David Mackies Blue Brain

SBS/ EBS Virtualization with Wayne & Lingan

Just sitting in the Wayne/ Lingan Virtualization show, the first thing that amazed me were the numbers compared to the numbers at the SMB servers session this morning.There must be 5 times as many folk, how can this be?

• Virtualization will be huge in SMB?
• SBS will not be as huge??
• Steve Riley isn't presenting right now?
• The word virtualization tricked enterprise guys into the room?

*** or just Wayne's Posse?

the session was really Ms Hypervisor 101 with SBS 2008 as a guest so yes good for a starting point & I hope it starts the conversation around M in SMB availability using Hyper V replication, SCVMM, adding perhaps DPM 2007, SCom & SCCM 2007 given that are bundled. @ an attractive price point.

so yeah a little 101 but maybe very worth the conversations afterward.

Very cool Lingan just had a SCVVM reference for source management (.iso files)

I'm Surprised he didn't mention the management bundle especially with the DPM integration in the EBS Console.

One reason TechED is worth it - NAP Deep Dive

OK I was talking with some guys on Tuesday Night and they had questions about why I came to all of TechED and didn't go home after the SMB Day.

Well aside from I have come to every TechED since Canberra a few years back AND...

I get to spend some time with folk I would otherwise not be able too AND.......

I go to lots of sessions across many tracks and sometimes I learn stuff I didn't expect like this afternoon.

I have done a NAP deployment for a federal Government client and thought I know quite a bit about it and it turns out my troubleshooting technique was the hard way...

You see we were doing 802.1x and the machines were not moving VLANs so we tailed the log files and checked Event logs made a change rinse repeat. So imagine my surprise to see a demo that included proof of what was happening on the client using EAP or DHCP filter in Microsoft Network Monitor 3.1 this could give me back billable days in future remembering many clients have separate guys who do the switch infrastructure.

"Oh yeah my issue with the previous deployment was the Compliant VLAN not being configured on a switch but on all the others so inconsistent results from different client machines

The other thing I saw in that session was the options to do enforcement via ACLs and not VLAN switching so I will be looking way more closely at vendor specific attributes.

And the last thing coming to a Network near you NAP Reporting solution out soon! Based on reporting services on SQL using the NAP Logs pointed at SQL instead of the default logfiles location

If I learn one more thing each day I might know three things but TechED will be both TechED AND TechFriends

Tech ED Australia SMB Pre-day Impressions

It has been roughly 24 hours since the wrap up of the SMB Pre-day and I thought time would bring perspective so here goes. I was feeling a Little nervous about the content ever since we were given the agenda and I did think it might have been just me but I was really looking for super dooper deep guidance on how to do very tricky things like how do I emulate a complete "lite touch" deployment of the SBS server (yes Wayne covered some of it, and when I get the slides I'll look deeper too) or using WDS in 2008 STD (what SBS 2008 is built on) to multicast whole networks of PC's.

Where I am wanting efficiencies is all around deployment, given my disposable asset theory of desktop support.

Maybe there will be deeper content in Wayne & Lingan's Virtualisation & EBS 2008 sessions and barring a conflict I'll be at both of these sessions. Of course I keen to spend some time with Lingan too.

Irrespective of the Content I thought the SMB Day was a huge success. It brought many many SMB focused partners and end users into a room together for the 1st time in several years. Robbie took a punt and got support to run which is exactly what he needs to continue with, the road he has us on I believe will re-crystallise the community toward where many SMBers have been saying they want to go so from that perspective "snaps" to Robbie.

Next steps for me might be follow up technical training perhaps after the MVPs are trained, provided they are not prevented by NDA, I have heard plans for more information sharing, more best practice boot camps / Bar Camp and I do feel some more energy in the AU SMB Community.

Thanks Robbie Great Job

Oh you too Wayne and Dean

Robbie Announces SBS 2008 AU Pricing

Today is the SMB Preday and Robbie announced the Price....

