Check out Travis Wright’s blog and learn more about the System Center Cloud Services Management Pack Release Candidate that is now available for download.
The System Center Cloud Services Process Pack offers a self-service experience to facilitate private cloud capacity requests from your business unit IT application owners and end users, including the flexibility to request additional capacity as business demands increase. Download the Management Pack today!
Microsoft has just released a new whitepaper with cost and ROI comparisons between System Center 2012 and VMware’s vCenter Operations Management Suite. You can download a copy directly from our user group website.
Microsoft Private Cloud Whitepaper
The agenda for our February 16th meeting has been posted. You can register for the meeting using the following link:
http://phillysc-feb2012.eventbrite.com/
Bill Tsai was kind enough to send me some photos from two breakout sessions at our January meeting.
Microsoft is offering a free 2-Day online course “Creating and Managing a Private Cloud with System Center 2012 Jump Start” on Feb 21 – 22, 9:00 – 5:00 AM PST. This looks like a really nice offer. You can check out the details and register here
http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=298
Here is a copy of the intro slides with links from our January meeting for those of you asked for it.
Philly SC 2012-01 January Meeting
During the “Transforming IT with Microsoft Private Cloud” webcast, Microsoft officially announced a new licensing model for System Center 2012. The suite is going to be offered in both Standard and Data Center editions; no licensing for separate products going forward. I was going to post detailed information on the two, but Rod Trent over at myITforum beat me to the punch. You can check out his excellent post at:
http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/01/17/new-system-center-2012-suite-versioning-and-licensing-model-simplifies-and-excites/
There are a lot of grand solutions out there for Orchestrator and Service Manager (most of which I love to death) but not so much out there about all the little things that can add a tremendous amount of value with very little work.
Like:
How about creating a Service Offering in SCSM for Directory Services? Then adding some service requests like Disable AD Account, Reset Service Account Password, Change [Insert property here], and so on.
One of my team requested last week that we go up in AD and clean it up by removing some AD account/objects. He doesn’t have rights to do that so I am sure we can come up with some way of automating that process.
Maybe I will show this off during the User Group meeting on Thursday!
System Center Universe is being held Thursday January 19th 2012 in Austin Texas. It is a one day technical event that focuses on System Center 2012 products. The event is sold out but will be available via webcast by various user groups. To register for the webcast, visit this page that lists the different user groups and links for registration.
http://www.systemcenteruniverse.com/UserGroupViewings
The agenda for the day is:
8:00-8:30 Introductions
8:30-9:25 System Center Configuration Manager 2012
Presented By: Wally Mead
9:25-9:55 Break and Sponsor Presentation: Veeam
9:55-10:50 System Center Operations Manager 2012
Presented By: Baelson Duque
10:50-11:05 Sponsor Presentation: Softmart
11:05-12:00 System Center Service Manager 2012
Presented By: Travis Wright
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 System Center Virtual Manager 2012
Presented By: Mahesh Unnikrishnan
2:00-2:15 Sponsor Presentation: Savision
2:15-3:15 System Center Orchestrator 2012
Presented By: Pete Zerger
3:15-3:45 Break and Sponsor Presentation: BDNA
3:45-4:45 System Center Data Protection Manager 2012
Presented By: Jason Buffington
4:45-5:30 Ask-the-Experts Panel Q&A
5:30-7:30 Sponsored Networking Event – Gabriel’s
For those of you who want a preview of how Microsoft will be positioning System Center 2012 to manage private clouds, there is a webcast on Jan 17th which will include discussions with some key Microsoft executives and a technology demonstration from the Microsoft Technology Center in Redmond, WA.
Get more information and register here:
http://www.microsoft.com/business/events/en-us/PrivateCloudExec/#fbid=jUMWeOeQfWK
