Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Cookbook – Book Review

After reviewing the Packt Publishing books for two of the components for Microsoft Private Cloud – Configuration Manager and Service Manager now it is a time for a third component – Hyper-V.The book from Packt Publishing about Hyper-V is titled Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Cookbook. The book is authored by a well known MVP Leandro Carvalho.

The book consists of 9 chapters and about 300 pages. The chapters will walk you trough all the basic features of Hyper-V 2012 and to some of the advanced ones by also noticing what have been changed since the last version.. As every Cookbook from Pack Publishing Hyper-V features are presented as min-guides that you can follow in order to test the product my yourself. Of course before actually buying the book I suggest to prepare some test environment where you can follow the guides from it. That way the book will be more effective to you. I have tried most of the features in the new Hyper-V server but by reading the book I’ve managed to try a feature called Resource pools that I just haven’t paid so much attention before. As Windows Server 2012 heavily relies on PowerShell every example in the book that is executed trough GUI there is an separate example how to achieve the same trough PowerShell. So if you are not so PowerShell knowledgeable you can learn some tricks how to perform certain tasks for Hyper-V.

As a summary I can recommend this book to every beginner who has less or no experience with Hyper-V. Also if you are on some beginner or medium level with Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 and you want to learn and test the new features in Hyper-V 2012. You Can find the book in several online stores:

More about the book you can find by clicking on the image below:

Windows Server 2012 Essentials Management Pack

Another Management Pack from SCOM 2012 is released. This time if for the not so popular Windows Server 2012 Essentials. I was surprised that Microsoft is releasing such management pack but I guess there are companies that will need it. Download it from here.

Remember to read the guide.

Licenses, Licenses, Licenses…

Learning how products are licenses is a boring thing for most of the IT Professionals but are often facing situation where we need to advise a customer about licensing. If you want to learn more about licensing Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 and MS Private cloud there are 3 videos available on demand:

System Center 2012 Monitoring Pack for Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Remote Desktop Services

There is a new management pack on the horizon for SCOM 2012. Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Remote Desktop Services MP is based on Remote Desktop Services Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 which explains why in the guide of the new version SCOM 2007 is requirement even though in the download link it is stated that this MP is only supported in SCOM 2012. So somebody forget to change all references to the previous version of SCOM in the guide.

You can download the MP and the guide from here.

Despite the incorrect references in the guide remember to read it first before importing.