, we are having the same problems as zkaudio has, old old domain, lots of legacy crap so we are going to start fresh with Win2008 and Exchange2007. Alot of work but it will be worth it even if only just for the documentation that has to happen because of it.



Genx87,
Why use hyperV instead of VMware?

I have 6 ESX hosts with 38 VM's at work, all automated. Later we will probably go with a secondary san and the VMware Disaster Recovery solution so it can failover if the SAN fails and fail then over to a different location. Then I will finaly be at ease

1. Cost
2. Ease of backups
3. Native to Win 2008
4. I find it much easier to use.

I use the free version of VMWare for our development environment. It works, a little clunky but works. I suppose in 5 years when they finally get 64 bit servers with Windows 2008 I'll move them to Hyper V as well.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Czar
Not yet, we are having the same problems as zkaudio has, old old domain, lots of legacy crap so we are going to start fresh with Win2008 and Exchange2007. Alot of work but it will be worth it even if only just for the documentation that has to happen because of it.



Genx87,
Why use hyperV instead of VMware?

I have 6 ESX hosts with 38 VM's at work, all automated. Later we will probably go with a secondary san and the VMware Disaster Recovery solution so it can failover if the SAN fails and fail then over to a different location. Then I will finaly be at ease

1. Cost
2. Ease of backups
3. Native to Win 2008
4. I find it much easier to use.

I use the free version of VMWare for our development environment. It works, a little clunky but works. I suppose in 5 years when they finally get 64 bit servers with Windows 2008 I'll move them to Hyper V as well.

You're looking at GSX and Hyper-V which isn't a fair comparison in my opinion. You should download a trial of ESXi and see how you feel about that.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Czar
Not yet, we are having the same problems as zkaudio has, old old domain, lots of legacy crap so we are going to start fresh with Win2008 and Exchange2007. Alot of work but it will be worth it even if only just for the documentation that has to happen because of it.



Genx87,
Why use hyperV instead of VMware?

I have 6 ESX hosts with 38 VM's at work, all automated. Later we will probably go with a secondary san and the VMware Disaster Recovery solution so it can failover if the SAN fails and fail then over to a different location. Then I will finaly be at ease

1. Cost
2. Ease of backups
3. Native to Win 2008
4. I find it much easier to use.

I use the free version of VMWare for our development environment. It works, a little clunky but works. I suppose in 5 years when they finally get 64 bit servers with Windows 2008 I'll move them to Hyper V as well.

You're looking at GSX and Hyper-V which isn't a fair comparison in my opinion. You should download a trial of ESXi and see how you feel about that.

No no I have run a trial of ESX. Setup a few VMs. I did like the physical to virtual conversion ability of infrastructure. But Hyper V will see that soon with Systems Manager 2008. Though you can do it with 2007 but it isnt officially supported as it is meant for Virtual Server 2005 machines.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Czar
Not yet, we are having the same problems as zkaudio has, old old domain, lots of legacy crap so we are going to start fresh with Win2008 and Exchange2007. Alot of work but it will be worth it even if only just for the documentation that has to happen because of it.



Genx87,
Why use hyperV instead of VMware?

I have 6 ESX hosts with 38 VM's at work, all automated. Later we will probably go with a secondary san and the VMware Disaster Recovery solution so it can failover if the SAN fails and fail then over to a different location. Then I will finaly be at ease

1. Cost
2. Ease of backups
3. Native to Win 2008
4. I find it much easier to use.

I use the free version of VMWare for our development environment. It works, a little clunky but works. I suppose in 5 years when they finally get 64 bit servers with Windows 2008 I'll move them to Hyper V as well.

You're looking at GSX and Hyper-V which isn't a fair comparison in my opinion. You should download a trial of ESXi and see how you feel about that.

No no I have run a trial of ESX. Setup a few VMs. I did like the physical to virtual conversion ability of infrastructure. But Hyper V will see that soon with Systems Manager 2008. Though you can do it with 2007 but it isnt officially supported as it is meant for Virtual Server 2005 machines.

The cost difference of ESX and HyperV is huge and if you dont need the extra features that ESX has like vmotion, memory sharing, snapshots, DR, HA and others.

But when comparing VMware server and HyperV it all comes down to preference. For now they have the same limitations.

Highly recomend ESX though, its just soooo much better than the free products

 

[nobody554]

We run 3 2008 machines in production, currently. A terminal server, server with the Unified Messaging Exchange Role, and a development server. All three have been running great on our ESX infrastructure. I highly recommend ESX as well.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Czar

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Czar
Not yet, we are having the same problems as zkaudio has, old old domain, lots of legacy crap so we are going to start fresh with Win2008 and Exchange2007. Alot of work but it will be worth it even if only just for the documentation that has to happen because of it.



Genx87,
Why use hyperV instead of VMware?

I have 6 ESX hosts with 38 VM's at work, all automated. Later we will probably go with a secondary san and the VMware Disaster Recovery solution so it can failover if the SAN fails and fail then over to a different location. Then I will finaly be at ease

1. Cost
2. Ease of backups
3. Native to Win 2008
4. I find it much easier to use.

I use the free version of VMWare for our development environment. It works, a little clunky but works. I suppose in 5 years when they finally get 64 bit servers with Windows 2008 I'll move them to Hyper V as well.

You're looking at GSX and Hyper-V which isn't a fair comparison in my opinion. You should download a trial of ESXi and see how you feel about that.

No no I have run a trial of ESX. Setup a few VMs. I did like the physical to virtual conversion ability of infrastructure. But Hyper V will see that soon with Systems Manager 2008. Though you can do it with 2007 but it isnt officially supported as it is meant for Virtual Server 2005 machines.

The cost difference of ESX and HyperV is huge and if you dont need the extra features that ESX has like vmotion, memory sharing, snapshots, DR, HA and others.

But when comparing VMware server and HyperV it all comes down to preference. For now they have the same limitations.

Highly recomend ESX though, its just soooo much better than the free products

Well I will have to wait and see. MS is offering many of those features in their manager applications. And snapshots can be done right in the Hyper V role. Win2008 clustering can take care of HA and DR shouldnt be a problem provided you backup the VMs. One of the issues with ESX was their clunky ass backup of live VM's. Talking with people on this very board and having witnessed it myself. It wasnt very good imo nor seemed reliable. Memory sharing appears out in Hyper V. Each machine is allocated memory at startup. So an MS Hyper V envrionment will most likely require more memory compared to an ESX server.

I was also turned off by VMwares sales staff. The guy didnt seem to have the time of day for me and it took my pestering him to get me a key for a trial of infrastructure 3. Their website was borked for like 3 weeks. Unbelievable for the leader in the VM world in my opinion.

/shrug

 

[zkaudio]

seriously if any of you guys are for hire to setup a domain once 2008sbs comes out... I have yet to find an IT firm in LA with anyone knowledgeable over ANY new MS products.

 

[Agamar]

I have a 2008 server running Hyper-V with 6 VM's, and one other running Exchange 2007. I am just finishing my migration from Exchange 2003. So far I am impressed with the stability. The new Powershell based command window is pretty useful also, but for everyday management I still use the gui. I only use the command window to make scripted changes.

I am still running the Hyper-V RC0, but when I get back in the office I plan to upgrade it to the full version.