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June 09 SCCM Certificate Infrastructure example and checklistMicrosoft has published a few technet articles about the Certificates that are neccesary to have SCCM run in Native mode. They provide guidelines and a example setup of the certificate infrastructure. You can find it at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680312(TechNet.10).aspx A Blog @ MyITForum.com!At the MMS 2008 I've got an invitation from Rod Trent to start a blog at MyITForum.com. Ain't that cool? As soon as I have a little more time I'll be posting my first entry over there. June 04 Minke: de brief uit Atascadero is voor mijMinke, ik kan je geen mail sturen, maar de brief uit Atascadero is voor mij. Hij is van mijn oom en tante naar aanleiding van het overlijden van mijn vader. Laat aub een berichtje achter hoe ik je kan bereiken. June 03 Ruff month...It was a ruff month: the day I came home from MMS, my father passed away. After a week of arrangements and the funeral, I took some time off to spend two weeks in Spain with my family. I'm back now and I'll be taking up the postings and blogs soon again April 30 SCCM R2 and SoftGrid Highlight reviewThe full integration of MAV 4.5 (SoftGrid) and SCCM and how well it is done really makes me happy. I have made a short high light report on the most important points they have presented during MMS 2008.
Infrastructure integration
Console integration
Managed installation / deinstallation will only be available for virtualized applications, so if you are a package specialist and you do understand which way the word is coming to: You know which training / specialization you should choose. Attached Knowledge Services technology compairs performance of your organization to others anonymously..During the second day keynote of MMS 2008, Bratt Anderson introduced a new concept that will launch as a Service Enabled environment, called a attached service (e.g. WSUS) . This solution is still in beta and goes by the name of Attached Knowledge Services technology.
The solution is focused on creating decision/business information about the effectiveness / innovation factor between organizations. Bratt Anderson described it in a recognizable way: the answer to questions about 'how are we doing IT versus other organizations? This information will be generated by SC family products: If you participate your SCCM / SCOM etc. environent generates data and will be send anonymously to a microsoft Inet location. The information will display KPI of your organisation in comparison to other organizations level of technology. This should give decision makers information on where they stand in comparison to their compatitor companies.
It seems an easy way for the IT pro to use this service as a foundation for roadmapping and to base future investments on it. But I get a little scaired with the idea that this information miht fall in the wrong hands... . Intel AMT technology makes SCCM even betterDuring the second day key note of MMS 2008, the enhancements that will be available for SCCM R2 in combination with Intel Advanced Management Technology (AMT) were made very clear. A demo showed a few scenario's that will need on site support, but with AMT that could be history.
On the part of Out of band management:
One of the best parts is that AMT integrates with AD and uses Kerberos for Out of Band management SCOM: Cross Platform ManagementFrom my collegue Walter Eikenboom:
For SCOM 2007 he announced the Cross platform Agents and Management pack for SCOM 2007. With this announcement he made a big step into monitoring heterogeneous environment with the look and feel of the Windows Server platform.
For the whole story visit the Buit.org website at http://www.buit.org/2008/04/30/scom-2007-cross-platform-monitoring-announcement-mms/ MMS 2008: Generation -Y and 'That Old Admin guy'...The keynote for the second day of MMS 2008 was presented by Brad Anderson, GM of the Management and Solutions division and focussed on the the challenges for IT for delivering service in the future. One of the key elements will be the next generation users who aren't afraid of computers; they grew up with it and experience 'mobility' as a part of their daily routine. Or as Brad put it: Now the Client is the User.... .
Their expectations of the service an IT organization should give are parrtially defined by the way they are used to use technology. They use their home pc, cellphone, laptop or office PC transparantly, which challenges the way the IT organization manages application deployment and data availability. Security, Centralization and Virtualization were again keywords where the solutions from the System Center family were used as examples how to get things done (Xen Desktop virtualization, SoftGrid App virtualization, Terminal Services, NAP, DCM) in a controlled environment (e.g. the Domain) with managed systems. If you are interested in a managed workspace solution that already has all these components integrated, please visit the Getronics FRW site.
I expect that this 'evolution' of the user will be becoming far more complicated than we are able to solve now. I am already involved in projects where organisations are being confronted with unmanaged clients and still need to deliver applications and services to what I call 'Alienated Environments'. In the next couple of weeks I will try to write some articles about the issues and possible scenario's, for example the challenges of "Bring your own hardware" environments.
For a full annotation of Brad's keynote see Joseph Hinkle's article
April 29 The Virtual Data Center: VMM will manage VI3 infrastructureIn het first key note of MMS 2008, VP Bob Muglia talked about Dynamic IT: Transforming Management and the Data Center. He confirmed that most of us already understood: Virtualization is the way to go, especially for Data Center environments. The announcement of the VM Manager Beta 2 release was followed by a short demo that showed SCVMM managing a heterogenous VM environment of Windows Hyper-V and ESX servers. For ESX, VM Man drills into the VM tools installed on the VM machine so you are actually able to perform a guest-OS migration between ESX host servers. OMG - I'm in 'RodneyVision'!!At the MMS 2008 Exhibitioners opening party of last night, I ran into Rodney and his camera team and got interviewed. Rodney is the stand-up comedian who does all daily intro's @ MMS. I wasn't that sober anymore, so I wonder what it's going to be after they have edited....
