Microsoft TechEd 2012 - The Experience in Review

I'm not a professional writer, well, actually, that's not true.  I have written a few (e)books for sale on Amazon, so I guess that makes me a professional, even though I don't earn enough to make a car payment from that, it still helps.  However, I did spend a week in Orlando (thank you to my company president for sending me!  very much appreciated!), attending the Microsoft TechEd 2012 conference.

Key Take-aways for me:

• My skills are getting dated
• The changes coming with the 2012 products are vast and diverse
• Microsoft is changing their direction in some very surprising ways
• My skills are getting dated, but so are everyone else's now

Like many attendees, I flew in on Sunday, got to my hotel and immediately went on a hunt for food and beer.  It was HOT and HUMID, as is expected in Florida in June.  I walked a mile to meet up with my team mates at their hotel (we were booked in separate places due to timing), and I lost about 10 lbs from sweat along the way.  

Hotel Room - Day 1

Just for the record: The Wyndham Orlando Resort hotel is not a place I'd recommend you stay.  The staff is very nice and helpful, but the facilities are falling apart.  My door lock was busted and took a few hours to get fixed.  Then my phone went out.  They have no free breakfast, or Wi-Fi access, so you have to plug into the phones to go wired, and they never worked the entire time I was there.  The door didn't shut tight either.  At least the air conditioning worked well enough.

I rehydrated at Miller's Ale House on International Drive, where I enjoyed the Ossobuco dinner special, and was left speechless at how damn good it was.

(Ossobuco, already half-eaten)

Afterwards, I had to grab a taxi back to my hotel because I didn't feel like walking another mile-and-a-half in 95 F heat and sticky humidity.  The $5 fare was worth it.

Day 1 - Registration, Breakfast, Keynote, Sessions, Lunch, Sessions and Beer

First stop was registration.  Sign in.  Pick up my badge and backpack.  Stuff my things into the backpack and head for breakfast.  Twenty or so lines were opened up with a cheering staff (I'm not kidding) pointing us to the shortest lines to pile up eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, pastries, juices, milk and so on.  Then we fan out to one of a hundred or so group tables to chow down.  Afterwards, it was comparing schedules with colleagues and new friends, coffee and heading over to the keynote session.

Registration (not yet full, but would be full soon after)

The Keynote

It was a lot of emphasis on Azure cloud services, new scalable features in Windows Server 2012, and new capabilities in Visual Studio 2012.  Lot's of comparison's of the new Hyper-V features against "the competition" as well.

Keynote session

WCL327 - Maximizing Windows 7 Performance: Troubleshooting Tips - Johan Arwidmark

What can I say? Any session Johan presents is going to be good, and worth attending.  It was.  I learned a ton and enjoyed quite a few laughs.

Lunch - (chomp chomp, slurp, mumble, burp, repeat...)

Lunch (or Breakfast)

WCL309 - What's New in Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 (MDT) - Michael Niehaus

While a lot was said about Windows 8 deployment support, MDT 2012 packs a ton of improvements and features to help with Windows 7 deployments as well.  Michael always does a fantastic job of presenting.

WCL302 - Alphabet Soup Deployment: From AIK to ZTI - Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 Using Nothing But Free Tools - Stephen Rose

This was more of a broad overview of the options available to replace legacy deployment tools like Symantec Ghost, with AIK (ADK), MDT, DISM, and WDS.  Not really technically deep in any one technology, but just enough to provide a reason to consider dumping your legacy (costly) products to at least try out the free alternatives Microsoft provides.

After the last session ended at 6:00 PM, the expo floor opened up.  That means vendor frenzy.  Free food, drinks.  Swag and goodies to fill up your backpack.

Beer!

Day 2 - Breakfast, Vitamins, Water, Sessions, More Food and Beer

Another Keynote?  Nope.  I went to the Hands-On Labs area to work with App-V 5.0.  Even though it's still "beta" and a little rough, it's a huge improvement over 4.x from what I saw.  The customer I work with now is looking to implement App-V and I'm glad they never deployed 4.x since that means no need to co-exist or migrate.

