If anyone doubts Microsoft’s commitment to cloud computing, today’s announcement of the discontinuation of Windows Essential Business Server (EBS), should give you a hint. The cloud is moving quickly over the horizon. And Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) is the cloud offering to replace EBS.

The EBS Team Blog (http://blogs.technet.com/essentialbusinessserver/default.aspx) points to the cloud and BPOS among the factors driving the decision to drop EBS, saying “midsize businesses are rapidly turning to technologies such as management, virtualization and cloud computing as a means to cut costs, improve efficiency, and increase competitiveness. These capabilities are already available through offerings, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center and the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).”

Like EBS, BPOS is a packaged offering aimed at helping organizations deploy complex technology more easily. As I noted in a recent article for TechNet Magazine (“Clearing the Fog around Cloud Computing,” http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff394351.aspx):

Microsoft has been packaging and licensing suites composed of its server and management products for years. Some server licensing packages you might be familiar with are Small Business Server (SBS), Essential Business Server (EBS), and—going way back in time—BackOffice Server. With such packages in mind, you can think of BPOS as just another suite of Microsoft products—the difference being that the BPOS products you access in your organization are physically located in Microsoft datacenters instead of in your facility.

It has taken many years for Microsoft to fully embrace non-packaged software solutions out of fear that this approach would undermine Microsoft’s core products. However, the future is now blazingly clear, and Microsoft has finally decided to change with the weather.

Microsoft will continue to support EBS customers during the usual five-year support lifecycle (see http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle for details). In addition, Microsoft has special offerings for customers who want to transition to the component products of the EBS suite (see http://www.microsoft.com/ebs). For answers to commonly asked questions, an EBS FAQ is available at http://www.microsoft.com/ebs/en/us/faq.aspx.

Not coincidentally, Microsoft today also launched a new Web site at www.microsoft.com/cloud, which opens with a Steve Ballmer video. Ballmer extols the value of the cloud and how it is "redefining" Microsoft's direction by "creating opportunity for businesses and their customers [and]enabling new and meaningful ways to communicate."

Have you ever stepped back, looked at your current IT infrastructure, and thought, "No human in their right mind would ever design a datacenter like this!"? If you’re like most IT professionals, you’ve either inherited a jumble of technology patched together over the years, or you’ve had to throw together quick solutions to meet business demands. Most of us don’t have the luxury of building a datacenter from scratch—and even if we did, we’d likely end up adding features, functionality, hardware, and software on as-needed basis. It’s nearly impossible to find the time for planning when you’re just trying to keep up with day-to-day needs.  

Datacenters are usually built in a reactive manner--Oh! I need more capacity. Oh! That server is down and I have to get it up. You need what capability by when? Are you out of your mind?! It will take months just to figure out how to do it.  

The reason why IT infrastructure gets so messy is that IT and business are not in sync. IT enables and empowers the business. But business is focused on earning more revenue, creating new product lines, and finding opportunities to generate new cash. Business managers often consider IT as a support department that is responsible for capital expenditure.   

However, you can change this situation. When IT and business have a common way of looking at IT infrastructure and can see how technology expenses can be lowered, then IT can be transformed from a cost center to business enabler. By supporting business proactively and in a reliable manner, IT can have a direct impact on business success. This transformation comes with standardization in the delivery of datacenter services through end-to-end management of physical and virtual environments. You can reduce operational costs and get optimum utilization of data center resources by considering your entire IT platform in every decision you make.  

The Platform Vision architectural model provides that common perspective on IT as a whole. The Infrastructure solution pattern represents the foundation for any IT platform and encompasses datacenter management, client devices, identity, networking, and security. By understanding the elements that make up the Infrastructure solution pattern, and by considering the dependencies and relationships that exist throughout the IT platform, you can give business management a way of seeing the cost and Return on Investment (ROI) implications of introducing any technology into your infrastructure. And you can look at your datacenter and see it as something that is evolving and growing in a sensible, planned way.  

This quick overview of the rational for and benefits of the Platform Vision model is just a starting point. To provide an in-depth explanation of the model, describe the components of each layer, and explain the dependencies and relationships among the components and layers, the Platform Vision team will create a white paper drilling down into each layer of the model. Stay tuned for the first of these white papers, which will focus on the Infrastructure layer.  

We invite your input into the model. Help us grow the Platform Vision model and make it more useful. Let us know about your experiences, as well as your needs. Email at Vikram.Jain@Advaiya.com

Consolidation of a datacenter should not be left to chance.  As datacenters have evolved and expanded, it hasbecome increasingly important to take a different view of projects involvingchanges to these environments, and the infrastructure within.

