Server Core Part 1: Getting Hard-Core This is the first in an eight-part series about Windows Server Core. In it we’ll install Server Core from scratch, configure it for the network, and promote it to be a domain controller in an new domain. Pretty pictures will be included along the way for your amusement and edification,

Clustered Hyper-V Between Two Mid-Range Laptops Using iSCSI and Consumer-Grade 100MB/sec Networking… Some Remarkable Results… I'm in the process this week of authoring my monthly "Geek of all Trades" column for TechNet Magazine.� For this month, I'm attempting to put together the absolute simplest configuration possible using the poorest-possible hardware for constructing a Hyper-V cluster.� My goal with this experiment is to explain how easy

App-V Part 5: Lightweight Infrastructure Designed to provide a balance between features and infrastructure requirements, App-V's Lightweight Infrastructure mode does require a bit of back-end: Specifically, you need to install the System Center Application Virtualization Streaming Server - which most folks just call "the App-V streaming thing." Operating without AD (if you like) and with

Reluctant DBA Part 5: Relationships So where does the "relational" part of "relational database management system" come into play? Imagine a Customers table that contains the following columns: ID Name Address We'll leave it at just those three to keep the example simple. Now imagine an Orders table: ID CustomerID OrderDate ShipAddress BillAddress Wait, why

Terminal Services Part 11: Apps to Host. Apps Not to Host. � With all the features discussed to this point in this series, you would think that Terminal Services is a solution for all the applications in your environment. � Just move every application over to your TS servers, and your problems are resolved. � Users can access applications from anywhere,

App-V Part 4: Standalone Mode Okay, you've sequenced your apps and you're ready to deploy them. Standalone Mode is the simplest of App-V's three infrastructure options, so let's cover it first. In Standalone Mode, you want the Sequencer to produce MSI files for you. Quite simply, you then deploy those suckers however you want: IntelliMirror,

Terminal Services Part 10: Making the Choice: TS vs. Citrix? One of the biggest questions that has been on people’s minds since the dawn of Terminal Services is, “When do I need to make the jump to Citrix?” Citrix and Terminal Services have throughout their lifetime been inexorably linked. This is partially due to the similarities in technology, but even

Reluctant DBA Part 4: Normalization Normalization� is a database concept that applies to database design, and not administration. However, it's pretty important to performance, so you need to know where database designers are coming from, and be able to tell when they're going too far. Briefly, normalization is the goal of eliminating redundant data in

Terminal Services Part 9: Licenses: Domain, Forest, or Workgroup? And yet we’re not done yet with the decisions we need to make about our Terminal Services licenses. The Per User versus Per Device question is only one of the architectural questions that you need to answer before ever installing any software. Next up is the determination of how your

App-V Part 3: Sequencing App-V starts with sequencing, the process of turning a "normal" Windows app into a "virtualized app" (I'm starting to like the term "bubbled app" because it sounds neat; some folks also call it a "packaged app" or a "sandboxed app"). The App-V Sequencer is the bit that does this. This

Terminal Services Part 8: Licensing - Per User or Per Device? Later on in Parts 22 through 24 I’ll talk more about the actual installation and configuration of licenses for your Terminal Servers.� However, at this point it is important to know that extra licensing will be required for you to use Terminal Services in your environment.� These extra Terminal Server

Who says Microsoft doesn’t like Macs? Proving that they're out to help IT professionals with all� of their challenges, Microsoft TechNet Magazine this month has a special interoperability issue, which includes an Mac interop article authored by yours truly. You'll find: Mine: Managing Macs in a Windows environment Interacting with Windows from a Mac environment Authenticating

Reluctant DBA Part 3: The Transaction Log The� transaction log� is at the heart of what SQL Server is all about. It's basically a list of changes that have been made to the database, with each change referred to as a� transaction.� This list is physically stored in a file with an .LDF filename extension, and in

Terminal Services Part 7: Positioning TS Servers The positioning of your Terminal Servers is also another important consideration when planning your rollout.� Client/server applications tend to assume that there is a high level of network connectivity and bandwidth between their “client” and “server” halves.� When that is not the case – like what happens when users attempt

App-V Part 2: Architecture App-V can be a pretty complicated beast. Heck, anytime you see the word "System Center" in a product name, you usually know it's not as simple as just running Setup.exe! So an important part of this article is going to be making sense of the various App-V components. First off,