SBS 2008 - $ 1,694.00 CALs $ 120.00

SBS 2008 Premium - $ 2,954.00 CALs $ 194.00

Open License RRP

Doing the EBS 2008 Beta Exam on the last possible day

OK so I could be a little frazzled at the next SMBIT Professionals Sydney Group Meeting on the 12th of August, why??

I’m doing the EBS 2008 Beta Exam in Sydney (No Test Centres in Canberra have it) so I found one near North Ryde (5 Min's from MS Sydney Office) so scheduled for the last appointment possible leaving 4 Hours (the maximum exam length) before needing to be at the User Group Meeting.

Where can you find out more… Well over at the Beta Exam Announcements Blog and just so you know when I registered at the NetPrep Solutions Centre Via Prometric there looked like LOTS OF SPACES between now and the 12th of August.

 

 

Dear DAVID MACKIE,

Thank you for scheduling your exam with Prometric. Your appointment request has been received and confirmed.

Included within this e-mail is your official appointment summary.
Please print and retain this information for your records. Included below are answers to frequently asked questions.
For additional assistance, you may visit our website at www.prometric.com!

Appointment Summary
Confirmation #: Q82SYD5AE3
Prometric Testing Id DT151xxxx
Candidate's Name: DAVID MACKIE
Address: Conder, 2906, Australia
Company: Synergistic Network Solutions
Home Phone: 61 - 409601835
Work Phone: 61 - 0262945927
Email Address: David.Mackie@synergistic.com.au
Program Name: Microsoft (070, 071, 074, 075, 076)
Exam Name: TS: Windows Essential Business Server 2008, Configuring
Test Site: NETPREP SOLUTIONS
Test Site Address: Unit 11 1 TALAVERA ROAD NORTH RYDE NS , AUS
Test Site Phone #: 9889 7999
Appointment Date: 08/12/2008
Appointment Time: 13:00
Appointment Duration: 04:00 [hh:mm]
Exam Price: 180 AUD
VAT/GST/Sales Tax: 0 AUD
Balance: 0 AUD
Registration Expiration:
7/31/2009 11:59:00 PM

Please note: For security reasons, we have not included updates to your Prometric ID or password specific changes, if applicable. Additionally, you must have scheduled and completed your exam prior to the expiration date, listed above, or your payment will be forfeited. Exams paid for with a promotion or voucher may expire earlier. Please review your promotion or voucher for more detail.

Heroes Happen Community Demo Competition

I put in a last minute Entry…

And of course rolling out NAP Client config's to XP

More to come

Four'N Twenty Magic Salad Plate

From the people who found a way for you to hold hot meat at lunch, Four’N Twenty now proudly brings you one of our crowning achievements - the Four’N Twenty MAGIC SALAD PLATE™.

So with Marketing on my mind I think this is GOLD, during the Bombers (Essendon) vs the Magpies (Collingwood) was a Four’N Twenty Pies and I think it is Funtastic.

Seriously Sales and Marketing seems to be a very hot topic this week in SMB and I know it is critical for us at Synergistic Network Solutions. Checkout my earlier post about what Carpe-Diem are doing in Canberra next month, taking with Vicki she said they may take it on the road too so feel free to go to the Carpe-Diem site and let them know if this is something you would go to if in your city.

Solution Sales Training with Carpe-Diem

I have raved about the Solutions Selling training I have attended with Carpe-Diem in the past. I’m going to the Building and Managing a Sales Pipeline session in Canberra and hope this will help us achieve a better close rate by having enough prospects in our pipeline.

In fact when I was talking with Vicki about this training I said something along these lines:

I really think I need to sign up for the Sales Pipeline because if we don’t focus much more effort on finding more SMB 10-300 User opportunities and VERY soon we will need to go back to selling staff into 2000 Hour a year contracts and give up our SME Planning. Sounds Dire but we are simply not a sales and marketing focused company we are great at delivering technical solutions and it might just not be enough.

So not wanting to place too much pressure on Bruce learning some of these skills will help us with direction moving forward.