These aremajor undertakings, involving mission critical infrastructure, as such it’s importantto think in terms of “Transformation” versus simply “Migration”

Datacentertransformation can take many forms.  Changingthe landscape of a datacenter is driven by this ever growing need to reducecost, and increase performance. 

Some commonexamples of datacenter transformations are:

o   Hardware migration (moving from old infrastructureon to new higher performance, higher efficiency infrastructure) 

o   Server consolidation (leveraging virtualizationtechnology, blade infrastructure, or both to save on physical space, and save onoperational costs such as power/heating/cooling)

o   Data center relocation or site move (Consolidatedatacenter sites, to take advantage of cost savings from centralization, and regionalcost savings)

Planning andpreparation is often the easiest way to mitigate the risks associated withtransformation projects.  These projectscan be quite complex; only thorough and intelligent planning can ensure a clearpath to success, as well as identify any potential pitfalls beforehand.

PlateSpinRecon from Novell ensures that organizations will not go in blindly in to these initiatives.  The integration of PlateSpin Recon from Novell and PlateSpin MIgrate from Novell offers organizations the only end to end workload management solution,which in turn not only reduces risk, but reduces their overall cost.

Testing andplanning are critical to ensure success.

Testing isoften an overlooked aspect of these initiatives.  These projects are expected to move at thespeed of business, and as such, cutting out testing to reduce downtime is adangerous decision that is often made. Again, it is important to build transformation projects around solutionsthat recognize this and integrate testing into the project.  With mature features such as “Server Synch”only the PlateSpin workload management solution, recognizes the need for testing as an integralstep.

Testing isnot only critical from a point in time standpoint, but should also be done atmany levels, and stages.

A datacenteris more than the sum of its parts, and there can be complex interdependencies, frommulti-tier applications to dependencies from application to application.

The businesslevel components of the datacenter really can be looked at from threeperspectives: 

o   individual server workload (theoperating system, application, and data stack residing within the serverinfrastructure)

o   application cluster (most applicationsare in fact multi-tier, running across multiple server workloads)

o   full datacenter (dependencies acrossapplications, relied on for business services)

A multi-phase testing approach should be adopted to ensure that everything is running correctlyat each of these layers of abstraction. Testing the individual server workload components through to testing ofthe applications and entire datacenter as a whole, gives a “big picture” view,and will ensure the highest degree of risk reduction.

The only wayto confirm a project’s success is through post transformation analysis and validation.

Organizations canforget that solutions that provide integrated planning and modeling at thefront end of projects can be re-used for post completion validation.

Complexprojects such as datacenter transformations are rarely completely successfulinitially.  Validation testing and theability to take an iterative and ongoing approach to datacenter transformation,can assure not only the success of the initial project, but leads to theconcept of ongoing optimization. Ensuring not only a one time cost savings, but cost savings andperformance improvement perpetually.

Thoroughplanning, combined with thorough testing both before and after transformation, is the only way to ensure a successful project

PlateSpin workload management allows organizations look at datacenter transformation from a holistic “bigpicture” view, and can enable organizations to ensure ongoing datacenteroptimization.

By looking atthings from this view, we are transforming or moving a datacenter,rather than simply moving a number of individual workloads that make upthe datacenter.  The PlateSpin workload management solution not only ensures success with the project at hand, but can becontinually leveraged to ensure a fully optimized datacenter moving forward.

No matter how good a new version of Windows is, rolling it out to business users requires a bit of homework and preparation. But gathering all the resources you need is a job in itself and can be time-consuming and sometimes frustrating. With the launch of Windows 7, the massive number of resources available to help you understand, plan, test, and deploy the new operating system can be daunting. So to save you some work in searching and sorting through content, here’s a list organized by job role and types of content.

For IT Engineers

IT professionals need to get ahead of the game and learn about the new release to assess the return on investment (ROI) of an upgrade. Getting up to speed on a new OS is always the first step. But where to begin? To judge the value and ROI, you need to know if the new features are worth the effort of upgrading, and you need to see how the new features compare to old ones. Here are a few good resources to get you started.

Get the Scoop

Microsoft usually does a good job of showing you what you get with a new version as compared to the previous version, and this release is no exception. Your job is to determine how much more productive the new features will make your users and your IT staff so that you can build a business case.

