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Entries in microsoft (7)

Thursday
Feb032011

Microsoft Server & Cloud ICAB

If you're a dedicated IT professional or software developer working with Microsoft's server products, like Windows Server, Microsoft System Center and Microsoft Forefront then you may want to think about putting yourself forward as a member of the Server and Cloud International Customer Advisory Board (ICAB). I'm a member and I know a number of other very bright people who are contributing, so it's looking like a group that can provide Microsoft with some really good feedback and recommendations.

Here's the skinny in Microsoft's words:

We’re looking for developers and IT pros who use Windows Server and/or System Center to join the Microsoft Server & Cloud iX International Customer Advisory Board (ICAB). The ICAB is an invitation-only community of customers who advise Microsoft on improvements we can make to our product guidance. We ask our ICAB members to fill out two surveys a year and, from time to time, to weigh in on innovations in product guidance (like the articles on MSDN and TechNet). In return, we offer invitations to exclusive conference calls to discuss innovations coming out of our team, a private community board where you can network and discuss technology issues, and invitations to exclusive events at conferences like Tech Ed, the MVP Summit, and Management Summit. For more information, see http://msicab.com. If you are interested in joining the ICAB, email ICABNom@microsoft.com –and thanks very much. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on our products and guidance. 

Thursday
Aug132009

23rd September, Newcastle: Three fantastic Microsoft enterprise IT presentations

We are very pleased to be able to announce a stellar line up of technical presentations and speakers from Microsoft at the September VBUG Newcastle IT Pro meeting...

The Dynamic Desktop Experience – Windows 7, Windows XP Mode, App-V, MDT, MDOP and System Center (Dan Oliver)

Windows 7 offers Microsoft’s customers with an opportunity to deliver a platform that releases new capabilities that deliver real business benefit and significantly reduced cost of ownership. The challenge for most companies is that deploying and migrating desktops is time consuming and traditionally offers service continuity risks with Application Compatibility that can prevent progress. This presentation will show capabilities, architectures and strategies that allow companies to move forward cost effectively to the benefits of a modern operating system. Level: 100

Dan Oliver is a Pre Sales Architect within Microsoft UK’s Speciality Technology Unit with some 14 years’ experience of Microsoft-based solutions primarily in the virtualization and systems management fields. Dan has a background that covers a broad spectrum of industry sectors ranging from Financial, Telecoms, Partners, Legal, Professional Services and Healthcare. Dan has also had the opportunity to work as a Chief Technology Officer for the Faculty of Advocates in the Scottish Legal Sector.

Novell and Lotus Notes – Migrating to Microsoft (Conrad Sidey)

The business value of implementing Microsoft technologies like Active Directory, Exchange 2007 and SharePoint are clearly understood within Microsoft. For our customers that are still running their organisation on technologies like Novell and Lotus Notes they are starting to gain an understanding of the value of migrating to Microsoft technologies. The purpose behind this presentation is to provide the technical community with an insight into leading a project and architecting a solution to migrate environment that are running both Novell Netware and Lotus Notes. The presentation will discuss envisioning & planning of a Novell and Notes migration project, approaches to undertaking the migration depending upon the business drivers, providing an overview of the approach we are taking in migrating a UK Local City Council while providing coexistence, as well as presenting a number of migration & coexistence recommendations or lessons learnt from the project. Level: 200

Conrad Sidey is a Solution Architect within Microsoft Consulting Services with some 17 years’ experience of Microsoft-based solutions primarily in the infrastructure field. Conrad has a background that covers a broad spectrum of industry sectors ranging from Financial and Insurance, Manufacturing, Aero-Engineering, Defence, UK and European Government Agencies, Power Generators, Retail and Brewing. Conrad has also had the opportunity to work with large scale outsourcing services providers.

Implementing the “Black Box” – Performance Monitoring and Analysis for proactive and reactive support, server baselining and capacity planning (Richard Diver)

All current versions of Windows come with a free tool that can prevent server downtime and solve many mysteries – Perfmon!

A little bit of practice with this tool can really help to solve issues with servers that may not even be performance related. Working at the OS level, you can find cause to most performance bottlenecks regardless of server function (Exchange, DC, Web etc).

