YouTube Tech Videos

Believe it or not, YouTube isn’t just a site full of America’s funniest home videos and shaky, bootleg concert clips. YouTube actually has many IT technology videos as well. Here are 10 of my favorite technical videos from YouTube. Now, the next time your boss catches you on YouTube, you can legitimately claim that you were researching a tech problem or learning about some new technology.

10. Virtualization . . . What’s the Big Deal?—In this video, Dell’s CTO, Kevin Kettler, presents a 10-minute tutorial covering the basics of virtualization. Kettler explains the difference between hosted virtualization and hypervisor-based virtualization, and also discusses some of the management concerns about using this hot technology. You can view this video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDiM19KShAA.

9. VMware Virtualization—In this short video from Dell and EMC, you can learn about the University of Maryland’s virtualization deployment using VMware’s ESX Server as the virtualization platform running on Dell and EMC hardware. Watch the VMware Virtualization video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg2sRV5ay08.

8. Installing MOSS—If you’re interested in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, you might want to check out this video from the Baltimore SharePoint Users Group. It tells you about MOSS setup requirements, then steps you through the initial setup of MOSS. You’ll find this video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hsMr5aIo4w.

7. Windows 2008 Server Core Configuration Part 1—Server Core is another hot topic for IT Pros. In this video, John Savill walks you through the commands that are typically required to set up Server Core. As a bonus, you’ll see how to install the update for Hyper-V support on the command-line based Server Core. You can view this video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSgtqweojTY.

6. Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Storage Options—DAS or SAN—In this 6-minute video, EMC’s Brian Henderson compares the management and performance aspects of using Exchange 2007 with DAS versus with a SAN. You can see this video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI1Pnu7fFVA.

5. TechEd 2008: Demonstration of SQL Server 2008—In this 6-minute video, David Campbell, a Microsoft Technical Fellow, shows off the new SQL Server Data Services and Microsoft’s new Sync Service that synchronizes SQL Server 2008 data with mobile devices. You can see this video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfzEZTiGNIc.

4. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Demo on Quad-Core Intel Xeon—If you’re interested in what Hyper-V looks like, you might want to watch this 4-minute video from Intel made at this year’s Microsoft Management Summit. This video demonstrates Microsoft’s new Hyper-V virtualization product and provides an overview of some of the most important Hyper-V features. You’ll find this video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y4lpaSyWMc.

3. Dell VMware VMotion Demo—VMware’s VMotion technology can move live virtual machines (VMs) between different host servers. Sound interesting? Then you might want to check out this Dell VMotion demo. This 4-minute video shows how VMotion can be used to move a VM to a new ESX Server host with no downtime. Check this one out at www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_TtHAgRy_s.

2. Steve Ballmer—Developers—This column is about You- Tube, so not everything can be serious. If you’ve ever wondered how the phrase “Developers! Developers! Developers!” got associated with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmar, look no further than this entertaining clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE.

1. TechEd 2008: Ballmer Bot takes the stage with Bill Gates— While on the topic of Steve Ballmer: Even though he wasn’t at this year’s Microsoft TechEd in Orlando, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a presence there. One of the high points of this year’s TechEd was the Ballmer Bot, which you can check out at www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHtFu-uE5Uk.