Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 (India Pilot)

The news that a lot of people have been waiting for!

 I'm very much excited to announce that the Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 (Beta) pilot starts off from the 1st of December 2009 in India, with 2 pilot's in December, and the last one sometime early next year.

The System Center Service Manager is a tool with more robust scalability, newer and better features and a very cool and sexy User Interface that actually makes using the product more fun and intutive. And it's not just limited to being a SD tool, it goes far beyond what conventional software has ever been able to do!

The first pilot kicks off from the 1st of December 2009 and is followed by the second pilot a week later.

If anyone is interested to know more, feel free to drop me a mail at my User Group mail address given in my profile on the blog.

Cheers :)

Microsoft System Center Service Manager - What it's all about

The Service Desk function is the primary point of contact between end users and the IT organization or service provider. Its primary goal is often described as to restore service to and to fulfill requests from users as quickly as possible. However, best practice suggests that the Service Desk be given a broader role beyond that of a traditional Help Desk, a role that spans the processes of incident, problem, change, and asset and configuration management.

Organizations face three key challenges as they adopt this broader approach:

1) Traditional Service or Help Desk products and technologies are inflexible, requiring expensive and time consuming customizations that slow down the adoption of newer capabilities

2) Some products lack integration of Service Desk functionality into a broader set of IT management products and capabilities such as operational monitoring and automated configuration management

3) Still other products lack direct support for the adoption, integration and optimization of processes that are primarily driven by best practice frameworks such as Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and ITIL.

System Center Service Manager, scheduled for release in early 2010, is being designed to help organizations deal effectively with each of these three challenges.

Service Manager Overview and Product Vision
 
Microsoft System Center solutions help organizations manage their IT environments, from physical to virtual, across desktops, devices and datacenters. The System Center family of products is designed to provide a single window into IT services to allow proactive planning, deployment, management, and optimization across IT platforms. System Center solutions capture and aggregate practical knowledge about infrastructure, policies, processes, and best practices so IT professionals can build manageable systems and automate operations to reduce costs, improve application availability, and enhance service delivery.



Service Manager will extend the System Center family’s capabilities by adding a comprehensive, easy to use and customizable Service Desk product. To ensure Service Manager enhances the support optimization efforts of its customers, workflows into the product that directly support service management best practices such as those found in Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and ITIL


 Service Manager is being built upon a proven and extensible technology infrastructure shared across the System Center family. This will enable workflow integration across the System Center family of products, and will ensure the Service Manager product can be customized to support an organization’s specific processes and requirements. Key technologies in the product include:

•  A workflow engine for automating all or portions of IT processes and integrating System Center solutions
•  A common data warehouse and reporting platform for integrating business intelligence information across System Center
•  A connector framework to support technology integration across System Center, other Microsoft products, and common industry management tools
•  A Configuration Management Database (CMDB2) to support the management of information about IT service components and how they relate to one another
•  A self-service portal to provide end users access an interface to IT and reduce help desk call volume by enabling users to help themselves .A knowledge base to capture and share practical knowledge for IT professionals and end users

The vision for Service Manager is to achieve each of the following goals:

1) Comprehensive, easy to use, and customizable Service Desk capabilities

2) Central integration point for service management workflows across System Center solutions

3) Built-in support for service management best practice frameworks such as MOF and ITIL.

System Center Service Manager will provide comprehensive, easy to use, and customizable Service Desk capabilities, a central integration point for service management workflows across the System Center family of products, and built-in support for service management best practice frameworks such as MOF and ITIL.


Service Manager will differentiate itself by:

•  Enabling integration across System Center solutions and other common industry management tools
•  Delivering core Service Desk functionality with workflows integrated across System Center solutions
•  Making customization a straightforward process without challenges in future versions or updates
•  Providing an easy to use and intuitive experience for all user types

Organizations that implement Service Manager will benefit by leveraging their existing investments in Microsoft technologies, in particular, through integration of technologies in the System Center family of products. Other benefits will include improved alignment of service support, an improved productivity and experience for end users across the organization, practical knowledge for fact-based decisions and actions, and the platform for measurable continuous improvement.
While full release of the Service Manager product is not planned until early 2010, now is the time to begin preparing for implementation by establishing a solid systems management foundation through the System Center family of products and exploring how MOF can improve IT throughout the IT services lifecycle.

Why Australia! Part - 2 (The reason most tourists are regarded as retards in Oz)

1 of the feww odd times I'm posting non-technical stuff. Couldn't resist, too much fun and laughter would have been wasted if I'd not put this one up ;) Enjoy

Some of the most bizarre and weird questions that a tourist can ever ask to a Aussie. Warning mates, u'll spill yer beer and fall af laffing. Some of the obvious ones are my favorite answers :P

And people wonder why we Aussies are so straight and to the point

Enjoy mates and have a Shout later. Dontcha forget to call me for the Shout..... :) - Abhishek



Q1: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain On TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around Watching them die. 


Q2: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)
A: Depends how much you've been drinking 


Q3: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles, take lots of water 


Q4: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Australia? (Sweden)
A: So its true what they say about Swedes.


Q5: It is imperative that I find the names and addresses of places to contact for a stuffed porpoise. (Italy)
A: Let's not touch this one. 


Q6: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville and Hervey Bay? (UK)
A: What did your last slave die of? 


Q7: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia? (USA)
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the pacific which does not... oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Kings Cross. Come naked.


Q8: Which direction is North in Australia? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 90 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions. 


Q9: Can I bring cutlery into Australia? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do. 


Q10: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna BoysChoir plays every Tuesday night in Kings Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked. 


