TechNet Edge

Interview with Aidan Finn - Hyper-V, System Centre and IT Pro Momentum

Dave Northey — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:15:00 GMT

Aidan Finn (Systems and Infrastructure Manager with C-Infinity) talks about why he chose NOT to go with VMware in favor of Hyper-V and System Centre.

Aidan is a System Centre MVP and an active blogger and user group leader. He has been engaged in IT Pro Momentum from the very begining. He talks about how he has used the program and how he shares his knowledge with others.

He closes out by sharing his plans for the up and coming R2 releases of Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V and System Centre.

Aidan blogs here: http://joeelway.spaces.live.com

You can download the Release Candidate of Windows Server 2008 R2 from here and start build your own Live Migration failover cluster.

And if you live in Ireland and want to join the IT Pro Momentum program please email me mailto:daven@microsoft.com

Enjoy..

Dave

Ignite Your Career - 2009 - E1 - Industry Insights and Trends Podcast

Rick Claus — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:00:00 GMT

The Ignite Your Career webcast series was created as a result of your feedback that technical professionals needed help to develop those critical personal and professional skills that Technical Professionals so often neglect. We partnered with IT World Canada and the Canadian Information Processing Society – in order to bring industry experts and thought leaders together for a radio talk show chat where we discussed various topics and answered your questions

This special highlights edition of the Canadian Ignite Your Career webcast series takes the best ideas and soundbites from the previously recorded episodes. I’m joined by my co-host Shane Schick - editor in chief of IT World Canada – to help with the production

In this episode, we revisit one of the most popular topics we've had on the ongoing Ignite Your Career webcast series to kick of this season. Industry Insights and Trends. You need to be on top of what is happening in the industry in order to position yourself and your organization to benefit from these trends. This panel discussion will arm you with the information you need from experts in the ICT industry in order to stay on top of your game.

Panel Members

Richard Campbell: One of the co-founders of Strangeloop Networks and part of the team building an appliance to accelerate ASP.NET. Richard is co-host of the ".NET Rocks!, the Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers" (www.dotnetrocks.com) podcast and the host of "RunAs Radio, the Internet Audio Talk Show for IT Professionals" (www.runasradio.com) podcast.
Jay Payette: A consultant serving public and private organizations in the fields of technology and management. He currently works for the Ottawa office of Accenture in the Systems Integration and Technology practice.
Lee Jacobs: Program Director for Labour Marketing Information at the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). Lee’s current focus at ICTC is on refreshing the ground breaking supply and demand forecast for ICT occupations in Canada, the Outlook 2008-2015.

More information and resources related to the Ignite Your Career series can be found on it's main landing page.

Subscribe to the Ignite Your Career RSS feed to get all the latest ongoing episodes and resources as we discover and share new ones.

Comments, Suggestions and Ideas for Future Topics can be left below as a comment or emailed directly to the Ignite Your Career feedback alias athere.
Music and audio production provided by Mark Blevis - ThirdStoryProductions.

Exchange 2010 at Lifetime Products

Adam Bomb — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT

Road Trip!
I tagged along with the Exchange team to shoot some video of some customers who are using Exchange 2010 today.
Our first stop was Lifetime Products - manufacturer of basketball hoops, folding tables and all kinds of other cool stuff.
We talked with the CIO, President and VP of Sales and Marketing about all the new features and benefits they've gotten from Exchange 2010 - their story was even picked up by CIO magazine, you can read about it here.
More videos from our road trip to follow - keep an eye out for them!

Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) v7

Trustworthy Computing — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:10:00 GMT

The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) is a comprehensive and wide-ranging study of the evolving threat landscape, and addresses such topics as software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software.

Volume 7 of the Security Intelligence Report (SIR v7) covers the first half of 2009 (January through June). It includes data derived from more than 450 million computers worldwide, each running Windows. It also draws data from some of the busiest services on the Internet, such as Windows Live Hotmail and Bing.

The research is extensive and we encourage you to download the report.

