Got that FREE DoubleDouble? Here’s Things To Do While Enjoying It!

Rick’s blog post and call to action to download the System Center 2012 RC products and get a coffee card from that great Canadian chain whose name rhymes with Jim Morton is a great incentive to action, but many folks have asked “What do I do after I have the System Center 2012 RC products to maximize my learning?”.  GREAT QUESTION!

Before anything else, you have to download the SC2012 RC products like Rick said (instructions to do so are at the end of this post).  Once you have that, I would recommend doing the following:

First, visit the System Center 2012 Evaluation Center on TechNet.  This is a great starting point to learn about all of the System Center 2012 RC products.  You can view the SC2012 overview video and then dig into each product in more detail and start to setup your evaluation lab.

Next, go to the TechNet Library for each of the products to learn about the best way to get started.  You can get there from the System Center 2012 Evaluation Center or directly for each product in the System Center Line:

• Getting Started with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 RC. You may also want to learn about managing VMWare and Xen virtual environments with SCVMM 2012 in addition to managing Hyper-V environments.
• Getting Started with System Center Configuration Manager 2012 RC.  Configuration Manager is a great tool to deploy and maintain consistent configurations that comply with corporate IT policies.
• Getting Started with System Center Operations Manager 2012 RC.  Operations Manager watches everything for you to make sure things are running smoothly and notifies you when they aren’t.  Combine it with Orchestrator and Service Manager to automate a large part of the process.
• Getting Started with System Center 2012 Orchestrator. If you have not heard of Orchestrator, read on about how you can use it to automate many tasks in your IT environment and free up your time to do more things.
• Planning Guide for System Center Service Manager 2012 Beta.  This is a great place to learn how to get started with this product.

The final step is simple – PLAY WITH THE TECHNOLOGY! No better way to learn than to experience it yourself.

BTW, if you interested in trying out some of the System Center 2012 RC products in a virtual environment, you can download a pre-configured VHD of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 RC, or you can install the software products in virtual machines in your own environment.  Note however that only SCVMM 2012 RC has a pre-configured VHD available.

Now, if you have not yet downloaded the System Center 2012 RC software (or you have colleagues who also want their FREE DoubleDouble – or several), here are the steps to do so:

1. Use this link to get started
2. Sign in with your WindowsLive ID (to pre-populate your data)
3. Verify your SHIPPING details to your mailing address and other pertinent data. (you will want to ensure it is correct).  This is how we know where to send that coffee card I spoke of.
4. Click FINISH – the download manager will start to download your evals in one click. 

Also, don’t forget to take some time over the Holidays to relax and just enjoy yourself.