April 2009 - Posts
If you’ve been putting off registering for the Win 7 beta exam, you’re out of luck. A friend of mine just tried and got a “Promotion Code has been used the Maximum Number of Times”.
Shame on you for not jumping on it the day it opened.
Man, I wish that there were two or three of me here. No, what I need is a Time – Turner (sorry for displaying a bit of my Harry Potter geekerie there) so that I can attend about three sessions per time-slot. The stuff I saw today was great, and there were other things I wanted to see just as badly but couldn’t. Such is life at MMS. And also why they make the DVD.
Config Manager Case Studies
This was my favorite session last year, and this year did not disappoint. Rodney Jackson gave a non-stop list of tools, utilities, and case scenarios. There’s nothing like a real-world scenario to drive a point home. It was problem – diagnoses – fix, with great lists of things to look out for in different scenarios.
Tools mentioned included BitsAdmin, Netmon 3.1 One Click, Log Parser 2.2, Wfetch, and the great SCCM Client Center.
This deck will be downloaded, printed, and kept until next year’s sessions. Well done.
SC07 – GP Updates in Win7 and 2008R2
Another great, great session. There’s a slew of new policy settings for Win7 and 2008R2, but what’s really cool are the new tools. Group Policy extensions for Powershell! Imagine the possibilities! How about backing up only policies that have been changed in the last X days? Or generating a quick list of policies changed today?
And you want to make a bunch of geeks swoon? Show them a window that they can resize now but couldn’t before. Magic! Wonder!
I’d be remiss here not to plug the Group Policy Team blog, which our fine presenter might have mentioned once. Or fourteen times.
Tonight: the big Closing Party. My hopes are not high.
SY32 – Native Mode Config
Considering Native Mode? Don’t do it without going through the decks for this session and the session below. My main takeaways:
1. PKI deployment can be completely separated from Native Mode deployment. You can stand up PKI, get everything configured correctly, make sure everything is working and happy and everyone is getting their certs, THEN click the Native Mode button.
2. I’m recommending we bring someone in to do it. I don’t want to be PKI master and figure this out. Even though the docs are likely great and easy to follow, there appear to be so many little things and steps and caveats that I would much rather bring in someone who has cracked this nut before.
SY23 – Demystifying Native Mode
A great session, full of detail about PKI and Native mode. A must have deck ( and watch on the DVD) for those of us thinking of Native Mode. Also, confirmed my thinking that we should bring in a big PKI gun to do this.
Yikes. Today is a blur. Sorry for the incomplete quality of this post, but for some reason this was not a good day for me – and I actually feel better.
Keynote: Funny Guy is funny today. Way to go! Audience participation bits helped.
Application Compatibility Toolkit : Soon to be (or already is?) a free add-on to SCCM. This will leverage knowledge from the community, Microsoft, and your internal information to determine if an app is “Win7 ready”.
SCCM Sp2 will ship within 90 days of Win7 ship date. We may have heard this yesterday as well, but here it is again.
Slick demo of Service Manager and integrations with SCCM and SCOM. Also looks like Service Manager will be bundled with E-CAL, thereby making many help-desk software vendors start to sweat.
System Center Online Desktop Manager : an extension of WUS that will track additional things like AV sigs, inventory, etc. Future versions promise software deployment. This makes your management tool for available anytime, with role-based views as you set them up. I see this having real value for SMBs, but question enterprise adoption.
Sessions: I sat with Wally Meade all day, literally, going through various SCCM deployment scenarios. If you have not deployed SCCM yet you’ll want to catch this slide deck (and the sessions on DVD). I don’t think there’s anything Wally doesn’t know about SCCM / SMS, and he shows it in these sessions, covering deployment scenarios for infrastructure and client in great detail. Great sessions from a great presenter.
So I would be remiss to come to MMS and not try to corner the Citrix guys, in their big corner booth, over the debacle that is the Citrix Management Pack for Ops Manager.
Their response, after going through three different folks to finally get to someone who “knew”: It’s a supported product, and if you call for support we’ll get it working for you.
Me: But I’ve run across numerous blog posts from folks that just can’t get it to work, and there are many many counters available in perfmon in Citrix that you don’t surface in the MP. Is the MP and orphan stepchild? Because it sure feels like you’d rather we use your tools than SCOM.