Dogfooding: Deployment & Product Influence

Jossie Tirado — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:33:00 GMT

Steven Michalove, from Microsoft Information Security, concludes the dogfooding series where a product is tested on the enterprise, formally known as First & Best Program. For more information on the other phases of dogfooding a product in IT see Evaluating Risk and Security Related Features.

Steven describes how his team evaluates how to the deployment of a new technology will look like on the enterprise. Not only that but his team has the ability to influence a product by looking at what risk might look like in the future so those are considered on the development of the technology.

Read more on blog article Dogfooding: Product Influence or follow the ACE blog.

System Center and Windows 7

Dave Morehouse — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:05:00 GMT

PART 2 of 4

In this episode of Brad and Jeff's periodic chats about the management business at Microsoft, they talk about how System Center fits in the constellation of platform and server releases in the fall of 2009.

In part 2, Brad and Jeff talk about all the improvements in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 and R3 that make deployment and management of Windows 7 clients far more energy efficient and cost effective than ever before.

Also in this episode:

The Power of Software-based Communication

Alan Le Marquand — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:49:00 GMT

Today, the means for communicating with one another anytime, anywhere, and from a variety of devices has become limitless with the use of Instant Messaging, VoIP, webcams, text, and email. Could an Enterprise provide these communication tools to its employees and benefit from this culture change?

Unified Communications (UC) provides the capabilities that enable employees to communicate quickly and effectively using software they are familiar with. UC integrates e-mail, telephony, instant messaging, voice mail, calendaring, and audio/video/Web conferencing, and delivers them to different clients securely. For example, employees located across offices in Europe, Asia, and the United States can communicate with one another instantly using Instant Message, video conference, or by initiating a VoIP call.

The Microsoft UC solution is cornered around Exchange Server and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 at the backend; and Office Communicator 2007 R2, Office Live Meeting, and Outlook on the front-end client. So what do these products provide?

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 provides a number of communication services for the clients, such as:

Software-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
Audio, Video, and Web Conferencing functionality
IM and Presence
Group Chat
Public IM Connectivity
Mobility

These services can be accessed using Office Communicator 2007 R2, which can be installed on a PC and a Windows Mobile Device. Office Communicator provides a web client for use in places like airports and internet cafes, as well as an IP phone version for those who prefer the traditional handset form factor. On the PC, phone or web client, Office Communicator allows you to send an instant message within your own organization or over the public IM network; whereas, the PC client allows you to communicate in-person with VoIP calls and video conference. Communicator supports a wide range of devices for making audio and video calls, either as a one-to-one connection or as group meetings.

This communication goes beyond voice and video. With unified conferencing you can share and collaborate with people located in the next office, on a different floor, in another building, or even in other countries. By using unified conferencing, colleagues can meet and share information such as files and presentations quickly and regularly, regardless of their location.

UC integration goes beyond Communicator with integration into Microsoft Outlook. With Exchange 2010 at the backend, you can integrate e-mail, fax, and voice mail into a single inbox. This integration goes beyond voice mail as it allows you to initiate communication from an e-mail and view presence information about the intended receiver.

Mobility is a key requirement of a truly unified communication solution. Both desktop clients, Office Communicator 2007 R2 and Outlook 2007, are completely mobile and only require an Internet connection to access the backend and thus provide the full capabilities mentioned above while away from the office. With Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 you get the familiar Communicator interface on your mobile device, and while not the rich experience of its desktop equivalent, you are still able access to your contact lists, see presence information and Instant Message contact over both public and private IM networks.

By implementing this simplified communications solution, an organization can realize both cost savings and environmental benefits. These resources provide additional details on these benefits:

Communication technology has advanced greatly over recent years and the organizations who have embraced these advances are now finding that they have a number of different systems to manage and maintain, and often from different interfaces. A Unified Communication solution based on OCS 2007 R2 and Exchange Server can integrate with or replace existing systems, providing a single point of management and reducing the communication complexity in your organization.

System Center Essentials (SCE) 2010 beta preview

Adam Bomb — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:01:00 GMT

I recently sat down with David Mills and Edwin Yuen, who got together for a brief discussion of Microsoft’s IT management and virtualization solution for midsize businesses. With the release of public betas for System Center Essentials 2010 and Data Protection Manager 2010, customers will have the capability to easily manage, backup and restore their physical and virtual servers in an integrated way.