This is something that has even more focus in future versions of Windows; a brief overview of these benefits will be shown also! Level: 300

Richard Diver is a Premier Field Engineer with 10 years experience implementing and supporting a range of Microsoft technologies, specialising in Active Directory, Server Platform and Virtualisation.

Wrap up Q&A with all presenters at the end.

Location: Room 118, Claremont Tower, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, GB

Time: 18:45

Price: FREE

Please register for your place at the VBUG site so we can make sure we have enough space and refreshments. :-)

Monday
Jul132009

Postscript: Key Features in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 event

Last Wednesday we had a great evening covering some of the great enterprise features of Microsoft's upcoming OSs. In a last minute speaker change Richard Fennell did a great presentation that was very well received by an enthusiastic audience (it seems over half the crowd are running Windows 7 RC as their main OS right now, and all of the others had at least tried it!).

We're hoping to record future presentations, but unfortunately couldn't make it happen on this occasion. You can see the slide deck though.

We're going to take a break in August, so there won't be a VBUG Newcastle event next month, we are going to be working on putting together a great set of events for developers and IT pros from September onwards. Keep checking here and Andrew Westgarth's blog for details.

Thursday
Jul022009

Now I have a PowerShell MVP Award. Ho-ho-ho

To (mis)quote Bruce Willis in the best Christmas movie ever:

NOW I HAVE A POWERSHELL MVP AWARD HO-HO-HO

Of course John McClane wrote that on the shirt of a dead terrorist from whom he'd stoken a sub machine gun with which to liberate Nakatomi Plaza, so it's not really a good analogy to use here, but hey...!

I'm really very pleased to have been selected by Microsoft for their Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for PowerShell. It's a genuine honour to be included in the group of PowerShell MVPs.

There are a couple of reasons that I was so pleased to receive the news of my award. Firstly, PowerShell is a great technology that has transformed the way I work with Microsoft products so much for the better - I simply enjoy using it. Secondly, the PowerShell community is fantastic! I've had the pleasure of meeting or chatting online with some really good people and collaborating with them, and I look forward to doing so more in the future.

Since the news spread throughout the community, I've had a number of messages of congratulations and support via Twitter, Facebook and email from a number of existing MVPs, other PowerShell guys, Microsofties and others, which have been much appreciated. I get a lot of inspiration and motivation from the people on this list and the rest of the community. A big "thank you" for those messages to (in no particular order):
Hal Rottenberg (@halr9000)
Joel Bennett (@Jaykul) - congratulations on your award too!
Shay Levy (@ShayLevy)
Aleksandar Nikolić (@alexandair)
Marco Shaw (@MarcoShaw)
Jonathan Walz (@jonwalz)
Jonathan Medd (@jonathanmedd)
Richard Siddaway
Dmitry Sotnikov (@DSotnikov)
Alan Renouf (@alanrenouf)
/\/\o\/\/ (@PowerShellGuy)
Lance Robinson (@lmrobins)
David Moravec (@makovec)
Jacob Saaby Nielsen (@ThisIsOurs_info)
Mark Stang (@stangm)
Matt Johnson (@mwjcomputing)
Kevin Ball (@zbnet)
David Johnston (@djohnston)
Adam Bell (@leadfollowmove)
Georgina Lewis (@GeorginaLLewis)
Andrew Fryer (@DeepFat)
Alex Ball (@Alex_Ball)
Tony Sufcliffe (@tonys2009)
Dave Clark (@djclark46)
Jeffery Hicks (@JeffHicks)
Andrew Westgarth (@apwestgarth)

David Moravec summed up on Twitter pretty much how I feel about all the folks who are active in the PowerShell community - it's a great group to be part of:

As an aside, with the "long tail" of e-commerce, you can buy practically anything online, including the "now I have a machine gun" sweatshirt. :-)

Tuesday
Jun162009

8th July, Newcastle: Key features in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2

If you're a Windows sys admin, the biggest contacts on your approach radar right now are Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, due to release later in the year (but be complete and released to manufacture next month). This free event, on the Newcastle University campus, couldn't be much more timely then.

Rik Hepworth, the IT Director at Black Marble, will cover some of the great new features of the two operating systems, including BranchCache, XP Mode and what I personally think is the number one feature (after PowerShell V2 of course), DirectAccess.

This is bound to be a popular event, so sign up early over at the VBUG site.