All Backed Up

JBuff leaving Microsoft

2011-06-30T22:00:00Z

After 5.5 years, I am leaving Microsoft.

When I first joined, it was after 15 years in the backup/recovery and high availability market. I joined to be part of DPM v1, which had been in market for about a month, because the idea that Microsoft producing its own backup solution could change how Windows administrators dealt with backup – and it did. It has been an amazing time and I am very proud to now see DPM as a mainstream option for many Windows environments. DPM 2012 (v4) is almost in beta and it just keeps getting better !

Along the way, it was a privilege to work on several other technologies, as well:

File Services & Storage Solutions
File Services & Storage Solutions

Along the way, I even had the opportunity to accomplish one of my career goals – to author and publish my book on Data Protection and Availability.

It’s been an awesome adventure – I have learned much, done some cool things, seen some amazing places, and made many friends – all of which, I am extremely grateful for.

So, where I am headed next? I haven’t decided yet. I am taking part of the summer off to spend with my family and rest up – but I have started a few conversations with some great partners that have some cool technologies and some big visions. I intend to make some commitments by the end of July and be back on the grid in August. In the meantime, please keep in touch:

Linked-In www.linkedin.com/in/JasonBuffington

You can also follow me on my new website -- and a continuation of my blogs and tweets.

Thanks for reading. JBuff, signing out.

New interview from TechEd NA 2011

2011-06-10T21:45:57Z

Last week, my friends at TechNet EDGE released an interview that we did at TechEd 2011 in Atlanta last month:

As always, thanks for reading (and watching),

Now enrolling for the Operations Manager 2012 CEP

2011-06-03T07:02:00Z

At TechEd 2011, we announced that the OpsMgr 2012 Community Evaluation Program (CEP) is now taking applications.

What is a CEP

Many of you are likely familiar with Microsoft TAP’s, Technology Adoption Programs, where a small pool of customers partner with our engineering teams to preview and provide feedback on pre-beta software. TAP participants provide our engineers with some early guidance and validation of next generation software, prior to us releasing publicly-available beta software. TAP is a great program, but it starts very, very early on and usually fills up quick (and waay before beta). The OpsMgr 2012 TAP has been very active in helping us with early builds, but it is unfortunately full.

The Community Evaluation Program (CEP) has recently been created to provide a broader range of customers with an in-depth experience with our upcoming beta software.

Essentially, a CEP is an organized way of bringing our subject matter experts (SMEs) from our product teams, our community (like MVPs and experienced users) and those interested in taking a deep look at our v.Next software for evaluation and preparation for deployment purposes.

About the OpsMgr 2012 CEP

Starting around the time of public-beta, the OM12 CEP will offer private and focused topic discussions, whereby the entire enrolled community will all look at one key feature/enhancement at a time. This will give you, as enrolled participants, not only in-depth insight to the new OM12 features, but also access to the community of SMEs who can help you get the most out of Operations Manager 2012 (and 2007 R2 in some cases).

We are taking enrollment applications now, and will kick off the community reach-outs as we get a little closer to the public beta release.

We’ll start off looking at some of the features that you have heard a lot about so far, such as Network Monitoring or Application Monitoring. Then, we’ll dig into some of the new topology changes, as well as upgrade scenarios, and then just keep looking at different facets of OpsMgr 2012 moving forward.

How do I apply

Information on all of the System Center and Forefront CEP offerings is available here

For an overview of the Operations Manager 2012 CEP, take a look at the OM12 CEP overview datasheet.

For questions on the OpsMgr 2012 CEP itself, you can send email to OMCEP@microsoft.com. (no, we can’t yet answer ‘when’ questions) :-)

Click here to Apply for the OpsMgr 2012 CEP

We will notify all accepted participants as to the OM12 topic schedule and how to access the CEP discussion forums later in June.

A note of special thanks to all of the OpsMgr 2012 session attendees at TechEd 2011, some of whom enrolled even during the sessions themselves!

Good luck and we look forward to working with many of you on OpsMgr 2012 !

Jason on Talk TechNet Radio – discussing DPM 2012

2011-05-13T14:00:00Z

Good morning, all.

Keith Combs and Chris Henley run a weekly ‘radio call-in show’ called Talk TechNet – and this week, they asked me to talk about DPM (2010 and 2012).