Compare Windows 7 Editions: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare-editions/default.aspx

Learn about Windows 7 features: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features

Navigate through the Windows 7 Technical Library Roadmap: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349342(WS.10).aspx

Follow the steps in the Windows 7 Deployment Guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349348(WS.10).aspx

Get Up to Speed

Learning from past mistakes, Microsoft has gone the extra mile to ensure that Windows 7 is ready for deployment in the enterprise. The first and most important point to note is that application compatibility is not an issue, as it was when Windows Vista launched. Windows 7 will run on existing hardware—in fact it runs better than Windows Vista on a lot of legacy hardware, and it will run your existing software. In addition, Microsoft has an array of virtualization technologies that that let you run legacy applications virtually.  Of course, deploying a desktop OS can’t be viewed in isolation, so be sure to look at resources that address integration with Windows Server 2008 R2 and the additional functionality you get there.  So here are some training resources to give you a head start.

TechNet Webcast: Windows 7 Planning and Deployment Tools (Level 300)

http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/technetwindows7.aspx?tab=Webcasts&seriesid=141&webcastid=6504

TechNet Webcast: Windows 7 Enhanced Security and Control (Level 300)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416719&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

TechNet Webcast: Windows 7 Seamless Network Access (Level 300)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416270&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

TechNet Webcast: Understanding Activation and Validation in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (Level 300)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032418317&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

TechNet Webcast: Optimize Windows 7 with the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (Level 300)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416870&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

TechNet Webcast: Windows 7 Deployment Enhancements (Level 200)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032416265&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Get the Deployment Tools

Once you have the foundational knowledge about Windows 7 deployment, it’s time to look at the tools you have available to make that deployment faster and easier. Windows 7 is the first release for which Microsoft has the deployment tools ready at the same time as the product’s release. This is a great advantage for IT, so be sure to get familiar with the assets that are waiting for you.

The Windows® Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) for Windows® 7

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=696DD665-9F76-4177-A811-39C26D3B3B34&displaylang=en

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=67240B76-3148-4E49-943D-4D9EA7F77730&displaylang=en

The Deployment Guide used with the resources you get from the Windows 7 tools can save you time and money. Be sure to check out the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 at

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3BD8561F-77AC-4400-A0C1-FE871C461A89&displaylang=en

A key consideration before you adopt a new operating system is application compatibility. One new Windows 7 feature addresses issues you might encounter with applications that are certified for Windows XP. This feature is called Windows XP Mode, which gives users access to a virtualized version is Windows XP on a Windows 7 desktop. More information regarding this is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/  

For Developers

When a new OS comes out, an organization’s technology group needs to examine the product from all angles. A company’s developers need to know about the development model, the APIs, and how to ensure that homegrown applications will be compatible with the new release. Here are some resources to get developers ready for Windows 7.

Developing for Windows 7

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd433113.aspx

Get Trained

Microsoft provides resources for developers that will let you learn at your own speed and on your own time. Here are some of the online training options you can start with:

Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1C333F06-FADB-4D93-9C80-402621C600E7&displaylang=en

Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1C333F06-FADB-4D93-9C80-402621C600E7&displaylang=en

Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=24da89e9-b581-47b0-b45e-492dd6da2971

Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c17ba869-9671-4330-a63e-1fd44e0e2505

Hardware developers can explore the driver model for Windows 7 by looking at the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) 7.0.0:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/using

In addition to self-training, you can find conferences that will help you develop for Windows 7. Microsoft is producing the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in November. This is the must-attend conference for developers and the place to find out about upcoming technologies: http://microsoftpdc.com/

For Business Users

When IT rolls out new software, one of major risks is business users’ acceptance of and comfort with the new version. IT needs to prepare users for the new OS by providing training. Once the new OS is rolled out, the Help desk needs to be able to answer user questions and do troubleshooting when business users have problems. Here are some resources to Help IT get users started, find cool things to do with the new OS, and take advantage of the features.

Getting Started with Windows 7

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/getting-started

Using Windows 7

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/using

Featured Windows 7 Resources

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd361745.aspx

Tips and Tricks for Business Users

I am a personal fan of keyboard shortcuts. They save time and make tasks easy. In Windows 7, the numbers of keyboard shortcuts is vast. You can learn about many of them by visiting these resources:

Keyboard Shortcuts

Windows 7 Keyboard shortcuts

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/Windows7/Keyboard-shortcuts

Windows Media Center keyboard shortcuts

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Windows-Media-Center-keyboard-shortcuts

Internet Explorer keyboard shortcuts

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Internet-Explorer-keyboard-shortcuts

Windows Mail keyboard shortcuts

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Windows-Mail-keyboard-shortcuts

Make the keyboard easier to use

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/Windows7/Make-the-keyboard-easier-to-use

Desktop and Productivity

New software can cause users to feel confused and disoriented because of new ways of doing the tasks that need to be done every day. IT can help users be more comfortable with Windows 7 by providing them with information about the new look and feel of the OS. The better prepared business users are, the more quickly they will become productive on it.