You can see the Flyer for the Canberra Event here

Here is the Stuff from Nick Mayhew’s Blog

Carpe-Diem are delivering sales training in collaboration with the AiiA which is open to non-AiiA-members as well as members. More info and registration links are on Bruce's blog here but here are the key topics, of use for many MS partners:

1.  An Introduction to the Essence of Selling Solutions

2.  Building and Managing a Sales Pipeline

3.  Improving Customer Satisfaction and Customer Value

4.  Developing a Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy

5. Developing a Strategy to Win a Major Opportunity

Reaching Out to Microsoft Partners in Australia : Solution Sales Training with Carpe-Diem and AiiA

Free for Resale Copy of SBS 2008 Standard for attending the TechED AU SMB Pre-Day

We have been expecting this announcement for a little while, and I’m sure this will drive numbers like nothing else so you better get in fast. Details over on Robbie’s Blog

The post you've been waiting for...

I'm very happy to announce that every attendee of our SMB Servers day at TechEd Australia 2008 will receive a free copy of the soon to be released Small Business Server 2008 Standard. Not kidding. Yours to take & use to make your first sale on the new platform.

I was already Registered so I’ll see you there.

SBS Down Under : The post you've been waiting for...

TechEd Australia 2008 SMB Pre-Day

So in asking what we would like to see I thought I would better answer here as well it has more room that a comment on Robbie’s Blog.

What do I want from a TechEd Level day? Well hanging together the core OS is pretty straight forward, so the planning and deployment session whilst important from a breadth of community perspective, don’t really float my boat so to speak.

So for me to derive deep technical value I’d like to see very knowledgeable people present on extending the core platform to deliver:

• Authenticated Network Access, NPS is already loaded as a role so I can get:
  • 802.1x authentication not just for health but for access too;
  • 802.1x Wireless Security;
  • NAP for Wired, Wireless, VPN and TS Gateway
• Windows Deployment Services – Deployment of Desktops and Application Servers, Best Practices for lite touch deployments
• Virtualisation of SBS / EBS Platform – Solution Hosting, SPLA Issues, Automation of SBS 2008 Server Deployment to allow rapid provision of Virtual Installations
• Automation of SBS 2008 Server Deployment to allow rapid provision of physical deployments

Many of these things are too deep or highly specialised so might be better as longer sessions or Deep Dive Training but these are things that would keep me engaged.

So my dreams of the Pre-Day are more likely satisfied in the larger TechEd program and this is why I’m registered for the whole event as we have done for several years already.

*** Update ***

I sometimes give people the impression that I think that SBS is the L Plate Technicians  Platform, that is NOT what I think. I do think that advanced solutions are the things that make a platform attractive to a much bigger set of Infrastructure Providers, to me SBS 2008 seems to be far less limited than than the previous versions so perhaps we will see more “MCSE Types” consider the platform although I suspect this will be more the EBS 2008 audience.

"Community Content" does this drive adoption?

A little while ago I was talking about "Community Content" and the fears some community members may have when they create that content, will the content they create cost them consulting engagements?

Today on one of the lists there was some discussion about a product to solve a problem I think it was a third party POP Connector for use with SBS 2003, and the guy looking for the solution reported back with…

I elected to go with … because, well, they had a nice little presentation on their web site that showed exactly how to set it up and administer it. It made installing and configuring it a breeze.

So does that mean that when people produce how to guides and You Tube Videos that the rise and fall of products can be linked to what the community likes, and how passionate members of that community are about wanting to share what they do with these products??

Naturally that is how it should be but does it also mean that engaging with Influential's makes your product a more likely winner?? Man there is some responsibility and reason for engagement.

Do people only make videos and how to’s about products they have Free / Partner Program access to? Do they only make content for things they are sponsored for, be that through a “sponsor us” link at the end of the videos or blog posts, do they charge for access via closed member only sites?