Q11: Do you have perfume in Australia? (France)
A: No, WE don't stink. 


Q12: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Australia (USA)
A: Anyplace where significant numbers of Americans gather. 


Q13: Can I wear high heels in Australia? (UK)
A: You are a British politician, right? 


Q14: Can you tell me the regions in Tasmania where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy).
A: Yes, Gay nightclubs.


Q15: Do you celebrate Christmas in Australia? (France)
A: Only at Christmas. 


Q16: Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round? (Germany)
A: No, we are a peaceful civilisation of vegan hunter gatherers. Milk is illegal. 


Q17: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)
A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from. All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.


Q18: I was in Australia in 1999 on R+R, and I want to contact the girl I dated while I was staying in Kings Cross. Can you help? (USA)
A: Yes, and you will still have to pay her by the hour.  ;)



Q19: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)
A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first. 


Need I say More.....

System Center Data protection manager 2010

Now this series of posts has really gotten me charged up. This month as a whole has had me charged up for reasons obvious to the people who were privy to the happenings. I'm moving into a new role, more Technology Centric I may add with a lot more products to consult on apart from just AD and Messaging.

Microsoft recently announced the latest build of System Center Data protection manager 2010. Some may say that yeah, DPM's been there for quite a while, whats so new now? A LOT in fact.

For those who attended my sessions at the Tech.Ed India 2009, you'll remember that we worked on DPM 2007. DPM 2010 has got a whole lot of exciting feature sets, features and more incorporated. Here's a peek into what's going to be rolled into the RTM of System Center Data protection manager 2010.

Virtualization

This has been one of the biggest investments that were made in DPM 2010, and I absolutely love the features.  First and foremost, DPM 2010 Beta protects highly available virtual machines (VM) deployed on Windows Server 2008 R2 using Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) clusters -- in addition to standalone Hyper-V servers and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V clusters. For all above mentioned server configurations, DPM 2010 Beta supports:

Seamless protection of Live Migrating VMs (For Windows Server 2008 R2): DPM 2010 is LiveMigration aware and seamlessly protects a VM after it migrates to another node of the Hyper-V R2 cluster to another without manual intervention.
Item Level Recovery from host level backup: DPM 2010 Beta supports item level recovery (ILR) which allows you to do granular recovery of files and folders, volumes and virtual hard disks (VHD) from a host level backup of Hyper-V VMs to a network share or a volume on a DPM protected server.
Original Location Recovery: DPM 2010 Beta supports online recovery of the protected VM to the original location.
Alternate Host Recovery: DPM 2010 Beta supports alternate location recovery (ALR) which allows you to recover a Hyper-V VM to an alternate stand-alone or clustered Hyper-V host.

Laptop Protection

Though client protection in DPM 2007 SP1 was enabled, it was designed for desktops and not optimized for mobile/often-disconnected users. DPM 2010's laptop feature is completely built from scratch and offers an optimized experience for the discerning DPM Admin as well as the laptop user.

• Seamless backups for roaming users (Backup over VPN, Backup when connected, Alert for SLA’s not met)

• Rich support for folder inclusion/exclusion and file types exclusion
• Integration with local Shadow Copies for Vista & W7
• Scales up to 1000 clients per DPM server
• Support for XP, Vista, and Win7

This reminds me of a feature called as DLO (Desktop, laptop, Office) in a widely used backup Software that is really shoddy and offers no real backup and storage protection. It's all in the name, no technical benefit per se and I can vouch for a fact since I've tried to use this option and spent several agonizing hours to try and make it work properly.

Reliability and Manageability 

In addition to features, this is an area where some really significant investments in DPM 2010 were made, with special recognition of the feedback from Enterprise customers who are deploying DPM across the large Windows farms within their heterogeneous environments.

• A new “Auto-Grow” feature that will extend the replica volume as the production data grows. 

• You will see far fewer “Replica Inconsistent” errors and many of them will automatically get fixed by Auto-Rerun, Auto-CC (Consistency Check).

• DPM 2010 has been made very flexible and robust to adapt for environment/configuration changes.

• There is a new Backup SLA report that you can configure for your needs and get it emailed every day.  You can even view it in the Protection View of the DPM UI, so no more custom scripts to determine if you have met your backup requirements.

Other Good Stuff

In addition to the above, a few of the other areas of enhancement include:

• Exchange - DPM 2010 extends robust Exchange protection to Exchange 2010 DAG clusters. Ooh ye, ooh ye.....
  

• SharePoint - For SharePoint 2010, there is no recovery farm required for item level recoveries and backups are optimized for large scale deployments.

• SQL Server – DPM 2010 now includes Instance-Level Protection and with Datasource Collocation, you can backup SQL servers with ~700-800 DBs.  DPM 2007 provided optimized SQL backups and with SQL End User Recovery in DPM 2010, you should be able to give the control back to SQL Admin while retaining the storage benefits of DPM SQL backups.

• Disaster Recovery replication (“DPM2DPM4DR”) - cyclic protection has been enabled (DPM A <==> DPM B) as well as chained (DPM A --> DPM B --> DPM C) protection for versatility in long-distance protection.

Stay tuned for more info on the other System Center line of products.

Exchange Server 2010 hit’s RTM Milestone!!!!!

For those who didn’t know this yet (apologies for the late post, had pressing work hence couldn’t update earlier), Exchange Server 2010 code is finally complete.

 

What this means is that Exchange Server 2010 has been released to the early adopters under the TAP program for a final look before Exchange Server 2010 is put up for General Availability. All this and more has happened on the 8th of October :) *heh*

 

For more details, dead on over to the Exchange Team Blog to read the full post!