WCL303 - Microsoft Desktop Virtualization: The Right Technology for Your Business Scenario - Karri Alexion-Tiernan and Skand Mittal

This was also more of a high-level scope coverage of App-V, UE-V, MED-V (very little on that however), RemoteApp, and VDI.  Most of the demos were on App-V, UE-V and RemoteApp.  They also spent quite a bit of time demoing the VDI features in Windows Server 2012, which look really nice (and powerfully simple too).

Lunch - I'm a sloppy eater.  I will spare you the details.

WCL382 - Deploying Windows 8 with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - Michael Niehaus

The name says it all.  It was a very good session.  Michael also discussed upcoming changes in "Update 1" for MDT 2012 and future "wishlist" features as well.

SIA312 - What's New in Active Directory in Windows Server 2012 - Dean Wells

Dean reminds me so much of Ricky Gervais, more in speaking, tone, humor and body movement than physical looks, that I had to keep reminding myself it wasn't Ricky doing the presentation.  Thankful he was funny, because this was a very deep dive into AD and LDAP, Kerberos, bug fixes, RID services, FSMO management, and much more.  The room was packed and it was one of the larger rooms.  I put Dean on my list of favorite presenters to follow in the future.

SIA311 - Sysinternals Primer: Gems - Aaron Margosis

Great slice of Sysinternals tools which are often overlooked.  Aaron is a funny guy and does a fantastic job in front of a large audience.  Bonus: Mark Russinovich dropped in and sat directly in front of me. I still need to pick up the Sysinternals Toolkit book they both co-authored.

Expo Floor.  Food.  Beer.  Vendor Party at Ice Bar.  Interesting place made (almost) entirely of ice.  The bar, the walls, the seats and decor.  Even the drink glasses are ice.  One free (tiny) drink.  Meh.

I dropped my backpack off at the hotel where my colleagues were staying (because it was closer to the party location).  Afterwards, I couldn't find a cab, so I walked the 1.5 mile stretch along International Drive to my hotel.  I think I worked off the beer and food.

Day 3 - Breakfast, Sessions, Lunch, Sessions, Expo, Food, Beer again

SIA402 - How to (un)Destroy Your Active Directory - Ralf Wigand

Ralf is surprising. A renown MVP, he has a classic German accent, but he's very soft spoken.  That soft-spoken demeanor delivers some seriously powerful information.  He's also very funny.  If you get a chance to attend one of his presentations, do it.  I learned a lot about common errors and some not-so-common errors that can screw up an otherwise functional AD environment.  Even better, he focused on 2008 R2 AD, rather than all 2012, so it was information everyone could put to use "now".

SIA316 - Windows Server 2012 Dynamic Access Control Best Practices and Cast Study Deployments in Microsoft IT - Brian Puhl

This was surprising for me for a few reasons:

• Brian was very candidate about the challenges inside of managing Microsoft's internal IT operations
• DAC is not a cure for all security management needs
• DAC is not a replacement for security groups
• DAC is a good enhancement to using security groups by extending a policy-driven approach to implementing template-based access management with delegation.

I really had a weak understanding of DAC before this because I had only read up on the capabilities alone.  I had not seen any documented results of actual usage in production environments.  This was an eye-opener for sure.

Lunch (you know the rest)

WCL404 - Turn PowerShell Commands into Reusable CLI and GUI Tools - Don Jones

Wow! Don is such a fantastic speaker and presenter.  This was only my second time seeing him at TechEd, and I saw him again in a later session (read later).  Don covered a lot of aspects of PowerShell, what it is, what it isn't, and provided some great demos of building out a reusable function cmdlet, and then provided a brief overview of creating GUI forms using either WPF or Windows Forms.

BOF11-ITP - Windows PowerShell Best Practices - Ed Wilson and Don Jones

This session was packed into a very small room, which was kind of dumb planning on the logistics side. Not the fault of Ed or Don though.  This was essentially a free-for-all, stand-up, un-scripted (pardon the pun) session where the speakers interacted with the audience to share ideas, challenges, methods, tips and resources among each other.  The session was also broadcast live on Channel 9 (and other outlets?).  I was in the back of the room, leaning on the door next to Jeffrey Hicks.

I was going to attend a session at this point but ran over to the HOL area instead, to play with App-V 5.0 some more.