Them: It’s a supported product. There’s a new version out for Xen 5.
Me: Yeah. Been there.
Them: It’s a supported product. Anything not currently in the MP would be a feature request.
So there you have it. Sometime in the next couple of weeks I’ll be on the phone with the fine folks at Citrix support, talking about the MP. Stay tuned.
SY07 – Advanced Software Updates Management for SCCM
Great session for those of us that struggle with updates in SCCM. Slides include breakdown of log files to view for various break / fix scenarios. Also great knowledge on deploying Forefront updates with SCCM, and the importance of scanning and how to control that. Well done.
SP01 – HP Insight Control Suite
I’m reserving judgment until I see the product. While full of content and all the info needed, the session contained no demo, just instructions to stop by the HP booth for a demo. That’s either a great way to drive folks to the booth or a great way to get fifty people not to see your product. As a current RDP / Advanced iLO customer, this product will likely make sense for us in the long term.
Like the keynote, this is one you should try and catch on the DVD. Lots and lots of info here. Highlights of sccm.next:
No more MMC!
Role – Based access into the console!
Really, really robust set of client health tools, including some auto-remediation stuff and great monitoring ability.
OSD – how about scheduled updates of images? Pick you image, your updates, and schedule the time. SCCM mounts the image, updates it, saves it back. Too cool.
Auto download and deploy of updates – you can customize SCCM to auto download updates and auto-deploy them based on a number of criteria. Virus def files were demonstrated.
A great session. It’s clear the the SCCM team cares about the user experience, whether it’s an admin or a secretary. In the coming months we’ll begin to see more and more features talked about. This is a significant upgrade that you’ll certainly want to lab up in beta.
They’ve invested a lot of time in usability studies to enhance the product. Bill Anderson always gives a great session, can’t wait for the keynote tomorrow where they’ll dig deeper. Stay tuned!
Walked into the giant keynote arena to the strains of “Sweet Child of Mine”, which made me long for the Guns and Roses of old, like it always does. I wondered if they were trying to say something about their management products with this song selection… but then “message in a bottle” came on, and it was clear they were just programming loud and fast to get us worked up.
In a minute, the Microsoft Funny Guy will come out to do his annual “show of hands” joke. I can’t wait.
Ok, Funny Guy starts out harsh, really struggles. No show of hands joke! Maybe tomorrow. Video is unfunny too. Too bad for him.
Right away we’re talking about the cloud with Bob Kelly, VP of Server & Business Tools. He tells us that clouds are delivered services that are reliable, predicable, and automated. The cloud is an operational expense, not a capitol one, which is something I hadn’t thought about before. It can shrink or grow to suit business needs.
Cloud Computing is not a massive revolution, but the next logical step in Dynamic IT.
Demo : VMM 2008 R2 Live Migration. Points out that a live migration can be automated based on any factor that Ops Manager can surface, including SLA’s and Distributed App models. A shot across VMWare’s bow.
Demo : Decoupling the app from the server in VMM. Applications get managed in the VMM library, and you can right-click for OS Upgrades that leave the App alone. Very cool.
Ops Manager 2007 R2 Releases within 30 days!
Tech Preview VMM Leveraging the Public Cloud: How about migrating your internal VM’s to a hosted cloud on the fly, all within the VMM console? Coming in VMM.next. An extremely compelling demo. And you can manage your public / private vm’s from within the same tool.
Launch of Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit for Hosters and Enterprises to leverage the above technology.
So for an overview, some of the best explanations of the cloud and how it might affect all of us that I’ve heard to date. At least three, maybe four direct shots at VMWare. Exciting stuff around public / private cloud federation. Great demos. Great Keynote!
You know who’s not here? IBM / Lenovo. Not a Platinum, Gold, or Silver sponsor, not even a booth in the expo. Granted it probably doesn’t mean anything other than the economy stinks for them, too, but I find it interesting that all of the other two of the “Big Three” (Dell, HP) managed to find the funds.
Anyone have any insight?
Thank <insert deity of your choice here> that they moved the Open Expo to the back hall. More room and you can actually walk three feet without either bumping someone or playing the waiting game. The food lines don’t completely snarl traffic, there are more spots to actually sit and eat and more buffet stations to be had. Well Done!
And the MyItForum Party Button line didn’t choke off the entire expo this year. W00t! As usual, I was not in enough of a hurry to score one.