The new Windows 7 taskbar

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/better-stronger-faster-the-windows-7-taskbar

What's new with the desktop?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Whats-new-with-the-Windows-desktop

Personalizing your PC

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Personalizing-your-computer

Networking and remote access

Connect to a wireless network

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/View-and-connect-to-available-wireless-networks

Connect to another computer using Remote Desktop Connection

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Connect-to-another-computer-using-Remote-Desktop-Connection

Allow someone to connect to your computer remotely

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/allow-someone-to-connect-to-your-computer-using-remote-desktop-connection

File sharing essentials

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/File-sharing-essentials

Help and Support

People have different learning styles: Some learn by listening, some learn by doing, and some learn by seeing. Microsoft supports all of these different styles by providing resources ranging from demos, to videos, to podcasts, to virtual labs. The TechNet “How Do I?” series of videos is at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb629407.aspx  here are some more how-to videos:

I am trying to find a link to a part of Msoft where they have what they call “Snacks” short training videos. Will add, unless you tell me one of the links below already covers that.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/videos

Windows 7 Help and How-to

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help

Windows 7 Solution Center

http://support.microsoft.com/ph/14019#tab9

Peer support

In addition to Microsoft product support, you can always ask the Windows community for help.

For community-based help a good starting place is “Ask the Community,” at http://support.microsoft.com/ph/1401, Here you will find some of the very popular Windows 7 forums.

 Getting Ready for Windows 7

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/GettingReadyforWindows7/threads?sort=viewsdesc

Hardware and drivers

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7hardware/threads

Install, upgrade and activate

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7install/threads

Internet Explorer

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/InternetExplorer/threads

Providing an exhaustive guide to Windows 7 resources is impossible. But I hope this list will be a good starting point that provides a quick look at a broad swath of resources types and topics. This list lets gives various IT roles a way to dive in and start exploring. From IT professionals, to developers, to business users, Microsoft provides an entry point tailored to your needs. So jump in and look around. You’re sure to find plenty of useful content from Microsoft and from your peers in the community. Now’s the time to start preparing for Windows 7 and there’s no shortage of information to help you.

If you want to have your mind boggled, think about the complexity of building and shipping even a “minor” version of a Microsoft OS. For example, take Windows Server 2008 Release 2 (WS08 R2). Start by trying to list all the features, functionalities, and technologies that the server OS comprises, enables, integrates with, and provides the foundation for. The list goes on forever. Then try to imagine the tangled hairball of interdependencies among those technologies and features. This exercise gives you a glimpse of the intricacies involved in building a server OS.

But such a list barely scratches the surface of the complexity of actually delivering the OS. Thousands of developers, testers, product and program managers, documentation specialists, executives, and others are responsible for the OS in just Microsoft’s Server group—not to mention all the other groups that contribute essential components like networking, security, manageability, etc. Each feature team has to know how its technologies interact with other teams’ technologies, and somebody needs to understand all the dependencies between features, technologies, and other Microsoft software.

Just trying to give a hint at the vastness of shipping WS08 R2 gives me a headache. My guess is that most Microsoft customers have never given much thought to what goes on behind the curtain, but I bet most people would find it interesting if they could get a peek. So I asked Microsoft for an opportunity to bring a video camera into one of the final meetings of the leadership team responsible for getting WS08 R2 done.

They agreed, and Brian McNeill (principle program manager lead for Windows Server), the person responsible for getting WS08 R2 out the door, invited me to video a Server leadership meeting that he chaired one week before the product was released to manufacturing (RTM). Here’s a link to the Server team blog for announcement of the RTM: http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/). Since Brian was responsible for this release and for making sure that all the pieces came together on time, I chatted with him about the release after the meeting. You’ll see his comments in the video, whcih you can see at http://platformvision.com/SevenDaysBeforeWin2K8R2.aspx.

I showed up at the appointed time and was all prepared to enter a littered and overcrowded conference room full of sleep-deprived and harried engineers. I imagined them jumping up and shouting about bugs and priorities and pounding the table to get attention for their last-minute blow-ups. Name-calling! Swearing! Blaming!

