One of our UK TechNet readers, Christopher Latham, wrote to me a couple of weeks ago looking for help with some research he’s undertaking for his MSc Dissertation and the subject “Cloud Computing adoption in SMEs” is something that I’m really interested in so I thought it’d be great if we all gave him hand. Christopher’s survey on Cloud Computing Adoption in SMEs will only take about 5 minutes to complete but it’ll help him out a lot and provide us with some interesting thoughts.
I wanted to understand a little more about Chris so I wrote back to him to find out why he’s doing what he’s doing….
“I have worked in SMEs throughout my career in IT and there is a common conception amongst academics that they are best placed to exploit the benefits of the cloud through the “big little” effect, which allows them to enjoy the benefits of enterprise IT without the capital investment. I really wanted to see whether this is true, what the concerns of SMEs are in relation to the cloud, and what the level of knowledge is in the SME community regarding its benefits and risks. Moreover, I want to determine whether size really does matter when considering whether to move towards a cloud model – or whether SMEs have business concerns that are as relevant, if not more so to whether they adopt or not. Ultimately, I want to produce a framework which provides an amount of IT governance to SMEs around the cloud that fits in with the way they formulate business strategy, without it becoming particularly onerous or time consuming. ”
Chris is doing his MSc with the Open University and he’s going to release the results on his blog so we’ll be sure to make sure we let you know to.
It’s that time again, the sun’s shining in Reading and we’re almost at the weekend. As it’s Friday why not let your hair down and take a quick flick through the goodies we’ve brought you on the TechNet Blog over the past 5 days. Read up on consumerisation, get some great free tools and be in with a chance of winning an awesome prize or two in return for 3 minutes of effort, if you can Save Sam’s job!
Have a good weekend and see you on the other side!
Andrew and I often get asked questions about some of the more basic elements of the job and a question that comes up time and time again is what are the best tools to use for doing X. For me I often get asked how you start to plan a migration, to understand what’s out there in your environment and then to move into deploying Windows. We also get asked all manner of questions around managing AD, around System Center, around security and around clever ways to do something. I thought I’d compile a short list of some of our favourites, hopefully you’ll find some nuggets but share your thoughts in the comments.
MAP The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is an agentless inventory, assessment, and reporting tool that can securely assess IT environments for various platform migrations—including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, Windows Azure, and Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track. I find this toolkit to be a fabulous planning resource which is why it’s top of this list, because it came to mind first. It simply looks at your environment and provides you with reports that with some tweaking you can use to support things like a request for funding or just to work out how far through a migration you are. For example it can look at your desktop estate and tell you how many PCs you have that don’t have hardware capable of running Windows 7. Andrew is also a big fan of the MAP.
OEAT Office Environment Assessment Toolkit is a free downloadable executable (.exe) file that scans client computers for add-ins and applications that interact with Microsoft Office 97, Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Office XP, Microsoft Office 2003, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and Microsoft Office 2010. You use OEAT during the assessment phase of your application compatibility and remediation project, which is described in detail in Office 2010 application compatibility guide. The following figure shows how OEAT fits into the overall process of assessing application compatibility
MDT The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is THE tool to use to get any version of Windows deployed within your organisation. It simplifies the process of creating dynamic deployments that can adapt to the hardware or environment into which they are being delivered. If you already use System Center then it integrates very well and the new Beta integrates with System Center 2012 too. MDT also has a task sequence that lets you automatically P2V an XP machine to migrate it to Windows 7 allowing full access to the original XP machine, all it’s apps and data.
USMT User State Migration Tool (USMT) 4.0 is a scriptable command-line tool that provides a highly-customizable user-profile migration experience for IT professionals. USMT includes two components, ScanState and LoadState, and a set of modifiable .xml files: MigApp.xml, MigUser.xml, and MigDocs.xml. In addition, you can create custom .xml files to support your migration needs. You can also create a Config.xml file to specify files or settings to exclude from the migration.
IEAK The Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) simplifies the creation, deployment and management of customized Internet Explorer packages. The IEAK can be used to configure the out-of-box Internet Explorer experience or to manage user settings after Internet Explorer deployment. WHAT I LOVE about this tool is that it allows so much control over the browsing environment giving you complete manageability where some other browsers give you about 87 settings that don’t do a whole lot, IE gives you 1500+ to ensure it fits your organisation perfectly.
