Hello there,
Thanks for all the feedback you gave me on the new look. I didn't realise how much you disliked the right hand side bar so it's fortunate it has finally gone! There still seems to be some differing views on The Scripting Guy, but I just didn't have the heart to take the little guy out.
We have announced a
new series of events for the end of November/early December. They sold out very quickly last time round so make sure you
register soon if you want to attend. The three main events are:
1) Beyond SharePoint - a look at Microsoft Office Performance Point 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint and Enterprise Search
2) Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services and System Center management technologies
3) Eight Reasons to Migrate to SQL Server 2008 Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager is a great solution for managing Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 servers running in the virtualised data centre that some of you may be looking to ramp up quickly. Why do we say Virtual Machine Manager is the ideal solution for managing virtual servers? Because when it's used together with the rest of the
System Center family of products, Virtual Machine Manager can capitalise on existing administrative skills and processes for managing the virtual and physical environment.
Here are a couple of ways to get to know the product:
1) First,
download the 120-day Virtual Machine Manager evaluation.
2) Then check out the
series of Virtual Machine Manager how-to videos and walk through the product's specific features, including how to manage with
Windows PowerShell.
Microsoft is offering a growing collection of
Windows Vista driver resources. This collection is updated as drivers become available so keep checking back to this link.
In an issue a while back, I spoke about Silverlight and had a few comments that you couldn't see how it would actually be used, so here is a
website with a few of the latest examples, including an Interactive Asset Calendar and a photo carousel.
Finally, a reader of the newsletter shared the IT comic he creates in his spare time. Jason combined his two main interests.... IT and writing.... and came up with
'Monk and His IT Junk'. These put a smile on my face and hopefully a few of them will for you too.
Thanks for reading,
Georgina Mitcham
TechNet Newsletter Editor
gmitcham@microsoft.com
+44 (0) 118 909 3496
http://blogs.technet.com/curiousgeorge
System Center Launch at TechEd IT Forum
It's less than a month to go until
TechEd IT Forum takes place in Barcelona. All of the IT Pro Evangelists from the UK team will be there - if you are there too, do come and find us in the AskTheExpert area.
One of the key announcements will be the launch of the System Center suite of products. I still can't get used to writing 'center', but as it's the official name I guess I'll have to do so!
We have broken one of the rules of appealing to geeks though, as the product acronyms are more than three letters. The suite includes the following products:
- System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) - a new product that enables you to remotely control numerous Virtual Server hosts to intelligently place virtual machines
- System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) - also referred to as 'config manager - this is the 4th iteration of SMS
- System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) - it's the replacement for Operations Manager 2005
- System Center Data Protection Manager - it' a second generation product for online backups
- System Center Service Manager (SCSM) - a new product that's being released next year which will enable you to define workflow for management activities
- System Center Essentials (SCE) - a management solution for medium-sized companies
There is a wealth of System Center information available online too - simply browse to
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter.
Stephen Lamb
IT Professional Evangelist
Email:
stephlam@microsoft.com
Blog:
View Stephen's blog on Effective Security