Day 4 - Final Day - Breakfast, Sessions, Lunch, more Sessions, Closing Party

WCL325 - Raiders of the Elevated Token: Understanding User Account Control and Session Isolation - Raymond Comvalius

I really didn't expect to learn a lot from this session because I foolishly believed I already had a firm grasp of how UAC and sessions work in Windows 7.  I was wrong.  Raymond gave a very good presentation with demos and explanations of how each piece of the process works.  It was well worth sitting in on this one. Raymond has a soft voice and a Dutch accent that fools you into thinking he's going to go easy on the crowd.

Lunch

WCL290 - Microsoft Application Virtualization 5.0: Introduction - Andy Cerat

This session covered some gaps from the WCL303, but in all, they each fit together to provide a fairly good picture of App-V 5.0.  Andy ran through several demos to show how the new web-based management interface works, how to create and import packages, apply access controls, publish and unpublish packages, and refreshing clients.  He also demonstrated Connections and Extensions and how they work to make a more integrated and cohesive experience for users.  I'm looking forward to App-V 5.0 projects.

Lunch - More obscene sloppiness and lost fingers

Hands-On Labs

WCL301 - Case of the Unexplained 2012: Windows Troubleshooting with Mark Russinovich

Anyone who's been to TechEd knows Mark's "Case of..." session is the biggest attendee draw of the week. It was packed.  They should have booked this in the main keynote hall rather than the regular "large" room they used.  I can't do this justice in my own words, so just trust me that if you haven't been to one of his sessions, and you get the chance to go to one in the future, do it.

Mark Russinovich at TechEd 2012

I was planning on attending WCL402 (App Compat for Nerds, Chris Jackson), but I was so burned out from walking and being squished in the room during Mark's session, that I had to take a breather and get ready for the closing party...

Closing Party: Universal Studios Theme Park

They closed the park to everyone else except TechEd attendees from 7:00 pm until roughly midnight.  I started off with pizza, and a Coke, then moved on to beer, and roamed the park.  This is a fairly large park and you can wander for a long time.  It's an interesting place.  I've been to Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, Disney World, and Universal Studios Theme Park in Los Angeles, as well as Elitch Gardens in Denver.  This park has some very new attractions which were fantastic:  The Harry Potter Adventure and The Hulk.  I also ran through the Amazing Spiderman

Hogwarts - Harry Potter Adventure

The Hulk (part of it)

Getting on The Hulk

Leaving the park was a sad moment, but it also meant I was closer to getting back home to my family and my dog Lucky.

Today, my colleagues and I boarded our Southwest flight back home to Norfolk airport and on to Virginia Beach.  The picture below is from the Orlando airport food court near gate 102.  It's a very nicely designed airport and the birds flying around the inside are a nice touch (none of them bombed us, as far as I could tell).

Conclusion

It was a good year this time.  I think the Orange County Convention Center worked out better than the Georgia World Congress Center (Atlanta, 2011) did.  It made it much easier getting around from one session to the next, and the single central hall works better for sharing an expo, food and lab space with plenty of room to spare.

The buses all ran on time and I never had a problem getting to or from the event and my hotel or Universal's park.  The closing party was fantastic as well.  I met some interesting and impressive people throughout the week.  In all, if you haven't been to TechEd before, and you work with Microsoft products, services or technologies, or even if you are just curious about them, I highly recommend it.  It's just such an overwhelming deluge of useful information, demos and perspectives that your head will hurt after the first few days.

Cheers!

