IT edge

Be sure to register and listen in on the Desktop Virtualization Hour Webcast. I just saw a preview of what announcements are going to me made and they are news worthy. Join the session March 18, 9am PST at:  http://www.desktopvirtualizationhour.com/

Microsoft’s Channel 9 Live is delivering a broadcast of interviews with executives, VIP’s, industry luminaries, tech experts, MIX 10 session presenters, and others. Immediately following the keynotes at MIX, they will be streaming live:

• Monday, March 15: 10:30A – 5:30P (PST)
• Tuesday, March 16: 10:30A – 5:30P (PST)

You can also submit questions for those being interviewed.

• Watch live by going to: http://live.visitmix.com
• Get the details at: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/NicFill/Channel-9-Live-at-MIX10–Who-What-Why-When-and-How/

Gartner released the research document “Gmail in the Real World: What Business Users Miss” on February 24, 2010. It outlines key findings from organizations that have moved to Gmail or Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE)” and Recommendations for those that are considering moving.

The document is a quick read at 4 pages and hits the high points of the what a business moving from Exchange/Outlook or Lotus Notes/Domino will be missing if they move over.

Read it online or download the PDF are: http://my.gartner.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=260&mode=2&PageID=3460702&id=1307713&ref=g_fromdoc

A project combining Exchange + Azure + Tags called “Thor” is an open source project undertaken by the Minneapolis Cloud Computing User Group designed to be a mobile utility that allows friction free access to  schedules and scheduling services of Exchange.  Thor was developed as a way to educate the local user group on the Azure cloud while working on manageable real world problem. It is designed to be a real solution that showcases the power of cloud based solutions coupled with on premise software. As a result, Thor’s design takes into consideration, security, performance and manageability.

Scenarios:

• Internal conference room scheduling – Ever have a person visit your office and you need a place to meet? You make a quick pass around the usual suspects looking for an open room. You find one but you’re not sure how long it’s open… Then you want to book it… but what’s the alias? Thor makes it easy.
• External Schedule of Events for a Conference – Provides people a live calendar of events direct to their mobile phone without the need to create a new web site or management application.
• Public Conference room Schedules – Allow Anonymous users to access room schedules securely without needing direct access to exchange.

Benefits of Thor:

• No need for expensive LCD monitors for your conference rooms…
• No need to remember conference room alias to lookup a schedule…
• No need to open outlook to book a room or resource…

Thor’s Technology:

• Microsoft Tag – Thor’s addressing layer. You can get at calendars via URL but tag makes it easy
• Windows Azure Web – Presentation layer that takes advantage of ASP.NET MVC and RIA services for the client presentation layer and Silverlight as the configuration and administration presentation layer
• Windows Azure Compute – The compute layer supports a calendar provider model. Thor ships with providers for Exchange 2007 Interop, Exchange 2010 Interop and Exchange Web Services for cloud hosted exchange instances! The compute layer caches the calendars so exchange is not accessed in public calendar modes! The compute layer also addresses scenarios where a proxy is required to book appointments
• Azure Storage – Azure storage is the calendar caching layer for Thor as well as logging repository
• Exchange 2010 – Exchange is used as an on and off premise calendaring service for Thor!
• PowerShell – Thor also includes PowerShell scripts required to manage and maintain the service

Architecture Notes:

• Thor Presentation The Web role is responsible for UX rendering for both the calendar services as well as Thor’s administrative interface. When a user requests a calendar or administrative services, authentication, if required, is performed against Exchange services. The calendar services UX leverages ASP.NET MVC for display segmentation and RIA services for advanced data binding. The information rendered on the calendars is not pulled directly from Exchange but from an Azure Storage table cache. This helps firewall the Exchange server in public use scenarios as well as address potential performance issues with potentially thousands of users requesting the same calendar.

  The administrative pages for Thor are implemented in Silverlight. The administrative UX binds to a set of tables in Azure storage that maintain configuration settings for each Thor instance deployed. These tables can be accessed using a storage utility but some of the fields are encrypted. The Azure tables are also used by Thor to store application logging data.

