Mike Peers talks Infrastructure Solutions

Further Dates for the UK Management Summit

Are you in control? How to manage and secure your infrastructure

Microsoft Management Summit UK

21^st June- Manchester: https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-GB&eventid=1032341594

22^nd June- Glasgow: https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-GB&eventid=1032341613

10^th July- London: https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-GB&eventid=1032341599

SCE pricing

Here's the pricing for SCE

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sce/howtobuy/default.mspx

Refer to the link for the up to date pricing and details.

In terms of Remote Managed and SPLA license - this won't be announced until RTM of the Remote Management. Customers will need to purchase SCE license and then at the VAP side, you will purchase Operations Manager under SPLA.

Information on SPLA can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/licensing/default.mspx. The closest guidence you can use at the moment would be operation manager SPLA.

SCE RTM

What is Essentials?
Essentials 2007 is a new management solution in the System Center family of IT systems management products specifically designed for midsized businesses (up to 500 PCs and 30 Servers). Essentials 2007 provides a unified management solution that enables IT professionals in midsize organizations to proactively manage their IT environment with increased efficiency.

You can download the evaluation from the main web site : http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sce/default.mspx

 I'll update with links to pricing once available.

System Center Essentials Web Links

For those who are starting to want to learn more about SCE - here are a set of links to help guide you to useful resources. I've also added these as a list off the site as well. Monday 1st May is the MMS UK technet event at Reading, UK. One of the sessions is on SCE and this will also be recorded and posted on the technet website. I'll post this up when available.

System Center Essentials 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/sce

Remote Managed Services Blog

http://blogs.technet.com/dustinj

Beta newsgroups

      microsoft.beta.sce.serviceproviders

      microsoft.beta.sce.serviceproviders.setup

      microsoft.beta.sce.serviceproviders.operations

      (registration with Microsoft Connect required)

System Center Essentials Wiki

http://sce.editme.com

Solution Accelerators

I was asked the other day whats happen to the Solution Accelerators - well they are now the Windows Server System Reference Architecture and it is positioned under Technet (Core, Device, Security and Supplemental Services). Reference Architectures have also been extended to include MOF guidance

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators/wssra/raguide/default.mspx.

Managed Technology Solutions - more info

To provide some more background to the Managed Technology Solution - below I position how the solution fits in with the Core Infrastructure Optimisation and further detail on the architecture behind the solution.

The infrastructure optimisation model (www.microsoft.com/io) is a way for a customer to review how strategic  IT is as an asset to their business.  The IO model looks at how customers use technology in relation to the business needs.  An example would be if a customer today uses manual install methods (such as a CD) to deploy desktops this is a basic method for deployment. Likewise – what tools do you have in place to respond to security threats or to roll out line of business applications.

The managed technology solution is a way to help customer rapidly move towards a strategic asset. So not only do you get to a strategic asset faster – but also much quicker, bringing much greater benefits in the short and long term. The diagram below shows the basic through to dynamic model.

Turning to the architecture of managed technology solution– this a pure Microsoft solution – but the benefit is this keeps the solution easy to deploy, manage, support and integrates very well. It is in part this reason partners can offer to run the service for an attractive price point.

Below is a diagram that shows what components make up a clustered managed solution.  

·         Windows 2003 as the core OS.

·         Active Directory is used for authentication

·         Windows Vista Desktop running Office 2007

·         Storage is windows 2003

·         Messaging on Exchange 2007.

·         live communication server (corporate messenger amongst other things)

·         Rights Management Server for securing and protecting documents.

·         SMS and Zero Touch – for deployment of operating systems, audit, compliance, application delivery

·         SQL – database

·         Office Sharepoint Server 2007 – for document storage, search and collaboration.

·         The technology is protected by ISA server .

System Center Essentials - what is it?

System Center Essentials (or SCE, pronounced like "ski") is part of the System Center family of management solutions that helps you proactively plan, deploy, manage, and optimize your IT environment.

It's design to help in the management for customers with upto 500 computers and 30 servers. It will also have a remote management pack to allow partners to manage a customer's environment.

SCE combines the technology from Operation Manager 2007  (http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/opsmgr/default.mspx) which allows for end to end monitoring and deployment capability of windows update services for deployment.

From the SCE whitepaper:

"Many IT pains that midsize businesses experience are related to IT management and include troubleshooting end user problems, automating management tasks, managing multiple systems, and diagnosing and resolving IT problems. Most of these midsize organizations currently have to use a variety of tools to manage their IT environments. Most of these tools are “point” solutions rather than comprehensive management tools. However, we recognize that things are different in the IT world of midsize businesses. Many IT pains that midsize businesses experience are related to IT management and include troubleshooting end user problems, automating management tasks, managing multiple systems, and diagnosing and resolving IT problems. Most of these midsize organizations currently have to use a variety of tools to manage their IT environments. Most of these tools are “point” solutions rather than comprehensive management tools. Some of these tools are no more than re-packaged Enterprise IT management tools which can be complex and require a steep learning curve. Most IT professionals have little spare time to learn and take advantage of these Enterprise tools. The tools that are fairly easy to use tend to be narrow in scope and limited in functionality. Based on this type of customer and partner feedback, Microsoft is developing System Center Essentials 2007 (Essentials 2007), a proactive and unified management solution that enables IT professionals in midsize organizations to more efficiently secure, update, monitor and troubleshoot their IT environments. "

SCE will scale up to  500 desktops and 30 servers - so is very well positioned for Mid Market customers. The pricing won't be available until the release of the product - but it will be very competitive for this market.  We're currently at RC1 - which can be downloaded from the system center web site -  http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sce/default.mspx

After the release of SCE (estimate of H1 2007), there will be a Remote Management Services capability built into SCE. This will allows partners to manage customer environments. The partner (using Ops Manager) will have a dashboard view of the customer environment, topologies and see customer sites by computer and role. They can then administer servers, computers and management setttings over the internet. 

