Greetings from Tech-Ed 2008 / IT Pro week - one of the biggest and busiest IT Pro technical training events in the world.

My glamorous travel week so far has been:

Monday -- Fly from Dallas to Miami, wait on aircraft trouble, and finally arrive in Orlando around 8PM - upload VHD images and prep classroom hardware until 1:30AM.  Asleep by 2AM.

Tuesday -- Wake up at 6:30 to prep the Storage and DPM kiosk stations with PowerPoint and demo's.  Then, spent around 6 hours briefing analysts on all things 'Storage' -- storage workload in Windows Server 2008, Storage Server/WUDSS, and (of course), Data Protection Manager.  A few random meetings, and I am in my hotel by 9PM to do e-mail.

Wednesday (today) -- I'll do the first 2 breakout sessions around DPM - followed by 3 more events on Thursday - and 2 more on Friday.

And as much as that might sound like whining -- this is a really good week for me.  There is nothing about my job that I love as much as customer interaction, particularly from the podium of a technical breakout session.  Today's demo is my most ambitious, including Exchange CCR and File sharing clusters, SQL 2005 & 2008, SharePoint 2007, and Exchange 2007 -- along with the three Virtual Server host platforms and some brand new WS08 servers -- backed up courtesy of the new 'Rollup Update' for DPM 2007 which gives me supported protection of Windows Server 2008.

In today's breakout session, the first of three in a series for DPM, I do a technical introduction (200-level) that is very demo heavy.  Here are two podcasts using the same demo environment for your viewing pleasure -- basically doing a demonstration of how to protect and recover data with DPM 2007.  If you haven't seen DPM in action, or just feel like a refresher - then I hope you enjoy these.

Streaming Video -- How to protect data with DPM2007

Streaming Video -- How to recover data with DPM2007

If you'd like to watch this live, come to session MGT250 - DPM 2007 Technical Introduction of DPM2007.  Later this week, come back for MGT366 (Protecting Applications with DPM2007) and MGT450 (Advanced Features of DPM2007).  Other learning opportunities include MGT50-HOL, MGT64-HOL, MGT50-TLC., as well as a Data Protection/Virtualization session that I do with my buddy, Edwin Yuen, which we really ought to do as a TechNet webcast - and a session for the SharePoint folks on DPM2007 protection.  It is a very busy week - and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thanks for reading ... and watching

This weekend was Fathers’ Day in the US – and I have three loving children (and a wife) who know that their daddy is an avid gamer.  So, I thought I would share what I got for Fathers’ Day as an XboxDad.  I did get some of the standard Fathers’ Day fare – clothes, including some Xbox pajama pants. But I also got some great games that I had wanted to play myself, as well as with my kids.

Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion (Game of the Year Edition) – I am a huge RPG fan, and one of the definitive titles for console role-playing in this generation or ever has to be Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion. It’s an expansive world roaming title, where you can grow your character as a fighter, magician, thief or assassin (or all of the above) – along with an array of other skills – through numerous side quests along a great storyline. One of my favorite aspects of this title, that I originally committed over 160 hours into, is that unlike many RPG’s where you simply choose to increase your skills as you level-up through the game, in Oblivion (like a few other new games that learned from Oblivion), your skills grow as you continually use them. The more you use a type of magic, the more powerful that magic becomes – or lockpicking, or swordplay, or stealth activities, etc. I had traded my copy to a gaming buddy a while back, so I was excited to receive the Game of the Year (GOTY) edition, which includes not only the original title but two expansions as a two-disc set:

Knights of the Nine -- an additional quest line outside of the original four character quests

Shivering Isles --  a true expansion with 30+ hours of additional play that was originally available as downloadable content from Xbox Live that I just never got around to purchasing.

I loved this title so much that its main character is the picture for my gamertag and I haven’t found a game I have loved more since – so my gamer picture hasn’t changed. However, as rated-M and rightfully so for violence, don’t look for a review of it in on Xbox Dad. Instead, check back here on my blog -- next month after I return from the Shivering Isles.

Chessmaster – I had recently purchased Chessmaster Live from Xbox Live for my sons and I to play in single-player mode, when we couldn’t play each other (read the review from Duncan in an earlier Xbox Dad column). But since I travel a lot and my Xbox 360™ doesn’t work at 30,000 feet, my kids bought me the same title for use on my Nintendo DS.

This particular title is also nice since it allows the game to be played multi-player from one game card, wirelessly beaming the game one of my kids’ gaming units. We already can play chess together as a board game or on our game console, and the Xbox Live version lets us also play when we are alone. Now, for longer car rides this summer or waiting for our dinner in a restaurant, we can play yet another way.

Crash of the Titans – This title has been out for a while for Xbox 360, but my 7-year old, who is a big Crash fan from games played previously, had been wanting it – and I have been wanting another family-friendly co-operative title. This is a two-player co-op that will keep him and I busy, since we have all but wrapped up Fantastic Four (see Xbox Dad review) as well as the LEGO™ series from Star Wars and Indiana Jones that Duncan has covered for Xbox Dad.  Look for a review from me of Crash of the Titans in an upcoming Xbox Dad article (cross-posted here).

Open Season – we only recently watched the DVD as a family. And as a 4-player family game, look for this review in an upcoming Xbox Dad article, as well.

So, this finishes another Fathers’ Day holiday. I got some games, some game gear, and some other mementos and cards. It was a really nice day that will keep me active as an XboxDad recommender into the summer. 

If you are a gaming dad, I hope you had a Happy Fathers Day, too...

As always, thanks for reading...

Devin Ganger, my friend, Exchange MVP and author of "Mastering Data Protection Manager" recently joined me at TechEd in Orlando last week to talk about DPM and Exchange protection.

Check out the video -- 'Making backups cool with DPM"

For more information about Devin's book, please visit www.MasteringDPM.com

Thanks for reading...

As you may have seen in some of my other gaming posts, I love it when my favorite things overlap - e.g. Star Wars and Video Games.

In this month's Xbox Dad article, my Windows Home Server hooked up with my Xbox360 and effect was beautiful (literally), as my family photos and video, along with my CD collection are now streaming through my favorite HDTV and stereo system.

And to make even things better -- the folks at Windows Home Server are also getting ready to beta their Power Pack 1 - featuring among other things, backup of the WHS data.

As a 'data protection guy' -- backup was the first thing that I noticed was missing from WHS, but later realized it was one of the only things missing from my home server - the other being 64-bit client support for my Vista machine.  Am happy to say that both are included in PP1, with other goodness as well.

If you are a Windows Home Server already, make sure to watch for the beta announce.

If not, why not?  If you have a digital camera or an digital audio collection with more than one PC in the house and/or an Xbox360, then WHS has some very cool capabilities for you. 

Check out the XboxDad article for more info.

Stay tuned and I will continue to share my experiences with Power Pack 1 and the rest of WHS.

Hello friends,

Just posted over on the DPM Product Team blog on this -- including discussion points on:

-- How Microsoft customers were protecting Exchange previously

-- Design goals and feature decisions for DPM 2007

-- Supportability issues with other Exchange backup/replication solutions

-- What lies ahead for Exchange mailbox recovery

Enjoy the DPM blog -- and please continue to ask your questions on DPM, family gaming and anything else you want my opinion on. <grin>

Thanks for reading