Cloud Services 101-2: The Big Names in the Field

Cloud Services 101-2: The Big Names in the Field

Originally published for Averro.com blog. Thanks to the convergence of multiple technology trends, including virtualization, data center consolidation, web-services, browser and commercialization of hardware advancements, there is simply no way of ignoring or denying the impact that cloud services are having within the industry. Placing files, email and applications on the cloud has its significant…

iPad thoughts – the first 2 weeks
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iPad thoughts – the first 2 weeks

  Very interesting device.   For me, it is definitely a consumption device.  Netflix, web-surfing,  news and blog reader, drawing and playing games with my kids, and some YouTube.      The video quality is amazing, the magazine reader is excellent, the battery second to none… Very good for easy blog postings and lite-email writing during my daily…

Windows Intune – Cloud-based Desktop Management

Windows Intune – Cloud-based Desktop Management

The beta version of Windows Intune, formerly known as  System Center Online Desktop Management,  it is now officially part of the Microsoft Online Services. is now in full beta.  Windows Intune simplifies how businesses manage and secure PCs using Windows cloud services and Windows 7—so your computers and users can operate at peak performance. Windows…

Windows Intune: Cloud Desktop Management

Windows Intune: Cloud Desktop Management

The beta version of Windows Intune is now in full beta. Windows Intune simplifies how businesses manage and secure PCs using Windows cloud services and Windows 7—so your computers and users can operate at peak performance. Windows Intune delivers cloud-based management and security capabilities that can be administered through a single Web-based console, enabling your…

Tweet report: 2010-03-30

Tweet report: 2010-03-30

Latest set of tweets: 03/15/10 02:34:21 “Automatic WordPress Backup v2”  Great Tool:  http://bit.ly/cYsvnn 03/15/10 15:03:23 “10 things to consider before deploying a cloud”  http://bit.ly/aXsFBf 03/16/10 23:29:21 Collaborative Mind Map in Google Wave”   – this is VERY cool. http://bit.ly/bAyoV8 03/17/10 00:12:10 MIX10 Web Development Conference –  Very good range of what Microsoft is doing…  —   http://bit.ly/dumZUK …

VDI Overview

VDI Overview

Traditionally, companies have deployed desktop or laptop computers to their end users.  The operating system, applications have been individually installed on every desktop or laptop via imaging software or remote installation, and application configuration settings and most user data is stored locally on the computer.  While this may have worked when the company started small,…

Tweet report: 2010-03-15
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Tweet report: 2010-03-15

My latest tweets: 03/01/10 17:08:48 jorper98 is actively looking for  a new  “gig”.    Open to recommendations, ideas or thoughts. 03/06/10 17:54:31 Like – Good list of Firefox Add-ons. http://bit.ly/a4o9WP 03/06/10 18:10:57 “Apple’s iPad to be released April 3” @ http://bit.ly/9oaiGO  Are  you going to wait ? 03/06/10 18:23:51 Mobile phones: “Apple is playing defense, and…

Project Management Online Tools
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Project Management Online Tools

One of the most common questions I get asked is what tool to I use to manage projects while working with virtual teams.   The answer I give, is typically, “it depends a lot on the size of the project, and what you want to manage”     Collaboration, Project Management, Project Portfolio Management (PPM), Online Project Management,…

Palm Pre – WebOS 1.4 upgrade.

Palm Pre – WebOS 1.4 upgrade.

I just got the much anticipated WebOS 1.4  which, amongst many others features, enables video capture and which supports Adobe’s Flash Player.   I just did a couple of quick tests. Pretty good  video quality and Flash works nicely. Can wait to check the rest of the list. A silly quick test follows: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOEWbfZswJM&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

Latests Tweets: 2010-02

Latests Tweets: 2010-02

Latest tweets: 01/02/10 04:53:36 Moving my photo collection online. Pains, aches and challenges – http://bit.ly/8Gtqxj 01/07/10 20:17:46 Excited about my Palm Pre (again)!   http://bit.ly/6NG2hm 01/16/10 18:23:20 Good Article on why App-V did not turn-out to be the nirvana of application simplification.   http://bit.ly/4GusBu 02/10/10 02:58:29 Win7 on iPad? – thanks Citrix!  http://chilp.it/260c15 02/19/10 20:13:00 The Aging…

Windows 7 N

Windows 7 N

A qiick post, with something I learned today…. I am not sure if you have noticed or not, but on Technet and the VLSC download site, you will notice a downloaded titled “Windows 7 N” The N version represents a version of Windows 7 that does not have Windows Media Player included and is intended…

[TechCrunch] SPICEWORKS the new Facebook for IT Pros?