Is it a give me an NFR of your product and I’ll do a review perhaps? No I don’t think so but of course for me what I do and don’t do is in my Disclosure Policy

In fact in full disclosure I am creating an entry into the Heroes Happen Community Demo Competition and to do the thing I want I needed some kit I don’t have in my lab, DELL will be loaning me some kit this week, and if by chance I win, the prize includes free travel and accommodation to TechEd in Los Angeles next year of course a Free Ticket to the conference too.

I have also asked about a reseller program and seed stock for IRONKEY stuff because I find it to be an interesting technology with some scope for implementation in my client base.

Interesting Backup Solution Question

While I was greeting people at the SMBIT Professionals Sydney Group on Tuesday night one of the guys asked me what I do about some servers not rebooting with a USB Drive connected. Now this guy knows I’m a big fan of STORAGECRAFT™ Shadow Protect so the idea of backups to removable disk storage would have been something I have covered off before.

Now turns out I didn’t say much of anything about the reboot issue, one of the other guys hanging around fielded that. Turns out you can get a Bios Update that lets you move USB Drives down the boot order so issue solved.

Had I answered this question my answer might have been different. My answer goes back to our DR Strategy for SBS 2003 Servers before we started using Shadow Protect. Here is what we did and why…

• Get the biggest hard drive you can afford and insert it into the server as a backup target;
• Use the drive to hold the backups;
• UMMM that’s all.

Why? Because ASR could not see a USB Drive so could see the Backup Files. Why did we use ASR to disk based backup? We would restore to the same hardware so on HIR issues.

Before you scream about offsite data, let me say “I don’t care” the question was how do I stop the reboot hang when my server reboots with a USB drive connected and I just said backup to an internal drive.

Offsite storage for the SBS Server Backup files could be done many ways but I think this one works so let me describe what I do for folk who understand about our desire to provide something strong and reliable.

Offsite Replication over the Internet

Most SME’s in Australia have download capped Internet plans mostly with ADSL, so any kind of medium data change rates would cause traffic shaping in the very first week, lets just say Internet offsite replication is not really efficient or secure so forget I said anything.

Removable USB Drives – Server Connected

Many solutions use USB Drives either as the direct target for the backup or copy target using something like Robocopy of course the Robocopy solution copies the entire file even if there are only small changes in my solutions it just takes longer no really big deal but I would like to make it as efficient as possible.

If the USB Drive is attached to the Server we also have two possible points of mitigation, before we have a good solution:

• If the USB Boot Issue is not solved we have a maintenance and patching remotely issue;
• Users need to logon to the server to effectively change media

Removable USB Drives – Remote connected onsite

There are a number of solutions that could be implemented but the far simpler method in my opinion is attaching the USB Drive to a workstation, that way an unprivileged user has the rights to change the drive and few workstations have the same boot up issue as was described on servers.

I really need a full copy of the Backup Drive in the server and I want to have it complete as quickly as possible, to do this we use Delta Copy which is based on RSync allowing us copy the changed portions of the backup files for rapid replication.

Delta Copy also reports via email on success or failure so we can send the mail to our ticketing system allowing us to rerun backups / offsite copy the next day in accordance with our service levels.

Removable USB Drives – Rotation Best Practice

Of course the drives need to go off site and of course they need to travel so how do you make sure you minimise the risk of data loss due to damage, loss or environmental's? We ensure the client has a minimum of three devices and always have two at rest:

• in office attached to replication PC
• in remote location, often the business owners home office, one client stored it in their PO Box perhaps not the ideal location but they accepted the risk.
• one in transit each way

NOTE: This is Backup for DR Purposes – Archive is a different problem domain.

Would you be brave enough???

Since I have been making the trip up to the SMBIT Professionals Sydney (where I have just been elected to the committee, yes be very afraid!!) monthly meetings I have a revitalised interest in the “Energy Drink” market particularly on the return leg home.

I used to be a big fan of V Berry flavour but yesterday found it to be harder to find as they seem to be phasing in the Lemon version, not good if you ask me. Having said that it is still WAY Better than the original Mother (the one in the glass bottle) OMG that was truly swill. So seeing the new can with the label “NEW Tastes nothing like the old one!” I thought OK what is Coca Cola thinking???

