http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/mgmtsummit/default.mspx
Just found the above, it should have all the launches/announcements in case we miss them!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The Dynamic Desktop
This keynote was presented by Brad Anderson who is one of Microsoft's general managers. He led into by talking about how the baby boomers are retiring and that by 2012, 30% of the workforce will be made up of Gen Y. The framing here was all about how Gen Y are tech savvy and will demand more flexible ways of working.
"The Dynamic Desktop provides a consistent experience for users independent of device or location".
Microsoft's belief is that now and in the future we should consider the client, the user not their device and we need to ask ourselves questions along the lines of how do we deliver applications and data to the user.
The next step was a quick demo of Application Virtualisation, so a .pptx was clicked on and Powerpoint was installed in the background in around 10 seconds. Pretty swish! They made an edit and saved it, they were then able to log in from another device and have the same file with the edit via VDI over Terminal Services gateway and so on. This works with the Vista Folder redirection I briefly mentioned in one of my earlier posts.
In Q3 the next version of the MDOP pack will be released and they highlighted that the product at launch was the fastest selling on Volume Licensing they have ever had. As Brian mentioned MDOP is only available via Software Assurance.
System Centre and it's add-ons were highlighted as the best way to provide and manage the dynamic desktop and Microsoft rightly argue that you should be able to use one tool to manage physical/virtual and client devices/servers. They claim to be providing this one stop shop.
Next up was a demonstration of Network Access Protection via Windows 2008, it showed how a device gets quarantined, remediation work is carried out (patch applied for example)and then the device is allowed to connect. The feature will allow you to set policies and do a check before implementation so you can understand the effect of any change. I guess this is much like the Resultant Set of Policy feature in AD GPO's.
Attached Knowledge Services was a good example of some innovative thinking. This is where all the System Centre suite report back to Microsoft (with no identifying info) the health of an environment, its make up and so on. This has then allowed Microsoft to create baselines to allow companies to see how they compare. Furthermore, if you are performing badly in some area you can query the data to find out what to change to help your environment. Taking this further, Microsoft have found that where one customer experiences specific problems, they can use this information to proactively warm others who may be getting to a similar situation, before the problem even arises. Whilst this has a tinge of big brother to it if i were a suspicious mind, the opportunity here is fantastic. This would clearly be a big reputational boost to Microsoft and its services, as well as a stability/reliability boost for its customers. Unless of course you are the customer that has to have the problem first ;-)
Finally, in a bit of a Columbo style "Just one more thing" moment a quick demo was performed using a USB stick to plug into a machine and from there he again managed to show his apps. This is similar to what Mars Office on a Stick is trying to do, but here it would be native to Microsoft. No further details were given but it was a slick show stopper demo.
One slight irritation was that they put up their roadmap of the System Centre suite, all the products are to go to the next version on 2010. Were they our replacement for Zenworks, we could face doing a rollout and a version upgrade as soon as the rollout completes. Having said that, we all know how their deadlines slip!
After this session, I am left feeling quite positive about where Microsoft see the future, they clearly recognise the problems Mars sees and are already looking to address them. It is like they have been stealing from my Client Architecture Framework document though!
"The Dynamic Desktop provides a consistent experience for users independent of device or location".
Microsoft's belief is that now and in the future we should consider the client, the user not their device and we need to ask ourselves questions along the lines of how do we deliver applications and data to the user.
The next step was a quick demo of Application Virtualisation, so a .pptx was clicked on and Powerpoint was installed in the background in around 10 seconds. Pretty swish! They made an edit and saved it, they were then able to log in from another device and have the same file with the edit via VDI over Terminal Services gateway and so on. This works with the Vista Folder redirection I briefly mentioned in one of my earlier posts.
In Q3 the next version of the MDOP pack will be released and they highlighted that the product at launch was the fastest selling on Volume Licensing they have ever had. As Brian mentioned MDOP is only available via Software Assurance.
System Centre and it's add-ons were highlighted as the best way to provide and manage the dynamic desktop and Microsoft rightly argue that you should be able to use one tool to manage physical/virtual and client devices/servers. They claim to be providing this one stop shop.
