Month: February 2010

The Big Costs For IT In Ireland

I work in a business where we are cost sensitive.  We try to do things at a very high level but we are faced by very high costs.  We’re not alone in this.  There’s a few reasons for this.

Extremely high levels of indirect and stealth taxation over the last 15 years have driven up salaries to very high levels.  On the face of it, we Irish get high salaries on a European level.  Foreign investors will peer in and compare us with our international competitors based on salary which is quite fair.  Employees were hit with more and more stealth taxes and hikes in costs.  Obviously as government hiked costs, employees sought pay rises either directly or via job transfer.  That has a double impact for the employer.  The salary package costs more but the related employer taxes also increased.  Ironically, the employee did not get richer.  In fact they have less spending power now than they did 10 years ago.

The next big cost is down to the distributors.  Let’s have a look at a server.  I’ve picked a HP DL380 G6 with a 2GHz CPU and 4GB of RAM.  The machine in the USA costs €1,646.  That same machine in Ireland costs €1,900.  That’s actually not even a bad example.  I’m into photography and some of the equipment I either own or am looking at costs 50% more in Ireland than in the USA.  Heck, it’s often cheaper to buy items of any kind in Northern Ireland (UK) than in the Republic.  That’s a mere 45 minute drive from Dublin and it’s also why the roads to the North are packed with traffic in the month leading up to Christmas.  The reason for this is the distributors.  They rip us off and there is no explanation.  Retailers can do nothing about it.  The distributor cartel forces retailers to buy from a local pricelist and the EU protects this.  Yes, you can go abroad to purchase but that also drives up costs unless you are buying in bulk.

The last one is one that all businesses will probably put as their number 2 cost (behind salaries).  Ireland comes in number 2 for electrical costs in all of Europe, trailing only Cyprus.  That’s for both domestic and industrial power supplies.  I work in the hosting business and power is the one thing we keep focusing on when it comes to pricing.  It’s a huge cost.  I’m often asked why pricing for a service in Ireland is much cheaper in Germany.  It’s simple.  The 2008 cost for electricity in Ireland was €.1201/KWH.  In Germany the same cost is €.0839/KWH.  That makes electricity, a basic ingredient of computing and industry, around 30% more expensive in Ireland.  This is where someone not thinking will shout about virtualisation and more efficient computing.  Duh!  Like our freunde over in Germany haven’t already thought of that!  Of course they have.

Irish businesses are competing on an uneven playing field that is of our governments making.  We can only do so much to reduce our costs and to be creative with our business models and services.  In the end, these high costs can make us uncompetitive in an international market.  Until the self absorbed fat cats on Kildare Street cop on to this, we’re always going to be fighting a losing battle.

Irish Government Warns Against Using Microsoft Azure And Others

Yesterday the Irish Times (no links from me to them because they hosted outside of Ireland after consulting a number of companies here in 2007) had an article that featured a government internal email from the Irish Department of Finance.  It instructed the various departments and organisations within the government to be wary of using cloud services and it specifically mentioned Microsoft as an example.  The reasons included security and Data Protection Act compliance.

The problem is the USA Patriot Act.  Any American owned hosting service or data centre, no matter what country it is in, must comply with the Patriot Act.  That gives the USA federal government the right to demand instant access to any data hosted by that service.  It doesn’t matter if Amazon has a data centre in Ireland or if Microsoft has a data centre in Ireland or the Netherlands.  They’re both American, they both must comply with the Patriot Act, and therefore any organisation storing sensitive or personal information should not be using those services, or services hosted on those platforms for storing that data.

An Irish owned SaaS application, with an Irish owned hosting company, in an Irish owned Data Centre are all fine for compliance in Ireland (substitute your own country where appropriate).

This goes beyond government.  It also applies to private businesses.  I recently saw two SaaS companies, one dealing in the HR business and the other in the insurance industry, launch their services based in one of those American data centres in Ireland.  Strictly speaking, and it would appear in the opinion of the Irish government, both of those companies are non-compliant.  They would also put their customer who would subscribe to their applications into non-compliance.

Is the scenario far fetched?  Of course not.  We know how intelligence agencies have misbehaved in the past.  We also know that intelligence agencies have been used for corporate espionage.