After discussing the benefits of using Hyper-v, SCE 2010 and DPM 2010, Edwin gives us a quick demo of SCE 2010’s integrated virtual and physical management capabilities.

For more information and to download public betas, go to:

SCE 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/sce

DPM 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/dpm

Yet Another Windows XP Mode Post

yung — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:22:00 GMT

Since the last month, while delivering Windows 7 Launch Events, I have realized how strong the interests on Windows XP Mode (XP Mode) is out there, how much IT Pro want to know more about it, and how many questions are being asked again and again. So I thought to put together something concise and you can get most of your questions answered in a short read.

Designed primarily with small businesses in mind, XP Mode for Windows 7 enables a user to install and run Windows XP applications directly from a Windows 7-based PC. With Windows Virtual PC (not the same with Virtual PC 2007,) XP Mode works in Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate, and provides a 32-bit Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (XPSP3) environment pre-loaded on a virtual hard disk. Notice running XP Mode requires turning on hardware virtualization with AMD-V™, Intel® VT, or VIA® VT processor, which may not be available in all PCs. For Enterprise customers, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V,) part of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and available in Software Assurance, is a management solution for deploying Windows XP Mode and local virtualization solutions in an enterprise setting. While MED-V 1.0 SP1 to be available in the first quarter of 2010 with host support for Windows 7, notice that both MED-V 1.0, MED-V 1.0 SP1 will leverage Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 which does not required hardware assisted virtualization.

To enable XP Mode after installing Windows 7, a local administrator can click “Windows XP Mode” from “All Programs/Windows Virtual PC,” as shown, to access the online download page. Follow the instructions to install Windows Virtual PC and XP Mode. A virtual machine will be automatically initialized with Windows XP SP3. The user will be prompted and can choose to cache the built-in service’s account’s credentials to automatically start the Windows XP SP3 virtual machine.

XP Mode is an integrated environment with a number of productivity features including:

Folder integration to allow accessing the hosting Windows 7 disk drives within XP Mode
Seamless applications to access XP Mode application in the All Programs menu from the hosting Windows 7 machine
USB support for XP Mode
Clipboard sharing between a hosting Windows 7 machine and XP Mode
Printer redirection for XP Mode

The XPSP3 virtual machine running in XP Mode is by default networked with the hosting Windows 7 machine using Network Address Translation. This network and additional virtual machine settings of the XP Mode are customizable. After all, XP Mode is desktop virtualization and a virtual machine. Most settings applicable to a virtual machine are applicable to XP Mode as well. Also keep in mind when it comes to desktop management, XP Mode or a virtual machine should be managed like a physical machine. In other words, a virtual machine in production needs to be secured, patched, and monitored just like a physical machine since at a logical level a virtual machine can be targeted and attacked just like a physical machine.

Windows 7 Early Adopter Panel at the Gartner Symposium

Adam Bomb — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:01:00 GMT

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2009 is one of industry’s largest and most important annual gathering of CIOs and their senior IT leaders. One of the Microsoft –sponsored sessions that took place is Windows 7 Early Adopter Customer Panel.

In this highly visible discussion, featured Gartner Research VP & Distinguished Analyst Michael Silver facilitated the panel around Windows 7 planning, deployment and customer experience with Windows 7 Early Adopter Customers: ADP, BMW, Energizer and Pella.

The panel includes discussions about topics of importance for enterprises considering the move to Windows 7. ADP, BMW, Energizer and Pella share their perspective on business drivers to adopt Windows 7 and the benefits they expect to achieve with deploying Windows 7. These companies also share their deployment experience and recommendations for companies new to Windows 7 deployment. This is a great chance to get valuable insider information from Microsoft Customer industry leads.

Please visit Gartner.com for a replay of this webcast.

Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange (FPE) Anti-Spam

David Tesar — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:02:00 GMT

Alexander Nikolayev, program manager for FPE, walks us through how all of the anti-spam features work, including the new functionality with FPE over the previous version. After a couple minutes we dive right into the whiteboard walking through the mail flow anti-spam features with connection, protocol, and content filtering.

Since this is a longer interview, here’s how it breaks down. Markers are the round circles in the Silverlight player progress bar.

[5:20 / Marker 1] - How the DNS Block list (DNSBL) feature works, exceptions of when it doesn’t apply, how you know a message was blocked by DNSBL, areas where our DNSBL is better than competitors’ solutions.

[13:47 / Marker 2] – How SMTP filtering works

[19:00 / Marker 3] – How Sender ID filtering works

[21:32 / Marker 4] – Cloudmark engine (content filtering) and performance results with MSIT, frequency of updates with engine, how it is different than competitors’ solutions.

[27:04 / Marker 5] – Estimated Percentage of Spam which is blocked at what spot in the Anti-spam mail flow process based on MSIT deployment of FPE (not including FOPE)

[29:05 / Marker 6] – What is Backscatter and how does it work

[36:40 / Marker 7] – Final tips on backscatter, content filtering, DNSBL, SMTP and sender ID, SPAM and BACON.

Watch a video on the differences between FPE, Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE), and the native capabilities for protection within Exchange 2010.

Visit the Forefront Server Security homepage

Dogfooding Security-Related Features

Jossie Tirado — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:13:00 GMT

Yale Li and Price Oden, from Microsoft Information Security, explain the second phase of dogfooding a product on the enterprise, formally known as First & Best Program. This second step consists of doing a security assessment on specific features in the product. For the first phase go here.

With this assessment the organization may decide what are the strategies around those features, or opportunities. It is a very detailed step on the dogfooding process, where they go all the way back to design and functional specification documents. They describe how this worked for BitLocker To Go^TM.

Read more on blog article Dogfooding: Phase 2 or follow the ACE blog.

System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 and Microsoft Exchange

Dave Morehouse — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:22:00 GMT

Jason Buffington and Leslie Kitz get together for a brief parlay on what's new and exciting in the next version of System Center Data Protection Manager, due out in the spring of 2010.

After discussing how DPM 2010 stacks up, and how 2010 supports Exchange server installations, Jason goes into a demo that shows off DPM's new capabilities in protecting Exchange.

This video is the first of a series.

With Windows 7, there's never been a better time to be a PC.

yung — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:01:00 GMT

This is it! We had waited and waited, and it's finally here. Windows 7 is now generally available. There are new technologies, new solutions, and a new dimension of capabilities for IT. With Windows 7, there's never been a better time to be a PC. There's never been a better time to be a Windows user. For all you IT Professionals out there, let me highlight the 3 key deliveries:

Making people productive anywhere
Managing risks through enhanced security and control
Reducing cost by streamlining PC management

and innovations introduced in Windows 7 and make pertinent information readily available for you here.

Making people productive anywhere

Making people productive is not that hard. In your office plugging company’s network with a laptop loaded with apps, you can be productive. Making people productive “anywhere” on the other hand is a very challenging effort for IT, while facing the mass amount of mobile devices and increasingly complex network computing environment today. The growing numbers of mobile workforce and branch offices are at the same time demanding corporate resources seamlessly available regardless the required infrastructure and organizational boundaries. Two Windows 7 solutions to facilitate remote access are BranchCache and DirectAccess.

Managing risks through enhanced security and control

Security is nothing we need to much justify the need in today’s network computing environment. It is critical, imperative, and all too often costly. From Windows Vista, Windows Vista SP1, to Windows 7, BitLocker has been expanded from a single drive, multiple drives, now to portable media. Windows 7 offers security enhancements enabling a user to secure data from unauthorized access very easily with BitLocker-to-Go, for example. In Windows 7 Explorer, highlight a portable drive, right-click to turn on BitLocker-to-Go. It is that readily available, easy to do, and readable with Windows XP. There is really no reason not to do it since it is so little to do, yet with so much control and so strong protection on data. As a memory stick is now with 32 GB and beyond capacity, BitLocker-to-Go is one very cost-effective way to protect data from unauthorized access. For a large company, BitLocker technology with group policies offers a software based enterprise solution of hard disk encryption. You don’t need to look for a solution and end up with a second-best solution. It is in Microsoft Vista and it is much enhanced in Microsoft Windows 7.

