Norm Judah @ #microsoftnl

Op dinsdagavond 20 april 2010 zal er voor de nederlandse MMS deelnemers die vanwege de aswolk van de IJslandse vulkaan niet naar Las Vegas hebben kunnen vliegen de MMS 2010 keynote live gestreamd worden. Alle nederlandse MMS deelnemers zullen een email ontvangen met de gegevens over de live streaming van de MMS 2010 keynote. Je dient je via de email te registeren voor dit event. Hier alvast een screenshot van de email.   Tot morgen!

Source: Internal A couple of weeks ago I received some information about the new Microsoft Partner Network Community which is designed to facilitate real-time networking opportunities between people selling or building Microsoft solutions, Microsoft partners and Microsoft. And maybe this is also interesting for you. The community offers a number of ways for you to engage with your peers and Microsoft globally or directly within your region. You can: See what’s happening in your local community and region, attend partner events and engage in social media with people in your community. Get involved in Microsoft communities focused on student talent for hire, public policy affecting the technology industry, technology training and education and much more. Join the conversation with Microsoft and other partners through online social media like twitter, facebook and Microsoft and partner blogs. Keep up to date with the latest partner relevant news, webcasts and videos, and find product specific information and training within the broader Microsoft partner network. I’d like to direct you to a few partner network community resources that may be of interest to you and help you start the conversation with other partners and Microsoft. Join the community twitter feed and the partner network facebook page Watch short video series on SMB, Windows 7, and Azure. And here you can find new Opportunities with Microsoft System Center Take a sneak peek at what is being planned for the 2010 Worldwide Partner Conference Have fun connecting!

As you know I’m a Premier Field Engineer for OpsMgr in the Netherlands and we are looking for a new OpsMgr Premier Field Engineer right now! So if you are interested, take a look at the next page (in Dutch) for more information. If you want more information about what I do exactly, just use he contact form on my weblog.  And maybe will be working together shortly ;-)

Maybe you missed this news being busy at Tech Ed Berlin ;-) But Microsoft and Novell announced a set of broad business and technical collaboration agreements to build, market and support a series of new solutions to make Novell and Microsoft products work better together. The two companies also announced an agreement to provide each other’s customers with patent coverage for their respective products. These agreements will be in place until at least 2012. Under this new model, customers will realize unprecedented choice and flexibility through improved interoperability and manageability between Windows and Linux. The two companies will create a joint research facility at which Microsoft and Novell technical experts will architect and test new software solutions and work with customers and the community to build and support these technologies. The agreement between Microsoft and Novell focuses on three technical areas that provide important value and choice to the market: Virtualization. Virtualization is one of the most important trends in the industry. Customers tell Microsoft that virtualization is one way they can consolidate and more easily manage rapidly growing server workloads and their large set of server applications. Microsoft and Novell will jointly develop a compelling virtualization offering for Linux and Windows. Web services for managing physical and virtual servers. Web services and service-oriented architectures continue to be one of the defining ways software companies can deliver greater value to customers. Microsoft and Novell will undertake work to make it easier for customers to manage mixed Windows and SUSE Linux Enterprise environments and to make it easier for customers to federate Microsoft Active Directory with Novell eDirectory. Document format compatibility. Microsoft and Novell have been focusing on ways to improve interoperability between office productivity applications. The two companies will now work together on ways for OpenOffice and Microsoft Office system users to best share documents, and both will take steps to make translators available to improve interoperability between Open XML and OpenDocument formats. “As a result of this collaboration, customers will now be able to run virtualized Linux on Windows or virtualized Windows on Linux,” You can read the full story here.

Source: Nexus SC Yesterday there was a new announcement at MMS 2009. A new program for System Center Influencers. This is a new community program that will give influencers—user group leads, MVPs, popular bloggers, and others recognized as influential in the community around System Center—the technical training content, people connections, and general guidance they need to enhance their credibility and impact in the community. Key Member Benefits Access key content:  Members get access to the latest technical training content to help them enhance their expertise.   This also includes exclusive user group content. Meet experts and peers in the community:  Members can stay connected with System Center-focused events, or let others know about their upcoming events.   Members can register and find events, as well as request speakers for upcoming meetings. Grow in influence:  Members can learn about new opportunities to lead their communities on and offline, and find out about other opportunities to get more involved with Microsoft. This invitation-only program has its online home on Microsoft Connect, and offers or links to several different tools intended to support influencer needs. As this is very much a work in progress that is just getting off the ground, we are asking participants to help us develop the program and shape it in ways that are most relevant to the community. Who’s Eligible This program is intended for influencers of all kinds, or simply those who are looking for tools to become more influential in their communities. Our intention is not to supplant any existing influencer programs, such as the MVP program, but merely to complement and extend them, focusing specifically on the needs of the System Center (and soon: Virtualization) community. How to Find Out More If you are interested in this program, or have any questions about our tools, resources, or mission, please contact us at scnetsup@microsoft.com.