You can listen in, live or afterwards, at https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032485880

Keith & Chris – it was lots of fun! Thanks for having me…

Thanks for listening

Rest in Peace, Ruud Baars

2011-03-21T16:10:43Z

Over the weekend, the DPM community lost one of its best – Ruud Baars.

While you may be familiar with some of the DPM voices and faces, Ruud was one of the quiet and sometimes unseen, true innovators of how to deploy DPM in the real world.

If you received answers to questions in the DPM newsgroups or forums, those answers often came from Ruud – either directly, or by the people that he has mentored over the years.
If you have used the advanced PowerShell scripts to manage DPM, they were often from Ruud.
If you got pragmatic answers from your Microsoft account team on the specifics of sizing and architecture before the DPM storage calculators, those answers probably came from Ruud through our internal DLs that he constantly monitored to help others.

Ruud worked at Microsoft for more than 10 years. He started his career in Product Support and joined Services five years ago. His last position was that of Senior Consultant in the Core IO team. Ruud was a very passionate and driven person -- to customers and colleagues alike, dedicated to Microsoft technologies and its development. We will remember Ruud for his valued critical and optimistic attitude and his unique, characteristic, concise and powerful way of communication.

Ruud was one of the first Microsoft consultants to really pick DPM up. In the early days of DPM v1 (2006), there was a lot of excitement around the potential of Microsoft delivering its own backup solution. But after the anticipation, and the evangelism, and the proofs of concept, it was early experts like Ruud who actually helped customers successful with their first deployments. And as the DPM communities grew, both internal to Microsoft and externally with customers, partners and industry SMEs/MVPs, it was often Ruud who acted as the ‘deployment guru’ that we all learned from – not just about DPM itself, but storage, backup/recovery, and service.

Three months ago, Ruud was diagnosed with lung cancer, which overtook him last weekend. He leaves behind his wife, Han, and daughter Kimberley – as well as a company and community that are indebted to his knowledge and service.

Personally, I will always be grateful for the passion and expertise that he brought to the DPM community. But what I will remember the most is how that passion and expertise was delivered with the humility of a true gentleman.

Rest in Peace, Ruud.

Full House Poker – for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone

2011-03-16T18:01:00Z

This is a great example why it is cool to have a phone that is integrated with Xbox Live – you can have a continuous gaming experience across devices!

Last night, the Marketplace released two games:

Full House Poker for Xbox 360 (Live Arcade)

Full House Poker for Windows Phone

Okay, I might be a little bias because I enjoy Texas Hold’em … and because I am coincidentally going to Las Vegas next week (for work). But I still think this is cool because as a gamer, I sometimes get started in a game at home (on my Xbox360) but then am travelling or otherwise not able to play at home, so I play on my phone.

No, this isn’t a completely unified experience, but it shows the potential – as some of the rewards and status earned in one game will be reflected in the other.

Here is the write-up on the game:

Test your Texas Hold 'Em prowess in Standard Games and Tournaments against a variety of Full House Poker pros. Each pro has unique skills and weaknesses, so watch them closely to learn how to take them down. Earn experience and level up to unlock cool ways to customize your poker experience.

Reap the rewards of your poker play on both Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360. Build up your bankroll on your phone, and you'll have that stack of chips waiting for you the next time you play Full House Poker on Xbox 360. Level up on Xbox 360, and get the respect you've earned the next time you play on your phone. Levels, XP, chips, stats, and unlockables are all shared across both devices.

It's Full House Poker on Windows Phone 7. So let's deal the cards already!

(Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360 versions of Full House Poker sold separately.)

I’ve already downloaded it for my Windows Phone and will be trying out the Xbox 360 version tonight. So, if you see me working on my phone next week at the Microsoft Management Summit, don’t assume I am doing email.

As always, thanks for reading.

DPM at MMS 2011

2011-03-15T14:00:00Z

If you are coming to the Microsoft Management Summit 2011 next week, you have some great opportunities to learn more about Data Protection Manager.

We have four breakout sessions with DPM. I will be at all four talks but am sharing the stage this year with some great SMEs from the DPM community, including:

BB16 Protecting the Datacenter with DPM 2010

BB17 Protecting Client Data with DPM 2010 by Orin Thomas, one of my favorite MVPs, and including a view of MS IT’s own use of DPM by Young Kwon

BB36 The Datacenter is down, let’s Restore by more of my favorite MVPs on the planet, Mike Resseler & David Allen

BB18 First Look at DPM 2012 co-delivered by Asim Mitra, from the DPM product team

YEP !! Like many of the other System Center products, we will be delivering a 2012 release – and this is your first chance to see the features.