Also, forget Safe Harbour.  The Patriot Act and the interests of intelligence services always override it.

The solution is simple; find a locally owned SaaS company, locally owned hosting company, and/or locally owned data centre when you are dealing with sensitive information.

As the email from the Department of Finance said, consult legal advice when you are going online.  Don’t take a chance, don’t believe a salesman (there is one company is quite slow to fess up when it comes to the Patriot Act and allows their customers to become non-compliance), and don’t put your customers at risk.  Especially don’t believe the loud protests otherwise from the executives of a certain SaaS company that denies all of this (mainly because they did host in the USA and are vulnerable).  If you get burned you’ll lose your business or career. 

And don’t believe me.  Consult a legal expert on the Data Protection Act and the online industry.  Then make your decision before choosing a platform, hosting company, data centre or SaaS application.

What Is A Microsoft MVP?

I thought I’d write this post to explain what a Microsoft Valuable Professional (MVP) is and how a person can become one.  The description from the Microsoft web site is:

“MVPs make exceptional contributions to technical communities, sharing their passion, knowledge, and know-how. Meanwhile, because MVPs hear the opinions and needs of many others in the technical community, they are well-placed to share highly focused feedback with Microsoft.

MVPs are independent experts who are offered a close connection with people at Microsoft. To acknowledge MVPs’ leadership and provide a platform to help support their efforts, Microsoft often gives MVPs early access to Microsoft products, as well as the opportunity to pass on their highly targeted feedback and recommendations about product design, development, and support”.

To put it simply, Microsoft awards MVP status to people who are experts and who share their expertise.  There are no exams.  You are evaluated by Microsoft staff.  An MVP will usually have some expertise on a specific product or set of products.  For example, I have been a Configuration Manager MVP and I am currently a Virtual Machine MVP.  The expertises span the breadth of Microsoft products, e.g. XBox to .NET to Active Directory.  The directory gives you a good idea of what expertises are covered.

MVP’s come from around the world.  There are around 4,000 of us globally, including 90 or so expertises and 40 languages.  There are around 11 or 12 of us in Ireland.

The word independent is important when it comes to describing an MVP.  We certainly are not shills.  One Microsoft executive once described an MVP as a person who makes a statement of opinion to Microsoft and sticks a question mark on the end.  Very often, we’re quite critical, trying to get the most out of the product.  Dealing with MS employees, I feel very safe in saying that they genuinely want the same thing.  I guess you could see us as being intermediaries; we often convey MS’s message to our audiences and we provide the feedback directly into the product groups in Microsoft.

It’s hard to describe how to become an MVP.  It’s not like deciding to become an MCSE.  You cannot sit down and say “I will be an MVP by June 2010”.  It helps if you are an expert on some particular subject related to Microsoft products.  You then have to share that expertise.  That can come in many forms:

  • Providing feedback during beta and release candidates
  • Helping people on Microsoft and 3rd party forums
  • Blogging
  • Writing documentation
  • Developing free solutions
  • Running a user group
  • Public speaking

Those last two really help.  I think they were the difference to me originally becoming an MVP.  I started the Windows User Group and I’ve done a good deal of speaking.  Obviously it helps to write, blog and speak about your expertise.  Paid work such as consulting doesn’t really count.  This is about community and sharing.

You then need to be nominated either by an MVP or a Microsoft employee.  Quite often your first awareness that you’ve been nominated is when a local MVP lead will then contact you to start the process.  This varies depending on the region.  It basically comes down to documenting your last year of activity that qualifies as participating in the community.  This documentation is used to evaluate you.  You either get the status or you don’t.

The awards are granted every 3 months, January 1st, April 1st, July 1st and October 1st.  Your MVP status normally lasts for 1 year.  Within your last 3 months you will be contacted again by the MVP lead and go through the documentation process again so Microsoft can re-evaluate you.  My experience was that I was more tense when I was re-evaluated than when I was originally evaluated.

Why would you want to become an MVP?  It doesn’t add points to your company’s partner status.  Most people have no idea what MVP means so it’s not much good on your CV or resume.  I sometimes wonder if people mistake it for a MCP!

