MVP Summit 2008…WAY late

After posting my previous entry I realized that I had left possibly the coolest thing I have done EVER (with the obvious exception of marrying my wonderful and gorgeous wife ) off my list. What could this awesome experience be you might ask? The Microsoft MVP Summit 2008 in Seattle/Redmond. What an incredible opportunity to meet with the product teams who create the software I work with on a daily basis and give them input into the products. Wow!!! For those of you who think that Microsoft is some huge corporation that doesn’t listen to, or care about, their customers you couldn’t be more wrong. I have worked with many software companies over the years, and Microsoft is as responsive (if not more so) than any other company out there. The Operations Manager teams that I work with was an amazing group of people who are completely dedicated to making their product the best at what we need it to do.

I have to admit that it was also an eye-opening week as I got the chance to see how other customers and partners implement and Microsoft’s products to solve their day to day problems. There were other MVPs there whose opinion was exactly the opposite of mine based on their personal situations, and it really helped me understand why Microsoft cannot be all things to all people. We are just too different.

I also have to say what an amazing group of people my fellow MVPs are. The dedication that these people have to the user community as a whole is just overwhelming. I was truly honored to spend the week with them.

New product installs

Well, it is about time I got caught up out here. It’s been a while since I posted, due to the large number of upgrades and migrations I’ve been running at work.

Since early this year I have migrated from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007, replaced my existing anti-virus software with ForeFront Client Security, rolled out XP SP3 and Office 2007 SP1, installed a pilot program of Vista SP1, upgraded our AD from 2003 to 2008 and starting next week I am heading a full blown MOSS 2007 implementation. It makes me tired just typing it all.

Oh and I almost forgot that stuck in the middle of it all was TechEd 2008 in Orlando where I worked the System Center Essentials booth for Microsoft as well as doing a couple of talks and moderating a Birds of a Feather session for SMBs dealing with Microsoft and the overwhelming number of solutions they offer us. 

It’s been crazy and incredibly busy, but what a great set of solutions we are getting set up for the future!

I will be blogging all about the transitions that we have been going through as well as some of the gotchas I discovered along the way.

Stay tuned…

New Management Pack for System Center Essentials 2007 RTMs.

For anyone who uses Sytem Center Essentials 2007 to monitor network devices a MAJOR announcement was made this week. Jalasoft announced that Xian Network Manager for System Center Essentials has RTMed. Most people who use SCE or SCOM know about Jalasoft’s products. Jalasoft has had Xian Network Manager for SCOM for some time now, which is considered by most to be the best device monitor on the market for SCOM. Unfortunately, Xian for SCOM was not compatible with SCE. this announcement means that those of us running SCE in our environments can now do very granular monitoring of our network hardware as well as our Microsoft environment.

For further information including Jalasoft’s Press Release please click here:

http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre/teched07/partner.mspx

 

The trial version download of Xian for SCE can be downloaded here:

http://www.jalasoft.com/Web/Product/Product.aspx?id=47

New OCS 2007 installation

I just completed a new Office Communications Server 2007 installation at work last week and I have to say “Awesome product!”.

After using OCS for a little under a week I have to admit that I can see my desk phone going the way of the dinosaur and Dodo bird. It was a very simple and straight forward install. The one caveat is that you have to pay close attention to the policies that are created on the OCS server after the installation is complete. It took me a bit of hunting around to figure out that the default policy for OCS out of the box has Live Meeting disabled for your clients. Once finding the default policy and updating it we were creating on the fly meetings from Outlook and Office Communicator regularly.

I can see that there is a subset of people who will have a hard time adapting to the new paradigm that OCS brings to the workplace, as I am already having users ask me how to use their phone with OCS meetings, not understanding that when using the audio and video capabilities of your computer there really is no need for using your phone when communicating within our company.

I also must admit that our OCS installation does not connect to our phone system at this time. This is due to limitations of our already in place VOIP system which happens to not be SIP compliant, once that piece is in place, then there truly will be no need for a phone on my desk and I think some people are scared by that idea. Personally, I just want more desktop available to work on.

New Management Packs for SCE 2007 and SCOM 2007.

2 new management packs for System Center Essentials 2007 and System Center Operations Manager 2007 have been released in the past week. The more important of these new releases, in my opinion, is the updated Backward Compatibility MP. Improvements to this MP should allow for better more trouble free running of management packs upgraded from MOM 2005. Also just released is the MP for Exchange Server 2007, a huge help for those of us moving forward with our Exchange migrations.

You can find the new management packs, along with all the other MPs, here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/bb847850.aspx

Microsoft DPM 2007 RTMs

Microsoft’s new Data Protection Manager 2007, a part of the System Center family, has been Released to Manufacturing. DPM 2007 is a great product which I have been beta testing for a few months now, and includes the ability to backup Exchange (including 2007), SQL Server and SharePoint (both MOSS and WSS version). Those of you with Microsoft-centric shops, who are looking for a backup and archival solution, would be well advised to take a look at DPM 2007 now that the code is locked down.

About me.

Hello all. I thought I would tell you all a little about myself to give you some perspective on what I write and why I write it.

I am an IT Professional who has been working to build Microsoft-centric networks in the SMB market since 1995. I am definitely a Microsoft apologist and I believe that using their products together to form a complete solution is the best way for small to medium businesses to go.

I do alot of reading and writing reviews for a few different publishers, so I will share some of what I find (both good and bad) as I continue blogging also.

Lastly, I am the president of the local Microsoft IT Pro Association here in Tulsa, Oklahoma so I am sure to write about what is happening in the local area as well.

The large majority of what I cover will be Microsoft though since working with their products is what I do both as a job and as a passion.

WordPress vs Live Spaces

Just a little experiment on my part.

I have  blogs on both WordPress and Live Spaces . I’m curious to see which, if either, gets the higher number of hits, as well as higher search results. Once I get a feel for the results I will move to just one blog on a permanent basis.

Tim

New SCE updates available.

I am a big fan of Microsoft’s newest management product System Center Essentials 2007. SCE is aimed at the SMB market which is a huge segment of the market here in the Tulsa area. SCE shares a great deal of its bits with System Center Operations Manager 2007, which means that when updates for SCOM2007 are released they often effect those of us running SCE.

That being said, 2 new Management Packs for SCOM07 were released at the end of last week.

1. The Operations Manager 2007 Data Warehouse Library and

2. The Operations Manager 2007 Management Pack Update,

The management pack update actually updates a number of the Management Packs that were included with the default install of SCE. I wanted to be sure to run them installed for a few days before recommending them to anyone else, and I fell confident now in saying that after having them installed for the past 5 days they work with no issues that I have found.

Until later,

Tim