A Short Recap of my Career Thus Far

• 1984, I left the construction world, and playing in bands, for a job as a "apprentice drafstman" (board drafting, Mylar, Sepia and vellum).  I recall lettering 20 ANSI-F title sheets entirely by hand per week for several months on end (notes, references, materials, titleing, very little white space left).  My fingers had permanent dents from holding the mechanical pencils.
• In 1987 after switching jobs a few times (still drafting) I was dunked into building 3D shipboard engine room models using Computervision CADDS 4X.  I worked on that platform for several years.
• In 1990, I was sent to training on Intergraph EMS and VDS and worked on that for almost a year.
• I was sent to training on Bentley Microstation, but picked up a few books and taught myself AutoCAD R10 by staying late at work and sneaking into the AutoCAD drafting room.
• After convincing the CAD dept manager I could work on AutoCAD, I was moved into the AutoCAD group on R11.  The U.S. Navy had just issued an official approval for using AutoCAD to make title sheets and bills of material "only".  All detail design work was still required to be done by hand (plastic lead on frosted mylar sheets).
• In 1992*, the U.S. Navy finally issued an official allowance for AutoCAD detail design work for all contracts.
• After months of struggling with bugs in a custom add-on written in AutoLISP and ADS for our company (by a west-coast employee), I decided to learn AutoLISP and add my own workarounds.  I picked up a few books, but the best was "AutoLISP Programming by Example" by Gene Straka.  One of the best heads-down teach-yourself books I've ever owned.
• In 1994 I wrote my own 2D piping system for AutoCAD R12.  It grew into an HVAC system, and eventually into electrical and structural as well.
• In 1996, I was hired by a large shipyard to lead their first AutoCAD implementation.  It was (gulp!) AutoCAD R13 running on Windows NT 3.51.  It was a very rough experience, but we somehow got it working.  I was also introduced to Brett Rivers, who introduced me to SMS 2.0 and was generous enough to tutor me on how it works and how to use it for deploying AutoCAD and custom add-ons to roughly 3,000 desktops.  That eventually grew to 14,000 desktops.
• In December 1999, I graduated from Christopher Newport Univsersity with my BS in Information Science. 
• In February 2000, I was hired by an engineering firm to build a new shipbuilding CAD suite on top of AutoCAD 2000, and consolidate their standalone licensing under AdLM (prior to FlexLM).  That moved me into license management, including contracts, support, and auditing.
• By 2002 I was on version 2.0 of the new CAD system and had enlisted three team mates to help build out more functionality and features.  We joined the Autodesk Developer Network and the alpha "early adopter" program:  Pinetop, Tahoe, Banff, Kirkland, Red Deer, Neo, Rio (I left ADN before Postrio)
• By 2002 I had been building a lab to prepare for deploying SMS 2003 when the lead for our upcoming NT4 to Win2K Active Directory migration left.  I was asked to take over the project lead.  I ran into a friend who worked at Microsoft who asked if I wanted to join on Windows Server 2003 pre-beta and Microsoft Software Updates Services (SUS).
• March 2003 we completed our migration to Windows Server 2003 and implemented WSUS 2.0 soon after.  SMS 2003 was held back to test the forthcoming SCCM (beta program).  I began working with ASP, SQL Server, and Windows scripting more and more to automate monitoring and reporting.
• 2003 I released "The Visual LISP Developer's Bible, 2003 Edition"
• By June 2004 I was now wearing three distinct hats:  Active Directory Administration, CAD Administration, and CAD software development.  By 2006 I had offloaded my CAD software development duties to the team with only occasional involvement.  I was now focused on software deployment, patch management, auditing, monitoring and alerts, and SOX compliance.
• In Sept 2007, our company imploded when our CEO decided to fuck us all and leave with a smile.
• I was hired by a Microsoft partner and trained on MDOP, Softgrid (App-V) and doing odds-and-ends Windows engineering work for various small businesses.  I also deployed a full SCCM 2007 site for a city government, which had been a while for me, but it nonetheless went very well.  The biggest impact this had on me was getting my head into non-enterprise environments.  Until now, I had only worked in larger corporate environments with teams devoted to each role.  Now it was about individual services to small customers.  I learned 10x in only a few months.
• After a few months the economy tanked (early 2008), and we were laid off.  I was out looking for a job for several months, but nobody was hiring.  I put food on the table by building web sites for various small customers, and helping a law firm with patent application drawings.
• In June 2008 I was hired back at a former employer and taught the fine art of software repackaging to facilitate mass deployment (by now 18,000 computers, I think?).  Wise Package Studio and Wise Script.  I was also tossed back into FlexLM management and FlexNet Manager (which is pretty interesting).
• In July 2010 I was hired by a consulting firm and now I combine a lot of the above (sans CAD work) into a mash-up of projects and tasks:
• Windows Server 2008 R2 management
  
