Book: The Rational Guide to Managing Microsoft Virtual Server 2005

Summary
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 is Microsoft’s server-side virtualization product. Virtual Server has been designed to allow users a great deal of power and flexibility in hosting virtual machines in mission-critical Enterprise deployments without having to invest in additional hardware.

In this clear and concise book, Microsoft MVP Anil Desai discusses the benefits of virtualization technology and covers the essentials of working with Virtual Server 2005, including installation, configuration, creating a virtual machine, and installing a guest operating system. It covers the technical architecture of Virtual Server, topics related to disk, CPU, memory, and network resources, as well as procedures for administering host and guest operating systems.

While this book is a superb introduction to Virtual Server 2005, it also covers advanced topics, such as the methods and practices for improving host resource utilization and for monitoring virtual machine performance. This book is the recommended prerequisite reading for the forthcoming book from Rational Press, The Rational Guide To Scripting Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, which focuses on programming Virtual Server 2005 with scripting and automation.

Technical accuracy is assured by Mike Sterling, Program Manager on the Windows Virtualization team at Microsoft.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1 – Benefits of Virtualization
• Chapter 2 – Virtualization Concepts
• Chapter 3 – Planning for Virtualization
• Chapter 4 – Installing and Configuring Virtual Server
• Chapter 5 – Setting Up a New Virtual Machine
• Chapter 6 – Configuring Virtual Machine Hardware
• Chapter 7 – Understanding Virtual Disk Architecture
• Chapter 8 – Networking Architecture
• Chapter 9 – Virtual Server Security
• Chapter 10 – Managing CPU and Memory Resources

Abouth the Author
Anil Desai, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, is a Microsoft MVP in the area of “Windows – Servers.” As an independent consultant based in Austin, TX, Anil specializes in evaluating, implementing, and managing solutions based on Microsoft technologies. He has worked extensively with Microsoft’s Server products and the .NET development platform.

Anil is the author of numerous technical books focusing on the Windows Server Platform, Virtualization, Active Directory, SQL Server 2000, and IT management. He has made dozens of conference presentations at national events and is also a contributor to technical magazines.

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