When does an email signature look like a race car ?

When you start putting a whole bunch of advertizing graphics on it.  

This is a relatively meaningless post, but I needed to try out some links and thought it was humorous when I got done.

And even if you aren’t in the US, just take a few moments on Thursday to randomly think of someone or something that you are grateful for. 

Oh and have some friends over for a mid-day meal to talk about it. 

And then take a nap.   That’s how we roll …

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone !!!

DPM and Jason are coming to London this week

As a warm-up for Microsoft Tech-Ed IT Forum happening next week in Berlin, I am headed over a few days early with a detour to one of my favorite cities – London.

On Friday, November 6, a System Center powerhouse of a partner, Inframon, will will hosting a one-day SC event called “War on Costs”.  We will be covering all of System Center, from the strategic in the morning to the nerdy product specifics in the afternoon.

As a personal note, the “War on Costs” will be held on a WWII battleship, the HMS Belfast, moored just off of London Tower.  As a history nut and London fan, the Inframon folks are lucky that I didn’t have to resort to begging – so I could deliver the DPM session at the end of the day.

Details on the War on Cost event are found here.

Photos of me on the HMS Belfast will be on Facebook after I return.

The War on Costs is on !!!

PS > If you are a DPM Customer in London, either in production with 2007 SP1 or in the 2010 TAP/RDP program – please ping me as I would love to visit with you and hear about your experience with DPM.

Three new DPM whitepapers

Just because DPM 2010 is now in beta – doesn’t mean that we’ve stopped driving good stuff for DPM 2007 SP1.  :-)

This week, we are pleased to announce the release of 3 new whitepapers for DPM 2007 SP1 (though the material covered also applies to DPM 2010 beta). 

All three of these whitepapers work on the premise that DPM can protect more than just the primary workloads of SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, Windows file, etc.  In fact, there are a lot of server applications that are built on top of SQL Server (for example) and the ‘recipe’ to back them up is simply to back up the SQL databases, plus a directory or two.  SharePoint 2003 is a great example with its SQL databases and the STMADM configuration info – but this week, here are three more:

	How to protect Microsoft Dynamics AX with Microsoft Data Protection Manager
	How to protect EBS 2008 and SBS 2008 with DPM 2007 SP1
	How to protect SAP® running on Microsoft SQL Server with Microsoft DPM

There are many, many more applications that DPM can protect – simply by protecting the components in a unified way, leveraging the DPM Protection Groups to protect different kinds of data such as SQL databases and Windows files, with the same protection characteristics.  Look for more of these, and please feel free to let us know if there is a key application that you’d like DPM to protect and we’ll look at the recipe for you.

As always, thanks for reading.

Announcing the beta for DPM 2010

YEP!  It’s here!

For those that have been waiting all Summer … it is finally here and we are excited to have you start trying out the 3rd generation of Microsoft’s backup and recovery solution for Windows environments.

For a perspective from the DPM development team – check out their blog.

To read about the new features – check out the new microsoft.com/DPM page on DPM2010

Look for the TechNet Webcast on DPM 2010 on October 8

Or just try it yourself – download it here!

Congratulations to all of my friends in the DPM development team on an absolutely phenomenal product!

When I joined Microsoft four years ago, it was because I could see where a “Microsoft backup solution for Windows” could go – and I am happy to say that with DPM 2010, I think we’ve arrived.

Please take a look – and let us know what you think

As always, thanks for reading

DPM and I are headed down under … to TechEd Australia and New Zealand

With a big Texas “Howdy” coming out to all of the Aussies and New Zealanders in the house!

If you are interested in backing up your Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, Windows file or Hyper-V environments, then you ought to be looking at System Center Data Protection Manager.

And if you are attending Microsoft TechEd in either country – then please come talk to me about DPM !!  To see about meeting 1:1 onsite during the events, as well as while I am in Sydney on Sept. 17-18, please email me.

In both venues, I have two DPM speaking sessions:

How to protect and recover applications with DPM 2007

In this talk, we drill into how Data Protection Manager really uses VSS and transactional log backups -- as well as learn more specifically how data protection is achieved for each of the core workloads, including: SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, and Virtualization.