• Thor Worker The Worker role  does most of the Exchange Server interaction. Thor was designed around a provider model so that it could be extended to support multiple calendaring providers. Thor ships with providers for Exchange 2007, 2010 and native Web Services. The worker role uses these providers to access Exchange calendars using a service account configured by the administrator. Once authentication has been successful, the worker role generates the calendar cache in Azure storage and maintains synchronization with the Exchange Server as calendar updates are made.

Download Thor free at CodePlex here: http://thor.codeplex.com/releases/view/40406

On the official Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog -http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2010/03/05/sharepoint-2010-office-2010-launch.aspx – it was announced that Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 should RTM in April with the official launch date being May 12, 2010.

Stephen Elop is announcing the launch via webcast on May 12th at 11am EST. If you want to join the webcast, you can register at: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/proof/pages/2010-launch-events.aspx.

March 3, 2010 – Microsoft release the Release Candidate for Service Manager 2010 to customer in the TAP/RDP Program. System Center Service Manager 2010 includes the following features:

• Integrated System Center CMDB
• Incident Management
• Change Management
• Knowledge Management
• Data Warehouse
• Self-Service Portal

Enhancements delivered since Beta 2 include:

• Upgrade and migration support for TAP customers
• Improved Performance, Scale and Stability
• Improved Notifications with batching email
• New Change Management Features

• Reviewer Notification
• Line Manager Approval

• New and Updated Reports
• Improved Self Service Software Provisioning
• Improved View Editing
• UX Improvements throughout the product
• Data Warehouse improvements
• Authoring Tool Improvements

• Extending and adding classes and relationships
• Support for controls in form customization
• Added workflow activities in activity library

• Localizability and Globalization bug fixes
• Supportability bug fixes
• Disaster Recovery

March 18^th, 2010 @ 9am PST www.desktopvirtualizationhour.com

Want to discover the best migration path to Windows 7? What’s the best desktop management strategy for your company? Which virtualization solutions can save you time and money?

This virtual event will teach you how Microsoft can help you discover choices, preserve & extend your existing investments. Learn how Microsoft’s virtualization vision and technologies can help you:

• Build a desktop virtualization management strategy that helps you manage your applications, data, mobile workers and multiple physical and virtual form factors
• Reduce desktop costs
• Enable flexible and agile IT through virtualization
• Increase desktop security and compliance
• Improve business continuity and end user productivity
• Increase end user productivity and streamline your IT management with Windows 7

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Microsoft offers a comprehensive portfolio of virtualization options
• 60 minutes of moderated and interactive discussions with early adopters of desktop virtualization technologies, key analysts and industry experts
• Explore your options and evaluate solutions that are right for your organization
• Learn about new licensing programs and the latest product updates

Register at www.desktopvirtualizationhour.com

If you have problems with a meeting ending after 30 minutes, 1 hour, or another specified length of time when using Office Communications Server or Microsoft LiveMeeting Service check your “Meet Now Options”

First, Start your LiveMeeting Client

Click the “Meet Now Options” from the LiveMeeting window. It located directly under the large “Meet Now” button.

This will open up your options and allow you to choose a longer duration of a meeting from the drop-down menu.

This post on the Microsoft Office Web Apps team gives a good scenario of why and how you would use both the Microsoft Office Suite and the Microsoft Office Web Apps either through SharePoint or your Windows Live SkyDrive.

It made me think of changing my own work habits in the near future. Take a look at it and perhaps it will give you some new ideas on the way you work.

http://blogs.msdn.com/officewebapps/archive/2009/12/11/9935851.aspx

MED-V 1.0 SP1 RC for Windows 7 is now available!

• MED-V 1.0 SP1 Release Candidate is available for immediate download and evaluation at: https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=665. This version adds support for Windows 7 (32bit and 64bit).

Accelerate your migration to Windows 7 with desktop virtualization
In the migration to Windows 7 you may find applications that aren’t compatible, still require Internet Explorer 6, or cannot be fixed by traditional methods. MED-V can help you remove these deployment barriers.

Whether you are working on your Windows 7 migration plans or already ramping up a deployment, you can start building a MED-V environment and evaluate its capabilities. Check out the MED-V Quick Start guide and the MED-V Evaluation Guide and training videos.

The final release of MED-V 1.0 SP1 and 13 new localized languages of App-V 4.6 will be available in April 2010.