Microsoft's SolutionAccelerators series has updated its Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) Guide for its virtualization management solution: System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008. If you aren't already a member of the IPD beta, you might consider signing up and checking out these design guides. They can help you streamline your planning process by helping to define the technical decision flow Microsoft’s SolutionAccelerators series has updated its Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) Guide for its virtualization management solution: System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008.If you aren’t already a member of the IPD beta, you might consider signing up and checking out these design guides. They can help you streamline your planning process by helping to define the technical decision flow through your planning process and list the decisions to be made along with the commonly available options and considerations available to you. In this particular guide, you are led through the process of planning a Virtual Machine Manager 2008 infrastructure. And in doing so, the guide addresses the following fundamental decisions and tasks: Identifying the business and technical requirements for managing virtualization. Determining whether to integrate Virtual Machine Manager 2008 with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 and how to design that integration. Determining the number of Virtual Machine Manager servers the organization requires, including each server’s size, placement, and connectivity.The guide states: The project team should prioritize business objectives at the start of the project so that IT and business managers clearly understand and agree on them. Certain features require additional licensing or infrastructure costs. Before adding those features, the team should provide the extra cost information to the business so that it can understand the additional costs and make the best decision for the business. Virtual Machine Manager 2008 introduces the following new features: Support for Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008. Support for managing VMware ESX through VMware Virtual Center. Delegated administrators with user roles. Support for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters for Hyper-V. Resource calibration and optimization improvements.If you are planning on designing a Virtual Machine Manager implementation, check out this guide for some valuable assistance.To join and read this guide, visit the Infrastructure Planning and Design Beta on the Microsoft Connect Web site. Sign in using a valid Windows Live ID to continue to the Invitations page and then scroll down to Infrastructure Planning and Design — and you are on your way. Software Development