Within the Microsoft Expo area of the show floor, come by the DPM booth and meet some of the DPM product team and some of our DPM MVP’s.

I will be around all week, giving/supporting sessions, handing out a few books and always happy to share some coffee and talk about backup, restore and disaster recovery.

If I am not in the DPM booth, you might find me at the i365 booth (# 538) with my friends who make a DPM Appliance. If you happened to score an invite to their VIP event on Tuesday night, count on finding me there, too !

There is a lot to see this year on DPM, so if you are coming to MMS – come find me !

As always, thanks for reading.

Partner Webcast on DPM and Appliances from i365

2011-03-02T15:00:00Z

If you are Microsoft Partner, I’d like to invite you to an upcoming webcast on March 15 at 9AM Pacific time.

Go to your Microsoft Partner portal and look up MGT116AL which talks about helping System Center customers with their Backup and Recovery needs.

In this talk, i365 will be talking about their DPM Appliance and also introducing one of their partners, which has some great news for to help you as you deliver System Center to your customers. I am a fan of the i365 DPM appliance, and you can read my earlier blog post (here), as well as a review of i365’s DPM appliance by ESG.

As always, thanks for reading (and watching).

Are you coming to MMS 2011 ?! I am !

2011-02-21T23:55:00Z

Last week, Microsoft held TechReady 12 for our internal sales and field teams. This was an exciting event because we gave them a sneak peak at the very cool technologies and sessions that we will delivering publicly at MMS 2011 next month. For the products that I am blessed to support, we have a phenomenal lineup of sessions. Here are just a few that I hope you will check out:

Operations Manager 2012: Overview
Operations Manager 2012: Setup and Configuration
Operations Manager 2012: Network Monitoring
Operations Manager 2012: Management Pack Readiness & Authoring
Operations Manager 2012: Dashboards and Authoring

Come join us at Microsoft Management Summit 2011 … March 21-25

AVIcode : Overview of Application Monitoring
AVIcode : Diagnosing Application Problems
AVIcode : Setup and Deploy Intercept Studio
AVIcode and OpsMgr in the Real World

Protecting the Datacenter with DPM 2010
Protecting Client Data with DPM 2010
Help, the Datacenter is down – Let’s Restore !
A First Look at DPM 2012

It’s going to be an awesome week. Hope to see you there !

As always, thanks for reading (and watching).

Operations Manager 2007 R2 lands Microsoft as a Gartner Magic Quadrant ‘Leader’

2011-02-04T15:40:47Z

In December 2010, Gartner released its latest Magic Quadrant for IT Event Correlation and Analysis (ECA).

Microsoft was very pleased to see that in consideration of System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, Gartner placed Microsoft in the Leader Quadrant of its ECA MQ.

To read Gartner’s ECA Magic Quadrant report, click here.

Blog posts to read on AVIcode 5.7

2011-01-06T18:34:33Z

If you really want to learn about AVIcode and its Application Monitoring capabilities, one of my favorite SMEs on the ‘net is Simon Skinner – SystemCenterCentral Twitter

Simon is a long-time System Center Operations Manager MVP, who has been working with the AVIcode technologies since well before Microsoft acquired them in 2010. Simon recently published a series of blog posts around the newly released AVIcode 5.7 product.

Ya gotta check ‘em out:

System Center Central : AVIcode 5.7 – Part 1 : AVIcode 5.7 goes live

System Center Central : AVIcode 5.7 – Part 2 : Licensing

System Center Central : AVIcode 5.7 – Part 3 : Terminology

System Center Central : AVIcode 5.7 – Part 4 : Install the SEviewer

System Center Central : AVIcode 5.7 – Part 5 : Navigation of the SEviewer

System Center Central : AVIcode 5.7 – Part 6 : Securing the SEviewer

Of course, Simon just keeps writing more good stuff – so instead of amending all of his links here … click to see a complete list of Simon’s posts.

Simon and another of my favorite MVPs (Pete Zerger – SystemCenterCentral Twitter) will be giving a webcast in January to let the world know why they are excited about AVIcode and its acquisition by Microsoft, as part of the larger System Center management story.

Click here to register for the AVIcode webcast on January 12

There is a lot of excitement from System Center veterans on AVIcode – so check ‘em out !

As always, thanks for reading !