No such thing happened. As you can see in the video, the very civilized and orderly meeting took place in a large but comfortably full conference room. Each participant politely spoke in turn, while some participants quietly worked on their email until their turn to talk. Everybody reported no bugs, no deployment blockers, no crises, no problems. All systems go!

Huh? Either the shipping frenzy had actually happened weeks ago and this uneventful meeting was just a matter of form, or this release was miraculously smooth. Could things really be this calm only 7 days before WS08 R2 RTM?

Apparently, this meeting was indeed the calm after the storm, and things hadn’t always been this relaxed. Reflecting on Microsoft’s impressive reliability data for WS08R2 at RTM, General Manager Iain McDonald said, “We sucked at beta. So we’ve gone from being in a really bad place to being in a great place.”

Ah-hah! So, the process was not always smooth. But apparently, the teams rallied to deliver clean code on schedule and at a high quality bar.

Those reliability statistics McDonald was looking at were noteworthy. The Microsoft study shows that the new release significantly exceeds the reliability goal that was set for its predecessor Windows Server 2008 (WS08) at its RTM. As the graph in the video shows, WS08 R2 RC demonstrated availability of 99.9987 percent (~ 7 minutes of down time per year), which exceeds WS08’s RTM availability of 99.9978 percent (~12 minutes of down time per year).

According to Principle Product Unit Manager Chris Pinto, the improvements in WS08 R2 and the remarkable state of the product one week before RTM are the result of increased customer engagement. Pinto said, “Over the past couple of releases we have worked hard to include a broader set of customers during the engineering cycle including small, medium, and enterprise customers. One of our keys to success is working with key partners to ensure our TAP customers have support for critical operations (back-up, hardware and operating system monitoring, storage, etc.) and security solutions (e.g. anti-virus) enabling them to put Windows Server 2008 R2 systems into full production prior to release.”

Of course, Microsoft is famous for “dog-fooding” its products, and this process of using its own products before customers do was as important as ever for this release. Pinto explained, “Microsoft IT is one of our key partners in every release.  As is typical, they played a lead role, deploying many of our key Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 scenarios before we asked our external customers to do so. Often [MS IT goes] further, faster than our customers in pushing the adoption envelope. For example, 100% of Microsoft.com front-end Web servers are running on R2 and have been since our RC milestone.”

Being able to track and measure the results of customer engagements was key, Pinto noted. “We made big investments in telemetry in Windows Server 2008 R2, as well. This telemetry gives us very specific insight into how our customers use R2, system load, performance, and reliability information.”

After the long, painful experience with shipping Windows Vista, Microsoft has become dedicated to making the delivery of its products timely, smooth, and uneventful. The launch of WS08 R2 is a case in point. The complexity is all still there, but it’s much more purposefully managed now. Ship room isn’t as exciting as the old “War Room” used to be. But there’s something to be said for making a plan, sticking to it, and getting the job done.

  Boldly Go Where the Technology Hasn’t Gone Before

Listen to customers and deliver what they need. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach to a successful business, but it hasn’t always been the doctrine at Microsoft. I bristle every time I hear someone at the company say, “We know what customers need; we don’t need them to tell us.” But there are groups in Microsoft that understand the importance of a dialog with customers, and I recently had an opportunity to witness an example of great customer interaction first hand.

On April 21 and 22, 92 customers from around the world who are participants in the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Technical Adoption Program (TAP) were invited to Microsoft campus to provide feedback and interact directly with the products’ developers. I had the privilege of attending those meetings and the opportunity to record a video of a conversation with Group Product Manager Ward Ralston about Server 2008 R2. Ward told me about some interesting announcements from TechEd that are related to Server R2 and Windows 7. You can view the video by clicking http://platformvision.com/boldlygo.aspx.

The connection between my conversation with Ward and the TAP summit is Server R2 and the Server developer group’s relationship with its customers. Server R2 is the product it is because of customer feedback. The TAP program is one way that the Windows Server team gets information from customers to help shape its product.

Participants in the TAP program work closely with Microsoft during a new version’s development process to test the code in actual production environments. In his opening remarks to the TAP event, Corporate Vice President Bill Laing (who heads development of Windows Server) characterized TAP participants as, “customers who want to boldly go where the technology hasn’t gone before.” As the invitation to the event made clear, those bold folks were at the event to learn as well as help Microsoft:

During this event, we will be exploring changes in upcoming Windows 7 builds as well as identifying valuable new tools and technical content – all delivered live by the product teams. We’ll explore Microsoft’s key learnings on some of the core Windows 7 Enterprise technologies including DirectAccess, BranchCache, and Deployment. We’ll also take a quick tour of the new UI in Windows 7 and discuss techniques for using Microsoft Windows 7 in your environments. Next, you’ll have an opportunity to assist Microsoft with planning for the next generation of Windows Client and Windows Server during our Customer Focused Design sessions.  Last up, you’ll also have an opportunity to meet with various software vendors to understand their plans for supporting Windows 7 Client and Windows Server 2008 R2 when the product is released.  The Windows 7 TAP Airlift is a free learning session designed to tackle your toughest IT challenges and share with you our key learnings.

