And during these current times of recession, most of us have come to understand how important it is to have some cash reserves in the bank just in case jobs go away and revenue streams dry up.  Whatever the scenario, we all know it's always good to have a back up plan, a "Plan B" just in case. 

Are you taking the same approach to the management of your Active Directory?  In the world of AD, that earthquake or recession takes life in the form of an Active Directory catastrophic failure. 

Close your eyes and imagine the havoc that would ensue if all of the sudden domain controllers could no longer perform directory lookups due to corrupted databases?  How many calls would your service desk start receiving if users cannot log on to their machines?

"AD's central problem today has much to do with its longevity, and the fact that it rarely goes down. In fact, when it does go down, it takes every single part of your computing environment with it. " (Redmond Mag)

Do you have the insurance policy, er Disaster Recovery plans in place which would help you get services quickly restored in the rare, but disastrous occurrence of an AD failure??

No AD DR plans?  First, read this great article to get the ball rolling. 

Then, sign up or request info for our upcoming AD Disaster Recovery and Back Up workshop scheduled for June 25 - 28 in our Dublin Offices.  The course covers how to avoid failures in the first place, but also a wide variety of disaster scenarios that can occur and how to make plans for recovery.

If your home near the earthquake fault line were severely damaged and contents ruined, what would you do if you had no insurance policy to quickly start over?  How long would it take you to restore the lifestyle you and your family had before the disaster?  Now think about this in the context of the AD estate you manage at your organisation.  Can they afford to wait while you rebuild AD from scratch?

Resources:

http://www.packtpub.com/article/how-to-recover-from-an-active-directory-failure

http://redmondmag.com/articles/2010/02/01/avoiding-activedirectory-disasters.aspx

But hold on, wait a minute, most of our Enterprises have only just recently converted over to Windows 7, let alone Windows 8.  Or maybe your company has just begun the migration process to Windows 7, coming off of XP or Vista. You might be one of those questioning the value of investing time and resources to getting your Windows 7 deployments up to scratch, and ensuring your IT staff who support it have the deep admin knowledge on the product, when Windows 8 is approaching over the next year.  It's a fair conclusion at first glance, but to hold off getting the know-how you need on Windows 7 doesn't really make good sense.  From a cost and support perspective for the enterprise customer, Windows 7 doesn't even reach the end of mainstream support until January of 2015.  Yes, 2015.  That's still 3 years away.  Unless there is some unique, compelling reason to leap-frog forward to the future in the OS world, the majority of our companies will be looking to postpone increased investment in OS deployments until it becomes absolutely necessary from a support perspective.  And...Windows 7 is pretty sweet itself:

• Easier to install and less power hungry than Vista
• Less annoying notifications and pop-ups
• Designed with mobile devices in mind so Windows 7 is more energy efficient
• Networking has been made alot easier.  Share a printer and several machines
• Searching for documents and files is even easier
• 32bit and 64bit versions available
• Strong backwards compatibility with Windows XP programmes
• Superb data backup features

Last week Irish customers of Microsoft Premier Support Services gathered at our customer event and had the opportunity to watch demos of some of Microsoft’s latest technology as well as insights on how to better manage the IT services delivered within their own enterprises.  Of particular interest was a great demo on integrating system Center to monitor and manage across the IT service lifecycle. 

System Center’s built-in processes are based on industry best practices such as those found in Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), so it makes sense to leverage the technology you already have to start driving the IT service management improvement you are looking for within your enterprise.

Want to learn more?  Check out some great demos available to see what you can accomplish with the System Center suite.  Then contact your Service Delivery Manager to see how you can leverage your Premier Support agreement to get started.

Sources:

IT Service Management Forum (2002). van Bon, J.. ed. IT Service Management: An Introduction. Van Haren Publishing. ISBN 9080671347.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2010/01/13/system-center-service-manager-demos.aspx

But what we also know is that when we choose to “look on the bright side” when dealing with these fears, we might realize that we can begin to minimise them by educating ourselves on what the Cloud evolution really means so that we can start involving ourselves in the process.  The more we know, the more we can contribute and the more likely we will be called upon to be a key player in the journey.

