Microsoft is starting a new Beta program called Infrastructure Planning and Design that is part of the company's Solution Accelerators group. According to Microsoft, the Infrastructure Planning and Design guides are the next version of Windows Server System Reference Architecture. The guides in this series are expected to help clarify and streamline design processes for Microsoft infrastructure technologies wher Microsoft is starting a new Beta program called Infrastructure Planning and Design that is part of the company’s Solution Accelerators group. According to Microsoft, the Infrastructure Planning and Design guides are the next version of Windows Server System Reference Architecture. The guides in this series are expected to help clarify and streamline design processes for Microsoft infrastructure technologies where each guide plans to address a unique infrastructure technology or scenario. All guides share a common structure including: Definition of the technical decision flow through the planning process. Listing of decisions to be made and the commonly available options and considerations. Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity and other characteristics. Framing decisions in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive alignment with the appropriate business landscape. The Infrastructure Planning and Design Beta Program is ongoing and will showcase multiple Beta release waves to support virtualization and Windows Server 2008 technologies in the coming months. Future plans will extend the architectural guidance to additional Microsoft operating system and software technologies. The first two guides look at Microsoft’s SoftGrid application virtualization technology and the company’s hypervisor virtualization technology found in Windows Server 2008, Windows Server Virtualization (Viridian). The next guide in the series will cover Microsoft’s Terminal Services technology. SoftGrid Application Virtualization Guide (37 Pages) Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization is the only virtualization solution on the market to deliver applications that are never installed, yet securely follow users anywhere, on demand. It dramatically improves IT efficiencies, enables much greater business agility, and provides a superior end-user desktop experience. The Infrastructure Planning & Design Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization guide discusses when to use standalone mode and connected mode for application distribution. It assists designers in the infrastructure planning process for SoftGrid by providing a clear and concise workflow of the decisions and tasks required for each method. This guide enables you to plan the infrastructure required for meeting your application virtualization service goals. Windows Server Virtualization Guide (50 Pages) A virtualized computing environment can improve the efficiency of your computing resources by utilizing more of your hardware resources. Windows Server virtualization enables you to create a virtualized server computing environment using a technology that is part of Windows Server 2008. The Infrastructure Planning and Design: Windows Server Virtualization guide discusses Microsoft virtualization options using Windows Server virtualization in Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1. The guide explains design considerations at critical decision points and helps plan for an optimized server virtualization infrastructure architecture to meet organizational goals for performance and consolidation. You can join the Beta program and download these guides by going to Microsoft’s Connect Web site, here and then click Invitations.When prompted for an invitation code, enter: IPDM-QX6H-7TTV Software Development