By the way, if you’re surprised to hear that Microsoft’s ISV partners were also at the event, just think about the application compatibility problems that plagued Windows Vista, and everything falls into place. As Laing noted, customers “can’t deploy unless things like backup are ready.”

The broad agenda for the event reflected the complexity of the task facing TAP participants. Sessions covered Direct Access, IE 8, Group Policy, PowerShell, IIS, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), Windows Deployment Services (WDS), Server Manger, numerous security technologies, Branch Cache, various flavors of virtualization, and power management—to name just a few.

 Every session was packed with fascinating dialog between the customers and the Microsoft teams. The range of conversations and the candor of the Microsoft responses was fascinating: A few fairly random examples include:

·         Customer: Why does Windows 7 appear in the registry as version 6.1?

o   Microsoft: App compat. 25 to 30 percent of application installs fail because the check the version number.

·         Customer: Products like SQL Server have monthly cumulative updates; why couldn’t Windows Server do something similar?

o   Microsoft: Windows is a very broad platform and applications that check the version number and specific virtual memory addresses are very easy to break in updates. In fact, lots of rolled up hotfixes cause regression.

·         Customer: Thanks to Microsoft for driver isolation. System restore on a print server would have been great because print servers put drivers everywhere and there’s no uninstall

o   Microsoft: System restore dates back to Windows ME but has never been in server. However, it’s under consideration for Windows 8.

·         Customer: What is lost if you upgrade to Windows 7 before moving Active Directory (AD) to the domain level of Windows Server 2008 R2?

o   Microsoft: With both Windows 7 and Server R2, VDI works better; support for centralized desktop virtualization is better, native IPv6 for Direct Access. Microsoft needs to give customers an exhaustive list.

One of the liveliest discussions was in the session on Direct Access, which is not yet working as well as anyone would like. The value proposition is compelling, as explained by John Morello (a principal program manager) and Sean Siler (a senior program manager): It provides next-generation connectivity for remote workers. For an IT pro, when you deploy a laptop to a mobile user, unless the user comes into the office regularly, it’s hard to maintain that machine. Direct Access tries to solve both sides of the problem and is meant to allow IT pros to manage all remote machines over the Internet, just as they would manage physically connected machines, using the same toolset.

I’d have to write a book to cover all the interesting conversations I witnessed at this event. But the fact that these discussions occurred at all is the most important point. Not every product group at Microsoft is as proactive about customer connection and feedback as the Server group, but I’m seeing a definite trend in that direction.

What’s your take on Microsoft’s relationship with you and your needs? Do you ever have a chance to tell Microsoft what you would like? Do you think Microsoft takes your needs seriously? I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email at karen.forster@advaiya.com.

I was listening to a podcast this morning about Microsoft offering downgrade options for people who buy Microsoft’s new Windows 7 Operating System (OS).  The assertion was that Microsoft was sending a mixed message, implying that the company wasn’t confident enough in Windows 7 and was hedging its bets.  The podcasting experts completely overlooked the realities of enterprise computing and as a result ended up spreading more bad press for Microsoft when, in reality, Microsoft should have been praised for understanding the challenges organizations face.

I’ve gotten used to a certain amount of Microsoft bashing. To some extent it is truly deserved. But I’ve seen uninformed bashing more and more frequently in blogs, articles, and podcasts by people I respect—and it concerns me.  These “experts” are derisively casting their lot against Microsoft without understanding what it means to work in an enterprise and roll out a new OS.  To that point, let’s take a look at the importance of downgrade rights, shall we?

Get a Reality Check – Enterprise Style

Larger organizations, unless they’ve been particularly judicious in their purchasing strategy, have many hardware platforms of widely varying ages.  Many organizations follow a three year depreciation schedule for purchased hardware. As a result, they replace only a third to a quarter of their hardware every year.  With the economy the way it is now, this schedule has even been extended to five, and in some cases, seven or more years.  On the server side, it’s not unheard of for organizations to run the same hardware and original OS for ten years.  This means that the field of potential hardware compatibility issues is huge. 