Next up was a demonstration of Network Access Protection via Windows 2008, it showed how a device gets quarantined, remediation work is carried out (patch applied for example)and then the device is allowed to connect. The feature will allow you to set policies and do a check before implementation so you can understand the effect of any change. I guess this is much like the Resultant Set of Policy feature in AD GPO's.
Attached Knowledge Services was a good example of some innovative thinking. This is where all the System Centre suite report back to Microsoft (with no identifying info) the health of an environment, its make up and so on. This has then allowed Microsoft to create baselines to allow companies to see how they compare. Furthermore, if you are performing badly in some area you can query the data to find out what to change to help your environment. Taking this further, Microsoft have found that where one customer experiences specific problems, they can use this information to proactively warm others who may be getting to a similar situation, before the problem even arises. Whilst this has a tinge of big brother to it if i were a suspicious mind, the opportunity here is fantastic. This would clearly be a big reputational boost to Microsoft and its services, as well as a stability/reliability boost for its customers. Unless of course you are the customer that has to have the problem first ;-)
Finally, in a bit of a Columbo style "Just one more thing" moment a quick demo was performed using a USB stick to plug into a machine and from there he again managed to show his apps. This is similar to what Mars Office on a Stick is trying to do, but here it would be native to Microsoft. No further details were given but it was a slick show stopper demo.
One slight irritation was that they put up their roadmap of the System Centre suite, all the products are to go to the next version on 2010. Were they our replacement for Zenworks, we could face doing a rollout and a version upgrade as soon as the rollout completes. Having said that, we all know how their deadlines slip!
After this session, I am left feeling quite positive about where Microsoft see the future, they clearly recognise the problems Mars sees and are already looking to address them. It is like they have been stealing from my Client Architecture Framework document though!
The 5 pieces of MDOP
This session was a quick runthrough of the 5 (soon to be 6) products that are available through MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack)
I guess the first thing to note is that MDOP is only available to customers that buy Software Assurance, which is Microsoft's version of the maintenance contract. It looks like relatively good value and seems to be the resting place of products that Microsoft have recently acquired
Desktop Error Monitoring is the first product, which allows a company to collect all the Dr. Watson error events from the desktops that are sent to Microsoft and analyse them. This works well with the second tool which is branded DaRT (Diagnostic and Recovery Tool) which you may have heard of as Winternals prior to Microsoft buying it. This allows centralised diagnosis of blue screen type events, and recovery in software related crashes. Useful where desksiders aren't available!
Advanced Group Policy Management isn't particularly relevant to us today, but when we start using Active Directory for our desktops this could well be critical, as it allows auditing and workflow for any policy changes. Seems to me that this should be in the core product though...
Asset Inventory Service (AIS) is a 'cloud based' inventory service that could be really useful for those hard to reach devices (salesforce laptops!), although when I spoke to the product manager he seemed a bit stumped on how you'd actually get the client onto the machines in the first place. Seems like a fairly large oversight to me! This product used to be known as AssetMetrics
Last and most interesting of all was Application Virtualisation (formerly SoftGrid), which is the application virtualisation technology. Loads more to discuss in up and coming sessions so I'll just say that this product is aimed at Application to Application isolation, and doesn't address Application to Operating System isolation, which is where the sixth product will come in (Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation, formerly Kidaro)
I guess the first thing to note is that MDOP is only available to customers that buy Software Assurance, which is Microsoft's version of the maintenance contract. It looks like relatively good value and seems to be the resting place of products that Microsoft have recently acquired
Desktop Error Monitoring is the first product, which allows a company to collect all the Dr. Watson error events from the desktops that are sent to Microsoft and analyse them. This works well with the second tool which is branded DaRT (Diagnostic and Recovery Tool) which you may have heard of as Winternals prior to Microsoft buying it. This allows centralised diagnosis of blue screen type events, and recovery in software related crashes. Useful where desksiders aren't available!
Advanced Group Policy Management isn't particularly relevant to us today, but when we start using Active Directory for our desktops this could well be critical, as it allows auditing and workflow for any policy changes. Seems to me that this should be in the core product though...