When you become an MVP you are being recognised for your work.  That’s pretty cool.  But the real perks are things like:

  • You gain access to the product group for your expertise.  This means you have a way to ask questions, provide feedback, represent your neighbours, etc.
  • You get NDA access to some information when the product group is in a position to share it.  This is subject to a contract and is taken very seriously.
  • You get great networking opportunities.  Thanks to this program I’ve gotten to know MVP’s on failover clustering, Configuration Manager, etc, etc, as well as the cool folks in Virtual Machine.  The folks I’ve met at the likes of conferences or the UK/Ireland get together have been really cool.  It’s a great network and the answer to a question is often just an email away.  I love how everyone is willing to help out, something that is often too rare in our business where too many people are secretive.
  • You learn loads.  Sometimes the information cannot be shared (for a while) but you will get better at your chosen path.
  • Oh I nearly forgot: last year we also got a lead crystal trophy that you can defend your house with against intruders 🙂

The best of all the perks is the MVP Summit.  This is a conference where all of the MVP’s are invited to get together over in Microsoft’s HQ in Redmond.  After the obligatory firmware upgrade (kidding!), we get to interact with each other and members of the product groups in person.  It’s an interesting opportunity.  The product groups often brief the MVP’s on and demonstrate new technology that is still in the works.  MVP’s learn lots and are able to prepare for when they can talk in public about it.  Microsoft also gets feedback from independent people who are using these technologies, possibly in ways they didn’t anticipate.  This is my second year as an MVP and the trip this year will be my first one. 

Being an MVP has been fun.  I’ve met and interacted with lots of cool and very intelligent people.  I’ve gained personally by learning more and by getting exposure.  And it’s probably fair to say that my employers gained too because I come away from different events knowing more and feeling excited about the stuff I work with.  In fact, very often the sales people at work call me saying “I just met XYZ and they say they know you” but I don’t know them! 

If this is something you are interested in then do the work.  Learn something and share that knowledge.  It can take years.  It’ll boost your career and help others.  Eventually you will have the body of work and get recognised.  When that certificate comes in the post you’ll feel like I did … a million bucks!  You’ll be a part of a small, invite-only club, with elite people from around the world. 

Did I mention the secret handshake yet?

Vodafone Ireland Over Charges For My Mobile Phone

Good old Vodafone Ireland is up to their old tricks again.  I was just doing some online banking a few minutes ago and noticed that there was an unexpected amount charged to my credit card.  My Vodafone Ireland mobile phone is set up to direct debit from that every month.

In December I upgraded my old Nokia to an Nokia N85.  It was an unusable piece of junk and it was incapable of sending text messages.  It was incorrectly reading the SMS message centre number from the SIM card and it was a locked setting.  Vodafone accepted that I could return the phone (by courier collection arranged by them) and that I would not be charged for it.  I could then order something else.  I ended up ordering a LG Windows Mobile 6.5 phone.

I checked my bill for December when I saw the large charge.  Not only had I been billed for both phones but I was also billed for the insurance program which I would never choose to order.

I rang Customer Don’t Care.  I was rather blunt: “I have been over charged by Vodafone Ireland.  I want my money back by midnight on Monday or I am charging you for the money with 50% compound interest per day”.  Believe it or not, that is a quite legal act to do in Ireland.  If someone rips you off, you can set the terms.  It’s handy to listen to those customer affairs segments on drive-time radio.

That got the agent’s attention.  At first there was an effort to make the return payment complicated.  I was blunt once again: “Fine; send a courier down with a cheque.  I don’t care how you do it”. 

One quick confer with his manager and the agent promised the funds would be returned to my credit card today.  We’ll see.

Call Time On The Windows User Group?

It is getting to the point where I’m considering shutting down my efforts on the Windows User Group.  A lot of time goes into arranging an event, let alone speaking at one.  Time after time, I hear people moaning that they don’t know how to do something and they aren’t given the information.  Two of those topics were how to deploy Windows and how to make legacy applications work on a new version of Windows.  The last two events we ran were focused on those topics. 

Today was application compatibility.  Vikas Sahni, a MS trained expert on the subject, took the time to prepare a presentation and give it at no cost to anyone and at great effort for himself.  4 people turned up.