In an enterprise environment, software restriction is one of the most difficult enforcements. Not only it needs a mature infrastructure to provide software inventories, metering, and on-going monitoring, but the required skill sets to develop, test, and manage those software restriction policies are hard to find, take years to develop, and come with very high costs. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 together present AppLocker as a vehicle with which a system administrator can provision a policy to deny/allow execution, installation, or usage of a target application based on the application's digital signature by deriving a publisher rule defined and enforced with a Group Policy Object without programming. A complex requirement, for instance allowing task workers to access Office 2007 and later, but not PowerPoint when accessed by contractors, can be done with AppLocker in a few mouse clicks without any scripting.

Reducing cost by streamlining PC management

Many thought without a direct migration path, i.e. in-place upgrade, from Windows XP to Windows 7, the deployment of Windows 7 must be a tedious and tricky process. In fact, Windows 7 offers a number of vehicles making the migration an intuitive and straightforward process. For consumers and small businesses, Easy Transfer makes migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 absolutely “easy” and, in my view, fun actually. Scanstate and Loadstate, two key utilities in USMT (User State Migration Tools) make a migration process very logical and easy to understand. Hard-Link Migration leaves and remaps data in place and significantly reduces the time needed to place large amount of user data in a typical PC refresh scenario.

In the past two years, with Microsoft’s introduction of virtualization strategies and solutions, there are many options in resolving compatibility issues at an application or OS level while reducing TCO and increasing flexibilities in deploying and managing IT resources in the long run. Specific to Windows XP compatibility issues, Windows 7 Professional and above offer Windows XP Mode (via a free download) with a local virtualization of Windows XP SP3 machine. So those applications developed specific for Windows XP can now essentially run in a Windows 7 environment with a few steps to set up a virtualized Windows XP SP3 run-time environment to host those Windows XP specific applications. Further an application running in Widows XP Mode can be seamlessly integrated into the Start/All Programs menu of a host Windows 7 machine. Notice Windows XP Mode alone is designed for a relatively small deployment since there is basically no built-in system management function. For a large scale deployment, MED-V or Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, one of the six offerings that come with MDOP (or Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack available through Software Assurance program) is the solution to manage local desktop virtualization with the abilities to provision a MED-V workspace policy to deploy XP Mode with standardized settings and a consistent user experience, etc. While MED-V 1.0 SP1 to be available in the first quarter of 2010 with host support for Windows 7, notice that both MED-V 1.0, MED-V 1.0 SP1 will leverage Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 which does not required hardware assisted virtualization.

The perfect companion to Windows 7

Joey Snow — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:59:00 GMT

It’s October 22nd and Windows 7 is officially available to purchase! If you are an IT Professional you may be wondering how do I get the most out of Windows 7? Well the answer to that is to pair it along with Windows Server 2008 R2. Available now Windows Server 2008 R2 is the next generation of the Windows Server product built on the foundation of Windows Server 2008 adding key light up features when paired with Windows 7.

Let’s start for those of you with branch offices. Are you challenged by slow and expensive WAN links? Do your users suffer productivity losses because of the delay in retrieving information from your main data center? Branch Cache functionality in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 increases network responsiveness of applications when accessed from remote offices, giving your users a Local LAN experience. To learn more have a look at our two part (part 1 part 2)webcast series where Kevin Remde walks you through Installation and Configuration of this feature.

Another great “better together” feature is DirectAccess. This feature gives users the experience of being seamlessly connected to the corporate network any time that they have Internet access. Not only that but you as IT Professionals also have access to the machine to allow you to manage it as if it were right on the corporate network even if the machine is connected to the internet on an airplane at 22,000 feet. Corey Hynes describes DirectAccess in a simple manner here.