Asset Inventory Service (AIS) is a 'cloud based' inventory service that could be really useful for those hard to reach devices (salesforce laptops!), although when I spoke to the product manager he seemed a bit stumped on how you'd actually get the client onto the machines in the first place. Seems like a fairly large oversight to me! This product used to be known as AssetMetrics
Last and most interesting of all was Application Virtualisation (formerly SoftGrid), which is the application virtualisation technology. Loads more to discuss in up and coming sessions so I'll just say that this product is aimed at Application to Application isolation, and doesn't address Application to Operating System isolation, which is where the sixth product will come in (Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation, formerly Kidaro)
Content as a Service (CaaS)
Way behind on my blogging so I'll keep this one relatively brief
My first session of the week was all about the documentation that MS provides for the System Center suite. Pretty dry stuff, but some interesting nuggets could be found
"SuperFlows" offer a much more interactive way of understanding how the product should/could work, and is being integrated with the troubleshooting tools - If this type of documentation takes off then I see a lot of benefit for GTS style solutions here. Also nice is the ability to extract the documentation (e.g. visio docs) and annotate it with our own specific configuration information (server names etc).
see http://www.myITforum.com/absolutevc/?v=834 for more info and an interview with Mr. SuperFlow
I guess the only problem I see here is that this kind of in-depth documentation takes time, and we'll increasingly see product functionality released with limited (or no) documentation. I guess we may need to seek out the developer blogs more and more just to understand how to use products we've bought! The cynic in me is thinking about how this drives consultancy revenue
My first session of the week was all about the documentation that MS provides for the System Center suite. Pretty dry stuff, but some interesting nuggets could be found
"SuperFlows" offer a much more interactive way of understanding how the product should/could work, and is being integrated with the troubleshooting tools - If this type of documentation takes off then I see a lot of benefit for GTS style solutions here. Also nice is the ability to extract the documentation (e.g. visio docs) and annotate it with our own specific configuration information (server names etc).
see http://www.myITforum.com/absolutevc/?v=834 for more info and an interview with Mr. SuperFlow
I guess the only problem I see here is that this kind of in-depth documentation takes time, and we'll increasingly see product functionality released with limited (or no) documentation. I guess we may need to seek out the developer blogs more and more just to understand how to use products we've bought! The cynic in me is thinking about how this drives consultancy revenue
Users
It's been two days since we explored the strip and my feet still haven't forgiven me! One of the good things that came from our day of exploration was our discovery of one of the new 'chocolate lounges' here in Vegas. Naturally we decided to investigate!
We met the team of associates that run the Ethel chocolate lounge and asked them about the tools they used. As in our DOE session we found that IT is peripheral to their ways of working. The shop has a small workspace out back that is the office/storage area, and their we found a lonely looking SDS2000 laptop that the manager uses for email and MarsWeb access. Sametime was a novelty for them, as was the realisation that the GTS offered 24x7 support and could unlock their accounts!
On the non-IT side the store was fairly busy which was great to see - a fairly even mix of people buying chocolates to take away and groups enjoying chocolate drinks and fondue in store
Virtualisation 360
This session was all about what virtualisation is and Microsoft's view of the future. It had some great slides so I wont go into too much detail here.
Key points:
Key points:
- Prediction that in 5years time 75% of all servers will be virtual.
- The recent Kidaro acquisition allows MS to provide seamless windows for applications (like Citrix) whereas currently they can only provide full desktop sessions.
- System Centre Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) can do snapshots of virtual machines and restore to a different host in the event of failure. It will be possible to do the same with applications using SCDPM and MS Application Virtualisation.
- Heavy pushing of System Centre and its components as the one stop shop to manage physical and virtual as well as client and server, regardless of OS, Virtual host, hardware vendor etc.
- Different models of providing services to the end user (this could be part of my solution space for the Client Architecture Framework). Refer to the slides for further info.
- MS Assessment and Planning 3.0 - updated infrastructure tool to assess both server and client environments, it will tell you which servers could be virtualised and what applications for client devices. It generates a nice report with lots of graphs. It sounds like an interesting tool but they didn't go into how it makes those recommendations.
So that was all of my sessions for Tuesday, I'm now off to the keynote for Wednesday which is all about 'Managing the dynamic desktop'. Should be good!
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