Product Description

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 shows how to use scripting to automate complex virtual environments. The book contains numerous scripting examples in VBScript, Visual Basic .NET and C#, and covers the automation of virtual machine creation and management. It shows software developers and network administrators how to programmatically set up virtual environments to rapidly build development and testing scenarios. The book also shows how to script entire data center virtualization environments to avoid scaling out with expensive hardware.

Advanced topics include automating Virtual Server with .NET, client-side automation with VMRC, event handling, and command-line scripts. The book also contains reference material on the Virtual Server COM API and the VMRC COM API.

This book expands on the topics covered in The Rational Guide To Managing Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 by the same author.

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

Includes all source code examples presented in the book as a Web download.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1027146 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-30
• Released on: 2006-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 222 pages

Review
"This book is a must read for technologists who are serious about virtualization." -- - James Ni, Group Product Manager, Windows Virtualization, Microsoft Corporation

"This book is a treasure. Readers will find their gateway for virtual infrastructures automation." -- - Alessandro Perilli, CISSP, MVP, IT Security and Virtualization Technology Analyst, virtualization.info

About 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.

Customer Reviews

Big Time Saver!!!
$15.00 well spent!! Once I was clear with the fundamentals of Virtual Server (see Managing Virtual Server by the same author), I needed to take it to the next step. I needed to be able to (through some simple scripting) create, deploy, and manage my Virtual Server environment. I mainly used VBScript so far, but I may move to VB.NET or C# at some point. This book is chock full of usable real world examples of common tasks that can (and should be) automated. I wish more tech books could be written as concise and full of usable information as this one.

Towards virtual datacenter automation
The Rational Guide to Scripting Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 is a great broadening of topics covered in The Rational Guide to Managing Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 from the unique perspective of scripting.

Written by the same author, its biggest win is approaching automation problems following topics arrangement of its twin book.

Chapters 1 and 2 cover basic concepts of server virtualization and product architecture itself, listing available languages for manipulating Virtual Server 2005 COM interfaces among VBScript, VB.NET or C#, VB 6.0.

Chapter 3 and 4 approaches scripting rules respectively with VBScript and .NET (with examples both in VB.NET and C#), detailing COM objects model and suggesting configuration of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 as development environment.

Chapter 5 teaches how to obtain most informations from virtual machines accessing Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) interface, exploring VirtualMachines and VirtualNetwork classes, and how to monitor performances accessing Windows Performance Monitor counters.

Chapters from 6 to 8 are the heart of the book, detailing automated management of virtual machines (Chapter 6), virtual disks (Chapter 7) and virtual networks (Chapter 8).
Frequent recaps to Virtual Server architecture are disseminated in these chapters, to refresh product knowledge.

Chapter 9 and 10 are dedicated to advanced concept like triggering scripts by specific virtual infrastructure events and automating Virtual Management Remote Console (VMRC) server and client operations.

Source code of book scripts is available only online for registered readers and it's really worth to download to avoid rewriting all the code and speedup learning.


Conclusion
In a young virtualization world where out-of-the-box datacenter automation is still a big missing but a most wanted capability this book helps you approaching Virtual Server 2005 scripting fundamentals to fill the gap.

While inappropriate for programming novices, this book, unique in its kind, is highly suggested as starting point for automating complex tasks and streamlining virtual infrastructure management. And considering both Virtual Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 are free, it's a cheap one to become more productive in small time.

Complete.
Good Automation Techniques for Virtual Server 2005. Admins who are good with code can make a good use of this book. A very good book. Value for sure.