For more information on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 please visit our Virtual Launch Page at www.thenewefficiency.com

Windows 7 in stores now

Adam Bomb — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:51:00 GMT

Midnight Launch Events, House Parties - there are lots of opportunities to check out Windows 7, if you haven't already.
Starting today, Windows 7 is available in stores, and shipping on new PC's.
There's lots of great Windows 7 content on Edge already, and more to come in the upcoming weeks. Here are some of my favorites.
The App Compat/Migration video series
Building Install Media for Windows 7
XP Mode for Windows 7
Using AppLocker in Windows 7
BitLocker to Go
DirectAccess
BranchCache
How to install Windows 7 from a USB stick

Implementing System Center Operations Manager in a Large, Belgian Hospital

HeidiC — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:03:00 GMT

Alexandre Verkinderen, System Center Operations Manager MVP, talks about the monitoring solution he implemented at AZ Sint Maarten, a large Belgian Hospital. Sigurd Corluy, System Engineer for the hospital, joins and explains why they need a monitoring solution and why they chose SCOM 2007. The hospital has business-critical application needs, such as monitoring patient registrations and patient medical files. It has a custom-made management pack for these.

AZ Sint Maarten uses Savision LiveMaps in their NOC to display diagrams of the datacenter and business processes. The application provides an intuitive, graphical view of the health of their racks and business applications.

Arlindo Alves, Microsoft IT Pro evangelist, interviews both.

Concept of Desktop Virtualization

yung — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:21:00 GMT

The traditional desktop computing model, as shown in Fig. 1, has been one where the operating system, applications, and user data and settings are bonded to a single computer. We will buy a computer either with OS and some applications pre-installed, or apply a hard disk image with targeted OS and selected applications to the computer hardware. Once a computer is deployed, a user can then log in the system, customize the environment, run applications, change settings, create data and files. This model is straightforward and easy to understand. With respect to desktop deployment, this means that the OS, application execution/presentation and user data are all self-contained within a single device. This model has the advantage of simplicity because it leverages well understood technologies that ship with Windows. In addition, because a PC with this model is configured to be completely self-sufficient, this solution is well-suited to mobile use. However, the tight binding between the various layers may not be a preference for all scenarios. This model has its limitations.

The tight couplings between each layer provide efficiency; they also introduce dependencies, hence complexities. And these complexities make it difficult for users to move the applications, settings, and files from one PC to another in case of upgrades or a lost or stolen laptop. When exemplified by thousands of desktops and laptops, as many enterprises do, the management of these laptops and desktops becomes a major concern. As mobile work force and the number of branch offices continue to grow with the proliferation of Internet and the advancement of networking technology, the work environment and data access patterns of information workers have become dynamic and been rapidly evolving. The long term maintenance associated with computing resources based on the traditional computing model is becoming cost-prohibitive for many companies, while impairing the IT’s ability to quickly prepare for or respond to a business opportunity.

Desktop Virtualization is the process of separating, or more precisely isolating, out these individual components, and managing each one separately. Fig. 2 shows by isolating these components, we can now abstract and virtualize the computing resources. Each layer can then reference a resource in other layers based in the abstraction or virtualization boundary and without specifying the specifics of how a referenced resource is configured within its host layer. Over all this reduces complexity and improves PC and application management.

When it comes to virtualization, not all solutions are equal. Microsoft has developed a number of virtualization solutions to address specific issues as depicted in Fig. 3. There are times a virtualization solution may not be cost-effective while offering deployment flexibility. It is crucial to recognize that and architect a virtualization solution accordingly to produce maximal business benefits.

Dogfooding: Evaluating Risk

Jossie Tirado — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:06:00 GMT

Don Nguyen and Mike Lange, from Microsoft Information Security, explain the first phase of dogfooding a product on the enterprise, formally known as First &Best Program. This first step consists of a risk assessment or design review on the product.

This phase is important as it allows them to look at the current policies as they are related to the technology already in place. Is it time to update the policies? Adjust the new technology? They describe how this worked for SQL 2008.

Read more on blog article Dogfooding: Phase 1 or follow the ACE blog.