Security Essentials IF your org has less than 10 PCs then this is the FREE antivirus for you, like wise use it at home. Security Essentials uses the same signatures as ForeFront and has won a slew of awards for being very user friendly. You shouldn’t really need to pay to keep safe.
Sysinternals Books have been written about this set of tools, so powerful they help identify and solve serious security and malware issues. Mark Russinovich and friends have created and docuemented an ultra powerful set of tools, some of my favourites are PSExec (which has saved my life and career on many an occasion) BGinfo which tells me all the details I need to identify a server at a glance from the desktop, and Zoom It, which if you’ve ever seen me demo live you’ll have seen.
RDC Man RDCMan manages multiple remote desktop connections. It is useful for managing server labs where you need regular access to each machine such as automated checkin systems and data centers. It is similar to the built-in MMC Remote Desktops snap-in, but more flexible.
MAPT
Mouse without borders has been an internal tool at Microsoft for along time. It’s an immensely useful tool if you use multiple PCs, it basically allows you to share a single mouse and keyboard across multiple PCs – sort of like a revers RDP. The great thing is that it works perfectly when you have a few laptops to work on at one time as you can use the monitor from each to provide multiple displays.
Some learning tools
Deployment learning portal is the place to learn how to deploy Windows.
MVA is the place to learn how to use the cloud, and virtualisation and tons and tons of other stuff.
You might remember that not that long ago we ran a competition to find a Windows 7 Migration expert in the TechNet Blog community to present the final slot at the Windows 7 Deployment – Why and How? online conference.
I’m pleased to announce that we have found our expert! Paul Cooke is a Project Manager at Plymouth City Council, implementing hot desking using Windows 7, Office 2010, App-V and Lync 2010 so the council can close buildings and generate savings to avoid job losses. He’s keen to share his experiences of migration in the real world with you all, and we’re just as keen to hear them!
In Paul’s own words the rollout has been “So successful the remaining Depts. are clamouring for a place higher on the schedule”. Click here to register to attend the online conference on 25th October and find out why.
Delivering an environment where people are able to bring their own devices into the office and use them is certainly one of the biggest trends of our time and it’s proving to be one of the hardest things to support. To quote Forrest Gump “you never know what you’re going to get”. How do you provide support into an environment where you don’t know what it is that you’re going to be supporting? Do you need Windows skills, Mac skills, iOS skills, Android skills or all of them, the answer is probably all, but you need to concentrate on the managing and supporting the environment and the data rather than the devices.
Setting expectations
That of course is easy to say but difficult to do when you bring user expectations into the equation. Do your users expect you to be able to fix every problem that they have? Probably yes, over time that will change and my hunch is that it probably already is and you don’t know it but perhaps it’s going to require a push to get things started. That push will probably come in the form of a win/win approach of changing the depth what you are expected to support in exchange for supporting more breadth of support. Gartner back in July published a paper Best Practices for Supporting 'Bring Your Own' Mobile Devices which I thoroughly suggest reading but without thinking solely about mobile device support and just thinking about device support.
One of the key aspects of support that’s addressed really well by this paper is how you define support. Certainly in my 10 years of hands on experience in the industry I’ve come across two types of support the standard support type of “technically bounded” or break/fix (when it breaks you’re bound to fix it) and “best efforts” (you keep going until you can’t be bothered any more).
Lots of us don’t really take too much time thinking about this because as IT Professionals there is a huge amount of professional pride in fixing a problem – indeed I count problem solving skills as probably the most important skill set of anyone in IT. So we end up doing everything to find a fix and that's what most of our user base has traditionally expected us to be able to do: Fix it. I’d argue that much of our identity as professionals is wrapped up in that too. My experience also leads me to see that most of us have implemented “best efforts” for technologies that have sneaked their way in.
How many people are running their mobile strategy on a “best efforts” approach? I think in smaller enterprises it’s likely to be more prevalent than in larger enterprises but I’m sure there are groups of special case users who get “best efforts” around their odd bits of kit – in house graphics teams using Macs are often in this camp too – again in my experience. I don’t particularly like this approach to support because it’s missing one of the most important aspect of support: reasonable expectation setting for the user. As a user I don’t know where I am.
What I really like is the idea of “Timeboxed” support. This is an idea that is really simple for everyone to understand and Wikipedia does a great job of defining Timeboxing but an example is a great idea to describe it. A football match is a time boxed activity, there’s a start time, everyone knows it’s going to last for 90 minutes and if it’s not won (resolved) at the end of that time there is a contingency for extra time. The beauty of this is that everyone is aware of the expectation in advance and they know what they’ll get out of it. For this reason I love this idea when you consider support of wildly disparate end points.