      TE AU MGT 302 – Sept. 9 @ 15:30 – meeting room 5

      TE NZ SVR 307 – Sept. 15 @ 14:20 – NZ room 1

Disaster Recovery and Advanced Scenarios with DPM 2007

In this session we discuss features not previously demonstrated for this product, including Disaster Recovery scenarios, command-line control of Data Protection Manager 2007 through PowerShell, deployment and monitoring through other System Center products, and bare metal recovery of production servers using the Data Protection Manager System Recovery Tool (SRT).

      TE AU MGT 303 – Sept. 10 @ 09:45 – meeting room 5

      TE NZ SVR 312 – Sept. 16 @ 09:00 – NZ room 1

Suggested pre-watching

If you are able to attend, these sessions are parts 2 and 3 of a three-part series that I’ve done on DPM 2007 SP1.  The first part is around installation and configuration of the DPM server itself.  If you haven’t installed DPM, you are absolutely encouraged to come to these sessions – but may want to watch the video of part one, first.

TechNet Video From Tech-Ed 2008 US- Technical Introduction to DPM 2007 

DPM 2010 (v3) beta

And as we are just a few weeks from beta – a good glass of wine or coffee will probably get me talking about everything that you will see in the next generation of Data Protection Manager.

As always, thanks for reading.

Announcing DPM eLearning is now online

It’s HERE !!!   And I am very, very excited !!!

Of all of the things that I have worked on for System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 – this is probably one of my absolute favorites, because it has been a frequent request for as long as I have been privileged to work on DPM (3.5 years).  And after all that time, and having starting work in October (10 months ago), I get to announce it.

This week, I am very proud to announce the availability of eLearning for DPM 2007.

This is a collection of 6 two-hour eLearning modules that include hands-on labs, much of the same courseware as our newly announced classroom-based DPM course, and is built for to prepare you for the DPM Certification exam.

There are six modules –each approximately two-hours long

eLearning course 10144 – Installing and Configuring DPM 2007

eLearning course 10145 – Protecting and Recovering SQL Server with DPM 2007

eLearning course 10146 – Protecting and Recovering Exchange Server with DPM 2007

eLearning course 10147 – Protecting and Recovering SharePoint with DPM 2007

eLearning course 10148 – Protecting and Recovering Virtualized Environments with DPM 2007

eLearning course 10149 – Disaster Recovery and Monitoring the DPM server

And Microsoft Learning has them in a bundle, so you can get all 6 modules as a kit.

So, now you have two options to get ready for the certification.  And as some of you have replied to my earlier blogs on the course and found it difficult to locate a local training center that jumped on the classroom course in its first month, this is great alternative.

But the main reason that I am excited about this course is for all of you that are doing Proofs-of-Concept with DPM.  We often hear that you are excited about the features, but not sure how to get started on your first deployment.  Because of that, I intentionally built the course with the POC in mind.

If you are evaluating DPM 2007 for protecting your SharePoint environment – take module 1 (install) and module 4 (SharePoint).   You’re ready to deploy DPM 2007 for your SharePoint solution. 

If you have already deployed DPM for backup and restore, but are now ready to do disaster recovery or monitor DPM in a larger production deployment – take module 6.

If you are a Microsoft partner who specializes in database solutions, then take module 2 to learn how to deploy DPM when you are already deploying SQL Server into your customers’ environments.

Get the idea?  Potential customers who are evaluating DPM, or Microsoft partners who need to ramp up on the newest backup solution for Windows and from Microsoft can simply take what they need.  Or, if you are seeking certification on DPM – take all six, do some hands-on, go for the exam.

If you’ve read my other blogs on the DPM education offerings, you know that I believe vendor-education should first and foremost be about practical guidance on how to be sucessful with the product as an implementer.  I was very privileged to be the primary driver for the courseware on DPM, from the initial learning objectives alongside some really great DPM customers and partners, and all the way through the development of both courses and the exam.

I hope you get as much out of the new training materials as I did in making them.

Thanks for reading

New DPM courseware and exam – NOW AVAILABLE

I have long believed that training’s primary purpose is as a deployment enabler.  In fact, prior to these last four years at Microsoft, I originally established and drove the education offering for Double-Take for the same reason – to pragmatically equip customers and partners to understand the product(s) better, thereby accelerating adoption and reducing support challenges.  That was a great adventure, but doing it within Microsoft was even more fun.

From October of last year, through this summer, I have had the opportunity to work on Microsoft training materials for System Center Data Protection Manager 2007.  It has been an exciting experience and I hope that you find the materials relevant and useful.