Auwch! SCOM: OpsMan Authoring Console releasedAt MMS 2008 Microsoft announced the release of the SCOM Authoring Console. The current methode (using notepad) for creating xml for Model Based Management was too difficult and did not support off-line action. This should give you the highlights:
Microsoft expects great opportunities for software manufacturers and specialists to build customized models for their environments. 2010: A System Center OdysseyWithout disclosing any extra information, I can only the year 2010 will be a big year for System Center with the release of new versions. So get better reserve some money for your 2010 + budget ! SCCM SDK Arraybbuilder scheduled taskDuring MMS 2008, Microsoft partner DELL showed a add-on to the SCCM OS deployment tasks. Based on the SCCM SDK, they have build the array builder which configures your disk array during OSD task sequence. The most brilliant part was that the task was highly flexible: depending on the ammount of disks detected, the raid configuration could be set. For instance, if a raid set of six disks was detected, the task sequence would arrange the disks as 2x RAID 1, 3x RAID 5 and one hot spare. The same task could be used for other disk configurations, consequently configuring the raidset as defined. HP and IBM have co-operated too, providing similar task sequences for their hardware.
This tool I think looked awsome and would love to use it, but it seems that this SDK is only planned for (OEM) partners
 erratum: I got the following mail from Jim Dempsey:
"Your statement that the SCCM SDK is not planned for public release is incorrect. It has been available for public download for over a month: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=064A995F-EF13-4200-81AD-E3AF6218EDCC&displaylang=en . If you're talking about the OEM toolkit, that's a different story, and I don't really have any information on it other than the fact that it was created using the standard SDK. So even if it is not available other than to OEMs, you can still accomplish the same things with the SDK."
I would like to thank Jim for correcting this part. All I can say is that the session I attended was quite confusing because the presenter added some humor and other statements during his presentation that I must have misunderstood. The folks at DELL told me that they are going to add some of they task sequences to their Website shortly just for 'evaluation resons'.
MMS 2008: SCSM gets three databases!At MMS 2008 the SCSM team opened up about the issues that resulted in a reset of the SC Service Manager. Poor performance (database tables) and tooling that did not worked as well as thought up, meant a complete redo of SCSM.
One of the redesigned features of SCSM is that the system can/will use three databases:
CMDB: this database will contain all assets (SCCM / SCOM will provide extensive data)
Datawarehouse: this database will contain all workflows etc.
Reporting: This database will provide the reporting services for SCSM. This database will probably also be used for sustaining CMDB information that is being discarted form de the actual CMDB database. April 18 SMS 2003 support update: Extended support ends January 2015As mentioned in an earlier blog, Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 and Systems Management Server 2003 R2 will transition from Mainstream Support to Extended Support on January 12, 2010. Extended Support will now end on January 13, 2015. Both the Mainstream and Extended Support dates were extended once the follow-on product, System Center Configuration Manager 2007, was released to manufacturers Server 2003 mainstream support ends 2010Microsoft announced today Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 – Mainstream Support Ends July 13, 2010, Extended Support Ends July 14, 2015 This transition timeline is in line with the Support Lifecycle policy, which states that Mainstream Support for Business and Developer products will be provided for either five years or for two years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer.
for more information see http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle April 14 Getting ready for MMS 2008It has been a while since I posted to this blog. Due to personal circumstances and my involvement with a new developmentproject within our company, blogging became a second or even thirth level priority. Anyway, buzz will fade away this week and at the end of this month: Viva MMS2008 Las Vegas!
From that time on I hope to blog some usefull and interesting articles from 'the Mother of all Management Conventions'. I would be suprised as this will be the last year to be called MMS since there is much more focus on the whole of the System Center family. Eitherway some points on my agenda I am looking forward to:
March 03 See you at MMS 2008?Today the approval for my attendance @ MMS 2008 came through. I hope to meet some of you there. @ Rod Trent: Save me a button! February 13 Service Manager delayed untill Q2 2010On Monday 11th February Microsoft announced that the Service Manager’s planned release has been delayed until the first half of 2010. A refresh of the Service Manager beta will be released towards the end of 2008. The reason for the delay is the feedback for beta 1 and can be summarized as a need to:
Senior Product Marketing Manager for SCSM Paul Ross comments the delay: "I’m confident that our strategy for Service Manager is going to provide the capabilities that our customers are asking for in terms of the IT service desk, deep integration across System Center products, and support for service management process frameworks such ITIL or MOF. I know any delay is unfortunate, but we must ensure that the product is ready on day one, rather than deliver a product that has to be changed once it is deployed in customers' environments." Many thanks to my friend and colleague Gerben pointing out to http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2008/02/07/system-center-service-manager-update.aspx |
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