System Center Guide

The Atlanta Southeast Management User Group and System Center Virtual User Group invites you to attend the next SMUG meeting scheduled for March 5th, 2010 for a day of great presentations, discussions, and networking.

Because this is a hybrid user group meeting there are two ways to register.
1. If you would like to use Live Meeting to attend the meeting remotely, register here http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=146192
2. If you would like to go to the Alpharetta, GA Microsoft Campus to attend the meeting please register here, this will help us with planning for lunch requirements. https://www.usergroupsupportservices.com/UGEventView.ugss?EventID=8775

DATE & TIME
March 5, 2010
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM Eastern Time Zone

Lunch provided by Prowess http://www.prowesscorp.com

“At Prowess Consulting, we focus on providing technology marketing, technical writing, IT infrastructure, and managed services to Fortune 500 companies. We make businesses stronger by delivering the right information at the right time. We are trusted by the largest organizations to deliver results through innovative and customized solutions.”

THE AGENDA
9:45 AM 10:00 AM Opening and Introductions
10:05 AM 11:00 AM Prowess Presentation
11:05 AM 11:50 AM Introduction to Microsoft App-V and the Enterprise
11:55 AM 12:40 PM SCCM R3 Features and Benefits
12:45 PM 1:00 PM Break
1:05 PM 1:50 PM Ed Wilson Powershell Best Practices
1:55 PM 2:40 PM MP Authoring Resource Kit
2:45 PM 3:40 PM What is SCUP and How Do I Use It?
3:35 PM 4:00 PM Closing

PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES
Steve Bucci
Steve is a Senior Support Engineer with Microsoft System Center Support in Charlotte, NC. He supports Application Virtualization (App-V), Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), and Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). He has worked for Microsoft for the past 8 years.

Brian Shaw
Brian has been with Microsoft the past 2.5 years and is currently holding the position of Senior Support Escalation Engineer supporting SMS, Configuration Manager (SCCM), and WSUS. Brian has been supporting SMS for well over 10 years, starting with SMS 1.2. Brian is currently the CSS Beta Engineer supporting the development and release of SCCM R3.

Ed Wilson
Ed is a senior consultant at Microsoft and a well-known scripting expert. He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer who delivers popular scripting, networking, and administration workshops to Microsoft employees and customers worldwide. He’s written several books on Windows scripting, including Microsoft Windows Powershell Scripting Guide, Microsoft Windows Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide, and Microsoft VBScript Step by Step. Ed holds more than 20 industry certifications, including MCSE and CISSP.

Cory Delamarter
[Unavailable at this time.]

Jason Lewis
Jason is a Program Manager on the System Center Configuration Management SE Team at Microsoft. He’s been with the team for over 5 years working on products such as Systems Management Server 2003 SP2 and R2, including the Custom Updates Publishing Tool (CUPT), Inventory Tool for Custom Updates (ITCU), System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP), and Configuration Manager 2007 R2. Jason also authors a blog at http://blogs.technet.com/jasonlewis where he covers products that he’s working on including “FYI” and “How To” topics.

Thank you for your support!
Scott Moss
Microsoft MVP (Operations Manager)
Vice President Atlanta SMUG http://www.atlsmug.org
President System Center Virtual user Group http://systemcenterusergroup.org
Posted By Scott Moss

Microsoft has made available for download Windows-7-friendly versions of two of its Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) tools as part of its campaign to get more businesses to move to Windows 7, and soon, Office 2010.

Released on February 22 is the final version of Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.6, as well as the near-final Release Candidate of the Service Pack 1 build of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). These two tools ultimately will be part of MDOP 2010, the first of two MDOP releases that Microsoft officials are expecting to roll out in calendar 2010. (Today, MED-V 1.0 SP1 is being released simultaneously with MDOP 2010, as it is not yet in final form.)

MDOP is a bundle of various deployment tools that Microsoft sells to Software Assurance customers only. At the end of last year, when it added a previously-unscheduled MDOP 2009 R2 release to its line-up, Microsoft announced its intention to release MDOP 2010 in the first calendar quarter of this year.

Rest the rest of the article

I recently came across this site, FreeRice.com, which I thought it is a very nice and creative means of helping to end the world hunger. This is how it works: you go to FreeRice.com and play their vocabulary game, for each question answered correctly 10 grains of rice will be donated by the sponsors to help people living in poverty. It is a win-win situation – you get to play the game, FreeRice get the traffics, advertisers get their exposure, and people in need get the free rice. If you like the idea, please help to spread out the word. For more details, please read their FAQ page.

Tony Scott will join the ranks of Britney Spears, Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan as this past Disney performer makes IT big with Microsoft. In his new “role”, Scott will “act” as “lead” for the 4,000+ Microsoft IT organisation worldwide.

Read the press release

Entisys Solutions, Concord, Calif., acquired Agile360, Irvine, Calif., for an undisclosed amount. The deal closed on December 31.

http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=6884

Well, some of you may have noticed my activity level drop off this week. That was due to the overwhelming pressures of having to prepare for the Brandon Consulting System Center Practice Launch at the Guinness Store House on Thursday. I had visited the locale on several previous visits to Ireland, but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined coming back to the Store House to launch the practice that I would be managing while living here.

Most visitors to the Store House would completely overlook the 3rd floor business centre that has a number of rooms available to rent for private occassions. Similarly, the 7th floor Gravity Bar (a glass-enclosed circular bar that provides a 360-degree view of Dublin and the end-point for the Store House tour) is also available for letting during the evening. This provided an excellent view of the city at night.

The launch event included 5 sessions held throughout the day, with myself delivering the lion’s share of 3 sessions. We kicked off with Bill O’Brien, Business Group Lead – Server and Tools for Microsoft Ireland, discussing Core Infrastructure Optimisation. This was followed by my three presentations on System Center Operations Manager, Configuration Manager and Essentials. We wrapped up with a brief discussion about the System Center licensing, presented by our licensing partner, Micro Warehouse.

In all, we had fantastic attendance and overhelming responses to our offer for a whiteboard session with prospective customers. At the end of the day, I sat exhaustively in awe of what had just transpired: I had just finished launching my new practice at the Guinness Store House. How amazing is that?

It’s been pointed out to me that in my previous post I had misspelled the word “utilisation“. While on the surface to an American reader this may appear an accurate statement, my blogging efforts will now focus on localising the content in proper “Queen’s English” – the primary business language of the European community.

This change will be most noted in English words containing the letter Z (pronouced as Zed, not Zee) such as organise and realise but also in many other word forms. Examples may include favourite, localise, areoplane, fillet, mum, and orthopaedics. Wikipedia offers an excellent reference page for anyone seeking to improve their “English”. It can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences.

I will note, however, that there will be one deviation from the commonly localised content posted here and that relates to the term System Center. In Queen’s English this would be referenced as System Centre. However, Microsoft has chosen not to localise the System Center brand and as such it will be represented throughout the world as it is in America. Otherwise, expect my post to be in proper English.

Several months back I posted the availability of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 virtual labs on Microsoft’s website. However, after recently revisiting the site I noticed that the product groups have been very busy preparing additional labs for the entire System Center suite. In addition to a slew of labs available for SMS 2003, there are a few others available for Configuration Manager 2007, plus three for Operations Manager 2007, two for Softgrid and one each for Capacity Planner and Essentials.

Check out the full array of offerings at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb539977.aspx

I received this today from a colleague at Dell. Please forward to any mid-sized companies that you may know.

Hi All

The enterprise design and usability group at Dell is looking to get out and learn more about systems management in medium-sized IT shops (around 100-500 employees or 20-250 servers) It doesn’t matter if you a Dell customer or not and this isn’t related to sales or marketing in any way.

Our goal is learn more about the key scenarios and pain points that sys admins in medium sized IT shops have, how they juggle roles, what tools they use, how we can make their lives easier, etc. We are looking for groups that will let about 2 usability guys come out on site, meet some people, and see what it’s like.

If you think your group would be interested, please contact ryan_west (@) dell (dot) com.

Sorry, did I forget to mention Symantec acquiring Vontu for $350M? Well, that one went live today as well. The takeover plunges Symantec headlong into the Data Loss Protection market and places even more competitive pressure on the likes of EMC and Websense.

SC Magazine’s website has the full coverage.