A recent Microsoft whitepaper highlights the critical role that consulting services and in particular MCS, can play in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the desktop environment. Check it out here… "Survey: Consulting Services Will Play Key Role in Desktop Upgrades" available on www.microsoft.com/servicesodt.

It’s certainly worth a read. Below is the executive summary:

Many organizations are approaching a critical desktop migration point. With support for Windows XP scheduled to end in 2014 and with many aging PCs needing to be replaced, IT departments are facing a rapid upgrade cycle to Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010 and in many cases venturing into virtualization and other optimization strategies.

These organizations want to get it right by selecting solutions that provide the highest potential business value with the lowest-possible operating cost per desktop. Some need to supplement internal resources and skills sets with external help resources to get this job done right.

This white paper examines those issues and the results of an exclusive survey conducted among members of Computerworld’s Inner Circle Research Panel and members of the Computerworld readership at large, representing IT professionals and executives across various industries worldwide, with 22 percent at companies with annual revenue of $1 billion or more.

The survey illuminates the role of consulting services in helping improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the desktop environment to meet those goals—and why the top choice is the Microsoft Services consulting services group. Since the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft Services has performed more than 1,000 engagements to move customers onto the current level of desktop software.

More than two-thirds of the survey respondents who are using or considering consulting services vendors about desktop optimization products cite deep product knowledge and a working relationship with product developers as key factors in their selection.

Microsoft Services is traditionally one of the first entities to work with customers in applying and optimizing Microsoft’s new products and brings a holistic approach that factors in:

- Account application compatibility

- Security and performance requirements

- Hardware

- Management

- Virtualization strategy

Laurent Bouchery – Senior Infrastructure Consultant – Microsoft Ireland Services

laurent.bouchery@microsoft.com

Thinking about deploying Window 7 but not sure what to consider regarding Active Directory? Let me share the main Active Directory elements that are essential for a Windows 7 deployment.

Active Directory is a requirement for any large image deployment. It’s primary use, a part from authenticating and authorizing accounts, is to store the Group Policies Objects that target Windows 7 users and computers in order to configure the numerous settings (3300+ with the default administrative templates – see Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows 7).

Active Directory is also a key infrastructure element for Configuration Manager 2007 (the recommended deployment solution when deploying Windows 7 at a large scale). For example Windows clients can query Active Directory to locate the Configuration Manager Management servers or their Configuration Manager site information (additional info here).

Active Directory is also used by Windows Deployment Services for various functions. The Pre-Boot Execution Environment (PXE) provider creates machine accounts and service control points (SCPs) in Active Directory. An SCP is a child object under a Windows Deployment Services server account object, and it is used to store configuration data for the server. For example, an SCP can mark the server as a Windows Deployment Services server so that other Windows Deployment Services servers can find it.

While there are no important Active Directory remediation actions required to deploy Windows 7, we strongly recommend the following:

- Create a dedicated Organizational Unit structure for Windows 7 laptops, Windows 7 desktops, and Windows 7 users. You will then be able to apply specific Group Policies Objects to them, as separating your previous users and machines ‘s accounts from Windows 7 accounts will mainly reduce the possible conflicts you could have by applying the same Group Policy Objects to them, and will make it easier for you to troubleshoot any possible issues.

- Create a central store folder within the System Volume folder of the Domain Controllers for the .admx Group Policy Objects administrative templates. This will help to optimize the size of your Sysvol folder and help you manage your Group Policy Objects centrally. Additional info here : How to create a Central Store for Group Policy Administrative Templates and Editing Domain-Based GPOs Using ADMX Files

For companies that want to enjoy advanced Windows 7 features, it is worth considering the following Active Directory infrastructure actions:

- Back-up recovery information for BitLocker-protected drives to Active Directory. Active Directory can provide a centralized location for storing BitLocker Drive Encryption recovery information so that your helpdesk department can easily assist users if they are forced into recovery. If your Active Directory is at the Windows Server 2008 or later functional level, no specific Active Directory action is needed. However, if your Active Directory is at a functional level of Windows Server 2003 or earlier, you will need to update the schema to support BitLocker. For additional info. See Backing Up BitLocker and TPM Recovery Information to AD DS

- Wireless network policies can be controlled with Group Policy Object settings. This is available by default when your domain controllers are running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008. However, to support these enhancements for an Active Directory environment consisting of domain controllers running Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 R2, the Active Directory schema must be extended. See Active Directory Schema Extensions for Windows Wireless and Wired Group Policy Enhancements

Hope this helps,

Laurent Bouchery – Senior Infrastructure Consultant – Microsoft Ireland Services

laurent.bouchery@microsoft.com

This will include some information and demonstrations on the new version of Hyper-V. However, due to time constraints, we won’t have time to get into the deep details of how and why things work.

Aidan Finn (C Infinity - http://www.cinfinity.ie ) will be talking about the new technologies that will be included as part of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. This includes new functionality and improvements in performance thanks to cooperation between Microsoft and their hardware partners.