Source: System Center Operations Manager blog The Visio Add-in for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 combines the strengths of two applications widely used in enterprise IT to simplify the creation of customized graphical dashboards showing the health of an environment. Examples of such diagrams include showing objects by geography overlaid on a map, by location in a datacenter or building, by role in a logical view of an application or by topology for complex distributed applications such as Exchange or Active Directory.  The Visio Add-in has the following features: Distributed applications exported from System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 (release candidate) as Visio documents automatically show live health state information on the exported objects when opened in Visio. You can easily create new Visio documents and link shapes to any managed object (computer, database, web site, perspective etc.) to show the current health state. You can automatically link entire existing Visio documents to the computer and network devices managed by Operations Manager by matching computer names or IP addresses. Health states can be automatically refreshed in Visio documents. You can use this option along with Visio’s full screen view to create dashboard views suitable for use as a summary display in a datacenter control room. Predefined data graphics enable you to toggle from Operations Manager health icons to shape color for health state.  Download the Visio add-in at https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=446&DownloadID=17995. (To get access to this release, apply to participate in the "Operations Manager Public Beta" at https://connect.microsoft.com/SelfNomination.aspx?ProgramID=2249&pageType=1&SiteID=446.) This looks quite like the solution Savision is offering with their Savision Live Maps.

There are new downloads available for OpsMgr 2007 R2 on Connect. Bulk URL Editor (BUE) for Operations Manager R2 With Operations Manager 2007 R2, you can now monitor up to 1000 URLs per watcher node and 3000 URLs per management group. However, creating the monitors for that number of URLs has been time-consuming, as each monitor had to be created manually. The new Bulk URL Editor addresses this issue, enabling you to create multiple monitors at once. Operations Manager 2007 R2 Interop Connectors This package contains the RC software for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Interop Connectors.  The following Connectors are included: Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connector for Tivoli Enterprise Console Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connector for HP OpenView Operations Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connector for BMC Remedy ARS Operations Manager 2007 R2 Universal Connector Go to Connect and download the new stuff.

The decision has been made to retire System Center Remote Operations Manager 2007. This means that there will be no further engineering investments or follow-on release to the product and it will retire from the SPLA price list by October 2009. However, the Remote Operations Manager management pack will be made publicly available in the System Center Operations Manager catalog on the Web, and partners can use this management pack with the SPLA version of Operations Manager 2007. No releases beyond Operations Manager 2007 SP1 will specifically provide support for the Remote Operations Manager management pack.

Source:User Groups and Community The Microsoft System Center team is pleased to announce the creation of the System Center Influencers Program.   With this program user group leads and user group members will be able to: Access key content:  Get access to the latest System Center technical training content to help you enhance your expertise.   This also includes exclusive user group session content that you can use/present at your user group sessions. Meet experts and peers in the community:  Stay connected with System Center -focused events, or let others know about your upcoming events.   You can register and find events, as well as request speakers with domain expertise for upcoming meetings. Grow in influence:  Learn about new opportunities to lead your community on and offline, find out about other opportunities to get more involved with Microsoft.  If you are interested, let us know by sending us a quick email to cnetsup@microsoft.com. 

It’s again time to see some new or renewed MVP posts. One of those is Robert Smit from The System Center Connector weblog who has been rewarded as MVP. Congrats Robert!

Source: The Configuration Manager Support Team Blog   Beginning on Monday, March 30, 2009, support for Microsoft's Premier customers on System Center products will move from a live phone queue to callback.  This applies to the Systems Management Server/Configuration Manager (SMS/ConfigMgr) and the Operations Manager (MOM/SCOM) product lines and includes all severities and Premier offerings.   Normal response goals for support on these products have not changed, and support will continue to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  This will bring these products in-line with all other support offerings and products in the System Center family of products. So why move to a callback model? The primary reason we made the decision to move to a callback model is because of the success we’ve already seen by doing this with the other System Center products.  A callback model allows us to get a customer to the support engineer who is best able to resolve that particular issue as quickly as possible, instead of simply the engineer who happens to be the first one available. This is a big win as we’ve found that connecting you with the right engineer from the start gets your issue resolved faster, saving you both time and money and increasing satisfaction. If you have any questions about this change, please contact your Technical Account Manager, or you can contact the System Center Support management team directly at sccbfb@microsoft.com.

Source: Adam Kinney Adam Kinney has tried to answer the next question: Which product teams or groups have Twitter accounts? Go and read more on his weblog.

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