[TechCrunch] SPICEWORKS the new Facebook for IT Pros?

via TechCrunch Spiceworks, a startup that develops Web-connected social IT management software, has raised $16 million in Series C funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners with Austin Ventures and Shasta Venturesparticipating. This brings the startup’s total funding to $29 million. Spiceworks develops a desktop software suite that helps a company’s IT staff collaborate with…

[SOA World] is your App Infrastructure based on a the Postal Service’s Model?

[SOA World] is your App Infrastructure based on a the Postal Service’s Model?

Article written by Rob West This is a thought-provoking article from LORI MACVITTIE on SOAWorld Magazine that poses an interesting point-of-view: …the US postal service doesn’t determine whether postage may be due or not until the package arrives at its destination. If the addressee isn’t willing/able to pay that postage due, the package is of course…

Tweets for 2009-12
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Tweets for 2009-12

December 2009 tweets: 12/04/09 06:00:25 Starting to come back online after a bad flu week… 12/04/09 13:54:53 10,000 apps available for Android and multiplying!  http://tr.im/GCrY 12/07/09 00:09:49 Will the new price of BPOS hurt Partners? – Good article on Redmond Channel Partner.  Read at:  http://tr.im/GR3d 12/08/09 04:32:03 Coouple of New articles in my blog: Speed…

Bring back Zero Touch (SoftGrid/App-V)

Bring back Zero Touch (SoftGrid/App-V)

Article by Danny Knox Microsoft – why did you kill the radio star?  The application virtualization product formerly known as SoftGrid prior to Microsoft’s purchase had a fledgling web based self-service application provisioning tool called Zero Touch.  Sure, it sounds like the image deployment methodology from Microsoft called “zero touch” but why kill it?  Re-brand…

New Microsoft Partner Competencies & Requirements

New Microsoft Partner Competencies & Requirements

If you were at any of the Microsoft partner events in the last couple of years,  you would know that  Microsoft has been in the process of revamping the Microsoft Partner Program and its ecosystem.  The changes officially started this past July when they renamed the Microsoft Partner Program to Microsoft Partner Network (MPN), partly…

slideshare World’s Best Presentations 2009
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slideshare World’s Best Presentations 2009

Back at the September 2009 slideshare.net ran an online contest to find the world’s best presentations.   I have completely forgotten to check the finalists until I ran across an old email reminding me about it.   I went in to the slideshare.net 2009 winner’s page and was surprise to find the winner to be a presentation…

AWS: Free inbound Data transfers until June’10
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AWS: Free inbound Data transfers until June’10

From Amazon Web Services Email today: Free Inbound Data Transfer (until June 30, 2010) Data Transfer into AWS will be free of charge from now through June 30, 2010, making it even easier for customers to get their data into AWS. This applies to data transfer into Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Relational…

AWS: Free inbound Data transfers until June2010
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AWS: Free inbound Data transfers until June2010

From Amazon Web Services Email today: Free Inbound Data Transfer (until June 30, 2010) Data Transfer into AWS will be free of charge from now through June 30, 2010, making it even easier for customers to get their data into AWS. This applies to data transfer into Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Relational…

Cloud-Services vs Virtualization
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Cloud-Services vs Virtualization

As many of you already know, we have been  strong proponent of cloud-based services for a very long time…   The idea of  maintaining an expensive and complex in-house infrastructure to support basic IT services  is steadily shifting away from mainstream business. Adoption of cloud-based services continues to climb steadily. However, a recent  article on the…