Webcast : Overview of AVIcode

2010-12-21T20:44:27Z

Two Microsoft MVPs that normally specialize in System Center Operations Manager are offering a webcast in January to let the world know why they are excited about AVIcode and its acquisition by Microsoft, as part of the larger System Center management story.

Click here to register for the AVIcode webcast on January 12

As a personal plug, these two SMEs are some of the top-rated bloggers on SystemCenterCentral.com, as well as great speakers and experts on System Center technologies. Check out their other great info:

Simon Skinner – SystemCenterCentral Twitter

Pete Zerger – SystemCenterCentral Twitter

I will be tuning in to hear what they say, will you?

AVIcode 5.7 now available !

2010-12-17T15:30:00Z

YES !!! It is here !!

And not just the bits, but also the details on how SMSE / SMSD customers can get it !

Last month, I caught up with my friend Gordon McKenna – CEO of Inframon and Microsoft MVP at TechEd 2010 Europe. He has been bringing AVIcode technologies to his customers for years before the acquisition, so he had some great things to say about the Microsoft’s newest technology:

The official details of the 5.7 release are on the System Center Nexus blog.

Software details and licensing info are at www.microsoft.com/AVIcode .

As always, thanks for reading …

My favorite Windows Sidebar gadget – Outlook calendar appointments

2010-12-15T16:21:22Z

I am starting my New Years’ Resolution early by sharing some of the non-System Center geek things that make my life easier or better.

The Windows Sidebar is not new, having been first introduced with Windows Vista. And most of us probably have the weather, a clock and Bing search tools. But every time that I rebuild my desktop (which happens by choice more often than I care to admit), the first thing that I do is install the Outlook Upcoming Appointments gadget. It is available for free from the Gadget Gallery.

As I am completed managed by my calendar (and unfortunately not the other way around), this is invaluable instead of waiting for Alerts or routinely maximizing Outlook. Instead, it puts the next few appointments up on my desktop.

The only gotcha is that the gadget was released for Outlook 2007. Editing one text file and changing ‘12’ to ‘14’ in two places makes it completely happy to work with Outlook 2010. Specific instructions on which file and what to change are listed as the top community comment.

Merry Christmas, y’all !

Thanks for reading…

Redmond Channel – Partner Guide to Data Protection

2010-12-09T21:54:19Z

There is a new Partner Guide on Data Protection that was just released on Redmond Channel Partner’s online site.

There is a rumor that DPM 2010 shows heavily in the guide - - as does the EDPM appliance from i365.

So, check it out !!!

ESG reviews DPM 2010 appliance from i365

2010-12-07T17:00:00Z

Don’t ya love it when some of your friends connect with your other friends – and you didn’t even know until they were already connected ?!

Well – some of my friends at i365 make a very cool DPM appliance that combines DPM 2010 and i365’s EVAULT software to deliver “Best for Windows” and “Heterogeneous” backup, respectively. And the i365 solution is delivered in pre-configured appliances that are designed for midsized businesses – and can even replicate to the cloud for DR. Check out my last i365 blog post.

Well – the folks from i365 loaned one of their appliances to some folks at ESG. Some of the Backup-industry analysts that I respect most (Lauren Whitehouse and David Chapa) are at ESG, so I always listen intently when ESG is looking at backup trends and technologies.

Here is part of the punchline from the ESG Lab Review of i365’s DPM appliance:

When ESG asked users to name their priorities for data protection investment in 2010, the top four responses were: improving disaster recovery capabilities, backup of virtual server environments, improving application backup, and desktop/laptop backup and recovery. EVault for DPM provides the capability to address all of these needs for small to mid-size customers.

Check out the ESG Lab Review of the i365 DPM appliance.

The First Five Years of Fun at Microsoft

2010-12-06T15:00:00Z

Today (actually yesterday) marks five years for me at Microsoft. It’s been an amazing adventure so far and as usual for anniversaries, it seems like both yesterday and a lifetime ago that I started.

At the time, I was a Microsoft MVP in File System and Storage technologies – which is the closest category that they could find for a guy who likes to back things up and restore them.

I joined MS to be the “Technical Product Manager” – a.k.a. corporate subject matter expert (SME) and evangelist – for Data Protection Manager (DPM), whose v.1 product had released to market about a month prior. This was the perfect job for someone who had been deploying, selling and marketing backup technologies for fifteen years. For nearly ten of those years, I had hoped to join Microsoft in one role or another. The DPM gig was truly perfect for me not only in its subject area (backup) but also because Microsoft was willing to allow me to be a telecommuting PM, which meant that I didn’t have to relocate to Redmond.

