This is the one that most of us have been waiting for because the adoption of Exchange Server 2007 is rather slow. Service Pack 1 provides a lot of features that were missing from RTM and a lot of extra features as well. The most notable new features are SCR (Standby Continuous Replication) and Windows Server 2008 support. Some other cool stuff:

• Import/Export from and to PST files with PowerShell commands
• Public folder administration with the GUI
• Support for Office 2007 formats in OWA
• More OWA features like S/MIME support, public folder support and rules
• Extra ActiveSync policies for mobile devices

Go ahead and download from here.

Remember that you can deploy Exchange 2007 from scratch directly from the SP1 download because the service pack is effectively RTM+SP1 slipstreamed!

We have some DL380 G5 servers with a P800 controller and a MSA50 enclosure. The enclosure is full of disks to have 1,2TB of storage in RAID5. ESX 3 fully supports the P800 controller and the MSA50 enclosure if you have the correct patch level. For ESX 3.0.2 it is best to run update 1.

ESX sees the 1,2TB volume but when we want to create a VMFS volume on it we get the following:

Error during the configuration of the host: Failed to update disk partition information.

In the vmkernel log, we see:

WARNING: SCSI: 5739: Can't write through read-only handle 0x741
WARNING: SCSI: 5616: status Read only, rstatus 0xc0de00 for vmhba1:0:0.residual R 999, CR 80, ER 3
BC: 1521: Failed to flush buffer for object def5 16 6 3 1eee350000000000: Read only
WARNING: SCSI: 5739: Can't write through read-only handle 0x770

The only way to create the VMFS volume is with the service console and the following commands:

• Run fdisk /dev/cciss/c1d0 and then type n to create a new partition, t to change the partition id to fb and w to write partition table to disk.
• Run the following vmkfstools command to create the VMFS volume: vmkfstools -C vmfs3 -b 8M -S volumelabel vmhba1:0:0:1

We use c1d0 because it's the second controller and the first logical disk and vmhba1:0:0:1 because it is the first partitition we are creating.

We have opened a support call with VMware to find out why exactly this is happening because we would like to create volumes (and basically do all our management) with the GUI. I know, I know, not cool but it makes life a bit easier for those who have to implement our procedures.

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.