Blog (at) Mreza.Info

I`m back in Europe. I really had a great time in States. Microsoft Tech-Ed 2007 was great with some great presentations.

Tech-Ed Party was cool to in Universals Studios Park  with all rail coasters and Jurassic Park stuff. [<:o)]

Beside Tech-Ed I went to near Kennedy Space Center to Space Shuttle Launch. It`s a must see if you are going to Florida on launch date. [<:o)]

Kennedy Space Center is also great attraction. You can see NASA evolving trough years, get inside Space Shuttle Explorer, see Apollo rocket, Space Shuttle Engine, Moon RV and a lot more!

You can see the rest of pictures here.

We went to a Walt Disney World Resort - Magic Kingdom yesterday. It was fun and I felt like k kid in a »dream land«.[:P] It really is a dream place for every kid. I skipped kids stuff and went to a Space Mountain roller coaster. It sure was full of adrenaline ride.[<:o)]

I must see is for sure Monsters, Inc. It`s funny and live show. I wonder how many computers they use for real time rendering. Anyone know the answer?[I]

Here are some more pictures from Walt Disney World Resort - Magic Kingdom.

I just arrived to Orlando, Florida for Microsoft TechEd conference. I`ll post some more in the next days. Now it`s time for cruising around city :) Here is a view from hotel room.

I just found this short demo of new virtualization technologies in Longhorn. It covers:

• Running virtual machines on Longorn Server Core
• 8-core virtual machine
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager
• and some tricks... like hot-add network adapter :)

We all know that Microsoft products such as Exchange Server 2007, SQL 2005 x64 can really benefit from x64 platform. But what about Active Directory? Similar to the limitations of Exchange Server 2003, Active Directory suffers from the 2GB virtual memory limit of 32bit operating systems. That`s not a problem for small AD deployments but it can be a real issue for large deployments with a LOT of objects. With large number of object it gets difficult to cache the Active Directory database and authentication requests and queries leads to excessive paging and a slowdown in performance.

So if you are planning or working with a large Active Directory deployments than go for x64 platform. Especially now when prices for 32 and 64bit platform are almost the same. [Y]

Let me quickly try to explain about 2GB memory limit in 32bit operating systems.  You probably all heard about the Windows 4GB memory limit. When talking about performance tuning and server sizing, people are quick to mention the fact that that an application on an 32bit Windows system can only access 4GB of memory.

What does that really means?

A 32 bit processor uses 32 bits to refer to the location of each byte of memory. 2^32 = 4.2 billion. That means a memory address that`s 32 bits long can only refer to 4.2 billion unique locations in memory (that`s 4GB of memory). (Source: Wikipedia)

In the 32bit Windows each application has its own »virtual« 4GB memory space. This 4GB memory space is distributed into two parts, with 2GB dedicated for kernel and 2GB for application usage. Each application has its own 2GB, but all have to share the same 2GB kernel space. Using the /3GB boot.ini switch is even worse in some cases (Terminal Server for example). This switch changes the amount of memory for application and kernel environment. It gives 3GB of memory for application environment and »only« 1GB of memory for kernel. But if you are using /3GB boot.ini switch for SQL Servers you can gain performance since it`s a memory-intensive application (and not kernel).

There is a difference when systems are booted using /PAE switch. Physical Address Extension (PAE) is an Intel provided memory address extension that enables support of up to 64GB of physical memory for application. PAE allows the most recent IA-32 processors to expand the number of bits that can be used to address physical memory from 32bits to 36bits trough support in the host operating system for applications using Address Windowing Extension (AWE) application programming interface (API). AWE enables programs to reserve physical memory as non-paged memory and then to dynamically map portions of the non-paged memory to the program`s working set of memory. This process enables memory-intensive programs, such as I already mentioned before (SQL – databases), to reserve large amounts of physical for data without having to be paged in and out of a paging file for usage. Instead the data is swapped in and out of the working set and reserved memory is in excess of the 4GB range.  Additionally, the range of memory in excess of 4GB is exposed to the memory manager and the AWE functions by PAE. Without PAE, AWE cannot reserve memory in excess of 4GB.

I`m really busy lately. I have some projects involving Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Beta 2 (Rapid Deployment Program). But I will talk about that some other time... What I can say for now is that Exchange 2007 really ROCKS (or FYDIBOHF23SPDLT if we take the name from New Exchange Admin Group [H])!

It`s not a new thing but a lot of people never saw it on Windows (but they are familiar with it from Unix or Novell).

So what is Access-based Enumeration?

Windows Server 2003 Access-based Enumeration makes visible only those files or folders that the user has the rights to access. When Access-based Enumeration is enabled, Windows will not display files or folders that the user does not have the rights to access. This download provides a GUI and a CLI that enables this feature.

You can download it from here: Windows Server 2003 Access-based Enumeration

Microsoft released beta version of Exchange 2007 documentation.

[This topic is pre-release documentation and is subject to change in future releases. Its current status is: Content Complete. Blank topics are included as placeholders.]

Welcome to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007! Exchange 2007 provides a reliable messaging system with built-in protection against spam and viruses, which provides people throughout your organization with anywhere access to e-mail, voicemail, calendars, and contacts from a wide variety of devices.

The technical documentation for Exchange 2007 consists of the following categories:

• Getting Started
• Planning and Architecture
• Deployment
• Operations
• Security and Protection
• Technical Reference
• Development

Documentation is available here.

These step-by-step guides provide instructions for deploying or migrating to Windows Vista. These guides also describe how to configure security, monitor performance, and manage printers.

Overview
These step-by-step guides will assist IT Professionals in deploying or migrating to Windows Vista. These guides will also provide step-by-step information on how to control device installation using Device Management and Installation (DMI) and manage ADMX files. There are also step-by-step guides to help you protect data using BitLocker Drive Encryption, to administer the TPM Security Hardware in a computer using Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Services, and to help deploy better-managed desktops and mitigate the impact of malware using User Account Control (UAC).

Download: Windows Vista Step-by-Step Guides for IT Professionals v2.9

My first post from Microsoft Office 2007 Word Beta 2. I like it... :)