I hate Eircom and BT Ireland

Between the pair of the gormless and mindless organisations, my DSL link at home has been in limbo.  Long story short … Eircom stole my DSL account from BT Ireland without my knowledge or consent and started to bill me.  I’ve tried to complain to both companies but I can’t even get through to anyone to lodge a formal complaint.  The telecom regulator, Comreg, is living down to their reputation and is unwilling to help out.

My DSL line just went offline.  My personal site is therefore off the air and so my document downloads are unavailable.  I’ll be having yet another screaming match with these "organisations" later today.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Beta 2

Beta 2 of SCCM or CM 2007 (aka SMS v4) has just been released.  The CM 2007 library has also been updated.  It structure is a bit scattered but follow enough links and you’ll find what you are looking for, I think.

Be sure to check out the documentation I have completed based on the Beta 1 Refresh build:

Strangely, WSUS 3.0 RC1 is now listed as a pre-requisite.  I’m curious about that.  They must have changed how software update management works.  I had just started my documentation of that feature.  Anyway, be sure to check out the documentation I did on WSUS 3.0 from it’s beta days.

Hell!  I’m going to have to rebuild my VM labs for my presentation at the Minasi Forum 2007 🙂

Planning Vista and “Longhorn” Activation in Isolated Environments

Microsoft released a document that is intended to aid architects who must plan for activation of Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" in isolated environments.  Normally, these products activate either directly or via VAMT/KMS using internet connectivity to Microsoft.  Special plans must be made to handle this activation process in networks where there is no Internet connectivity.

Windows Server “Longhorn” CTP February 2007

The Windows Server team announced that latest build of "Longhorn" CTP has started to ship.  Existing beta testers already have access and it will be on MSDN and TechNet in the coming days.

I’m thinking that I need to wrap up my work with CM 2007 asap to get working on this.  There’s some new functionality that sounds really exciting and I could have made great use of it back in 2003 when I designed and deployed a multi site W2003 AD across the world.

System Center Essentials 2007 RC1

SCE 2007 RC1 has been released on Microsoft Connect for public testing.  SCE is the systems management solution for small to meduim sized enterprises, comprising the core functionality of Configuration Manager 2007 (SMS v4), Operations Manager 2007 (MOM 2007) and WSUS.  It is intended for organisations with less than 50 servers and less than 500 desktops/laptops.

SCE 2007 should not only be considered by those organisations but also organisations who provide outsourced IT services, e.g. you manage a customer’s IT infrastructure on site or you host a small to medium infrastructure for a client.  SCE 2007 can be cross certified with OM 2007 so that it forwards events to a central OM 2007 server.  You can then monitor the health of all of your clients using a single OM 2007 console from the warmth and safety of your own network.  You can then respond to events as they happen, often before the customer or client even knows there is a problem.  Microsoft has a Managed Services Program where further information on this solution can be obtained.

New functionality included in the RC1 release includes:

  • Support for upgrading from WSUS 2.0 and 3.0
  • Emailed Daily Health Report
  • Automatic scheduled discovery of computers from Active Directory
  • Enhanced network monitoring of SNMP-enabled network devices including a network topology diagram view
  • Remote Control support for remote control of managed client and server computers
  • Ability to import Update catalogs from third-party software publishers
  • SQL Services based reporting on monitoring, hardware and software inventory
  • Setup experience improvements for SQL Server selection and file locations
  • More management packs including support for Exchange 2003, Dynamics CRM 3.0, and Active Directory
  • Enhanced Platform support
  • Non-English US locales
  • Installing Essentials on x64 servers
  • Managing Windows Vista
  • Managing x64 systems
  • Support for managing systems in multiple domains in a single forest

There is no upgrade from Beta builds to RC1.  You will have to uninstall and reinstall.

Software Management Using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007

I’ve just written another whitepaper on System Center Configuration Manager.  This time its focusing on how to manage software using the product.  My next whitepaper will probably focus on using CM 2007 for software updates.

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (CM 2007) is the successor to SMS 2003/2003 R2. CM 2007 allows administrators to manage the deployment of PC’s, the distribution and management of software, management of software updates and to manage devices as well as many other tasks. Quite simply, it is an enterprise solution for managing the configuration of the network through the lifecycle of the network.

The first thing that people think of with SMS 2003 or CM 2007 is software distribution. It is the task that almost everyone will primarily use it for and it is often the requirement that drives the initial purchase. Software distribution and management is just a tiny bit of what CM 2007 can do but it will be the focus of this document.

I am going to show you how to distribute software, meter it’s usage, uninstall the software and report on all activities.

If you wish to read an introduction to CM 2007, it’s new features, architecture and how to deploy it, then you should read my whitepaper, “Installing Configuration Manager 2007: An Introduction to System Center Configuration Manager 2007”.

This document is based on the Beta 1 Refresh build of CM 2007. Much of the documentation and the user interface still refer to the product as SMS. This is likely to be rectified before the release to manufacturing.

The document continues …

This document will be located on a free website until the weekend.  This might place a cap on downloads.

All of the Vista Deployment Tools

Microsoft Press announced that all of the free deployment tools for Vista are now available:

MOM 2005 Management Pack: Virtual Server 2005

A new version of the Virtual Server 2005 management pack for MOM 2005 has been released.  Support for SQL 2005 reporting has been added.

This management pack will offer the following functionality to MOM 2005:

Virtual Server

  • Monitors Virtual Server service availability
  • Detects configuration errors
  • Detects critical error conditions
  • Provides a graphical mapping of virtual machines to their virtual machine hosts

Virtual Machines

  • Monitors virtual machines’ health state based on status in Virtual Server, percentage of expected heartbeats, and unresolved errors
  • Detects start and restoration failures
  • Detects save failures
  • Detects critical error conditions
  • Monitors processor, memory, and disk utilization

Reports

  • Identify good candidates for conversion to virtual machines based on specified memory and CPU requirements
  • View performance history for a computer over a specified time period
  • View a summary of virtual machine hosts and virtual machines
  • View details for a virtual machine
  • View CPU, memory, or disk usage for a virtual machine

SQL 2005 SP2

SQL 2005 Service Pack 2 was just released.    There is added support for Vista and Office 2007 System.  Features added include but are not limited to:

  • Enhanced BI Capabilities
  • Interoperability Enhancements
  • Performance and Manageability Enhancements

There much more detail on what’s new on the MS website.  It’s a long list and I’ll save the virtual rain forest by not copying and pasting the entire list here.