New Data on Vista Adoption

New Data on Vista Adoption

With 150 million licenses shipped in FY’2008 (see Steve Balmer’s report,) we are always looking for news on Vista adoption. A list of recently posted articles on the Microsoft site follows: The white paper entitled “Windows Feature Comparison” compares the features and capabilities of Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1 based on five categories:…

A Good Week for MDOP

A Good Week for MDOP

Last week we had the pleasure of spending time with Shanen Boettcher, General Manager of Windows Product Management for the enterprise at the Redmond stop of his week-long press tour.. It was great to see first hand how much has MDOP plays a strategic role in the Microsoft’s desktop stack… He told the press that…

It’s 11:00 PM – Do you know who your Remote Workers are and how they connect to the your network?

It’s 11:00 PM – Do you know who your Remote Workers are and how they connect to the your network?

In a recent survey done by Gartner of 260 enterprises, 90% of enterprises worldwide have remote workers, but 25% of those organizations don’t know exactly who those remote workers are. Again, according to the survey, the IT departments often have no idea who they’re providing remote access to. Are they executives, sales, engineering, etc. ?…

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 – beta available

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 – beta available

Now on Microsoft Connect, the beta of the excellent new SCVMM 2008. The sign up for the beta is easy and installation is simple and fast on Server 2008 (which I am way digging these days). What’s the coolest thing about SCVMM 2008? Probably the ability to manage non-Microsoft hypervisors (e.g. ESX.) Top 10 Features…

Virtualized Banking Can Save Real Money

Virtualized Banking Can Save Real Money

Microsoft’s “Virtualization in Banking Survey 2008,” conducted by independent, Washington, D.C.-based research firm KRC gives some insight into virtualization findings for US and UK banking institutions: TMCnet had this to say about key finding from the survey: 53 percent of those implementing virtualization reported that it eases centralization of deployment and management of applications as…

LUA Bugs…Beware!

LUA Bugs…Beware!

If you are struggling with trying to diagnose LUA, or Least-Privilege User Account bugs in your Vista, Server 2003 or XP environments, then Aaron Margosis has a tool for you. The tool is called LUA Buglight and, while it’s in beta, it still may be a useful tool for you developers and system administrators out…

Application Virtualization:  Catch the Wave

Application Virtualization: Catch the Wave

In recent years the technology world has increasingly gone “virtual” in a number of areas. First we had virtual local area networks and server-based virtualization. This helped consolidate resources by allowing administrators to increase the density of servers per rack, and decrease the complexity of managing hundreds of servers. This is now a proven and…

Unified Messaging for Exchange 2007

Unified Messaging for Exchange 2007

OVA is one component of the new Unified Messaging server role now included in this latest version of Microsoft’s email server. Unified messaging’s goal is to consolidate as many communication types as possible into a single inbox and Exchange does this by treating email, faxes, and voicemail as just another message which can be accessed through corporate Outlook, Outlook Anywhere (Formerly Outlook over the Internet), Outlook Web Access, Outlook Mobile Access and now using just using your phone while on the run.

DaaS and SaaS – ” …dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”
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DaaS and SaaS – ” …dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”

Desktone (http://www.desktone.com/) and more pointedly the generic term DaaS or desktop as a service is being bandied about and will help (I say “help” in jest) to muddy the terminology waters and give us a new buzz word. Really, I think DaaS has legs and will see favorable acceptance with the “greening” of IT with…

SCCM Ranger Training

SCCM Ranger Training

From the Awesome Ideas Department, Brian Tucker has raised the idea of an SCCM Ranger training event that would encourage a team-based deep-dive into the management software, and would do so in a casual setting – a house on a beach, for example, rather than YACRIAMH (yet another conference room in a mediocre hotel.)

Virtual Desktop Visionary Stoneware, integrates Google Apps

Virtual Desktop Visionary Stoneware, integrates Google Apps

These are exciting times – when the humble world of HTML and JavaScript have been leveraged to the hilt, and AJAX applications now rival traditional executables in functionality and behavioral metaphors. Stoneware seems poised to deliver what many of us have dreamed about for as long as bandwidth has been increasing.