• Windows 7 deployment and customization
• ASP / SQL Server / AD systems automation
• FlexLM license services
• Autodesk deployment builds and distribution
• Repackaging with Wise Package Studio and InstallShield AdminStudio
• Scripting with VBscript, CMD and PowerShell
• SCCM 2007 process automation and custom reporting
• In 2010 I released more books, and again in 2011
• I have no idea why I'm bothering to type this.  It ultimately means nothing to anyone unless they're spilling food on my resume.  I guess the interesting part, to me anyway, is how my ball has bounced in a very unpredictable pattern.  Looking back, I can see the pattern emerge.  But from any one point along the way there was no discernible pattern or path to be seen.  I have learned from some of the brightest and most interesting people I've ever known, and am grateful and humble to having had those opportunities.  Every job change has been tough to handle since I hate parting ways with good people, but I've somehow managed to keep finding incredible people to continue learning.  If I had millions of dollars, I would love to be able to hire everyone I've known to build a "super team" and make incredible things happen.  I doubt that will become reality, but it would be cool.  I have no idea where my ball will bounce next, or if it will roll in front of a bus and that'll be the end of it.  One day at a time.

* I may be off a bit here, but it was somewhere between 1990 and 1992 as best as I can recall.

App-V 4.6 SP1: SFTLIST crashes during Windows 7 SP1 Post-Config

According to Microsoft Support Article 2496904, there is a nasty little problem with the App-V 4.6 client when installing Service Pack 1 on Windows 7 clients.  The problem occurs after the reboot, during the post-configuration process…

The Application Virtualization Client FSI encountered an exception during shutdown. A minidump may have been generated.  (mini-dump garbage follows…)

The "Cause" is stated to be "Conflict with SFTLIST.exe", that's it.  That's it?!  Wow.

The "Solution"?  Wait for a forthcoming patch, or simply hold off deploying Service Pack 1 to your Windows 7 App-V clients.

The actual resolution given by Microsoft is: "An optional patch is planned for availability through Windows Update and should be available by the end of March 2011."

M & A + Technology Evolution = What?

How does the current economy impact IT operations, purchasing, projects and technology trends?
 
Why, I am glad you asked.  Yes, I’m being rhetorical as ****.  I’m betting my lunch money that this angle didn’t dawn on you:
 
Microsoft’s AGPM 4.0 added:

• Support for exporting and importing GPOs between Active Directory forests
• Searching and Filtering GPOs

You say: “So what?” or “Who cares? That was 2009 news.”
 
I say: “It’s perfect for the needs of companies who are buying other companies”
 
Think about it.  What is the general trend of corporate business in 2010?  M&A.  That’s right: Mergers and Acquisitions.  Every day in the news there is mention of one company being acquired by another, or merging into a bigger entity.  And what do most businesses run as their comprehensive security and resource environment?  Active Directory. And what is one of the biggest headaches of merging two Active Directory forests?  Synchronizing Group Policy rules.  Company “A” buys company “B” and wants “B” to implement the same environmental conditions as they have in place.  It can help smooth the way for ADMT, USMT and the usual junkie needle exchange program that follows close behind (Exchange, SQL, file shares, printer shares, etc.).  Just having these features for DR assurance is enough to make it worthwhile, even if you have no M & A plans on your horizon.  (for you noobs: “DR” means Disaster Recovery).  And lastly, or thirdly, is being able to cleanly export your GPOs to a test environment.  That makes it easier to keep your test lab configured identical to the production environment.  All the SOX weenies should get a woody over that aspect alone.

Dear Microsoft App-V Folks:

If you were really serious about putting this gem of a product to widespread use, you would get busy doing the following:

1. Make the client free to download for all Windows 7 users

2. Make App-V available like Hyper-V currently is (licensing and cost)

3. Initiate a vendor partnership program to offer incentives to provide sequenced applications, maybe as part of a subscription "Fast-Track" advantage program.

4. Actually get behind the whole program instead just paying lip service.

Thank you!

Yours truly: Tired software packagers of the world

Skinning Cats the Nerd Way

Today I got a walk-up request: "We need to put a unique INI file on 500 machines and then invoke a client-side utility to import the INI into a client-side database which is part of a client-side application that uses that configuration data to establish secure connections to a remote server.  The clients are running inside Microsoft MED-V.  We have a spreadsheet with the unique ID-pairs for each of the 500 computers, but there's no names.  We need to fetch the names from AD and populate the spreadsheet to match them up and then use that to generate the INI files."