 “Companies that instill the knowledge and understanding their IT professionals and developers require in making the transition to

cloud based skills will enable transition to the cloud both more successfully and more profitably."

In that light, the imminent question we must ask ourselves is:

What can we do to prepare?

Microsoft has recently published a white paper, outlining the essential skills IT professionals should consider enhancing as the landscape of the IT world continues to take flight into the Cloud.

Does your career fit into any of the following roles? Read below to get an idea of skill development needed for specific IT management functions:

"Critical Skills by IT Job Role"

The following are job roles and skills the IT professional can invest in:

Business liaison: Move skills up the stack in the decision process. Hone expertise to the business from within IT. Move into design and architecture roles. Determine whether to focus in-house or off-premise, define options whether the organization decides to stay on-premise or moves to the cloud.

Datacenter manager: Reposition datacenter skills toward the hosted datacenter. Enhance automation skills. Work in standardized environments and with standardized applications as an option. Become good at management applications, scripting, and performance optimization. Acquire best practices skills, such as information services technology management.

Security specialist: Help businesses move core business processes and data securely to private, public, or hybrid cloud solutions. Security specialists need to stay abreast of new security models and technologies, such as data protection skills, privacy standards, securing message integrity (encryption, digital signing and malware protection), federated identity management, authentication methods, and auditing. Organizations need to have security- and compliance-certified employees.

Software architect: Serve as a link between the organization’s technical and business staff. Architects are asked to design and build complex distributed systems that exist both outside and
inside an enterprise and the cloud. They need to acquire the new skills required to build infrastructure, platform, and software clouds. They need to understand how to design and construct multi-tenant and virtualized systems that can manage thousands of simultaneous users and isolate higher levels of the stack from physical component failures.

Finally, the move to the Cloud will lead to dramatic transformations in how Business units communicate with the IT Unit at firms. Conversations between the entities will become less and less focused on discrete pieces of technology software and hardware, and more and more about the value-added services that are supported by the behind-the-scenes work of the IT unit.  It won’t be just about technical skill in the very near future.  Make no mistake, we all (regardless of our role in the IT front) must continuously develop our own soft skills as IT professionals will become increasingly called upon to serve as communication ambassadors for IT to other business units.

It would be a worthy investment of time to seek out courses that will help develop the essential soft skills we will need as it becomes more and more about articulating business value in the context of IT management.  For the technical skills outlined above in the role-based descriptors, consider leveraging your Premier Support agreement with Microsoft to get access to affordable, high-quality training by Subject Matter Experts.  Premier Support has access to a pool of world-class engineers who are highly-skilled at sharing their expertise in all areas, including virtualision, security compliance and protection, scripting & automation, as well as process optimisation. 

Ready to get started?  Give Premier Support Ireland a shout, and start finding your own opportunity in the Cloud.

Sources: 

Resistance to Change: 

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/resistance_change/resistance_change.htm

Microsoft Cloud Whitepaper:

https://partner.microsoft.com/global/40175589?msp_id=rssgloballearnsol156

• The computing ecosystem. Our view of what defines a computer is changing as previously “unintelligent” objects are gaining intelligence, becoming connected, and joining the ecosystem of computing. We are entering the era of an “Internet of things” in which almost any object can be connected to the Internet and collect data that contributes to a global web of knowledge. Virtually every type of product is becoming part of the computing ecosystem—from cars, phones, and houses to scales, cameras, power meters, and televisions. Many of the computers you’ll interact with in the future will be in devices that we don’t think of as computers today. In effect, computing is becoming increasingly invisible. The explosion of data. The
  immense number of digital devices in our world is driving an explosion in data. Deep analysis of this vast amount of data is enabling computers to begin to understand the physical world and to behave in a more human way, anticipating our needs and understanding our intentions.

• Natural interaction. More natural ways to interact with technology are rapidly emerging—multitouch, voice, vision, gestures, and many more. This means that for the first time, computing will adapt to us and demonstrate some degree of “intelligence.” This trend will see computers shift from being tools to being helpers, performing tasks on our behalf based on an awareness of the environments we are in and the context of our actions. Ultimately, this will enable computing interfaces that are far more natural and increasingly simple to use, helping eliminate the learning curve of today’s technology.