Of course you cannot use one method in isolation. It would be really hard to do time boxed support of your network, for example, because you own that infrastructure and therefore you are solely responsible as an organisation for it. For that reason it strikes me that time boxed support for Bring Your Own Devices is a great thing, with traditional technically bound support remaining for “owned” infrastructure.
What happens when the time runs out? What a great question and this is where leveraging this as a win/win scenario comes in along with management of your environment. Your technical people need to be able to deal with the most common eventualities of connecting devices into your environment which requires you to major your knowledge around the environment. You have of course allowed the user to select their kit, told them that you’ll spend a maximum of an hour fixing it and when that doesn’t work they will have to consider their position or use a corporate asset.
Which is where one of the more important tactics for a really good BYOC or consumerisation programme comes in – maintaining standard business connectivity devices. You still need a bit of kit that you will guarantee to work at all times that is still covered by your technically bound support option because your business, your users need to run no matter what.
Self help
Earlier I suggested I had a hunch that support was already changing and the reality is that access to information is making that happen. Some organisations are seeing users search for an answer for a technical problem first especially so in organisations with some form of BYOC policy and especially in the millennial work force. An example close to home is me. At Microsoft we have a pretty consumerised approach and I can say honestly that I’ve not called our helpdesk in over a year – granted and I’m far more technical than most, but I don’t have access to administer AD in Microsoft. That means I cannot just give myself access to a share or something. Generally if something is wrong firstly I Bing it. Then I check on our internal help and fora. Calling the helpdesk is the last resort and not because they are under skilled, far, far from it, it’s because it’s faster to search for it. Self-help works at my pace.
So in a consumer world self-help is critical, peer or community help is secondary and helpdesk is relegated to tertiary help – generally the place you go when you MUST get it fixed. Should we be insourcing those helpdesks again?
Help doesn’t just exist to fix things of course, help is also where you go for service and as such a self-help service system for moves, adds and changes is a must. Forefront Identity Manager and management of your AD are key to keeping things running smoothly. Again in Microsoft if I want access to something I request access using FIM and if the owner of the asset (usually data of some form) agrees I get it. EVERYTHING is managed through a single point of truth – Active Directory – including my access to cloud services using ADFS, total integration and a very low cost of doing business.
Things to think about
Supporting users in a consumerised environment is just like it always has been. The keys are:
· Set clear expectations
· Provide support options that work on their terms
· Prove access to as much support as you can
· Support what you control: data and environment, devices will come and go
· Maintain a baseline and use it as fall back
If you’d like some help getting to grips with new technologies then give Microsoft Virtual Academy a go
Sam is an IT Project Manager who has purchased a large batch of Windows 7 Enterprise licenses without consulting her bosses. They don’t want to move from XP and now her job’s at threat! She needs your help as an IT Professional to convince the board that Windows 7 is worth deploying.
In return there are loads of great prizes available! A free limited edition mug is available for everyone who takes part, and this fortnight the video response judged to be the best will be awarded an Acer Aspire ICONIA TAB W500.
All you have to do is share your tips on the features of Windows 7 that make it easy to use. Sam says the board are worried that users will have trouble adapting to Windows 7 and that they’ll see a drop in productivity. She needs to know, what features and improvements are included in Windows 7 that will help the business’ users to be more productive?
To enter, head over to YouTube and submit a short clip (3 minutes or less) as a response to our video here. Be as creative as you like, add music, text or just record direct from your webcam. Remember to promote your video wherever you can to be in with a chance of winning our GRAND PRIZE – a 3D TV, Full HD 3D Ready Camcorder and 3D Conversion Lens for the highest number of views!
Check out the Windows 7 Tech Centre for some ideas on what to talk about and Tweet your response #SaveSam.
A guide to submitting your video and full Terms & Conditions are available here.
In return there are loads of great prizes available! A free limited edition mug is available for everyone who takes part, and each fortnight the video judged to be the best will be rewarded with one of our fantastic prizes. We have TV’s, a Windows Phone, Slate and Desktop touch devices to give away as well as loads more, so make sure you keep checking back on the blog to discover how you can get your hands on one. But wait… there’s more! The video with the most views at the end of the competition will be awarded a 3D TV and a 3D camcorder to help the winner progress to the silver screen!