Organizations have to test each of their hardware platforms, as well as each of their applications, for compatibility.  I’ve seen organizations with seven or more hardware platforms for their desktops and over 650 applications.  As a result, a move to new OS is not only non-trivial but it can actually be fiscally impossible—especially when IT budgets are being slashed 20 percent or more.  In that kind of environment, just try making a business value justification for an OS replacement or almost any technology investment. 

Don’t forget how the razor-thin staffs that are already overworked play in to this mix, as well.  How do you tell people who are already working 50 or more hours a week just to stay on top of their critical projects that they now have to perform a full OS upgrade on every client?  By the way, the reason you are running so lean?  You laid off a third of the IT staff last month.  Have you checked on morale recently?

What about regulations?  Some organizations operate under hard service level agreements (SLAs) and regulations that require them to make decisions that seemingly don’t make sense.  Hospitals, for example, have divergent needs from other organizations.  For a hospital mix-ups in IT can truly cost lives.  Because of the gravity of their situations, hospitals operate under strict regulations and simply are not allowed to deploy the latest solutions in some situations--in many cases, healthcare institutions may not even be in direct control of the technology in their environment.  Have I seen equipment running on Windows 98 without virus protection or patches?  You’d better believe it.  Did it scare the heck out of the IT operations team?  Without question.  Could they do anything about it?  Nope, but they still had to support it.

Eat the Elephant – One Bite at a Time

Change is omnipresent.  Just as your organization needs to grow and change to improve business, so does Microsoft.  The company constantly updates and improves its solutions, as well as introduces new solutions.  The company sometimes gets it right and sometimes gets it wrong.  Products can’t all be winners.

Recognizing this reality and the fact that changes can be difficult, Microsoft and many other vendors try to give organizations options that make absorbing change easier, given the glacial pace of most organizations.   

Microsoft Really Does Care.  Who Knew?

When an organization is ready to upgrade, rather than force the company to both buy a license for an earlier version of Windows and another one for Windows 7, Microsoft allows organizations to buy a single license with downgrade rights.  For home users and small offices it may seem silly, but when you are looking at thousands or tens of thousands of OS upgrades, I assure you those downgrade rights aren’t just nice, they’re critical.  This is, of course, assuming you want to be legal and supported. 

Whip It, Whip It Good

I get it.  Microsoft is the whipping boy of technology today.  No one seems to want to be caught liking a Microsoft product because it’s not cool to like Microsoft.  As a matter of fact it’s considered entertainment to watch people bash them. 

You know what?  In an enterprise I don’t have enough time, resources, or money to care about cool.  I need affordable solutions that work now, and I need them to be flexible enough to meet my unique business needs.  Downgrade rights are just one example of exactly that and are a great example of Microsoft doing the right thing by business. 

The next time you are listening to someone talk about the latest crazy thing Microsoft did, think about it beyond just the individual experience--think about it in terms of a thousand or ten thousand or even a few hundred thousand instances. 

This week Microsoft unveiled a new web site called WebSphereLovesWindows.com (Note: The site has been moved to WhoLovesWindows.com). The site shows a list of facts from a recent study conducted by Microsoft that shows the results of testing an IBM benchmark application running under WebSphere on an IBM Power6 mainframe running AIX, the same application running on WebSphere on Windows Server 2008 and a functionally equivalent application running under .NET on Windows Server 2008. The overall results showed that .NET was the fastest and least expensive application but other surprising numbers came out like that WebSphere on Windows can save organizations 66% over the Power6 platform.

Digging into the numbers a little more shows that per core, the Power6 platform was able to perform more operations per second but at a much higher cost. There are probably a few applications in the world where raw throughput is more important than cost but I have yet to work on one of them. The shocking numbers for me are the difference in licensing costs for the WebSphere software between the two platforms. I don't know enough about WebSphere to know what additional features it has on Power6 but I believe it would be important for IT departments to examine their applications to determine if they are taking advantage of those features and either use them to realize the complete value of the platform they have chosen or to replatform to Windows and reduce costs.

Periodically examining the application portfolio for an organization and determining what features are necessary, what ones are optional, and more importantly which ones have been added to the platform so you no longer need to provide them is a great way for IT to show value. By removing functionality that was needed at one time but can now be provided by the platform IT departments can save time and effort that would have been spent on maintenance and instead channel that budget and energy into solving new business problems. That is the real value that a dynamic, well run platform brings to the business.