Webfarms and Virtualization with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

David Tesar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:01:00 GMT

Sven Knockaert and Roel Van Steenberghe are two system administrators and lecturers from Kaho Sint-Lieven, an IT university in Ghent, Belgium. Sven talks about their implementation of virtualization with hyper-V 2008 R2 and SCVMM in courses such as system administration and operating systems. Hundreds of students each have at least 4 virtual machines running on hyper-V. Students can manage their virtual environment with the self-service portal in SCVMM.
Roel discusses implementation and use of IIS7. He explains how the concept of webfarms with IIS7 helps students serve individual webspaces to hundreds of other students. The university now uses both technologies extensively. Students in the study program are interested in staying in contact, and investigating new applications for these technologies.

Managing Compliance with System Center Service Manager 2010

Dave Morehouse — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:01:00 GMT

Clare Henry, technical product manager on the System Center team, introduces System Center Service Manager 2010 by showing how this new product from Microsoft, currently in beta 2 trials, can help lower the risk of configuration errors so you can can quickly and efficiently resolve incidents. The demonstration specifically shows how Service Manager delivers solutions for compliance management, from the detection of a non-compliant configuration scenario to full remediation.

For more information on Service Manager, please refer to the System Center Web site.

Forefront Secure Messaging screencast and interview

David Tesar — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Cristian Mora Aguilar, Forefront Technical PM, starts off by briefly telling us about Microsoft's secure messaging solution and what business problems it resolves. He then gives us a screencast / demo of some of the cool scenarios enabled and problems solved with the secure messaging solution. Find out how Microsoft products help secure Microsoft Exchange Server.

Live Migration Networks

Giovanni Marchetti — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:23:00 GMT

Confused about which network does what with live migration? Problems determining how many networks you need for cluster shared volumes? This screencasts discusses how networks are used when live migration is configured with cluster shared volumes and shows which parameters you can configure to control traffic.$0 You can find more details on Giovanni's blog.

October 2009 Security Bulletin Overview

Trustworthy Computing — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:29:00 GMT

This is a basic overview of the security bulletins released by the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) in October 2009. For bulletin details, please visit:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security
or
http://www.microsoft.com/security

Other resources mentioned in the video:

Microsoft Update: http://update.microsoft.com

Video on how to install updates on Vista >>

This video is brought to you by the Trustworthy Computing security response communications team.

Security Bulletins for the Regular IT Guy - oct 09

Rick Claus — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:24:00 GMT

Three guys got together over pints in Ottawa, Canada back in February 2009 and talked about how one of the issues facing Technical Professionals today is keeping their systems patched and up to date. This issue was brought up to them at a User Group meeting they were attending (Ottawa Windows Server User Group) where we were participating in an “Ask the Microsoft Guy” panel discussion.

Over pints at D’Arcy McGee’s, Pierre Roman, Bruce Cowper and Rick Claus decided to try to help solve the issue of information overload regarding patching and put together a timely podcast to go live each “Patch Tuesday”.

Goals:

Use plain English terms and every day language that any Technical professional can understand – minimize “corporate speak”.
Breakdown each Security Bulletin with summary information first followed by more details as to the impact an IT Pro would face.
Outline mitigation factors in case patches couldn’t be tested or applied in a timely fashion
Keep it top 20 minutes OR LESS. This one is critical – Keep It Simple, repeatable and get out of the IT Pros way to get on with their day.
Have fun!

Have a listen directly from the embedded player OR subscribe to the feed and download it to your iTunes / Zune software.

As always - if you have suggestions on making it better - please pass on your comments. Mail me directly – Microsoft Security Response Center blog.

Bulletins discussed for October 13th, 2009:

Podcast Participants: Pierre Roman and myself.

Additional Technical Show Notes:

Recorded in my backyard on Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada. Clear skies, but darn cold.
Beverage of choice for this edition: leftover Mooshead “Cracked Canoe” ale (http://www.crackedcanoe.com/) from my Thanksgiving festivities.

PodSafe music from PodSafe Music Network @ http://music.podshow.com/. Artist: Derek K Miller, song - “You’re the Big Sky - rock guitar instrumental”