Microsoft has announced the release of a new tool to assist developers to migrate from MySQL to Microsoft SQL 2005 and SQL 2008. The current release is a Customer Technical Preview (CTP) which is a very early testing version, not usually to be used in production. read more
The New Microsoft WebsiteSpark Program
We’ve enrolled in the Microsoft WebsiteSpark Program that has just been launched. By partnering with Microsoft we can better assist website developers who run a dedicated server hosting their client’s websites.
Managed Server Hosting Availability Reports
We’ve been talking a lot about SLA’s (Service Level Agreements) in the hosting industry at work lately. As a hosting company, like any other company, you’re dependant on many things:
- Power and Cooling: Our data centre provides and lives up to their 100% SLA with a dedicated substation and dual diesel generators. No outages since 2001 is a nice way to live up to a promise!
- Internet connectivity: Again, we’re looking at a 100% SLA from our suppliers. That’s an enviable position; something you don’t get with a DSL or ordinary leased line. We monitor that closely and there’s been no outages yet.
- Server Uptime: This one completely depends on manufacturer reliability, clustering, etc.
Microsoft Web Platform Installer RC
Microsoft is developing a series of tools to enable easier management of Windows Server 2008 IIS7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 IIS7.5 servers.
Coming Soon: Windows Server 2008 R2
The next version of Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2 will be available soon as a platform in our managed server hosting offering. It is believed Microsoft will release it to manufacturing (RTM) it on July 13th. Soon after that the hardware OEM’s will get it to develop their new products. The new server operating system will then generally available on October 22nd. Thanks to C Infinity’s leading edge deployment solution and our involvement with new products, it will be available to our customers immediately after its release to the public.
2 Recent Microsoft Service Packs
Microsoft has released a couple of service packs that will be of interest to our managed server hosting customers.
Interview With C Infinity’s Systems And Infrastructure Manager
Our Systems and Infrastructure Manager, Aidan Finn, was recently interviewed by Dave Northey from Microsoft. Aidan discusses about us and why our hosting infrastructure was built using Microsoft Hyper-V and System Centre.
The Future Of Windows Server
The next release of Windows Server will be in 2010 or thereabouts. This will probably be soon after the release of Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista. This new server product will be called Windows Server 2008 R2.
Microsoft Launches New SME Products
Microsoft has long had a solution with “Small Business Server” for the small business with less than 75 users. They recently released the latest version of this, SBS 2008. This solution gives the small business an integrated single server solution allowing central data storage (and backups!), email (with PDA “push email”), database and policy enforcement for desktops/laptops. It’s intended to be a simple appliance solution that allows the small business to get online and have much of the functionality that was exclusive to larger companies.
Microsoft Launches New Virtualisation Strategy
Microsoft launched their new virtualisation strategy on Monday, 8th of September, featuring Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. We often think of virtualisation of just being a collection of virtual machines running on a server. Microsoft, and C Infinity, sees it as being much more. Microsoft has several layers of virtualisation:
