System Center Guide

As the old saying goes, the only constant is change. This holds true for the folks in Redmond. Looks like at the start of the 2011 fiscal year, the Forefront team will become part of the System Center development team. Specifically, the endpoint protection team will be part of the STB’s Management and Services Division overseen by Brad Anderson. More information is available from the link below. What are your thoughts on this? Post a comment to share your thoughts.

http://redmondmag.com/articles/2010/05/28/microsoft-reshuffling-server-and-tools-org.aspx

The Service Manager product group annouced yesterday evening that they’ve hit a major milestone with the RC of the product. Read all about what’s made its way into the build on there blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/servicemanager/archive/2010/03/03/system-center-service-manager-2010-release-candidate-released.aspx

ST. PAUL, MN–(Marketwire – March 3, 2010) – Shavlik Technologies, LLC, the market leader in simplifying and automating critical IT operations, today announced the Shavlik SCUPdates™ catalog which delivers update information from multiple vendors — like Adobe or Apple — to Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). More and more organizations today are leveraging the power of SCCM to assess, deploy and update Windows systems. By using the Shavlik SCUPdates catalog, SCCM users now have a single workflow for deploying updates for both Microsoft and non-Microsoft applications.

Read the full press release

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

Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Center (DIT-SC), a forthcoming Microsoft provided Solution Accelerator for optimizing data center operations, appears to be raising more questions than it’s answering. Formerly known as the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Enterprises (DDCT-E), the renamed solution is meant to provide a free, partner-extensible framework for creating agile, virtualized infrastructures. Based on some currently available blog entries and data sheets, here’s what we know about DIT-SC now:

• It’s going to be free (no word on support yet)
• Its usefulness is likely going to depend on the partner adoption rate and extensions they make available
• Largely based on PowerShell for automating data center operations
• It will be available the first half of 2010
• Includes self-service user/admin portals
• Integrates with System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Like I said, there’s not a lot of information about this yet. But, I’m sure more information will be made available at the Microsoft Management Summit. In the meantime, I’d encourage to visit the following resources:

DIT Homepage
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/private-cloud.aspx

Dynamic Data Center Alliance Team Blog
http://blogs.technet.com/ddcalliance/default.aspx

DIT Data Sheet
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/D/3/DD35D5A7-1B78-4277-BCB6-0027A0196775/Datasheet_DIT-SC_Jan2010.docx

DIT-SC FAQ
http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/D/3/DD35D5A7-1B78-4277-BCB6-0027A0196775/FAQ_DIT-SC_Jan2010_updated.docx

Get best practices and end-to-end solutions for managing your virtual environment and virtualizing your mission-critical apps.

Microsoft Virtualization represents a game changing opportunity for businesses to cost effectively deliver application availability like never before. Leveraging Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, Failover Clustering and System Center along with partner capabilities in servers, storage, provisioning and replication, Microsoft delivers end-to-end solutions to keep your users happy and productive.

Participate in in-depth training sessions, meet premier virtualization technology vendors in the virtual expo hall, network with your peers, and get your questions answered – and do all of this directly from your computer, for free, with no registration fee! Whether you’re new to virtualization or you’ve been deploying in production, this in-depth virtual event produced by Windows IT Pro will provide all you need to know around the best way to virtualize Microsoft applications like SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange on highly resilient virtual infrastructure. We’ll provide detailed information about:

• Best practices for virtualizing Microsoft applications to ensure performance and availability
• Tips and tools for local high availability in virtual environments
• Architectures for Microsoft Site Recovery Solutions delivering disaster recovery for application hosts and data

Don’t wait! Please join us for this exclusive online conference! Get solutions from independent virtualization experts and Microsoft partners. Improve performance with highly available applications in virtual environments.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=363323459991&ref=nf

I have to admit that I’m a bit shocked by the Webwire press release from Fujitsu today. The release promotes Fujitsu’s new virtualization offering for the SMB market. Naming it “My very first Hyper-V” may not have been the most creative, but at least the technology behind it is compelling. Based on Fujitsu PRIMERGY x86 servers and ETERNUS DX disk storage systems, this hardware and software combination provides a flexible, expandable platform for introducing a new virtualized IT infrastructure built on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and managed by Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

Could you or your customers benefit from this appliance based, Microsoft-centric approach to virtualization? Who do you think will be the next big vendor to jump on-board?

Read the full press release here.

I managed to find this little snipplet from a Redmond Magazine article recently posted. It contains some interesting insights into new tools being made available for managing data center virtualization with System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Hyper-V.

The Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Enterprises (DDCT-E) is scheduled to be released during the first half of 2010. It aims to address servers, networks and storage as a single set of available resources in the same pool, thereby reducing idle time. Automation through batch creation and provisioning of VMs is the key to the automation of the Microsoft environment. The focus is on automation of provisioning and proper tracking of those deployed resources. Microsoft provides a self-service portal along with role-based access control. Tracking and chargeback reports are also available. DDCT-E will be free, but it integrates with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, which carry steep price tags. Microsoft finds itself on the cusp of big developments in the private cloud, as well as in hybrid cloud models, but it hasn’t done much yet in the way of shipping products.

Pretty interesting stuff, uh? How would you vision using this toolset within your organization?

This lab is intended for IT Professionals who would like to deliver virtual desktop computers using Microsoft Hyper-V Server, Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Citrix XenDesktop. Users will work through the steps to simulate deploying multiple virtual desktops, and will first capture a reference image using the Citrix Provisioning Server for Desktops.

Next, the user will verify that the computer can be booted from a diskless client computer. The user will create multiple virtual machines using the reference computer as a template.

Finally, the user will use the Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller and System Center Virtual Machine Manager to create a group of virtual desktops and deploy them to end devices. At the end of this lab, the user will have worked through all the steps required to implement Citrix XenDesktop using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Microsoft Hyper-V Server.

https://cmg.vlabcenter.com/default.aspx?moduleid=281742e3-2613-42da-bd58-2c3578f039b4