• Pervasive displays. New display technologies will give rise to displays that are light, portable, flexible and cheap. We’ll carry a screen around with us as easily as we carry a magazine today, and we’ll take for granted the fact that screens are embedded wherever they might be useful—whether we’re at home, at work, on the move, or in public spaces. And ubiquitous connectivity will automatically link our information to those screens when we want to use them.

• Social computing. Social computing has already changed how we create and maintain our connections with others. But the world of social computing remains highly fragmented. The lack of integration creates frustrating disconnects that are inevitable when we are forced to switch between services and applications to stay up to date. Social computing will undergo a dramatic transformation as technology advances make it possible to weave our social lives more deeply and more seamlessly into every aspect of our digital lives, so that information from our social networks can provide insights to guide us in the real world and online. Social networking itself will also change, becoming far more visual and less text-centric.

• Cloud computing. With its massive data centers, cloud computing delivers virtually infinite resources, providing the storage capacity and processing power to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems in healthcare, the environment, energy, scientific discovery, and many other fields. A hub for all data and information, it will enable us to capture, store, index, parse, and recall as much of our day-to-day lives as we choose to share. It will also provide a platform for orchestrating the flow of information and technology across our lives so that we always have instant access to the tools and information that we need. Fundamental breakthroughs in massively parallel computing will enable us to see patterns in data that can make actionable intelligence more prevalent.

• Ubiquitous connectivity. Increasingly we will be connected at all times to people, information, services and applications without requiring any specific action on our part. This will liberate the information that we have created ourselves and unlock any information from any source that might be relevant to where we are and what we are trying to accomplish, bringing everything we need together seamlessly in the form that is most useful.

-“It’s safe to say that the single most important skill a Windows administrator will need in the coming years is proficiency with Windows PowerShell.”-

  (TechNet, October, 2009)

Windows Powershell makes task automation possible by allowing Windows Admins to to perform tasks on local as well as remote systems.  "Ok, great, but do I need it?"  you may ask.  The answer is yes.  Here's why:

1)  It ain't going anywhere.  Windows Server 2008 R2 and in Windows 7 have PowerShell version 2 enabled by default.  Why?  Because moving forward, many add-on products will be based on PowerShell.  Additionally, almost all Microsoft products can be managed through Powershell.  Imagine the Master-of-the-Universe possibilities here.

2)  You can only do the basics from the GUI.  Any fancy testing or customisation must be done through Powershell.  In fact, many of the functions you already perform through the GUI are actually built on top of PowerShell and generates Powershell code to complete the task at hand.

3)  PowerShell makes interactivity possible.  Microsoft is establishing PowerShell as a common thread in its newer releases of server products.  You need to stay ahead of the curve with this inevitable trend.  The more innovative skill set you have on your bench, the more agile and responsive your IT team can be.

(source:  http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-reasons-why-you-should-learn-to-use-powershell/1073?tag=rbxccnbtr1)

Convinced that it's time to get on the PowerShell bandwagon?  Register for our upcoming PowerShell Essentials Workshop (Premier Support Customers only) on October 6-7 in Dublin.  See the syllabus below:

Description:

PowerShell v2 Essentials

is designed to introduce IT Professionals to the world of PowerShell v2. PowerShell is an extremely powerful command shell and scripting language, which provides system administrators a consistent method of administering Microsoft products. The course introduces key PowerShell concepts and uses a mix of instructor-led delivery and interactive lab sessions. By the end of the course candidates will understand the essential features of PowerShell and have the foundation knowledge required to create their own scripts in order to dramatically reduce administrative overhead.

Topics include:

Module 1: Introduction

? Module 2: Fundamentals

? Module 3: Pipeline

? Module 4: Scripting

? Module 5: Security

? Module 6: Objects

? Module 7: Remoting

? Module 8: Errors and Debugging

? Module 9: Active Directory

But, did you realise that Anti-Virus software that is not configured appropriately can also harm those applications it is working to protect?  Poorly configured Anti-Virus software can grind your applications to a halt, or worse it could cause corruption to critical databases. That said, however, it can be difficult to find a single source of recommendations on how to best configure the various applications and products that your organisation uses. 