Piece of cake.  Um… ok…

1. Add a column to the spreadsheet for the computer names
2. Run a query to collect the computer names from a specific OU in our AD environment and push the names into the column in the spreadsheet.  Save the spreadsheet (it doesn't change ever again after this point, except to add future names… maybe).
3. Obtain a template of the INI format.  Replace the unique values with sentinel strings (e.g. "PID1" and "PID2", etc.)
4. Read the INI template into memory
5. Read the spreadsheet rows, and for each row, create a copy of the INI template cache by substituting the sentinel values with actual values.  Save the copy to a unique INI file in a designated folder.
6. Run a PSEXEC (Sysinternals) remote process to invoke the client-side .exe utility to import the INI data from a specific INI file from the shared folder across the network.

Questions: 

1. How many scripts will it (did it) take to accomplish this?
2. How long will it (did it) take to write it / them?

Answers:

1. Whatever works for you.  For me it was three scripts:  One to query AD and populate the spreadsheet column.  Another to read the spreadsheet and generate the INI files.  And another to iterate through each of the INI file names and execute PsExec with the appropriate command syntax for the utility and the unique INI file and path.
2. Who cares.  I can (and will) say that if it takes anyone more than 2 hours they're taking too long.

Tid-bits:  MED-V runs a virtual client which is joined to the domain as its own unique name, so you can access it like any other computer provided you have sufficient permissions and the access gateways are opened up (firewalls, services, etc.)  So the PsExec script is aimed at the MED-V clients, not the physical clients.

Dave's Lame Predictions: The Future of Windows Management

Ok, call me stupid or ignorant, but here goes...

Given the recent announcements and details surrounding Windows Azure, cloud services (.NET, SQL, etc.), the increased use of PKI for tying together internal and external assets within a homogenous management realm, heterogenious identity management, and the water-testing efforts of AIS, MDOP, Office Live Workspaces, Hosted Exchange services, and Live Mesh, I think we're going to see a gradual shift towards a two-sector approach to infrastructure or desktop "management": Host-Managed or Self-Managed.

Today we have a choice of the small business approach using System Center Essentials (SCE) or the larger enterprise collective of System Center products (Configuration Manager, Data Protection Manager, Operations Manager, etc.). Sort of paralleled with the aims of Small Business Server against Windows Server product lines. Basically: Bundled "Lite" or Separate "Full" versions.

For smaller businesses (those with less than 500 users is my guess) Microsoft may provide hosted "managed" services to replace the need for SCE inside a customer environment. The benefits are obvious and tangible: Reduced overhead costs, reduced labor costs, reduced downtime from diverted labor for troubleshooting (your admin person can continue working on other things instead of stopping to diagnose SCE problems). No dedicated servers or rack space. No increase to electrical or cooling costs. Just deploy an agent to your desktops and log into your web console to do your management work.

Quite a few consulting partners and service providers offer managed services to their customers. Even our local cable company (Cox) offers it now. Remote management and helpdesk support by VPN. For many customers this has worked out very well. Many more haven't been exposed to this yet or are stuck in their current investment and can't justify a change as drastic as this. So there's a market out there still to be tapped for this.

Obviously you could apply arguments against this concept, much like "cloud services" in general. Most hinge on availability or "uptime". But unless you're dealing with a small business operating in a nightmarish IT environment, the level of support won't be second-by-second. Probably not even hour by hour. For the crisis situation, maybe there could be a staged approach with an internal server acting as backup, who knows. That could be an added option.

The possibilities are there already. I'm sure Microsoft is already working on this, at least in a prototype or proof-of-concept mode. Here's how I would imagine it:

Small business customer has 250 employees with computers. Maybe a handful of dedicated physical servers, running SBS+Exchange, another File/Print, another line-of-business box, and maybe some others. Now you want to get a better handle on patching and health checkups and maybe controlling desktop settings and installing software. You could look at WSUS and SCE and trying to package with Wise and deploying with Group Policy (yuck!), or scale up (and more costly) to System Center Configuration Manager + WSUS. OR... You could sign up for (hypothetically now, don't freak out on me...) subscribe to a service by Microsoft that bundles Software Assurance (subscription upgrades) with MDOP and maybe a System Center Live Essentials service, and use App-V to package your apps and deploy them that way.

