What's up with Google Drive?

Now that Google has rolled out their competitor to Dropbox and Microsoft's SkyDrive, and both the Dropbox folks and Microsoft have made adjustments in their products to respond to what Google offers, let's take a step back to see what the newcomer is bringing to the table. Most obvious is the capability to use the cloud to store everything you do in Google Docs - making it accessible from anywhere and making Google's offering conceptually similar to the other cloud-based storage offerings.

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NOW@MMS 2012 - the world of connected devices

The second day keynote at MMS traditionally discusses Configuration Manager. That was extended a bit this year to include Microsoft's cloud-based service for device management, InTune.

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NOW@MMS 2012 - the cloud is here

Several years ago, the theme at the Microsoft Management Summit was the Journey to the cloud. Today, its NOW.

• Are you ready? - NOW.
• Are you building for the future? - NOW

This year, for the 10 year anniversary of MMS (previously known as the SMS User Conference), Microsoft is back at the Venetian, bigger (sold out with 5000+ attendees) and better than ever. To celebrate that event, Brad Anderson announced general availability of System Center 2012 worldwide.

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is BYOD a good idea?

For years, companies have debated whether to let employees expense their personal cell phones rather than issuing a separate phone for business use, and if so, how much control to have over them in terms of vendors and carriers. It was an easy decision when folks used pagers (remember those?), which were issued to an employee. Corporate cell phones started as an expansion of pagers. However, now with the explosion of mobile devices, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) brings new questions to the table, because people already have phones. Here's some of the issues:

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Diversity and Jobs in IT

Earlier this week, Network World published an article (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/030612-women-it-257009.html) quoting an Anita Borg Institute report saying "at least 1 woman should be interviewed for every IT job opening." The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology say this will raise the chances that the high-tech industry will begin to see a growing number of female technical specialists and managers.

Because I happen to be a female, I hope I can discuss this topic without being accused of being a MCP (and that's not a Microsoft Certified Professional!).

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Google in the News

Google, rightly or wrongly, has had its share of bumps in the news over the past week. It started Feb 17, when the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Google had bypassed Apple's Safari browser settings for guarding privacy. (For some strange reason, this never showed up in my local paper.) The default on many browsers is to allow this tracking, but Safari, used on all Apple devices including iPhones, blocks this tracking. Google got around that. Although, after being contacted by the WSJ, Google disabled its code.

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Is SOPA really that bad?

Friday, January 27, Mark Gibbs published an article discussing "the real reasons why SOPA and PIPA are real bad" (http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2012/012712-backspin.html).

Mark points out what he sees as two major issues:

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This week in System Center 2012

As you may have heard by now, Microsoft released the release candidate of System Center 2012 on Tuesday, announced during their "Transforming IT with Microsoft Private Cloud Virtual Event" on Tuesday. Just two days later, I see at least 112 news articles related to System Center 2012!

Here's a smattering of those articles:

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System Center 2012

Today Microsoft announced availability of the release candidate for System Center 2012. While there previously has been a System Center "suite," with this version, Microsoft is getting serious about making the suite the product, and the individual products are now components. Microsoft is focusing on the entire application.

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Microsoft System Center Evolution

System Center was first introduced as a concept in 2003, consisting of MOM and SMS, with an envisioned reporting product unifying information between the two. Since then System Center has gone through several product releases, but the components have been released on their own timelines using the System Center name as a moniker but not as a unified product. As System Center has grown, its products have largely operated independently, with only a few minor connections between the products. 

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Microsoft's $99 hour PC support service

Microsoft's Answer Desk debuted Dec. 7, touted as a premium service to give you the most convenient, friendly, and easy way to get the most out of your PC (per a TechNet blog article by Blake Morrison Dec. 9 that was pulled shortly it was posted). However, http://www.answerdesk.com/ is live, including a complimentary consult to get you started. Service is oriented towards removing malware, helping with performance problems, or solving problems with Windows or Office.

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A blast from the past - Microsoft accused of monopolistic practices

On November 21, Bill Gates testified in a lawsuit charging Microsoft of monopolistic behavior against WordPerfect. Microsoft is accused of altering Windows 95 to make it more difficult for WordPerfect to produce a product that functioned well under the operating system.

A simple Google search already shows over a thousand news stories covering the testimony.

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Copying Software

A study commissioned by Microsoft found pirated software saves its users in developing countries more than $2.9 billion annually. In other words, pirated software is costing Microsoft more than $2.9 billion per year in sales. This includes Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific. In fact, 90% of Microsoft users in China (sometimes referred to as a "one-disk" country) use pirated software (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/111711-pirated-software-253255.html).

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The Value of IT Certifications

The original concept of a certification was an official acknowledgement that the individual was a master in that field. I remember when I certified as a Microsoft Certified System Engineer – being a MCSE was the Holy Grail, I thought. Of course, there no longer is a MCSE certification. Around the same time, I earned my masters degree. A technical colleague congratulated me, saying getting a masters degree is for a lifetime, but a technical certification was not.

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Introducing the System Center 2012 lineup

Initially envisioned in 2003 as an umbrella over Microsoft Operations Manager and Systems Management Server with consolidated reporting, System Center has grown through several waves of staggered releases. Now with the 2012 version, including eight components and a tweak to the name, here's what we see at the end of October:

Naming changes:

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Microsoft announces availability of Intune 2

Just this spring, Microsoft shipped the first version of Intune. Now version 2 is available.

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The Service Manager 2010 Data Warehouse

In Service Manager 2010, the data warehouse is implemented a bit differently than in Operations Manager 2007. Let's take a look at some of the differences and potential implications.

Service Manager 2010 uses the data warehouse for long-term storage of data, such as incidents. This makes it the data source for reports, since old data is groomed from the Service Manager database on a recurring interval - helping to maintain performance and keep the database at a manageable size.

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Service Manager Management Packs

What are management packs? They are collections of logic used to tell System Center components such as Service Manager and Operations Manager what to do. They are the brain used by these products and serve two primary purposes:

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Announcing System Center 2012 Operations Manager Unleashed

Its official, an Unleashed book on the next version of Operations Manager is being born!

Updating the information in System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed and the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Unleashed supplement, work will begin this fall on a new Unleashed book covering the newest version of Operations Manager.

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System Center Service Manager 2010: Why Should We Care?

Definitely the longest System Center product in the making, Microsoft announced availability of Service Manager 2010 in April 2010. The product first went into early testing in 2006 with a code name of "Service Desk," with release planned the second half of 2008.  Testing revealed performance and scalability problems and that initial version of the product was ultimately scrapped and totally rewritten.

The current version thus is a "V1" product. Since its release, it has had a service pack, and a "v.next" release is planned as part of the System Center 2012 wave.

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