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1月30日 Virtual lab for SMS 2003, Softgrid and Vista deploymentI stumbled over a virtual lab by Microsoft to 'testdrive' SMS 2003 in combination with Softgrid and Vista Deployment; probably the 'hottest' topics for this year. It's amazing how many organisations are suddenly 'aware' that virtualisation is not only something for your OTAP process or your test environment. Especially application virtualisation is getting more and more attention: All those high schools and university's with older desktops and a horrifying amount of software that will tilt on the 'probable conflict scale'. Do I see new projects coming up?
1月29日 See you at MMS 2007 ?Today my request was approved to go to the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2007 in San Diego. I hope to meet some of you during the alumni party. I also read at MyITForum that there is another party on Sunday evening at the hotel opposite the Conference Building. 1月23日 SCCM 2007: No ITMU but WSUS!! (v.2)If you are considering SCCM 2007 and you have your 'legacy' SMS 2003 running on ITMU or ITCU? -Forget it! SCCM 2007 will use WSUS. But will a few lesser screenclicks really speed up your patch management?
The integration of ITMU / ITCU in SMS2003 was for me one of the biggest milestones for centralised patch management. I was an advocate to get rid of WSUS. Ok, you had to put your mind to work managing all the update tools and agents or when compiling all patches into the packages, but it worked great. Microsoft's MOF and the original ITIL change and/or security process worked flawless together with it: It created the neccesary timeframe you needed to do it and gives you the support from the whole organisation as agreed in the SLA.
Anyhow, it seemed that MS was getting feedback that ITxU had too much complexity to it. During last MMS the promise was made that patching in SCCM would be more simplified - "We are going to bring back the dialog screens from X to Y."
True, you had to click through a lot of screens, but i never counted. But now I have seen how they did it. SCCM Beta 3 has it finalised MMC where WSUS has found it's place as a node.
So what changed? As SMS admin or patch admin you'll be able to do your job in less "clicks", but that will not change the complexity of the Patch management process behind it. And that is the most time consuming part. If you do not have any ITIL or MOF process supporting SMS I can only advise you put it on your To-Do list as 'Urgent'. And you know you need it - If you are as eager as me to get your hands on SC Service Desk. There is no way out.
I think i'll have to warn some of my customers who will be deactivating their WSUS server soon in favour of their just implemented SMS 2003 + ITMU v3. And start explaining too  MS Service Desk: Limited SMS 2003 supportI attended a Technical briefing about the System Center development efforts. During the SC Service Desk topic, a slide was presented about the interoperability with SMS 2003 SP 3 and I was very disappointed. Key elements in het product will not be supported:
Softwareprovisioning: You will not be able to use a workflow to deploy software through SC Servicedesk using SMS 2003.
OS deployment: Same issue as above
Desired State: Current DCM status will not be supported with SMS 2003
1月22日 SMS 2003 Service Pack 3 Open Beta availableMicrosoft announces the availability of the SMS 2003 Service Pack in open Beta. More info on http://www.microsoft.com/smserver/evaluation/2003/sp3.mspx 1月18日 BDD 2007 Available!Microsoft finaly released the Business Desktop Deployment 2007 suite!
Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 is the best practice set of comprehensive guidance and tools from Microsoft to optimally deploy Windows VistaT and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. BDD 2007 has undergone many changes to significantly ease the deployment of Windows Vista, including new out-of-the-box imaging technologies, XML-based migration scripts, new tools for image engineering (ImageX and System Image Manager), and new unattend XML format. Another huge breakthrough with Windows Vista is Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) independence and language neutrality; this means that organizations can get to a minimal number of standard images across multiple hardware types. A need to have when you use SMS OSDFP on WIM 1.0 format to manage your images. Beware that not all functionality (e.g. adding disk controller drivers) will work with your XP images.... Download BDD at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=13F05BE2-FD0E-4620-8CA6-1AAD6FC54741&displaylang=en
1月15日 Will Service Desk have a Big Brother?During multiple sessions at MMS, techbriefings and the last IT Forum in Barcelona, MS people like Ken Van Heyning and Omar Kouatly stated that MS Service Desk will be targeted for "small and mid-sized companies". Okay, depending the definition of 'small' or 'mid-sized' you use, doesn't this imply something for the whole System Center product family as Enterprise Management solution? I feel a theory coming up... :-)
Correct my if I am wrong, but I always thought that SMS err.. SCCM and SCOM were positioned as 'Enterprise Management' solutions. Because of the 'complexity' and scalability, and of course the license fees, products like MOM 2005 workgroup edition were made to bring a centralised management solution to the smaller IT organisation. Isn'that also the reason for having software distribution in Active Directory?
But we do see some expanding the borders of company-sizes, or rather the total of managed systems with SC Essentials nowadays. SCE (pronounced 'Ski') is interesting for service providers that do remote management at multiple customer sites, due to it's remote management capabilities.
So, what kind of 'conspiracy' theory do we have:
1. Service Desk will be a full System Center family member. All pointers to Service Desk being a product for small & mid-sized organisations are just wary and cautious statements during development of the product and will be a real, enterprise ready tool.
2. The current version of Service Desk will mostly be used in combination with SCE and will be very usable for service provider scenarios
3. Service Desk as we know it will have it's Enterprise-ready 'Big Brother' in the future
I'm quite interested in some reactions. Drop a line if you find the time :-)
1月7日 MS Service Desk timeframe update - And even SMS 2003 Support?Microsoft Service Desk is Microsofts first helpdesk application, fully based on ITIL principles. It will host it's one database that can be 'fed' with information from SMS and MOM. I came across some info that the SD product team is concidering to make it possible to use SMS 2003 SPx in combination with SD.
Here is some info on the release schedule. SD is planned to go RTM at the end of this year, so for some techies this will be 'the most wonderfull time of the year'!
Beta 1: December 2006, TAP is running
Beta 2: end of April 2007
Release candidate: beginning of July 2007
RTM: December 2007 1月4日 SMS 2003 Service Pack 3 CTP1 in TAPMicrosoft announced the release of SMS 2003 Service Pack 3 CTP 1 build. The build is availlable for TAP members and "...the build is meant at this time for LAB only testing...".
There are some more details other than mentioned earlier:
Newest forecast is that the SP 3 RTM version will be availabe around March/April 2007. Seems to me this SP is going to be an important one. Let's hope Microsoft will have their International Client Packs (Please, don't try integrating it like last time, just gimme ICP2 Best Wishes for 2007!From me and my family, we wish you all the best for 2007! |
) for Non-English client support ready within a month after going RTM. Last time it took a little more than 90 days, so do please compensate on this one!|
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