I attended a one-day Microsoft training event about Server 2008 and IIS7. Looks like a great bunch of technology strides for the service provider space. If I had the money, I’d build a server and start selling it myself. But anyway. One thing that did occur to me was how far virtualisation has come along. The trigger for this was the fact that each of us was supplied with a laptop for the day loaded with three virtual servers. It made the practicals very straight-forward and it got me thinking.
You see a few years ago we didn’t have a digital camera but instead an APS one. We still have all hte negatives in the natty little cartridges. At the time we bought a Canon film scanner in order for us to scan straight from negatives. I needed to do just that the other day but Vista doesn’t like the scanner and Canon don’t seem bothered about it. So there I am. Stuck.
But I remembered VirtualBox. Virtualisation for free. So now I should be able to dig out an old Windows XP licence, build a virtual PC and run the old Canon software inside it. I’ll let you know how I get on.
And I do like IIS7. PHP on IIS7 fixes a few problems for me. Apache on WinXP is still a lot cheaper for my home setup. Next time I need to build a web server for a customer. Apache won’t be an automatic choice anymore. Have a look for yourself if you are interested.