Behind the scenes on Cloud Computing

Behind the scenes on Cloud Computing

A very interesting video on the hardware architecture behind cloud computing was posted yesterday on Microsoft’s Channel9 site…  The walk-though is presented by Patrick Yantz, a Cloud Architect with Microsoft’s Data Center Services Team at PDC09. Self contained 40-foot containers (yes the kind you see on the road)  are used to store 1000’s of motherboards and…

iPhone vs Palm Pre

iPhone vs Palm Pre

No this will not be a full comparasion or anything like that, just a quick rambling in myblog regardind my observations between the two platforms, after using both for about a couple of months now. Although I secretly wanted for the Pre to be the one to write about, I have to say that iPod…

BPOS Migration Tools

BPOS Migration Tools

As we have mentioned in the past, many organizations are now moving from on-premises to a hosted solution (cloud computing).   One of the greatest values out there (for what it contains) is Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) —    We expect to have many, many customers to continue to migrate into this platform. With a  set of…

Tweets for Summer 2009

Tweets for Summer 2009

Wow – It was a busy summer… Very few tweets! 07/01/09 05:04:42 Rackspace Power Outage  – a series of events to learn from. http://viigo.im/05S5 07/01/09 05:07:38 the cost of a worm attack. http://viigo.im/05Sc 07/09/09 04:57:55 Good article if you are considering venture capital: http://tr.im/rvnC 07/14/09 01:28:09 Here comes Office 2010 — still waiting on that…

Summer blues…

Summer blues…

Wow – It is hard to believe how fast the summer came and went. As you can probably gather from the frequency of posts, it was a very busy time for all of us at the InfraOps team.  Busy working with clients and getting to know updated technologies.   Lots of activity, including  some much needed…

Microsoft Assessment MAP Toolkit and Planning Toolkit 4.0 Released

Microsoft Assessment MAP Toolkit and Planning Toolkit 4.0 Released

Some of us have been using it already, but just in case you did not know, MAP 4.0 is now officially released. As you would expect,most of the changes are around Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, but there is much more.   Definitelly a good upgrade!   According to the official release, key new features…

Tweets of the month: 2009-06
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Tweets of the month: 2009-06

My Tweets for June 2009: 06/04/09 02:58:52 Alley Insider’s Startup2009 competition: Article One and Expensify shine http://viigo.im/MI9 06/07/09 02:53:56 Some people are just talented! – Take a look at these photos of LEGOS!  http://tinyurl.com/mey6xh 06/07/09 14:48:22 Good article on Cloud Computing evolution as oppose to revolution along with a list of top player. http://chilp.it/?10d3d7 06/07/09…

Toner
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Toner

Went out today to find  toner for my LaserJet printer, and I almost flipped! Checked three places and the toner (at all three places) was over  $124.00 –  Crazy! – What happened to toner pricing?   I used to buy it for $80.00 tops. I went online and decided to buy it from  newegg.com which had…

Latest Tweets: 2009-05-31
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Latest Tweets: 2009-05-31

The latest set of tweets from the last couple of weeks: 05/13/09 02:42:42 Officially SharePoint lost the Office title http://tr.im/lcgn 05/13/09 03:14:58 New Office 2010 Product Team Blog:   http://tr.im/lcnA 05/14/09 23:48:58 Google Contacts  please add notes/memos to your feature sets – You can be sooo much more with a little more effort. http://tr.im/lnWr 05/18/09 15:07:06…

Google Wave News

Google Wave News

The IT industry is all about change.  Change to make thing better, most efficient, response faster, while still reducing cost…  At least in theory.   In the past couple of years, there has been a significant transformation occurring.   The move to Cloud Computing has been slowly transforming everything – and I mean *everything*.  from the way we look at hardware…

Google’s Wave

Google’s Wave

We have typically focused our articles on Microsoft and related technologies. This one will  change that trend a bit, as what we heard and saw is – in our view – significant  announcement from Google. Yesterday, during the keynote on day 2of  the Google I/O Conference  , Google demonstrated (literally) the vision they are heading towards, and they…

The AppCompat Guy

The AppCompat Guy

Article by Rob West As Windows 7 relieves a lot of the pent-up demand for a new OS from Microsoft and unblocks the anti-Vista sentiment that has been one of the major impediments to widespread enterprise adoption of what was (in our opinion) a great OS in its later iterations, we are seeing greater demand…

Cloud Computing – Basics
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Cloud Computing – Basics

Microsoft’ Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Online,  made available  a basic but interesting video  on his views on cloud computing adoption which he expressed at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium in Boston, MA For one thing, chief information officers are uncertain how to fashion a roadmap that brings “cloud services” into their IT architecture….

