Monthly Archives: December 2009

What Is Windows Home Server

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If you have multiple PCs with increasingly large amounts of digital photography, music, video, and documents, then protecting, organizing, and connecting this digital media can be a challenging task. Help with managing your digital dilemmas has arrived and it is called: Windows Home Server.

Windows Home Server, is a home server operating system from Microsoft. Announced on 7 January 2007, at the Consumer Electronics Show by Bill Gates, Windows Home Server is intended to be a solution for homes with multiple connected PCs to offer file sharing, automated backups, and remote access. It is based on Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2.

That said many small business owners working from home have found it to be a very valuable system for their businesses!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMhWAg5aczY[/youtube]

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Windows Home Server features include:

# Centralized Backup – Allows backup of up to 10 PCs, using Single Instance Store technology to avoid multiple copies of the same file, even if that file exists on multiple PCs.
# Health Monitoring – Can centrally track the health of all PCs on the network, including antivirus and firewall status.
# File Sharing – Offers network shares for computers to store the files remotely, acting as a network-attached storage device. Separate categories are provided for common file types like Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos. The files are indexed for fast searching.# Printer Sharing – Allows a centralized print server to handle print jobs for all users.
# Shadow Copy – Takes advantage of Volume Shadow Copy Services to take point in time snapshots that allow older versions of files to be recovered. However, after introduction Microsoft has recommended not enabling shadow copies on HomeServer for unspecified reasons, and had not fixed the problem by September 2008.
# Headless Operation – No monitor or keyboard is required to manage the device. Remote administration is performed by using the Windows Home Server Console client software provided in the bundle. Also supports Remote Desktop connections to the server while connected to the same LAN.
# Remote Access Gateway – Allows remote access to any connected PC on the network over the Internet.
# Media Streaming – Can stream media to an Xbox 360 or other devices supporting Windows Media Connect.
# Selective Data redundancy – Guards against a single drive failure by duplicating selected data across multiple drives.
# Expandable Storage – Provides a unified single and easily expandable storage space, removing the need for drive letters.
# Extensibility through Add-Ins – Add-Ins allow third-party developers to extend the features and functionality of the server. Add-Ins can be developed using the Windows Home Server SDK, to provide additional services to the client computers or work with the data already on the server. Add-Ins can also be ASP.NET applications, hosted in IIS 6 running on WHS.
# Server Backup – Backs up files which are stored within shared folders on the server to an external hard drive.

Power Pack 1 for Windows Home Server was released 20 July 2008, Power Pack 2 was released 24 March 2009, and Power Pack 3 was released 24 November 2009.

Release of Windows Home Server V2 is reported to be sometime in 2010, although no firm release date has been reported.

Windows Home Server V2 will be built on the Windows Server 2008 R2 code base[1] (its predecessor having been built on Windows Server 2003) and will only support 64 bit hardware. Windows Home Server V2 will come in two editions, Standard and Premium. Microsoft has not commented on the feature differences between the two editions.

To read more about Windows Home Server go here:

www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

Regards

Marc Liron
Microsoft MVP
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Microsoft’s Latest Flash Memory Technology Now Available for License

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In response to widespread interest from consumer device-makers around the world, Microsoft Corp. is announcing a flexible licensing program for its Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) technology. The latest generation of Microsoft’s file system, exFAT delivers a significant leap forward in terms of the size of files that can be stored on a broad range of consumer electronic devices, and the speed with which they can be accessed. The exFAT technology is already being adopted by partners in the industry, and these manufacturers are using the licensing program to deliver a richer and more seamlessly integrated media experience for their customers.

“There has been an explosion in the use of rich audio and video files,” said David Kaefer, general manager of Intellectual Property Licensing at Microsoft. “exFAT is an ideal file system that delivers fast and reliable use of audio and video files. It is an important technology in Windows 7, and now that we are licensing this technology broadly to the industry, we want to encourage and support partners to build products that also contain this technology.”

# exFAT is the modern version of its predecessor, the FAT system, and greatly expands the size of files that flash memory devices can handle. The exFAT file system not only facilitates large files for use of audiovisual media, it enables seamless data portability and an easy interchange between desktop PCs and consumer electronic devices. In specific terms, the exFAT file system does the following:

# Enables future growth in media capacities, increasing support from 32 GB up to 256 TB

# Handles more than 4,000 RAW images, 100 high-definition (HD) movies, or 60 hours of HD recording in a single directory

# Speeds up file saves of Secure Digital Extended Capacity (SDXC) cards to achieve their full 300MBps speed using modern storage allocation techniques

# Supports interoperability with future desktop operating systems

Provides an extensible format, including OEM-definable parameters to customize the file system for specific device characteristics

“Consumers want a richer media storage experience, and we chose the exFAT file system for our SDXC memory card specification because of its incredible potential,” said James Taylor, president of the SD Association. “The exFAT file system supports large volumes, large files and better contiguous on-disk layout, which supports the SD Association’s plans for the SDXC specification to provide consumers with quicker transfer speeds, support for very large files and seamless portability among devices. We look forward to incorporating the technology into our products.”

Microsoft’s Commitment to IP Collaboration

Microsoft offers flexible intellectual property (IP) licensing programs that give companies access to many of the foundational technologies in its own products, allowing those companies to build devices, applications and services that work seamlessly with each other. Microsoft has entered into exFAT licensing agreements with several leading companies including Sony, Canon and Sanyo. In addition, SanDisk Corp., as a member of the SD Association and the Memory Stick standard, has endorsed the adoption of the exFAT file system for use in the new extra capacity storage media.

More information about Microsoft’s exFAT licensing programs is available at

http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing

Regards

Marc Liron
Microsoft MVP

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Hotmail Quick Facts

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Windows Live Hotmail is a gigantic service in all dimensions. Here are some of the highlights:

# Is a worldwide service, delivering localized versions of Hotmail to 59 regional markets, in 36 languages.

# They host well over 1.3 billion inboxes (some users have multiple inboxes)

# Over 350 million people are actively using Hotmail on a monthly basis (source: comScore, August 2009).

# They handle over 3 billion messages a day and filter out over 1 billion spam messages – mail that you never see in your inbox.

# They are growing storage at over 2 petabytes a month (a petabyte is ~1 million gigabytes or ~1000 terabytes).

# They currently have over 155 petabytes of storage deployed (70% of storage is taken up with attachments, typically photos).

# They are the largest SQL Server 2008 deployment in the world (they monitor and manage many thousands of SQL servers).

# All in all they keep four copies of your data on multiple drives and servers to minimize the chance of data loss due to a hardware failure.

# Thousands of servers monitor service health, transactions (for example, sending an e-mail) and system performance for customers all over the world.

# They have a round-the-clock response center team that watches over our global monitoring systems and takes action immediately when there is problem. We have an escalation process that can engage our engineering staff within a few minutes when needed.

This should begin to give you a sense of the size and scope of the engineering that goes into delivering and maintaining the Hotmail service.

Regards

Marc Liron
Microsoft MVP

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