Tag: Microsoft

My Point of View for the Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure of Gartner

Gartner released their Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization infrastructure and Microsoft is a leader. The bad news is that VMware are still in front. But if we look in the article we will see that Cautions mentioned for Microsoft are all addressed as features in System Center 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Azure Pack. So Microsoft is already one step ahead by providing Preview for these products and releasing them before the end of the year. But what about VMware? Well from my point of view they haven’t moved significantly forward. Let’s remember this video from more than an year ago and we will see a promise that I cannot say it is fully fulfilled. I am not VMware expert but this is my point. Taking also the fact that Microsoft now has a faster release cycle I can predict if Microsoft is not first in this quadrant it will be at least head to head with “the other guys”. More on the story you can find here.

Three Interesting Session about System Center 2012 SP1 from Microsoft Internal Event TechReady

Internal Microsoft information is always something interesting you would like to get a sneak peak. Microsoft is now offering this sneak peak by publishing three of their Internal Sessions at TechReady:

New MSFT Blog: In the Cloud

Brad Anders Corporate Vice President for the Windows Server & System Center division started a new blog titled “In the Cloud”. Probably it will not include any deep technical posts but nevertheless I expect them to be very interesting. Check out the first two articles:

Microsoft Security Compliance Manager

Solution Accelerator team have just released the final 3rd version Security Compliance Manager. Here are the key features of the new version:

  • Integration with the System Center 2012 Process Pack for IT GRC: Product configurations are integrated into the Process Pack for IT GRC to provide oversight and reporting of your compliance activities.
  • Gold master support: Import and take advantage of your existing Group Policy or create a snapshot of a reference machine to kick-start your project.
  • Configure stand-alone machines: Deploy your configurations to non-domain joined computers using the new GPO Pack feature.
  • Updated security guidance: Take advantage of the deep security expertise and best practices in the updated security guides and the attack surface reference workbooks to help reduce the security risks that you consider to be the most important.
  • Centralized Management of Your Baseline Portfolio: The centralized management console of the Security Compliance Manager provides you with a unified, end-to-end user experience to plan, customize, and export security baselines. The tool gives you full access to a complete portfolio of recommended baselines for Windows client and server operating systems, and Microsoft applications. The Security Compliance Manager also enables you to quickly update the latest Microsoft baseline releases and take advantage of baseline version control.
  • Security Baseline Customization: Customizing, comparing, merging, and reviewing your baselines policy configurations just got easier. Use the customization capabilities of the Security Compliance Manager to duplicate any of the recommended baselines from Microsoft and quickly modify security settings to meet the standards of your organization’s environment.
  • Multiple Export Capabilities: Export baselines in formats like XLS, Group Policy objects (GPOs), Desired Configuration Management (DCM) packs, or Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) to enable automation of deployment and monitoring baseline compliance.
  • Available policy configuration baselines include Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Hyper-V, Windows 8, Windows 7 SP1, Windows Vista SP2, Windows XP SP3, BitLocker Drive Encryption, Windows Internet Explorer 10, Windows Internet Explorer 9, Windows Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft Office 2010 SP1, Microsoft Office 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2010 SP2 and Exchange Server 2007 SP3.

 

You can download the tool from here.

Example Upgrade of SCSM 2012 to SP1 by Microsoft

Upgrades can be tough if they are not planned well. Event in very good planned upgrades there are some issues but the idea is to be prepared to squash them on the moment and finish the upgrade process to the end. This is what one of the Microsoft teams did when they upgraded their SCSM 2012 environment to SP1. read about their experience here.