That’s just pathetic.  Around 6,200 people were made aware of this event.  Now I know there are people who cannot make it to every single event.  But out of 6,200 people I would expect maybe 20 or 30 would have the time, would care enough, and would make the effort.  But no, that’s just not the Irish way.

Foreign speakers who have presented here cannot believe how bad the Irish audience is at turning up for events compared to their own and other countries.  Microsoft Ireland even knows that if 30 people register for one of their events that they only need to have catering for 12.  Someone who works here and regularly speaks here was amazed at the turnout to an event that they presented at in Iceland and wished it was like that here.

Some will say “maybe if you had the event at 14:00 or 19:00”.  It doesn’t make a difference.  I was once at a fully registered event at 14:00 and 2 people turned up.  Our last night time event (on Windows 7) in the Spring last year had a handful of people turn up.

As I said, it isn’t down to effort.  6,200+ people were notified of these events.  IT “pros” in Ireland don’t care.  I’m wondering why I do.

Suggestions other than “I’m too busy” and “Have it at X time” are welcome.

System Center Essentials 2010

SCE is possibly the least known of Microsoft System Center family.  The existing 2007 version is a merger of the core components of Operations Manager 2007 and Configuration Manager 2007.  It is a subset and it does support fewer servers and desktops.  That’s because it is aimed at small to medium companies.  For example, SCE 2007 manages up to 30 servers.

Microsoft is updating the product.  OpsMgr has seen changes with 2007 R2 and Configuration Manager is undergoing development for an R3 release for this year.  It doesn’t end there.

Microsoft knows that SME’s are quite likely to deploy Hyper-V for virtualisation.  The number of hosts might grow.  I know one small software company that runs two hosts with dozens of VM’s.  Developers want new VM’s for test and development on a frequent basis.   That sounds like maybe VMM would be handy.  And so SCE 2010 will include functionality from VMM to manage Hyper-V.  Virtualisation typically means there will be more servers.  Therefore SCE 2010 will manage up to 50 servers.

A release candidate (test) version of SCE 2010 is available. 

  • Delivers single console monitoring and management with summary information, common tasks, alerts and reports, allowing you to quickly see and manage your IT environment.
  • Provides rapid provisioning, importation, management and live migration of virtual servers.
  • Simplifies complex management tasks like packaging and deploying software, and configuring Microsoft and third-party updates.
  • Helps quickly solve problems using integrated alerting, expert knowledge and troubleshooting for servers, PCs and IT services running in your IT environment.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Licensing Overview

“The Windows Server 2008 R2 licensing guide provides an in-depth overview of the Windows Server 2008 R2 core product offerings, including product names, available sales channels, licensing models, and number of running instances allowed per license in physical and virtual operating system environments (POSEs and VOSEs)”.

VMM 2008 R2 Supported VMware Hosts

I don’t have any VMware hosts to manage but I wanted to know what ones are supported by Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.  Finding that information wasn’t so quick and easy.  The supported hosts are:

  • VMware ESX Server 3.5
  • VMware ESX Server 3.0.2
  • VMware ESX Server 3i

None of the official sites I’ve seen mention vSphere 4.0.  However, it has been said by Microsoft people (and quoted by the online press) that any functionality that works with earlier editions will work in vSphere 4.  New functionality does not yet work.

VMM 2008 R2 adds something that VMM 2008 didn’t have; that is the ability to use VMware port groups.

As my friend Monika recently tweeted, VMM is “One Console to rule them all, One to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie”.  VMM gives you to manage other virtualisation managers.  You can manage many VMware managers.  The listed ones are:

  • VMware VirtualCenter 2.5
  • VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.1

That allows you to use VMM as your central point for day to day operations.  And if you’re tempted, you can even migrate your virtual machines from VMware to Hyper-V or Virtual Server.

SQL BPA Command Line Has Encountered A Problem And Needs To Close

I was upgrading an application this morning.  Part of the process was to upgrade SQL 2000 to SQL 2005 (the application is developed by a company that tends to not be adventurous about version platform support).  After I’d gone through the setup wizard, it went to do a last check and came up with this error:

image

When you’re dealing with something like a SQL upgrade and see something like this … well … you start looking for the phone and dialling 999 (911 for those of you across the pond). 

A very quick search later and I had the solution.  A simple folder creation and a file copy sorts things out.

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