Book excerpt: Virtualize mission-critical Microsoft applications How do you safely deploy Tier 1 apps in virtual environments? In this in-depth guide, VMware insiders Charles A. Windom, Hemant Gaidhani, and Alex Fontana show you how. Focusing on Microsoft applications, they guide you step by step through a Proof of Concept for virtualizing Windows Server, Active Directory, Internet Information Services, Exchange Server, SQL Server, SharePoint Server, and Remote Desktop Services—all on the VMware vSphere 4 platform. You'll find out what to consider for each application before you virtualize it, and learn how to perform VM backup using VMware Data Recovery, Windows patch management using VMware Update Manager, application performance monitoring using VMware Appspeed, and more. Topics include: A Thorough Overview of VMware vSphere 4 Infrastructure Services Application Services Management Services (part of VMware vCenter Server) Virtualizing Windows Server 2008 Choose virtual hardware and learn how to add sufficient CPU and memory Run Microsoft Windows Server 2008 as a guest inside the vSphere environment Protect your applications and data and deliver high availability using Failover Clustering and Windows Network Load Balancing Virtualizing Other Microsoft Applications Active Directory Internet Information Services 7.0 Exchange Server 2007 and 2010 SQL Server 2005 and 2008 SharePoint Server 2007 Remote Desktop Services 2008 R2