Installed SharePoint as a Google like search engine for documents on filers. Configuring it as a stretched farm (servers in multiple sites) with a SQL backend. This is overkill for a search site, but makes it possible to failover SharePoint to DR site an will be useful if it’s used as a doc library in future, or for SQL 2014 data analytics. Also SharePoint automatically shares the indexing work between servers in a farm.

Some of our the desktop hardware used by researchers was getting to end of life. Simulations within MATLAB required more RAM. Our desktops ground to a halt when simulations exceeded physical RAM and the OS began swapping pages of memory to disk. The desktops had 16GB and 32GB of RAM but researchers wanted 64GB. Upgrading desktops to 64GB RAM would cost £3000 per PC. £500 for RAM and £2500 for Workstation class hardware (Intel Xeon required to accommodate >32GB RAM) To pick a new MATLAB desktop hardware platform I profiled the application using SysInternal Process Monitor to expose how the app used CPU, RAM and the Network interface.

The Microsoft Migration and Assessment Planning (MAP) tool was originally designed to help you plan your migration to HyperV. But the reports it generates are also very useful for the annual Microsoft licensing true-ups. https://www.microsoft.com/map https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7826 It can now audit Linux too (with a view to virtualising it on HyperV/Asure) http://blogs.technet.com/b/mapblog/archive/2013/01/29/determine-linux-machine-readiness-to-move-to-a-windows-azure-virtual-machine-using-the-map-toolkit.aspx Next time you need to gather data for Microsoft licensing, check out The Microsoft Migration and Assessment Planning (MAP) tool.

Deploying VMs from templates harks back to the bad old days of disk imaging. But using “baremetal templates” ensures your virtual hardware configuration is consistent (choice of NIC, choice of array controller, disk is thin provisioned etc..). Then make a baremetal template that boots straight into WinPE for unattended OS deployment. Then you get consistent VM hardware config without maintaining a distributing OS disk images. Create VM template or factory image with WinPE on harddisk Create VM with required virtual hardware configuration

The traders with 6 screens and two machines each needed a more elaborate VDI system (see my rgs post). But for the back office, with a mere two screens each, I deployed VMware Horizon View. I’ve upgraded though View 3, 4 and 5 and expect to upgrade to View 6 soon. We have mixture of HP thin clients and repurposed PCs (Vmware view client as shell). With a little VDI optimisation Windows 7 will work great in a VDI environment.