Webcast ahead: How Microsoft IT Deploys Application Virtualization

Webcast ahead: How Microsoft IT Deploys Application Virtualization

Upcoming  Webcast: How Microsoft IT Deploys Application Virtualization The MDOP team has announced that on May 26th TechNet will host  a  webcast  to discuss how Microsoft uses App-V 4.5 and ConfigMgr 2007 to deploy and manage applications within their environment.  if it is anything like the one at MMS2009 it should be an interesting one.  Click…

Latest Tweets: 2009-05-10
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Latest Tweets: 2009-05-10

Tweets for the last couple of weeks: 04/27/09 18:43:33 At MMS2009: MED-V shuodl be treated as a v1.0 product. 05/05/09 17:03:58 McKinsey Cloud Computing Report: Is it too expensive?   http://tr.im/kylc 05/06/09 01:51:33 Found Twitter app for my Palm-based  Treo device.  MOtwit. 05/06/09 04:18:40 Somehow I missed the news: Apple releases iPhone OS 3.0 beta 4…

MMS 2009

MMS 2009

One of our esteemed contributors, Jorge Pereira, has the good fortune of being at #MMS09 this year, and has been energized by what he’s heard. He’s probably gearing up for some posts outlining his thoughts on what’s happening in the center of the Microverse.

@InfraOps

@InfraOps

If you’re a twitaholic, and you like our posts, you may want to follow us on Twitter: Tweets by infraops We’re doing more of the short one-off posts there, and expanding the more interesting bits into articles here. Hope you’ll tune in and tweet with us!

Tweets Latest:  2009-04-30

Tweets Latest: 2009-04-30

Tweets of the last couple of weeks: 04/19/09 03:18:33 Completed setup a set of servers in the  Amazon Elastic Computing platform. Very easy and straight forward.  – http://tr.im/j9l2 04/22/09 16:25:56 MDOP 2009 and MED-V released — Good stuff! Looking forward to MMS2009 next week.  http://tr.im/jqJO 04/23/09 13:56:55 VMware Cost-Per-Application Calculator compares the cost of virtualizing…

MDOP 2009 released

MDOP 2009 released

A new version of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) was realsed early April and includes includes MED-V v1.0, a cummulative update to App-V andupdate to  AIS.    This update  has been a much anticipated primarily because of MED-V which is finally available under the Microsoft name.   The official posting at the MDOP blog…

Tweets of the week: 2009-04-19
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Tweets of the week: 2009-04-19

Latest tweets: 04/15/09 03:54:53 I ran into DabbleDB and I love it.  Excel data analysis, reporting and web data entry — http://tr.im/iQKA 04/15/09 04:11:43 Great article: “Get Rich Slow” in Time Magazine.  Bootstrap Internet businesses is hot again! Uplifting article… http://tr.im/iQNP 04/15/09 14:41:05 Received a Google strategy briefing today for Messaging and Collaboration. Very cool…

Tweets of the Quarter: 2009-03
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Tweets of the Quarter: 2009-03

Tweets of the quarter:   01/10/09 03:19:11 Resuming communications. It has been a long time. 03/25/09 05:55:43 I was in NY today. Visited the metropolitan Museum. Wow! What a place.  Heading to 3oronto tonight. 03/25/09 06:01:52 Arrived late to Toronto. Long day.  Lost my new iPod nano. Very upsetting. 03/25/09 19:01:42 Good meetings today.  In…

New Vision Desktop Management – Article Series

New Vision Desktop Management – Article Series

Desktop management is now a critical function of IT services within any organization. Historically, standalone computers and small networks did not require much centralization and management. However, rapid technological advancements, network size growth and the proliferation of the Internet have driven the need for advanced desktop management solutions. The Vision:  “Power and flexibility of a…