Application Virtualization Value Proposition

Application Virtualization Value Proposition

Application Virtualization can benefit  the entire enterprise as follows: Assists IT departments by reducing or eliminating the labor-intensive tasks involved with application lifecycle management. Enables the Business to operate more flexibly and efficiently. Reduces software, hardware, and support costs   Application Virtualization is an advanced technology that contains or “abstracts” applications from the underlying operating…

Sun buys Virtualbox

Sun buys Virtualbox

Not to be left out of the Open Source buying frenzy, Sun has recently acquired an OS virtualization product called “VirtualBox” that looks to be a boon for developers and for IT Administrators looking for standalone lab environments. Sun already had a server consolidation virtualization product (datacenter grade) in xVM Server, but didn’t have a…

MDOP 101 – What’s so great about the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack?

MDOP 101 – What’s so great about the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack?

If you haven’t already heard of it, you will: The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, or MDOP for short, is an add-on subscription for customers with Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) coverage for their Windows desktops. The five core components of MDOP are SoftGrid Application Virtualization, System Center Desktop Error Monitoring, Asset Inventory Service, Diagnostics and Recovery…

[Tools] PowerShell Remoting through Group Policy

[Tools] PowerShell Remoting through Group Policy

Special Operations Software has released a tool that combines Group Policy and PowerShell, allowing administrators to push PS scripts to all desktops in their organization. This has a lot of potential to standardize and simplify what we often see out in the marketplace: a Frankensteinian tangle of KiX, VBScript, and Batch scripts running at login and at other times during user startup and shutdown.

Got your decoder ring? One blogger’s predictions for Virtualization in 2008

Got your decoder ring? One blogger’s predictions for Virtualization in 2008

While I’ve not finished parsing it, Tarry Singh’s article caught my eye. I don’t normally read all of the links that come in through the ITToolbox newsletter, but anything with “virtualization” in the title tends to give me pause. Tarry’s article provides a (rather dense and obviously knowledgeable) collection of predictions for the future of…

Virtualized Infrastructures

Virtualized Infrastructures

During a client-call yesterday, once again, we heard the “very many challenges” that data centers have with all of the issues that come with the incredible and never-ending demand for application services within enterprises. A solution that’s well-tested and well-vetted for these ever-increasing demands for applications is the propping of virtual infrastrucutres. Nothing new here:…

Server-Side Application Virtualization

Server-Side Application Virtualization

Doing some research this week, I ran into a website called www.jumpbox.com which is a company that provides server-based software installations using Virtualization technology… Essentially they do all of the hard configuration and settings work, and provide a Virtual snapshot of the application ready for it to be used… They have several open-source server-based applications…

VMWare buys Thinstall

VMWare buys Thinstall

VMWare has recently purchased Thinstall. This puts some heavy muscle behind one of SoftGrid/AppVirt’s competitors. One can only speculate what the San Francisco to Palo Alto move will mean for the product, but personally, I hope they invest heavily in bringing Thinstall’s feature set into parity or dramatic competition with AppVirt.

Virtual Applications – going mainstream!

Virtual Applications – going mainstream!

Doing some research this week, I ran into a website called www.jumpbox.com   which is a company that provides server-based software installations using Virtualization technology…  Essentially they do all of the hard configuration and settings work, and provide a Virtual snapshot of the application ready for it to be used… They have several open-source server based applications…

Taming the IM Jungle within the Enterprise

Taming the IM Jungle within the Enterprise

Instant Messaging (IM) has quietly crept in behind the corporate firewall as employees responding to different pressures – personal or business – install popular IM clients to chat with colleagues, partners, and customers and even friends and family. Research shows that over 90% of enterprises have IM within the enterprise and employees are responsible for…

Software as a Service – Are ISV’s ready?

Software as a Service – Are ISV’s ready?

Most people I talk to want to implement Application Virtualization to improve internal operations. Refreshingly, the conversation has been shifting over the past few weeks to what application virtualization was originally intended to address: Software as a Service and, in particular, how independent software vendors can take advantage of this technology. In order to begin…