While DPM has usually been my primary product focus, I have also had some great opportunities to work on some other technologies in addition to DPM:

Of note is that DPM 2006 was the first product branded “System Center” … which meant that while I was explaining why and how Microsoft was delivering a backup product, I was also able to start painting a vision of what System Center was. :-)

The DPM and Windows File / Storage folks were combined for a few years, which was an amazing chance to also work on:

File Services

an OEM appliance

File Services

With the DPM team re-merged back with the rest of the System Center team, I had the opportunity to work on the complete SC management story – for our midsized business customers

????

This year, it has been very exciting to be a small part of bringing in the newest technologies of the SC family – AVIcode !

… and it is an honor to now be working on the next generation of one of the most popular products in the System Center family – Operations Manager !!

And along the way, I even had a chance to write about some of my favorite video games on Xbox.com. Where else can a server guy write about video games than Microsoft ?!?

These days, OpsMgr and AVIcode are filling much more of my time than DPM … which certainly makes me look forward to what other cool technologies that I will have the chance to work with for the next five years!

I cannot say enough – THANK YOU to Microsoft for the opportunity, to my managers and co-workers for the daily opportunity to be challenged and grow … and to you, the blog readers (and book purchasers) who have been on a good bit of this adventure with me.

As always, thanks for reading !!

DPM 2010 session at TechEd Europe 2010

2010-11-11T13:09:12Z

Wow !! I delivered the session yesterday and the really fast folks at TechEd Berlin already have it online !!

MGT308 -- Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 in the Datacenter

This session will focus on leveraging DPM’s protection and recovery capabilities in large datacenters. We will look at how DPM protects and recovers application workloads such as SQL, Exchange and SharePoint - as well as virtual machines within Hyper-V. The session is full of demonstrations, including that of the new self-service restore capability for database administrators. We will also look at combining on-premises and off-premises protection, using both DPM’s built-in replication mechanisms as well as cloud-based DPM-partner repositories.

Hope you enjoy it.

TechEd Europe – so far

2010-11-10T00:09:21Z

What an amazing week so far! In the past three months, I have had the immense privilege of joining the OpsMgr family, including not only a phenomenal product group, but also a very active and passionate community of MVPs and SMEs, as well as great customers of all sizes. This week, the thrills continued as OpsMgr and the rest of System Center had some great moments in Berlin. Here are a few of my favorite new memories so far:

In Brad Anderson’s keynote, System Center showed up three times – twice using technologies that are I am honored to be a small part of:

Sr. Director of Product Management, Greg Jensen, showed SC Virtual Machine Manager 2012 CTP:

The Windows Azure team showed the new Azure Management Pack for Operations Manager:

And Vlad Joanovic from the Operations Manager team showed our newly acquired AVIcode technology:

That was Monday. On Tuesday, we started the day with Ryan O’Hara’s track kickoff for Datacenter management, where I had the chance to show a little more AVIcode – and give the first viewing of Operations Manager 2012 !!!

Later on Tuesday, Justin Incarnato and Vlad gave a full hour-overview of some of the big things coming in Operations Manager 2012 (OpsMgr 2012):

Yes, we will be working towards giving this information out to the rest of the public, but someone had to be first – and that is part of the fun of TechEd.

What a great 24 hours – and we have three more days of good stuff planned for OpsMgr folks !!

As always, thanks for reading !

Book Review – Data Protection for Virtual Data Centers

2010-10-15T12:07:00Z

Was excited to see one of the first reviews from my book – from Paul Schnackenburg, who many of you will know from various his System Center and Microsoft coverage in publications including ZDnet.AU, RedmondMag and 4Sysops.com. He also writes his own blog called Tell IT as IT is. Paul was kind enough to read the book and here is what he said:

I’ve just finished reading Data Protection for Virtual Data Centers by Jason Buffington, it was a very good read. This is a rather unique book in that it’s not a book about Data Protection Manager although you’ll learn a lot about what DPM can do for data protection. It’s also not a book about Systems Center Configuration Manager or Systems Center Operations Manager even though you’ll gain an overview of what those products can do.