Dave Northey (Microsoft Ireland) will be doing some demonstrations of the technology in action, including the much anticipated Live Migration.

When?
30th April, 7.30am-10am. We’re going to try a morning session to give people an alternative time for the Windows User Group events.

Where?

Swift Suite 2, Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin 8, Ireland.  Near St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Who's Speaking?

- Aidan Finn - http://joeelway.spaces.live.com and C Infinity http://www.cinfinity.ie
- Dave Northey - http://blogs.technet.com/ieitpro/

Registration

Invitations will be sent out to members of the Windows User Group Ireland.  Just follow the link in the invitation to register.  Please feel free to distribute this information and the URL for the event page: http://2008r2hyperv.events.live.com/

That's the main goal of Microsoft ITShowcase program.

ITShowcase has just published a new document that shows how Microsoft handles AD schema changes.

Microsoft IT Showcase is pleased to announce the publication of Structured Active Directory Schema Management at Microsoft, which discusses Microsoft IT's Active Directory schema change management process. 

Structured Active Directory Schema Management at Microsoft
Details Microsoft IT's Active Directory schema change management process. Schema changes are frequent at Microsoft, and require a structured workflow to ensure a consistent, smooth, and successful implementation. The change process that Microsoft IT institutionalized establishes clear standards, expectations, and timelines. The change process mitigates risks and helps to optimize results. The structured workflow normalizes schema changes. It provides clear responsibilities to all involved parties, eliminates schema change issues early in the process, and enables timely, optimized results.
Technical White Paper | IT Pro Webcast

Products & Technologies

· Windows Server 2003

· Windows Server 2008

· Active Directory

· Microsoft Identity Integration Server 2003 with SP1

· Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

To learn more about how Microsoft does IT, please visit us!

External:  www.microsoft.com/technet/itshowcase

By the way I'll post a new blog about the Limits of AD this time referencing the Maximum Kerberos Token Size.

Regards

MCS Ireland infrastructure team

What’s Live Mesh?

Live Mesh, enables you to synchronize and access information and files across your different PCs and it also lets you remotely control your PC through your web browser if you’re away from it.

Future releases will be adding support for more devices including Windows Mobile phones and Macs amongst others.

Live Mesh takes the best elements of the desktop and integrating them with the Internet to create a really valuable solution to keeping and sharing information and files.

http://blogs.msdn.com/tomurphy/archive/2008/08/18/microsoft-releases-live-mesh-in-ireland.aspx

Live Mesh: More Slots Available, No Wait List

At Web 2.0 in April we announced Live Mesh and opened it up for people to try out our platform experience -- the first evidence of what scenarios our platform is capable of enabling.

We said we’d tell you more about Live Mesh and give you access to the platform in the future, allowing you to build your own experiences on top of Live Mesh. En route to opening up the developer platform we’ve been systematically updating and expanding the tech preview to help us scale out the underlying technology (see behind the mesh). We’ve enjoyed watching our service handling the load, and we want more!

Today we are again increasing the number of available slots in the Live Mesh Technology Preview, and expanding the list of countries that will allow sign-up without a wait list to include Canada, India and Ireland! (although you still need to run with an English locale for now.) This is in addition to the availability we’ve previously announced for USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand (see coverage map).

The experience you see today is just tip of the iceberg! To see what the Live Mesh platform is capable of, check out the Channel 9 videos, try out the user experience. We’re eager for you help to keep pushing our scale, and your feedback!

We do still have a maximum limit on the number of users we’ll allow into the Technology Preview, but as long as we’re below the limit, anyone in the countries above can sign-up today with no delays or wait list.

Regards

MCS Ireland infrastructure team

Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Manager 2008

"We will be running an event on Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Manager on 2nd September in Buswells Hotel in Dublin 2 at 7pm. The speakers will be Dave Northey and Mark Gibson from Microsoft Ireland and Aidan Finn (me) from C Infinity. Please accept this invitation if you wish to attend. Places are limited to 20."
When: 02 September 2008 at 19:00
Where: Buswells Hotel

Alex Yushchenko: Terminal Services

"I'm delighted to announce a special day-long event on Windows Server 2008 that is being sponsored and presented by Alex Yushchenko. The event will be hosted in the Guinness Storehouse on October 3rd and will run from 09:30 until 16:30. It will include lunch, free admission to the tour and a free drink in the upstairs “Gravity Bar”.

When: 03 October 2008 at 09:30
Where: Guinness Storehouse

Windows Vista Compatibility Center

There's a lot (lot) more compatible devices/applications than some people might think.... if you're buying or deploying Vista then this site is a good resource for you.

If you fall into the latter camp, there are quite a few mind map tools on the market. What a lot of people don't know, myself included until last week, is that you can create them with Visio. The advantage I've found is that this enables you to have technical architecture diagrams plus mindmaps all in the same Visio file, it can be a great time saver and keeps all project documentation in one place.

http://www.microsoft.com/education/analyticalvisio.mspx has a short tutorial on how to do this - it uses Office 2003. I'm using Office 2007 and the functionality is the same plus has improvements.

