The Controller
Now we get to the meat of the matter. You want a virtual cluster, the first thing you have to do is create your own portable domain. Start with a plain vanilla install of Windows 2003 R2 Standard on a semi-default VM. (1 GB RAM, 2 cores, 2 NICs, 128GB dynamically expanding VHD file). I chose this because it had the smallest disk and memory footprint of any current supported Microsoft Server product. I created the VM with a single dynamically expanding VHD, one fixed 16 GB VHD, and two NICs. One NIC is connected to the outside world...
Along with a lot of my colleagues, I went to SQLSaturday #33 in Charlotte this last weekend. Overall a really good event, especially for a first-time organizer. There is some controversy over certain events where my name got mentioned so I thought I would clear the air.
Before I get to the core controversy, let's get the details out of the way.
The Microsoft Offices in Charlotte were an excellent venue for this event. I really appreciated the Microsoft employees that helped out by letting us in and out of normally secure areas. This is definitely above and beyond on their...