2008 – TechVirtuoso

Microsoft releases MySQL migration assistant

January 11th, 2010 at 2:50 PM No Comments Michael Stanclift

If the pending purchase of Sun (owner of MySQL) by Oracle scares you, and you’re looking to get your data out of MySQL before it gets eaten up by that other evil empire, then Microsoft has a tool for you.

They’ve released a test version of their new migration assistant to help database administrators make the change over. There is a version for both SQL 2005 and for SQL 2008 or SQL Azure. The tool provides an assessment of migration efforts as well as automates schema and data migration from MySQL to SQL Server. The tool will migrate any MySQL 4.1, 5.0 or 5.1 database.

Microsoft makes other migration assistants available for Oracle, Access, and a variety of other database formats, so this new tool is not unprecedented. It is however the first time it has made tools for the open-source MySQL available.

Changes in Windows Server 2008 R2

January 6th, 2010 at 5:20 PM No Comments Michael Stanclift

Microsoft has posted a little bit of light reading, a document titled Changes in Functionality in Windows Server 2008 R2 that outlines exactly that, the differences between the R2 release and the original 2008 release. It only weighs in at 1.1MB and 211 pages. You can grab it from the Microsoft Download Center in Microsoft Word format or browse the document online through Technet.

Topics such as new features in Active Directory, DNS (including DNSSEC), Group Policy, iSCSI, IIS, clustering, Windows Deployment Server and many other elements are all covered in great detail. If you’re looking at a server wondering if you’d see any significant benefit to upgrading, other then getting the latest guts of Windows, this is a helpful guide.

Windows Server 2008 was released in February 2008, followed by R2 which was released in October 2009. R2 is Microsoft’s first 64-bit only operating system release and is based on many of the same core programming as Windows 7.

Microsoft to drop support for Windows 2000 next July

September 17th, 2009 at 11:01 PM 1 Comment Michael Stanclift

Windows_2000_logo Windows administrators, mark your calendar for the drop dead date to get those old servers upgraded. Microsoft has outlined July 13, 2010 as the date Windows 2000 will no longer be supported by Microsoft. There are already a variety of security threats in the wild where Microsoft has said they will not be releasing updates to protect Windows 2000 because they say it is not feasible. After next July, no support or new updates (except for online self-help) will be available.

These changes were posted by Crissy House, the Windows Server operations manager, on their team’s blog.

House also announced that there would be no more service packs for Windows 2003 or Windows 2003 R2. Both 2003 releases will move to extended-support on July 13, 2010, which means only security updates will be published for these operating systems. Non-security hotfixes developed during this phase will be provided only to customers who enroll in Extended Hotfix Support (EHS).

Microsoft released Windows Server 2000 in February 2000, Windows Server 2003 was released in April 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 was released in February 2006. In February 2008, Microsoft released Windows Server 2008 which was developed along side Windows Vista, but will quickly supplant it with Windows Server 2008 R2 which was developed along side Windows 7 and will be released along side the client OS on October 22, 2009.

Windows Server 2008 R2 will only be avaliable in x86-64 and Itanium editions, so administrators needing to run 32-bit implementations of 2008 will need to use the original 2008 release.