In June, we released Course 50213A – Implementing Data Protection Manager 2007.

This two-day classroom-based course replaces a five day course (50023) that was developed prior to DPM’s initial release to manufacturing in 2007.  I am much more excited about this two-day offering, as it really was defined by customers and external DPM experts as to what you need to know to be successful with DPM 2007.   And since it is being delivered through Microsoft Learning’s CourseWare Library (CWL), it is easy for Microsoft partners to download and deliver without some of the formality of Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC), though still to a similar quality bar.

To follow on with this, (in my opinion) no course is complete without an exam.  So, this month, I am happy to announce Microsoft technical specialist Exam 70-658 – Configuring System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

I confess that I have not yet taken the exam myself yet, but as I was privileged to watch how the DPM customers and experts determined what was needed to be effective with DPM, I have a high confidence factor that the exam covers a good bit of reality that should confirm your knowledge without confounding you in niche scenarios. 

Also, as the exam was developed after the course and using the same “learning objectives” – I hope that taking the course, plus a relevant hands-on experience, should adequately prepare you for the test.

On a personal note – my own Microsoft certification goes back to 1995, with Windows 3.1 (desktop) and Windows NT 3.5 (server).  And I was later an MCT.  So, contributing to a Microsoft course and exam really was surreal.  But I digress …

If you are one of the first to take the course or the exam – please let me know!  Comment back to this blog post or email me to tell us how we did and how we can continue to equip you to be successful with DPM.

As always, thanks for reading…

Webcast on Thursday – Cheaper, Better Backups with DPM 2007

On Thursday morning (yes tomorrow), I’ll be delivering a webcast on reducing costs and improving your backup and recoverability with System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM). 

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032412440

Event Overview

In today’s economy, more than ever, IT Pro’s are looking for ways to reduce costs while still improving existing processes or fixing things that aren’t meeting expectations – including backup.  In this session, we’ll discuss legacy protection solutions for backup, disk-to-disk replication, and long-distance disaster recovery  -- and how you can cut costs while gaining better backups and more reliable recoveries with System Center Data Protection Manager 2007.

Duration:  60 Minutes

Start Date:  Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

This one is all about the numbers.   Centralized Backup numbers.   Comparison to alternative numbers.  ROI numbers.

When you are looking at technology problems, sometimes it is easiest to just look at the $$ and sense.  :-)

Thanks for reading, hope you’ll tune in

Game Recommendation : LEGO Battles for Nintendo DS

As promised, I did receive LEGO Battles for Fathers Day – so I wanted to share my enthusiasm for this game.  My sons have both been into LEGO for a few years – and of course, I played with them when I was a kid.

We have collectively played through all 3 video game series (as well as a few older PC titles like Lego Chess):

• LEGO Star Wars
• LEGO Batman
• LEGO Indiana Jones

And we’ve played quite a bit of Civilization:Revolution (Xbox360) and Age of Empires III (Nintendo DS) – so building small, pixilated armies is pretty standard stuff for us.

Put all of that together, and how can you not want this latest installment to the LEGO gaming series ?!?

Yes, you can build your own armies – from multiple playsets including LEGO Castles, LEGO Space, LEGO Pirate, plus many other pieces and parts.  And …

To read the rest of the game review – please check out my gaming blog.

As always, thanks for reading

DPM and I are coming to Africa !

This has been an exciting month for me and DPM on two fronts:

First, for Fiscal Year 2010 (starting last week at Microsoft), I am re-focusing exclusively on DPM within System Center and will not be also driving Windows Server file services or Windows Storage Server.   It was very cool to be part of the WSS08 launch (see WSS blog posts) and I will admittedly miss not getting to be there when Windows Server 2008 R2 launches.  

FCI (File Classification Infrastructure) is still the 2nd coolest technology that Microsoft has.  DPM is #1.   Well, except for Surface which is a trip.  And the whole Xbox360 platform and Xbox Live.  Oh, and Office 2010 has some cool features, especially in Outlook.  And … (you get the idea)

More importantly and as the blog post is titled – DPM and I are coming to TechEd Africa !

I’ll be giving 4 talks over 3 days:

- Technical Intro to DPM 2007 sp1

- Protecting Apps with DPM 2007 sp1

- Advanced Features of DPM 2007 sp1

- What is coming in DPM v3

They also have some System Center specific events planned in a few cities – so I will be travelling with a few buddies from System Center (Sacha and Wally).  