What this book does is take a holistic approach to understanding data protection as it applies to small, medium and large organizations. Starting with an overview of what data protection is and the different technologies used to achieve it; the book then steps you through how to use business metrics and financial calculations to understand which option is most suitable. You’ll then learn how to achieve High Availability in modern versions of SQL Server, Exchange Server, File Services in Windows Server, Failover Clustering and Hyper-V Virtualization etc. It rounds of with Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery.

All in all this is a well written book, by an expert in the field who’s been doing data protection for many years, covering modern approaches to data protection in today’s IT world. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to understand the many layers and facets of data protection!

Paul – thanks for reading the book (and writing about it) !

Everyone else -- As always, thanks for reading.

New interview on Bytes by TechNet

2010-10-12T13:15:49Z

“Listen or watch Bytes by TechNet Interviews today!” Get insights or IT solutions from IT Professionals and the latest Microsoft news in a fun and practical format. Watch Bytes by TechNet Interviews featuring influential IT Professionals, from the community and Microsoft, around a variety of topics that they are passionate about. Check out the Bytes today at TechNet! http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bytesbytechnet.aspx.

That’s how TechNet describes it … and it really is a cool series.

The way I describe it …

My buddy and world-renowned IT Pro evangelist Matt Hester caught up to me at TechEd and said “Hey, congrats on DPM 2010 launching and your book getting published. Let’s catch up so you can tell me about it.” Matt didn’t mention the four-person camera and lights crew that would be hovering around while we talked. We talked about the new DPM 2010 capabilities of Windows Client protection, as well as some of the licensing changes in DPM 2010.

Here is the result (thanks Matt):

As always, thanks for reading (and watching)…

Microsoft acquires AVIcode, Inc.

2010-10-06T15:13:49Z

Today, Microsoft announced its acquisition of AVIcode, Inc. Read the official blog here.

We hope that the rest of the Operations Manager community is as excited as we are about the enhanced capabilities that the AVIcode technologies bring to Systems Monitoring, including not only .Net application monitoring, as well as rich performance metrics:

In addition, technologies from today’s acquisition can help both IT Pros and Developers in true root cause analysis of distributed applications:

You’ll be hearing more and more about how the AVIcode technologies will bring new systems monitoring capabilities to System Center users, but for now, check out the System Center blog for news on the acquisition and a video from our VP, Brad Anderson, on what this means for Microsoft customers.

Jason headed to Europe in November

2010-09-28T16:18:50Z

November promises to be a fun time across Europe. Here are a few of the places I will be:

November 3 – Brussels

Am looking forward to seeing some of my friends at the System Center Users Group in Belgium. More details to follow on what I will be speaking on.

November 5 – London

Am supporting InfraMon’s War On Costs event. Last wear was awesome aboard the HMS Belfast (see blog below), so looking forward to another historic venue in London’s Cabinet War Rooms … and a phenomenal lineup of systems management topics. Check out Inframon’s new site for more on War On Cost.

And of course …

November 8-12 is Microsoft TechEd in Berlin:

Tuesday (Nov.9)	MGT201	Will be clicking some cool demos for the Management Track kickoff
	MGT205	Introducing the next generation of System Center Operations Manager

Wednesday (Nov.10)	MGT320-IS	Enabling the Dynamic Datacenter & getting ready for the cloud *
	MGT308	System Center Data Protection Manger 2010 in the datacenter
	MGT204	What’s new in Operations Manager since R2 *

Thursday (Nov.11)	MGT309	Managing the heterogeneous environment thru Xplat and 3rd party integration *

* Other folks are delivering the OpsMgr sessions but I will be there for moral support and Q&A

So, it ought to be a fun trip – but it would be more fun if I can meet with you!

If you are in one of these venues and want to share coffee, ping me.

Favorite TechEd Australia and New Zealand moments

2010-08-30T02:45:10Z

I really enjoy giving sessions at TechEd – and the international events are great for giving me different perspectives on bandwidth, regulatory compliance, etc. Over the past two weeks, I gave 6 breakout sessions (AU sessions & NZ sessions), did a few podcasts, press interviews, etc.

In fact, the first article from that week is already published by IT Wire on “The First Rule of Data Protection”

But my favorite moments of these trips are the 1:1 meetings.

I finally met Paul Schnackenburg (right), one of my favorite technology writers in the southern hemisphere. After having briefed him on multiple Microsoft product releases and reviews (SCE 2010 and DPM 2010), and routinely reading his articles in various online periodicals, it was great to meet him in person.