Getting back to the web site that I started this post with, the thing that I really love is that Microsoft published the test methodology, hardware and software quotes, and the source code for the applications along with instructions on how anyone can set up and run similar tests. In the current economy where budgets are slim and the need to show that IT is contributing to the bottom line and health of the organization, Microsoft has provided the means for any IT shop to test a workload and determine if there are areas where the platform could help save money. Whether you believe the performance and price numbers by Microsoft or not the really nice thing is that you can test for yourself, on your own hardware and determine if your platform is providing you the value that you expect.

There are, of course, other considerations that were specifically outside the scope of the study done by Microsoft such as the TCO of the systems, reliability of the hardware, disaster recovery and continuity of operations, the cost for maintenance and monitoring of the systems, and the cost to develop, and tune the applications that you will need to investigate and factor into your decision. This study and others like it provide important data points and examples of applications that you can use to help make your IT organization as efficient and agile as possible.

 

Microsoft Active Directory (AD) is deployed in 85 percent of the world’s enterprises. Leveraging that fact and combining identity with security is Microsoft’s competitive bet for the future. Identity is about letting the good guys in, and security is about keeping the bad guys out, according to Microsoft director J.G. Chirapurath. To keep your network secure, you have to know who is accessing what and why. And you have to be able to understand the who, what, and why for your entire stack—not just your Microsoft infrastructure and applications. This is why Microsoft is stressing the interoperability capabilities of its identity and security offerings.

In a video interview, which you can watch by clicking HERE, Chirapurath explained Microsoft’s new identity and security strategy and the introduction of products (which will now all be branded under the Forefront moniker) that take advantage of the AD infrastructure. The approach differentiates Microsoft’s Forefront offerings from those of the company’s competitors in the security market.

Addressing interoperability, Chirapurath told me that Microsoft had realized that its customers want more than just protection for Microsoft’s own products. This realization resulted in the company’s adoption of two core goals: Microsoft identity and security products have to be well integrated with each other and Microsoft's other products, and they have to work with non-Microsoft products.

Following those goals, the company has released the beta 2 version of its Forefront product code named Stirling. An interoperability component of this integrated security suite is the new Security Assessment Sharing (SAS), which lets customers correlate, assess, and understand security events and share them so that all tiers can understand what is happening. To back up its claims of interoperability, Microsoft has announced that 10 partners are building products for and integrating products with SAS.

Chirapurath noted that Microsoft has been focused on making sure its products are secure by design, but now they also need to be interoperable by design. Chirapurath asked, "What is the one line that sums up what we do?" His answer: "We make our security efforts identity-aware and policy-centric. That statement encompasses all the challenges."

 

As the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) kicks off today, the opening keynote will focus on Microsoft System Center products, as well as Windows Server 2008 R2, with particular focus on virtualization and power management. Leading up to this week’s conference, I had an opportunity to chat with System Center General Manager Brad Anderson to get his take on the announcements being made and Microsoft promises from last year’s MMS conference regarding the dynamic datacenter strategy. To see a video of my entire conversation with Anderson, click http://platformvision.com/mmsinterviewwithbradanderson.aspx.

According to Anderson, as well as Bob Kelly, Microsoft corporate vice president for Server Marketing, cloud computing is a highly significant area for this year’s MMS conference.  Microsoft is positioning cloud computing in a new way, saying:

Cloud computing – the delivery of applications, server operating systems and other software as an on-line service -- is clearly one of those innovations that holds great promise. Bridging in-house software with online services creates new opportunities for strategic IT without breaking the bank or abandoning existing investments. The advantages of using cloud-based services include low or no capital expenditures and the ability to quickly and easily scale up as needed because customers have a virtually unlimited pool of storage and computing resources at their command. Cloud-based services offer a “utility computing” model through which customers pay only for the resources they actually use, similar to buying electricity by the kilowatt hour from a local utility. But cloud computing is not an all-or-nothing proposition.

 “The IT industry is in the midst of a major transformation as more applications are being delivered over the Web as a service,” Bob Kelly noted. “As customers weather the current economic volatility, Microsoft and its partners will help customers build and adapt solutions for a broad range of scenarios. Microsoft’s infrastructure strategy and cloud services offerings are the most comprehensive in the industry, helping customers navigate these challenges and make the most out of their existing IT investments, whether on premises, in the cloud or in between.”

Although many people consider systems management to be a dry topic, Microsoft’s management strategy has arguably revolutionized the company’s approach to all of its business projects. Providing a unified management strategy and consistent management experience for IT represents a key competitive differentiation point for Microsoft. The integration and management consistency across Microsoft products will be even more significant in positioning the company against rival Oracle now that Oracle has purchased Sun.