For more information - refer to the SCE blog links or view the above web site.

"managed technology solution" from £2.60 per desktop per day

Many mid market customers (using the definition of <1500 employees) have been looking at how they can upgrade their infrastructure creating an IT Asset rather than cost overhead. One option is to embark on several projects, such as desktop, messaging or security upgrades. Typically these projects are spread over financial years or take several years to roll out due to cost constraints.

Microsoft has been working with partners to create a Managed Technology Solution. The solution is a flexible framework that is based on a price per seat per month basis. This is financed via Microsoft Financing providing a monthly operational cost rather than capital cost to the customer.  The solution is intended for customers from 250-1500 seats and covers an infrastructure refresh, migration as well as desktop deployment, including cost of desktop hardware, all licenses, partner implementation and support over a 3 year term. The flexible framework allows customers to select the level of resilience required, such as clustering, as well as the additional collaboration solutions. The price is dependent on customer requirements and the number of seats, but as an example a 500 seat organisation requiring the highest resilence level and collaboration solutions would pay £3.15 a day per desktop.

The approach allows customers to help elevate their infrastructure into dynamic IO (see www.microsoft.com/io) and move from capital to operational cost whilst taking advantage of the latest technologies to gain operational and efficiency gains.

The solution is offered via Microsoft Partners - To learn more you can view this video where I am joined by Tim Parker from Syntax to discuss the Managed Technology Solution.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ptstv/archive/2007/04/03/partner-spotlight-syntax.aspx

To learn more visit www.syntax.co.uk or send me an email.

Implementing System Center Operations Manager 2007 at Microsoft

This is a useful paper for those wanting to understand about implementing SCOM 2007.

Microsoft IT Showcase is pleased to announce the publication of Implementing System Center Operations Manager 2007 at Microsoft, which discusses how Microsoft IT created a centralized monitoring solution by deploying OpsMgr 2007 in its corporate network environment.   

Implementing System Center Operations Manager 2007

Describes how the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 (OpsMgr 2007) was implemented to improve Microsoft IT's infrastructure management service offerings. OpsMgr 2007 provides a centralized monitoring infrastructure with increased reliability and granular rights delegation. By implementing OpsMgr 2007, Microsoft IT improved operational efficiency and reduced the cost of IT lifecycle investments.

Technical White Paper | PowerPoint Presentation

www.microsoft.com/technet/itshowcase

Windows Vista Hardware Assessment

As a follow on from the assessment tool earlier - here is information on a new Vista Hardare Assessment tool available to Microsoft Partners.

The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment solution Accelerator is an inventory, assessment, and reporting tool that will find computers on a network and determine if they are ready to run the Windows Vista™ operating system.

Feature Overview

The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment solution accelerator performs three key functions, including hardware inventory, compatibility analysis, and readiness reporting.

 

Secure and Agentless Inventory

The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment solution accelerator provides secure, agentless inventory for up to 5,000 computers. It collects and organizes system resource and device information, network wide and remotely, from a single networked computer. Assessment tools often require users to first deploy software agents on all computers to be inventoried. The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment does not require the deployment of any software agents on the individual computers.

The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Wizard can inventory and scan computers on a network that are running an operating system that supports Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). This includes the following operating systems:

Assessment and Deployment Solution for Midsize Businesses

I've been asked a few times over the last week where the Mid Market assessment tool is. This is a great Microsoft utility that audit an environment and can also generate proposal reports as output from the audit. These can then be changed and edited saving you a lot of time.  The below is taken from the web site referenced below.
Key Features: Technology assessment Inventory hardware and software Dynamically generate a topology of the organization Generate a proposal for upgrading an environment Generate an implementation plan; Deploy new servers When to Use: Use the Assessment and Deployment solution when you have identified the core need is a server deployment. You would want to use this tool after you have performed a business assessment or when the customer has asked you for assistance with a server project. Focused on the small and midsize market space, this tool will help you perform a network inventory, generate a proposal, create a project timeline, and ultimately aid the deployment of new servers. The inventory analysis component is a very strong feature that can be used as a standalone feature.   Consider using the Assessment and Deployment solution for creating demand for your services.  The assessment process can be sold as an offering to help identify project work with a prospect. Synopsis: While called the Assessment and Deployment Solution for Midsize Business the premise of the tool is to aid in the deployment of new servers. If you are working on a server rollout engagement for the midsize you will want to strongly consider utilizing this powerful tool. If you are performing an independent technology assessment you should consider utilizing the inventory analysis engine. The output is quite rich and provides you with an in-depth topology of what exists for software and hardware at a customer location. Estimated Time to Complete: 16-80 hours (Time varies based on the specific components used.  The high-end numbers are based on using this tool to perform customer deployments)

http://www.assessmentframework.com/Get-The-Tools/Pages/ToolDetails.aspx?ItemID=1

Management Training - UK MMS event

The event is in Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, Chicago 1&2 and Memphis, 1^st May 2007.

Details and Registration for customers and partners at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032334551&Culture=en-GB

Management Training - Desktop Optimisation Pack