First Microsoft IT Showcase has published its Guide to select loads candidates for virtualisation

Microsoft IT Showcase is pleased to announce the publication of Identifying Server Candidates for Virtualization, which discusses how Microsoft IT identified virtualization as one of the prime strategies to address the issues of server underutilization and data-center capacity.  Many thanks to Rich Baker,  Devin Murray and Dodd Willingham for their expertise, knowledge, and dedication in developing this comprehensive technical case study.

Identifying Server Candidates for Virtualization

Published: 06/17/2008
For several years, Microsoft IT was aware that the number of servers in its data centres was growing rapidly, while utilization of these servers was very low. Microsoft IT identified virtualization as one of the prime strategies to address the issues of server underutilizations and data-center capacity. This study describes how Microsoft IT developed the RightSizing initiative to identify servers that could be virtualized.
Technical Case Study

To learn more about how Microsoft does IT, please visit us!

External:  www.microsoft.com/technet/itshowcase

Second we've included System Center Virtual Machine Manager in the latest beta version for IPD - Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides - (www.microsoft.com/IPD)

RELEASE UPDATE

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides

Beta Release Announcement

System Center Virtual Machine Manager, System Center Operations Manager, Internet Information Services,  Selecting the Right NAP Architecture

We are pleased to announce the  introduction our new Infrastructure Planning and Design guides (IPD).  We have added System Center Virtual Machine Manager and System Center Operations Manager as the first guides in our series for System Center.  We added the new Internet Information Services Guide to our Windows Server 2008 offerings and finally, we’ve released Selecting the Right NAP Architecture.

All of our released guides can be found in the download center. 

Infrastructure Planning and Design streamlines the planning process by:

· Defining the technical decision flow through the planning process.

· Listing the decisions to be made and the commonly available options and considerations.

Join the Beta for Future IPD Guides

Additional Infrastructure Planning and Design series guides are available as beta releases on the Connect Web site. These are open beta downloads. See below for instructions on how to access the beta guides.

To join the Infrastructure Planning and Design Beta, follow these steps:

1. Visit the Infrastructure Planning and Design Beta on the Microsoft Connect Web site.

2. Sign in using a valid Windows Live ID to continue to the Invitations page.

3. Scroll down to Infrastructure Planning and Design.

If you have not previously registered with Microsoft Connect, you might be required to register before continuing with the invitation process.

If the link in step 1 does not work for you, copy the link and paste it into the Web browser address bar.

Related Resources

System Center Operations Manager on Microsoft TechNet

System Center Operations Manager evaluation software on Microsoft TechNet

Internet Information Services Online (iis.net)

CIO's sharing their experieces

And last but not least a Webcast from CIO Insight - CIO Livecast Encore Presentation Is Online Now
"Virtualization: The Price & The Payoff" - Event URL: http://ciolivecast.stream57.com

Three CIOs discuss their experiences at various stages of Virtualization implementation:

1800Flowers.com – SVP & CIO, Steve Bozzo talks about the concerns that a $1 billion company doing well over half their business online has to consider before moving into Virtualization. With over 3,000 agents, 3 data centers and 700 servers, 1800Flowers’ Bozzo views virtualization as a business mandate that can’t be avoided.

Hudson Valley Bank – CIO, Howard Bruck sees massive benefits in the amount of control he now has over what used to be hundreds of scattered devices. Bruck talks about the steps that he’s taken over the last three years to optimize the bank’s processes by testing and deploying virtualization. Beginning with successful desktop virtualization, he sees virtualization as a holistic way of redoing the Windows environment.

Sesame Workshop – CIO, Noah Broadwater is balancing the media company’s massive data storage needs and server sprawl while containing costs at the non-profit home of the Muppets. Increasing the capacity of Sesame’s data centers would have been a multi-million dollar project but Broadwater found his answer with Open Source.

CIO Livecast is a complimentary event. Registration is required.

Hope you enjoy.

Regards

The MCS Infrastructure team @ Microsoft Ireland

Included in this beta release:

• ILM "2" Beta 3 package
• ILM "2" Beta 3 Release notes
• ILM "2" Beta 3 IT Pro documentation set
• ILM "2" Beta 3 SDK
• ILM "2" Beta 3 ready to use VPC

In this release you can work with:

• Workflow integration with Office and Outlook
• Self Service Password Reset
• Codeless user provisioning

The VPC image comes with a full lab and documentation set so you can work through the scenarios and get an understanding of how the new features can work in you environment and start delivering higher ROI and lower TCO

The timeline for ILM "2" is as follows:

• Release candidate: Q4 2008
• RTM Q1 2009

If you're interested in Identity Management I would strongly recommend that you subscribe to the program today, download the content, get the VPC image up and running and find out what everyone's talking about with ILM "2"

You can subscribe to the beta program at:

www.connect.microsoft.com

You can also join the beta newsgroup and subscribe to training Webcasts as and when they become available

More information on ILM 2 can be found at:

 http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/ilm2/default.mspx