Details of where to enter will be available soon, in the meantime here’s the T&C’s as always and a quick guide to entering once the all important details have been published.
Update 19/09 - Ease of Use
Acer Aspire ICONIA TAB W500 this fortnight. Enter here.
This period's entries can be found here.
Update 03/10 - Compatibility
Enter here to win this fortnight’s prize - a Full HD TV, Blu-ray Home Cinema System & Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray.
Click here for this period's entries and winner.
Update 18/10 - Security
This fortnight's prize is a Lenovo B320 Multi-Touch All-In-One PC, enter here now!
This period's winners can be found here!
Update 31/10 - Deployment
The prize this fortnight is a 4TB Seagate Network Attached Storage (NAS) Solution and Sonos System in return for the best Deployment tips.
This period's winner is here!
Update 14/11 - Manageability
Win a shiny new Intel Core i3 Dell Laptop by answering this fortnight's question.
Find out who won the laptop over here.
Update 28/11 - Value
The final fortnightly prize is a HTC Titan Windows Phone, more information here!
Here's the final winners!
Terms & Conditions
1. ELIGIBILITY: This competition is open to any person resident in the UK who is 18 years of age or older at the time of entry. Employees of Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising or promotion agencies are not eligible, nor are members of these employees’ families (defined as parents, children, siblings, spouse and life partners).
2. TO ENTER: Entry into this competition is by response to the question(s) posed by Microsoft on the TechNet UK Blog. Full listings of the correct response links can be found on the TechNet Blog here. The entry method is as follows:
- Video To enter, visit YouTube and register for a free account, if you don’t already have one. Then visit the TechNet UK Blog and navigate to the blog post which contains the relevant Entry Period’s question. The post will contain a link to a YouTube video to which you should post your video as a response.
Maximum one video entry per person, per Entry Period. Only the entrant’s first response will be accepted, multiple answers will not increase the entrant’s chances of winning. All Entries must be posted as specified in the instructions for the Entry Period and received by the close of the Entry Period. All Entries must comply with the YouTube’s Terms and Conditions.
Incomplete, damaged, defaced or illegible entries may be deemed invalid at the sole discretion of Microsoft. Entry constitutes full and unconditional acceptance of these Terms and Conditions. Microsoft reserve the right to disqualify anyone in breach of these Terms and Conditions.
3. TIMING: This competition runs from 09.00:00 am BST on 19 September 2011 until 09.00:00 am BST on 12 December 2011 (inclusive) (The “Competition Period”). The competition consists of six (6) “Entry Periods”:
- Entry Period 1 (19 September 2011 – 03 October 2011) - Entry Period 2 (03 October 2011 – 17 October 2011) - Entry Period 3 (17 October 2011 – 31 October 2011) - Entry Period 4 (31 October 2011 – 14 November 2011) - Entry Period 5 (14 November 2011 – 28 November 2011) - Entry Period 6 (28 November 2011 – 12 December 2011)
Completed entries for each Period must reach Microsoft no later than 09:00:00 am BST on the closing date of the respective Entry Period.
4. USE OF DATA: Personal data which you provide when you enter this competition shall be used for the purposes of this competition only.
5. SELECTION OF WINNERS: The competition winners for each Entry Period will be determined by a panel of 3 judges within five (5) working days of the close of the Entry Period. The panel of judges will include at least one independent member.
The judges will evaluate the entries based on the following criteria ("Criteria"): - The clarity and relevance of the response to the question; - The likelihood that the advice given would ‘Save Samantha’s Job’; - The creativity shown through the response.
The winners will be notified within ten (10) working days of the close of the Entry Period. Entrants submitting written responses will be contacted through the forum messaging system, entrants submitting video entries will be contacted through the YouTube messaging system. If a potential winner cannot be contacted, through no fault of Microsoft, within 5 days after the first attempt, an alternative winner will be selected. The winner may be required to become involved in further publicity or advertising, including but not limited to the use of winning video answers in Microsoft publications.
6. PRIZES: The first 200 responses across the Competition Period that meet the entry criteria will be awarded one complimentary mug, a maximum of one mug per person.
