I am at IT Forum Barcelona this week where today's sessions have just finished. It started with the keynote by Bob Kelly where a couple of things were announced and talked about. Of course, virtualization is still a big thing and an announcement was made that Windows Server Virtualization will be called Hyper-V. The role will be named like that but it will also be a separate product "Hyper-V Server". Not many details right now though.

Microsoft is really trying to focus on different levels of virtualization and they are repeating it in all sessions about it. The focus is on 4 levels of virtualization:

• Server Virtualization (Virtual Server and Hyper-V)
• Application Virtualization (SoftGrid or now to be called Microsoft Application Virtualization with the 4.5 beta)
• Presentation Virtualization (TS, TS RemoteApp, TS Gateway)
• Desktop Virtualization (Virtual PC; to solve app-to-os issues)

But the big thing according to Microsoft is of course managing the virtualized environment with their System Center products. During the keynote, but also during another session (Virtualization 360), System Center Virtual Machine Manager was demoed. They already have a build where the Hyper-V name is used and they also had a couple of ESX 3i servers in the Hosts pane. According to Microsoft, somewhere next year, you will be able to manage your VMware servers as you do with VirtualCenter, including live migrations and so on.

Microsoft needs to focus on the bigger picture because they are still behind when it comes to server virtualization. We have Windows Server Virtualization running in our labs and it really is not that great yet. So focussing on management issues and other virtualization technologies is what keeps them going for now.

Some other things that were shown during the keynote were SQL Sever 2008 and SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager 2007). A new November CTP of SQL 2008 will be available with almost all features. Some of the nicer features are the resource governor, policy-based management (can be tied into SCOM 2007) and a revamped report designer tool.

The SSCM demo mainly focussed on server deployment with add-on tools from Dell to change things like BIOS settings with just a few clicks.

The last part of the keynote showed another great enterprise technology, Windows Home Server ;-). It looks ok but really targetted to the average consumer that wants a home server with some backup capabilities.

Previously code-named "Centro", Windows Essential Business Server is a new integrated multiserver solution designed for midsize businesses. The product is based on Windows Server 2008 and it combines software for management, messaging and security.

The products that are in the solution are Windows Server 2008 with Active Directory Domain Services, Microsoft System Center Essentials, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server and Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA). Those are just for the Standard edition. The Premium edition also includes Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition.

Like Small Business Server, the product should be cheaper than buying the separate licenses and administration should be a lot simpler from one unified console. Especially the addition of System Center Essentials is interesting because it allows the administrator to more effectively manage the infrastructure. For more info about System Center Essentials go here. Also check out this intro video here.

You can find the Microsoft PressPass announcement here. You can also see the product in action at IT-Forum in Barcelona next week. I am going to IT Forum so I definitely will have a look.