Also, had the chance to hang out with Orin Thomas (twitter/OrinThomas), who is almost as passionate about DPM 2010 as I am. After contributing to the last round of DPM whitepapers, he’s also almost as versed in DPM 2010 as I am these days.

On the Left, I am with Matt Marlor (twitter.com/ohcrap) who is celebrating the first anniversary of AuTechHeads, an IT Pro group in Australia. These folks are really passionate about server infrastructure, and especially seem to like System Center.

Matt and I have traded email and tweets for probably a year, but hadn’t met in person until this week.

Happy First Anniversary, AuTechHeads !!!

These guys are so much fun that I joined AuTechHeads. (hey, I am usually in Australia one week per year. Doesn’t that count?)

In Other News

Was exciting to see the New Zealand kickoff session for System Center was staggeringly beyond standing room only.

I gave away several copies of my book – and was pleased to sign others that folks had already purchased.

Had some great conversations with partners that are looking to provide hosted Disaster Recovery for their small/medium business clients.

Also enjoyed working directly with a few customers who had committed to DPM 2010 and looking for implementation suggestions, based on their special circumstances.

And I did finally get over my fear of heights long enough to climb the Harbour Bridge in Sydney (right).

THANK YOU to all of my Aussie and Kiwi friends, customers, partners, and fellow-Microsofties for making it a great two weeks.

I hope you got as much out of it as I did.

Jason and DPM at TechEd New Zealand

2010-08-29T22:00:17Z

Am back in Auckland for my third TechEd !

This promises to be a great week, so here is where you can catch me and hear more about DPM 2010:

Monday @ 14:55 – SVR215 – Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010, Part 1: Technical Introduction

Why is Microsoft in the backup business? This session will answer that, as well as cover installing a new DPM 2010 server, and then provide an overview of the core capabilities and enhanced protection/recovery scenarios. The session is over 50% demonstration.

Tuesday @ 10:40 – OFS204 – How to protect SharePoint and SQL Server with DPM 2010

DPM 2010 was recently released to market, so this session on everything that a systems administrator needs to understand about protecting Microsoft SharePoint with Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager. With the new DPM 2010 feature set, SharePoint Administrators gain the ability to protect entire the entire farm, including the auto-protection of new content databases. And with the removal of the Recovery Farm in MOSS 2010, DPM has an even stronger restore story for SharePoint customers. We will talk about how DPM uses the SharePoint VSS writers and components to provide a wholly supported and reliable protection and recovery experience for SharePoint deployments from 2003 to 2010. And for the other SQL Servers, not including the content database servers, learn how DPM 2010 now provides auto-instance protection, enterprise scale backups, and self-service restores for DBA’s. If you manage SharePoint or SQL Server within your environment, consider “How do you plan on backing up your farms and databases?” and then come to this session to learn the answer.

Wednesday @ 13:45 – SVR315 – Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010, Part 2: Virtualisation & Disaster Recovery

This session will focus on the considerations and best practices for Disaster Recovery and Virtualisation back up. Disaster Recovery without expensive third-party replication products or storage solutions and Virtualization Protection for the modern datacenter.

And thanks to my friends at Wiley Press, I will be giving away a few copies of my new book, Data Protection for Virtual Datacenters. It is also available from these NZ & AU bookstores, but I think free is better:

Amazon (link) - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470572140?tag=chrgamdad-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0470572140&adid=0FEA5N6XN21D77YAQ9DY& (even with US shipping, appears cheaper than AU/NZ store?)

Fishpond.co.nz - http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Computers/Hardware/General/9780470572146/

TheNile.com.au - http://www.thenile.com.au/books/Jason-Buffington/Data-Protection-for-Virtual-Data-Centers/9780470572146/

Would you like to have coffee?

If you are attending TechEd New Zealand and want to talk about DPM or SC Essentials, please contact me via this blog.

I will also be visiting DPM customers in Sydney on September 2nd and 3rd … so please ping me.

As always, thanks for reading…

File Services & Storage Solutions			File Services & Storage Solutions

BB16	Protecting the Datacenter with DPM 2010
BB17	Protecting Client Data with DPM 2010	by Orin Thomas, one of my favorite MVPs, and including a view of MS IT’s own use of DPM by Young Kwon
BB36	The Datacenter is down, let’s Restore	by more of my favorite MVPs on the planet, Mike Resseler & David Allen
BB18	First Look at DPM 2012	co-delivered by Asim Mitra, from the DPM product team