Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2008 : Beta Release

Microsoft Announces Beta of Virtual Machine Manager 2008

Microsoft has announced the formal name and beta availability of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, a member of the System Center suite of server management products. The announcements came April 29 at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas, which showcased the beta of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM), managing both Hyper-V and VMware virtual infrastructure. Additional functionality new to this version of VMM includes Performance and Resource Optimization (Pro), which dynamically tunes virtual infrastructure, simplified virtual host cluster support, and other improvements and enhancements.

The public beta of Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is available now. RTM of the product will be in the second half of CY2008.

Features

• It will utilize the foundational features and services of windows server 2008 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server.
  
  Specific features are ,
  1. Hyper-V's 64-bit architecture
  2. attack hardened security model
  3. fail-over cluster support.
  4. VMM 2008 integrates with new clustering support in Windows Server 2008 to allow for fault-tolerant and cluster aware virtual machines to be created
  
  


• Multi-vendor virtualization platform support like
  
  1. In addition to support for Hyper-V, VMM 2008 integrates multi-hypervisor management into one tool with its support for virtual machines running on VMware ESX infrastructure and Microsoft Virtual Server.
  2. VMM 2008 specific features such as Intelligent Placement, consolidation candidate recommendations and others can be run against virtualized infrastructure on any supported platform.
  3. Windows PowerShell™ scripts for customization or automation are also supported across Hyper-V, VMware ESX or Virtual Server implementations.
  4. VMM 2008 provides comprehensive support for VMware VI3 included moving virtual machines among virtual hosts with no downtime via VMotion, through integration with VMware’s Virtual Center.
  5. VMM 2008 specific features such as Intelligent Placement, consolidation candidate recommendations and others can be run against virtualized infrastructure on any supported platform.
  
  


• Performance and Resource Optimization


• Host Cluster Support for “High Availability” Virtual Machines.
  
  1. When you use VMM 2008 to manage a failover cluster on computers running Windows Server 2008, you can add the entire cluster in a single step. VMM 2008 automatically detects node additions and removals to the cluster. In addition, VMM 2008 enables you to manage (create, migrate, remove, and so on) highly available virtual machines (HA VMs) from the VMM Administrator Console or from the VMM command shell.
  
  


• The beta release of VMM 2008 is capable of converting a VMware VMDK to a VHD.


• A single instance of VMM is designed and tested to support hundreds of physical virtualization hosts and thousands of guest operating systems running on those hosts.


• And some more stuff you can find here on Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2008 website,

Download
Please visit Microsoft Connect and look for "System Center Virtual Machine Manager" from programs.

Requirements for Installation
To use VMM 208 on a single computer, you need:
• x64 architecture–based server with 2.8 GHz or faster processor clock speed and with hardware-assisted virtualization support enabled in the BIOS
• 2GB of RAM recommended
• 200GB of available hard-disk space
• DVD-ROM drive
Other Prerequisites and Dependencies:
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or later (must include Hyper-V)
• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (included in installation)
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (included in installation)
• Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 Express Edition with Service Pack 2 (included in installation) or
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise Editions with Service Pack 2 (separate installation)
• Microsoft Windows PowerShell TM 1.0
• Microsoft Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
• Microsoft Internet Information Server 7.0 (needed for Self-Service Portal only)
Actual requirements and product functionality will vary based on your system configuration and the features you choose to install. For more details and the most up-to-date information, please refer to the documentation at www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm

Resources

1. VMM 2008 DataSheet


2. Hardware requirements for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008


3. Top 10 Benefits of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008


4. Video about MS System Center Virtual Machine Manager is available on right hand side bar top corner.

Photoshop Express Adobe Free Web Tool

Adobe has launched a free web based Photoshop Express tool. The website is https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html. It is in public beta, Adobe Photoshop Express is a free online photo sharing, editing, and storage site. At beta launch, users will be provided with 2GB of free storage and integration with popular Web apps like Facebook and Photobucket, with further partnerships with sites like Flickr in the works. Designed to be, in part, an entry into the sometimes intimidating Photoshop series, Express offers a number of tools aimed directly at beginners, including user-friendly one-click versions of essential editing tools like cropping, blemish and red-eye removal, sharpening, and resizing. A number of other effects are also offered at launch, including sketch, pop color, and distort.

Thanks for these questions from Cris (http://pintandoenpositivo.blogspot.com/):

• can we use personal tools, new fonts, brushes, actions, downloaded from adobe exchange or another site?
• how install it?
  

Here is what I have understood after playing with PhotoShop Express.

• Photoshop Express is Adobe Macromedia Flash (specifically Flash Player 9 (version 9.0.0.115 or later)) based lite version of PhotoShop product.
• Photoshop Express works with JPEG photos only. Per Adobe, TIFF and PSD are of large size and could not be uploaded without timeout. GIFF format has low photo quality.
• Photos larger than 10M and 4000 pixels in height and width cannot be uploaded. Photos larger than 2880x 2880 pixes will be shrunk after editing.
  

Here is the screen shot and tools available online for you to use with photos/images uploaded on Photoshop Express website:

• Crop & Rotate:Turn it, straighten it, crop out the background.


• Auto Correct:Automatic, one-click, optimal lighting and contrast adjustment.


• Exposure:Change the brightness of the photo.


• Red-Eye Removal:Removes red eyes caused by some camera flashes.


• Touchup:Remove scratches and other imperfections.


• Saturation:Ramp up the colors to blinding brightness, dampen them down to black and white, or anywhere in between.


• White Balance:Ever notice how people look different inside an office with the ugly fluorescent tubes, as opposed to outside on a bright sunny day? Adjust the white balance and you change the type of lighting in the photo.


• Highlight:The brightest parts of a photo are the highlights. This control lets you brighten or darken just the brightest part of the photo, without affecting the darker parts (we call those the shadows).


• Fill Light:If you take a shot facing into the sun, your subject can end up too dark due to the camera’s automatic exposure adjustment. Fill Light brightens the dark area without overbrightening the background.


• Sharpen:It’s like putting in your contacts. Suddenly everything comes more into focus.


• Soft Focus:It’s like taking your contacts out. Soft Focus creates a subtle blur for artistic effect.


• Hue:This one changes all the colors in a photo at once.


• Black & White:Control how the colors are converted when you change a photo to black and white.


• Tint:Imagine instead of black and white, you want red and white, or pale brown and white for that old Western look.


• Sketch:Makes any photo look like you drew it yourself.


• Distort:Stretch, twist, bulge specific areas of your photos.

Now to your question, about using personal tools and other goodies you have on your local machine, apart from above things I do not find any option to upload those tools.

Adobe says that "Photoshop Express is not an application on your computer so you can use it anywhere. If you want a copy of a photo on your computer, run your mouse over the photo to reveal the options menu at the bottom right. Open the menu and select Download, once you’re done editing."

So in short, you have to work with your images/photos online using Photoshop Express and offline using your all powerful complete Photoshop.

Enjoy...