Well I have been thinking a bit out this (another bonus of the 6.5 Hour monthly round trip) and it makes me think back to a presentation I saw Guy Kawasaki give a couple of years ago for Microsoft where he said “don’t worry, be crappy” but fix what is crappy about it as soon as you can. Not that this is necessarily the case with Mother but can too often be the case with some of the things we have tried to bring to market, in the area of Network Infrastructure Professional Services.

If you look at the state of our web site, our lack of commitment to a managed services platform, lack of clear market strategy and of course our horrible focus on things needing to be perfect before being offered. ALL of these things hold back my company and stop us being the success we need to be to meet the goals I’m about to throw away.

So I think maybe we should pull down our Web Site and post a page that says “NEW Nothing like the old one” and start from scratch and be far more crappy to end up doing some wonderful things.

Yes NEW Mother 400 times better than the old one!! We shall see about everything else.

NEW Team New Blood – Saturn Alliance

Name: Doug Wilson and Robert Crane

Company: Saturn Alliance Pty Limited

Location: Sydney NSW Australia

Describe your business: Saturn Alliance is a certified Microsoft Partner and Small Business Specialist that provides a wide range of technology solutions to business.

What makes your business different: We focus on the business value to the customer.

What are you really good at?: Apart from the SBS stuff we have a strong focus on Sharepoint, VoIP and Internet security

What is the best possible referral: Anyone who understands that technology investments can provide productivity and business returns

What are your main business goals this year: 50% growth.

How do you Deploy Workstations: Wizards

What Network Management Platform are you using?: No single one, using a variety

What AV Platform are you using?: Trend Micro Worry Free Business Security, and Worry Free Remote Manager

What Backup Platform are you using?: Shadow Protect, SBS Backup

Are you coming to the TechEd Pre-Day?: Yes

Will you be staying for the rest of TechEd?: No

I am Weasel

After some time wondering if Project Thieving Weasel would get legs I am happy to announce that this morning, I have signed up to SMB Buddy.

So I could rabbit on about what SMB Buddy is and not tell you anything that you will find useful or I could just let you see what the site says:

About SMB Buddy

SMB Buddy is networking site dedicated to connecting SMB technology partners.

In a nutshell, it is a web site that helps consolidate information and resources from all over the web with SMB technology partners all over the world. Think of it as a global filter of blog posts, group discussions, user groups, events, conferences and people that could be valuable to your growth in the Small Business Specialist community. A mashup if you will.

The primary goal of SMB Buddy is to make all of us more successful by making us more connected, to information, to peers and vendors. We hope that allows the participants to grow, work together, create and help their friends in this business.

We fully expect SMB Buddy to evolve with its members, if you can think of anything that would make this place better please feel free to suggest it.

SMB Buddy design was based on the community feedback and under the direction of the following advisory council:

Andy Parkes, UK, Partner
Dana Epp, Canada, MVP, Partner
Dave Sobel, US, Partner
Dean Calvert, AU, MVP, PAL, Partner
Eric Ligman, US, Microsoft SBSC
Erick Simpson, US, Partner, Trainer
Karl Palachuk, US, Partner, Trainer
Kevin Beares, US, Microsoft Community Lead
Mark Crall, US, Partner, PAL
Mike Iem, US, Partner Group Herder
Paige Boesen, US, Microsoft SBSC
Susan Bradley, US, MVP
Tim Barrett, US, MVP, SBS Groups
Vijay Riyait, UK, PAL
Vlad Mazek, US, MVP, Partner
Wayne Small, AU, MVP, Partner, Trainer
SMB Buddy is owned and financed by Vlad Media, Inc based in Orlando, Florida, United States of America.

OK the official announcement about the SBS Show Podcast and SMB Buddy are on Vladville

and here is the official SMB Buddy Logo the top one is just because I really love I Am Weasel from the Cartoon Network