And as this is my first trip to that continent – I am really looking forward to meeting several customers, and hopefully squeezing in a photo safari for the weekend in-between work weeks.

If you are going to be at Tech-Ed Africa … or if you are in Cape Town or Johannesburg – please give me a shout from this blog.

Dell announces a Windows Storage Server 2008 appliance

Congratulations to my friends at Dell for their launch of storage appliances that are powered by Windows Storage Server 2008.

This is a great example of what happens with the partnership of Microsoft with a server manufacturer. 

In this case, instead of simply pre-installing Windows Server and a standard Dell PowerEdge server (which is already a strong solution) – Microsoft raised the file-serving bar with Windows Storage Server, and Dell is now delivering it with lots of goodness in a PowerVault.

See earlier post on how/why Windows Storage Server is delivered through OEM partners.

Dell has embraced the industry leading file services features that started with Windows Server 2008, including Distributed File System (DFS), Network File System (NFS), easy management through the File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) and the great performance advancements of SMB 2.0.

Then, of course, the extra Microsoft goodies that come in Windows Storage Server 2008 such as Single-Instance Storage (SIS) for data de-duplication.

See earlier post on why a Windows Storage Server is like a Saleen Ford Mustang.

Then, they added management capabilities like remote management through iDRAC and OpenManage 6.1 including DMC (Dell Management Console), IT Assistant – and hardware features like those for Energy Smart.

And all of this is being delivered by Dell around 3 driving principles.

- Advanced Software for More Efficient Data

- No Time Wasted to Setup or Manage

- Integration that Adapts to Your Environment

In fact, <melodramatic sigh> the only negative thing I can say about this offering is that they didn’t invite this Dallas boy down to Austin to celebrate the launch.  </self-pity>

Congratulations to Dell for coming out with what looks like a great storage appliance!!

As always, thanks for reading…

Webcast today – how to manage DPM in large enterprises

Later today, we’ll be delivering a TechNet webcast on managing Data Protection Manager in large enterprises.  Essentially, there are three things we want to cover:

Using PowerShell to automate tasks across DPM servers

Using the DPM management pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007

Using Bocada’s Centralized Manager for DPM 2007

To watch the webcast, live or on-demand, please go to

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032412446

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 1:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Announcing the HP Windows Storage Server 2008 appliances – X1000 and X3000

This is a very good day to be in storage and a Windows network administrator – because HP just announced that they are shipping storage appliances that are powered by Windows Storage Server 2008.  For more on the WSS08 release last month, check out these blogs:

May 5 - Announcing Windows Storage Server 2008 – Waa Hoo !

May 7 – Why a Windows Storage Server is like a Saleen Ford Mustang

And while everyone here at Microsoft is really excited about the release and what it means for our customers, the other side of the coin is that the WSS releases are only available through our OEM partners.  So our release party doesn’t really start until they announce their releases.  Kind of like two people sharing a birthday party doesn’t really start until both guests of honor get there.  Guess what, the party has started !!!

Congratulations to HP and their customers on this release of WSS08 devices: 

X1000 series - Delivers Windows-powered unified network storage that is easy to install, easy to manage, and easy to expand to your small, medium, or workgroup IT environment.

X3000 series - Adds cluster-able and easy-to-manage file, iSCSI, and management services to mid-range and Enterprise array/SAN environments to create unified network storage solutions.

descriptions clipped from hp.com – links above

For more details on the HP family of WSS08 platforms, check out the Windows Storage Server blog.

I must also confess a little guilty pleasure in this particular announcement.  WSS08 is the first Microsoft product release that I have had a contribution in, other than Data Protection Manager.  And having lived in Texas my whole professional career with my first hands-on servers being Compaq SystemPro’s (386-based), before ProLiant’s and well before the HP acquisition … it is very cool to be an infinitesimally small contributor to its launch.

Congrats HP !!

And to the rest of you … if you have been looking for a storage appliance but did not want to sacrifice the benefits you get from running Windows, including features, price/performance, flexible choice in security/backup/management tools, manageability with the same tools you use for the rest of your environment, etc.  … The Wait Is Over !!

As always, thanks for reading …

Why is Windows Storage Server only available through OEM’s ?