Lots of new vendors this year, with a couple I’ve never heard of and a couple more I’ll be getting back to more in-depth later in the week (thereby upholding the second rule of geek conference-dom: Swag first, tech talk later).
I’ve got ask, though, what you think about Intrinsic’s show. Crazy, or crazy like a fox? They certainly caught your eye as you went by. The big thing for me is that if you are thinking of a massive desktop deployment, Intrinsic should be on your list of folks to talk to anyway. If you’ve never seen their Swimage product you are missing out on what may be the slickest imaging solution going.
And the poor folks at Novell. I walked by their booth and thought it was empty, unmanned and forlorn. Turns out you had to walk behind the booth to see any activity. I’ll stop by later in the week to see what’s up their sleeve this year, but mostly for old time’s sake. I occasionally dust of the old CNE cert and rail about NDS versus AD, but not so much anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I think they are doing what they’re doing well, and some of the Platespin acquisition stuff is pretty compelling. But we’re a M$oft shop and will be for the far foreseeable future.
A brief recap of today’s sessions.
IO14 – SCOM Advanced Concepts
Alert-based subscription now native in the console!
Override view now in the console!
Service – Level Monitoring built in, a bit easier to config.
And, BTW, if you haven’t played with it yet, R2 is a vast improvement.
IO16 – Authoring Management Packs for SCOM – Advanced
Lots of “Follow these directions” without a real understanding of why. The session is more of a “Here’s what you can do” versus “Understanding How”. Appropriately, a new multi day course was announced: 50231 “SCOM 2007: Advanced Management Pack Authoring (L400)”. All said, an important lab to understand if you are even remotely related to MP authoring.
YY05 – Implementing Desired Configuration Management in SCCM
Great lab, great instructor. Nearly every step of the lab was accompanied by a note, explaining what you were doing and why, and what the options were that you weren’t doing. Best session so far.
Instructor highlighted Silect.com. Their CP Studio makes DC MP’s easier to create by importing config’s from known entities (servers, workstations).
(DISCLAIMER : This, as with all session reviews, is just my opinion. It may be affected by things completely outside the control of the instructor, things like how long it is before the next snack break, how much / little sleep I got the night before, how many urgent emails come in, and how long until I can take some more Dayquill(tm). So: YMMV, Not valid with any other coupon, Offer void in IN, KY, and AL, Do not duplicate without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, shipping not included)
After an uneventful flight I’ve arrived (complete with luggage!) in Vegas.
The Venetian continues in the “high-price hotel money-grab” by charging for internet. As I recall last year it was free: crappy, but free. Since my AT&T air card seems firm in it’s desire to blue-screen my laptop, I’ll be hanging in the alumni lounge or comm-net area A LOT more this year.
The Bag: a briefcase-style bag sponsored by Secure-Vantage. Not bad, but I won’t be retiring last years bag just yet.
The Swag: No Powershell book this year, just the usual assortment of propaganda, notebooks, and a pen or two. And the obligatory water bottle that my son will lose in less than two weeks.
Alumni Shirt: Just like last years, except for the date. One more and I’ll be able to go a full work week in black Microsoft polos that say something about System Center on them. That’s my goal.
After a breakfast of coffee and Dayquill (tm): working from the alumni lounge, finishing up some office stuff. Then off to the races!
Registration begins: April 27, 2009
You are invited to take beta exam 71-680: TS: Windows 7, Configuring. If you pass the beta exam, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form. The 71-xxx identifier is used for registering for beta versions of MCP exams, when the exam is released in its final form the 70-xxx identifier is used for registration.
…
71-680: TS: Windows 7, Configuring counts as credit towards the following certification(s).
· MCTS: Windows 7, Configuration
Availability
Registration begins: April 27, 2009
Beta exam period runs: May 5, 2009– May 18, 2009
…
Registration Information
You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam.
Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: WIN7J
Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.
To register in North America, please call:
•
Prometric: (800) 755-EXAM (800-755-3926)
Outside the U.S./Canada, please contact:
•
Prometric: http://www.register.prometric.com/ClientInformation.asp
Citrix now has a hotfix that may assist with this issue : look for CTX120301, Hotfix PSE450R03W2K3049
This is for CPS 4.5 and XenApp 5 on W2k3R2 x86.
We're just starting testing, will post results.
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