Let your friends at Premier Support Ireland help you make this daunting task a bit easier…follow this link and check out the guidelines and recommendations on how to configure your AV software with a range of Microsoft products. Better still, subscribe to the list using your favourite RSS reader and you will receive alerts as the list changes. 

A word of caution: These recommendations are just that…recommendations. We advise reviewing these articles with your security experts before making any changes.  Also, please follow change management best practices if you decide to make changes to production platforms. If you need any assistance please contact your Service Delivery Manager (aka TAM). We’ll be more than happy to assist you adopting the right exclusion model for your enterprise.

We Need to Stop Fire-fighting:

What we need to do is to start thinking about our IT systems as a collection of services provided to the company, rather than discrete components of technology.  What does this mean?  A good example would be looking at the service of Messaging that we provide to colleagues at our companies, rather than focusing narrowly on individual components like health of your Exchange server or security patching which support the Messaging service.  These things are obviously important, but they are meaningless if they don’t support a specific service of value to the company.  People don’t care that our Exchange server is down or doesn’t have the latest security patching.  They care that they can’t send off that time-sensitive email to a customer company exec who’s about to sign a killer sales deal. 

Why it Matters:

When we start to think of what we do in the IT department as supporting a variety of business services, then we can start to a) be more efficient in how we manage and troubleshoot problems and b) start to make more sense to the non-technical leaders in our company, by using our services offered as a means to have conversations which shape the strategy and direction of the company overall. 

A good first step is to listen to the wisdom of ITIL and start spending some time to create a Service Catalogue and a Service Map.  By listing the services your IT department provides to the company, and then outlining all of the technological dependencies that make each service possible in the first place, you’ll immediately have greater visibility of what it is that you manage.  Here’s an idea of what a Service Map might look like:

This, however, is a complex example of Messaging as a service.  It might be easier to start by looking at it like this:

With the above example, we can see all of the puzzle pieces that come together and must function properly in order for your Messaging service to go uninterrupted. Using this example, you could start grouping help desk calls recieved based on Messaging (as a service) being affected and not just the particular technology/area with the error.  We can start having conversations about where we are efficient with Messaging and where we could stand to improve and where we might need more help.  By being able to gather data in a Services dashboard each week/month/quarter, we can start to have better conversations about what is working for the company, and what is not. 

Think of all of the services your IT department provides to the company at large….Isn’t it time they start getting the visibility and proactive management they deserve?  Isn't it time you stopped being a fire-fighter?   Contact us to learn more about how Microsoft Premier Support can help you build the Service Catalogue and Service Mapping you need.

Take our quizzes and find out!  Test your colleagues, too, to find out who the true SCCM champ at your organisation is. 

A wide variety of subject areas within SCCM are covered, so you can assess the skill level of various teams who touch this platform.  These areas include:

Configuration Manager 2007 Client Installation Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Client Management Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Client Site Assignment Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Desired Configuration Management Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Internet-Based Client Management Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Native Mode Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Network Access Protection Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Wake On LAN Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Software Updates Operations Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 OSDeployment Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 What’s New Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Software Updates Configuration Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Mobile Device Management Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Fundamentals Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Client Roaming Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Software Updates Interop Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Setup Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Software Distribution Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 R2 Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Discovery Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 R3 Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Active Directory Domain Services Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Documentation Quiz
 

Download the quiz application now and get started!

If you find an area where you might need some brushing up, let us know and we’d be happy to find a Premier training course that would fill in those gaps.

Happy quizzing!

Officially named the Microsoft Desktop Player (Beta), this tool allows you to enter a search query on the product or technology you wish to explore and the result is a plethora of available resources, broken down by category such as webcast, podcast, whitepaper and links.  No longer are you confined to a life in the dark--you can be the one who is ahead of the game with the latest developments and trends.

Desktop player installer is available for download to your pc or you can access it directly from your browser.  **HOT TIP:  Be the coolest blogger in town by imbedding the player on your own site for others to use!  Check out ours here on our Premier Support blog—from the home page, down the left hand side column (look for the crystal ball!)

Anxious to give it a go?  Well, wait no longer.  Your crystal ball of information is here, at your disposal.

(Source: http://bit.ly/k7lSuE)