Prizes may consist of more than one item, where more than one item is shown below for one Entry Period below they are combined and treated as a single prize. Six (6) best video prizes are available during the Competition Period in the following categories: - Entry Period 1 (19 September 2011 – 03 October 2011) – Best video answer – Acer Aspire ICONIA TAB W500 (AMD-C50 Dual Core Processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium) (ERP £425) - Entry Period 2 (03 October 2011 – 17 October 2011) – Best video answer – Sony 32” LCD TV (ERP £330) + Samsung 3D BluRay 2.1 Channel Home Cinema System (ERP £150) + Star Wars: The Complete Saga on BluRay (ERP £60) - Entry Period 3 (17 October 2011 – 31 October 2011) – Best video answer – Lenovo IdeaCentre B320 21.5” Multi-touch All-in-one Desktop PC (Core i3-2100 3.1GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium) (ERP £500) - Entry Period 4 (31 October 2011 – 14 November 2011) – Best video answer – Seagate 4TB Network Attached Storage (NAS) (ERP £235) + Sonos Play:5 (ERP £340) + Sonos Bridge (ERP £40) - Entry Period 5 (14 November 2011 – 28 November 2011) – Best video answer –Dell Inspiron Q15R Switch Laptop (Core™ i3-2310M, 4GB RAM, 640GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium) (ERP £480) - Entry Period 6 (28 November 2011 – 12 December 2011) – Best video answer – Windows Phone 7 HTC TITAN (ERP £490)
All video responses that meet the entry criteria will be entered into the competition for best video answer for the relevant Entry Period. Maximum of one best video prize per person during the duration of the competition.
Additionally all video responses that meet the entry criteria, including those awarded best video prizes, will be entered into the competition to win a Samsung 32” LED 3D TV (ERP £500) + Panasonic SD90 Full HD 3D Ready Camcorder (ERP £360) + Panasonic CLT1 3D Conversion Lens (ERP £200) for the most views achieved across the Competition Period. The number of views achieved will be taken as displayed by the YouTube view counter at the time of judging.
Prizes as stated and non-transferable. No cash or other alternatives available. Microsoft reserve the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value. The prizes will be sent by 21 December 2011. If no entries are received for any particular Entry Period or the received entries are not deemed to meet the judging criteria, the prize will be retained by Microsoft. Prizes may be considered a taxable benefit and winners will be directly responsible for accounting for any tax liability arising on their prize.
7. WINNERS LIST: The winner consents to their first name and surname being made publicly available. The winner’s surnames will be available for a period of 30 days after the end of the Entry Period by emailing Alex Guy at t-alexgu@microsoft.com.
8. OTHER: No correspondence will be entered into regarding either this competition or these Terms and Conditions. In the unlikely event of a dispute, Microsoft’s decision shall be final. Microsoft reserves the right to amend, modify, cancel or withdraw this competition at any time without notice.
9. Microsoft cannot guarantee the performance of any third party and shall not be liable for any act or default by a third party. Participants in this promotion agree that Microsoft will have no liability whatsoever for any injuries, losses, costs, damage or disappointment of any kind resulting in whole or in part, directly or indirectly from acceptance, misuse or use of a prize, or from participation in this promotion. Nothing in this clause shall limit Microsoft’s liability in respect of death or personal injury arising out of its own negligence or arising out of fraud.
Promoter: Microsoft Limited, Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, RG6 1WG, England
On 21 September at 7pm DEVITUG will be holding their first webcast, around the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. The session will cover what is in the MDOP 2011 R2 release and how it can help improve compatibility and management, reduce support costs, increase asset management and improve policy control.
Registration’s still open, so head over to the Microsoft World Wide Events page for more information and the registration link.
What a week it’s been for Microsoft! Keynotes from Steven Sinofsky and others at The BUILD Windows conference over in Anaheim have showed off lots of projects that are in the pipeline, including Windows 8, Windows Server 8 and the new Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8. Make sure you take a look at Channel 9 for recordings of loads of sessions and the keynotes.
Here on the TechNet Blog we’ve been talking Cloud, getting poetic and asking for your views. The weekly summary is below.
Have a great weekend and make sure you check back on Monday for your chance to get involved with some cool competitions we have coming up.
Yes, it’s that time again, your fortnightly fix of TechNet news and views is available! The theme this time around is SharePoint Online, head over to the archive to check out an online copy. Remember you can get the flash delivered direct to your Inbox by subscribing here.
We’re always keen to get your views on the fortnightly Flash, Tweet us @TechNetUK or leave a comment and let us know what you like and what you’d change. It’s your TechNet Flash, so tell us what you want to read.
Have a good Friday!