System Center Guide

Microsoft is poised to become VMware Inc.’s No. 1 competitor in the vitalisation space in 2008, according to a judge for the Data Protection category. Although Microsoft does not currently have the best data protection product on the market, SearchServerVirtualization.com judges selected Data Protection Manager 2007 for the Gold award in this category because it offers a vertical, end-to-end, managed solution for vitalisation deployments and because it’s the easiest to manage and integrate with existing data centre software.

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For those of you that haven’t updated your Windows Server 2000 MSCE or MCSA, you have two very big reasons to hit the books this week.

First, the two upgrade exams required for bringing your MCSE/MCSA 2000 up-to-date with Windows Server 2003 certification are both expiring on March 31, 2008.

Also, Second Shot offer, which allows an examinee to re-take a failed exam at no additional charge, is set to expire on January 31st.

So, if you’ve been dragging your feet on updating your MCSE, now might be the time to pull an all-night cram session.

Remember, the Second Shot offer requires pre-registration and you’ll have to take your first exam before Jan. 30th.

Good luck!

I’m having some difficulty getting the openSUSE Live CD (v10.3) to boot properly in my Virtual Server 2005 environment. It keeps locking up at during the Kiwi CD Boot-System at the point creating device nodes with udev. I’ve tried every available video mode option without success. If anyone has any suggestions (or perhaps a simpler Linux distro to use with Virtual Server and Operations Manager) please let me know using the contact me or comments below.

Thanks,

Duncan

Last Month was quite busy around here with the holidays and such, but Microsoft kept themselves busy as well. The following management packs were released or updated in the month of December 2007:

Microsoft SQL Server 2000/2005 Management Pack (v6.0.6247.5)

12/21/2007 - The SQL Server 2000/2005 Management Pack monitors Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.

System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 MP for SC Operations Manager 2007 (v1.0)

12/14/2007 - With the DPM Management Pack, an administrator can centrally monitor the state of data protection and recovery for multiple DPM servers and protected computers. The Management Pack also monitors key health and performance indicators on DPM servers.

SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit (v.2.0)

12/7/2007 - The SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit helps you manage Microsoft® SharePoint® environments of all sizes with two new management packs for System Center Operations Manager 2007: Windows® SharePoint Services 3.0 Management Pack and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Pack.

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 (v2.0)

12/7/2007 - This management pack is part of the Sharepoint Monitoring Toolkit. The SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit helps you manage Microsoft® SharePoint® environments of all sizes with two new management packs for System Center Operations Manager 2007.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 (v2.0)

12/7/2007 - This management pack is part of the Sharepoint Monitoring Toolkit. The SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit helps you manage Microsoft® SharePoint® environments of all sizes with two new management packs for System Center Operations Manager 2007.

Looking into Microsoft’s new Hyper-V virtualisation option? You may want to confirm your hardware is compatible first. Check out the Release Notes online for a list of supported x64 processor-based systems with hardware-assisted virtualisation and hardware data execution protection.

Looks like I’m out of the running for the time being as my new Dell XPS is only 32-bit and my HP Pavilion, while 64-bit, does not support the other requirements.

Hyper-V Release Notes:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/4/8/e48d5cff-53d2-4eed-85bf-4af50e25b78c/relnotes.htm

I’m happy to announce that I’ve just received notification that my MVP status has been renewed for a 6th consecutive year!

I only hope that in the New Year I can continue to live up to the high standards of this Microsoft award programme. Should you have any questions or comments regarding the System Center product family, please feel free to send them my way and I’ll get it to the right folks.

My wife, Amanda, and I will be leaving for Rome, Italy tomorrow – returning just in time to pick up Bronagh from the kennel and make the trip to Northern Ireland to spend Christmas with my family there. So, I wanted to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year! I’ll post plenty of photos of Rome to our Flickr site. Next time you hear from me should be in the Year 2008!

PS’SOFT ANNOUNCES ASSET AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT SUITE: “PS’Soft, a global provider of IT asset and service management solutions, today announced the general availability of its Asset and Service Management Suite which integrates the rich asset inventory data collected by Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. PS’Soft Asset Management solution integrates with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 to deliver rich end-to-end software license management capabilities. Integration with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 enables PS’Soft to address the needs of a vast user base of Microsoft System Center customers. “

 

Things Discovered During System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SMS v4) Installation

 

1. SMS v4 requires Windows Server 2003, SP12. Admin console requires Windows XP, SP2

3. Customers who install SMS 4.0 Beta 1 with SQL Server 2000 will have to migrate to SQL Server 2005 before upgrading to SMS 4.0 Beta 2.

4. If you are upgrading from SMS 2003, you must convert your site to advanced security prior to running Setup.

5. Cross-forest spanning of SMS sites is an unsupported configuration in v4. If you require multiple SMS sites in multiple Active Directory forests, each forest must have at least one primary site.

6. Installation requires MMC 3.0 to continue.

7. .NET Framework 2.0 is also required for setup to continue.

 

 

BDD 2007 Beta Updated for Windows Vista RC1

 Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 Beta 2 is now available for download on Microsoft Connect. BDD 2007 provides end-to-end guidance and automation for large-scale deployment of Microsoft® Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.