I get this question every once in a while – so I thought I would offer my perspective on this.

To answer that, let me do a short reminder of what a Windows Storage Server is:

We started with the mainstream Windows Server operating system – and tune it from being the industry-leading general purpose OS that is equally suited to being the base of Exchange/SQL Server as it is for serving files … and making it optimized for file sharing.

We added additional capabilities that are reasonable and desired in storage appliances – like de-duplication and block-storage in the form of an iSCSI target

And then we hand it over to the OEMs.  

Then, the server hardware manufacturer (e.g. HP) starts with the same basic metal as their tried-and-true ProLiant family but have the option of pre-configuring packages of components and form-factors, and adding their own special sauce.

Then they package it up – with the additional understanding that it comes ready to go when you power it up.  Basically, 30 minutes from cardboard to file serving (rails and racks, not withstanding).

So, in short, WSS08 powered storage appliances are more than just another version of Windows running on a ProLiant with a different SKU.   So, with that in mind, even if we chose to provide the WSS08 software as software-only for production use (it is available in some releases of TechNet and MSDN for testing purposes) … it wouldn’t be the same thing because the metal and the integration are part of it.

ANALOGY TIME

If you want a ham and cheese sandwich, you could go to your regular grocer and get a bag of pre-cut circular sandwich meat from the refrigerator section and some pre-processed cheese slices.  Throw it between two pieces of generic white bread and call it a sandwich.

But then, one day, you go to an authentic deli or sandwich shop and get some ham sliced fresh from the bone.  You add some amazing cheese that you’ve never seen before (and can’t spell) and put it between two pieces of something-too-wonderful-to-be bread that someone hand rolled and baked this morning.  Mmmmm…

Now, if you go home and you bring some of that good meat with you.  You still won’t have that phenomenal sandwich again – because you don’t have the amazing cheese (additional software) or the wonderful bread (server hardware).

Its lots of stuff put together that comes into your hands – prebuilt for deliciousness.  A storage appliance that is powered by Windows Storage Server 2008 is the same way.  This is not my best analogy because saying that the general purpose Windows Server 2008 operating system is like store-bought lunch meat is just … well … baloney.

But the rest of the story works pretty good.

As always, thanks for reading …

Announcing new DPM 2007 SP1 training course 50213A

I am very excited to announce the availability of a new classroom-based course on DPM 2007 SP1.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/syllabi/50213A.aspx

This is a two-day course that covers everything that you need to know to be successful with DPM.  That is a bold statement, but it was built by MVPs, early DPM adopters that are now full deployed throughout their enterprise, as well as MS stakeholders.

About this Course

This two-day instructor-led course provides students with the knowledge and skills to implement Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007.  This course is intended for IT professionals who are responsible for installing and configuring DPM 2007, and for using DPM 2007 to protect data and applications.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Describe Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007
• Describe the prerequisite requirements and Install DPM 2007 servers
• Perform post-installation configuration tasks
• Protect & Recover SQL Server data with DPM 2007
• Protect & Recover Exchange Server data with DPM 2007
• Protect & Recover SharePoint data with DPM 2007
• Protect & Recover virtualized environments with DPM 2007
• Monitor DPM 2007
• Prepare for and Perform disaster recovery in DPM 2007

For those of you that know me from my days at NSI Double-Take, you may recall that I originally built the training & certification program there – and have always thought of technical education strictly as a way to enable easier first deployments and proofs-of-concept when evaluating software … plus increasing the usage of the product by educating on additional capabilities that you may not have perhaps known about.  So the courseware there (and this course) are focused around job roles/tasks and what are the key skills necessary to do what you need to get done.

This class takes most of what we cover in the DPM breakout sessions at Tech-Ed, MMS, and IT Forum – and puts it into two fun-filled backup and recovery days.

Also notable is that this course uses the newest delivery vehicle from Microsoft Learning – CourseWare Library (CWL) … which means that it is very easy for Microsoft training partners to download and offer – usually at a significantly reduced cost, compared with Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC). 

If you are a Microsoft training partner – please visit the CWL portal and take a look at course 50213A

If you are a Microsoft trainer – start brushing up on DPM 2007 SP1  :-)

If you are a Microsoft customer – ask your preferred training provider when they will offer course 50213A

And for everyone – stay tuned to find out about the upcoming DPM 2007 certification exam that will follow this course.

As always, thanks for reading…