Just hypothetical of course. The current versions of these products would need some adjustments to fit into a small business environment, but it's entirely possible.

So you'd have to options: For enterprise customers, you'd still have the A La Carte choices, and for the smaller customers they could buy into the toaster-oven concept. A simple to implement and easy to administer service without the need to buy hardware or maintain the management app itself (ever spent hours troubleshooting SMS issues? not very fun). I have no inside information on any of this, so this is all speculation on my part alone. I could see it though.

Thinstall/ThinApp, SoftGrid MS AppVirt, etc

Why does anyone still "package" software? I'm really struggling to understand this. After getting dunked headfirst into SoftGrid, and then diving (on my own) into Thinstall, I changed jobs and am back into the world of software packaging and deployment. The new place relies on Altiris as their management platform. We also use Wise for packaging. Physical reference clients. Ugh. It's a paycheck and I really need it so I have to dive in and make it to the other side. Sinking is not an option for me right now.

But I can't see how anyone would still choose MSI/MSP/MST packaging and repackaging over sequencing once they've given it a real thorough try. Does Application Virtualization (AV) solve all problems? No. Nothing does. But it solves many more problems than it creates or promulgates. The biggest problem is solves is time. It's just quicker on average to sequence *most* applications than to repackage them. And the process of local encapsulation solves huge numbers of problems as well.

Everytime I hear a package engineer complain about pushing out yet another JRE or .NET update I roll my eyes upward and think "why not SoftGrid/Thinstall?" but for many environments there's just no real opportunity to get such an idea off the ground without MAJOR effort and buy-in.

One of the biggest obstacles comes from the vendors themselves. Microsoft shot themself in the foot by tying SoftGrid to MDOP and Software Assurance (desktop only). VMware didn't really do anything overt to hinder Thinstall but they sure haven't been vigorously marketing it either. Sort of "oh yeah, it's another goody we have" and off they go skipping down the path to marketville. Vigorous marketing is not only a good idea, it's downright MANDATORY in this economy. I'm shocked to see how many companies are languishing in lackluster figures while never really putting muscle into their marketing efforts. VMware is putting everything into their hypervisor and infrastructure failover/redundancy products. The desktop (even VDI) is getting second class treatment. Microsoft is doing the same with Hyper-V and SCVMM over SoftGrid. If either of them would just drop their gloves and GIVE it away (or make it stupidly cheap) our world would be much better off. Progress is just too slow to happen sometimes.

Mystery of Mysteries Revealed: Software Assurance

I just returned from a week-long training session out in building 25 on the Microsoft campus, in Redmond, Washington. The course was all about the forthcoming Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, or "MDOP", product suite. It will be available only to customers who have purchased Software Assurance (or "SA") on their desktop computers. MDOP includes five (5) main products, all of which were acquired by Microsoft over the past two years.

• SoftGrid - Microsoft acquired the company Softricity in order to get their hands on their renown application virtualization technology. The current version (4.1 on server, 4.2 on clients) has only been slightly modified from before the acquisition. 4.5 is in beta and set for a release in Q3/08 under the new name of "Microsoft Application Virtualization" and will have some notable enhancements.
  ...
• Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) - Microsoft acquired this from the purchase of it's developer "Desktop Standard". Not much has been been enhanced or modified from before it was acquired by Microsoft.
  ...
• Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) - Acquired along with the purchase of Sysinternals/Winternals, formerly called Winternals' ERD commander. It also includes parts of Sysinternals various utilities and some notable enhancements for Vista.
  ...
• Asset Inventory Services (AIS) - Acquired from Assetmetrix and bundled into Systems Management Server 2003 Service Pack 3, as well as making available within MDOP as "AIS" will be instead an entirely hosted solution.
  ...
• Desktop Error Monitoring (DEM) - Replaces the aging and defunct "Corporate Error Reporting" product for collecting, reporting and forwarding internally generated desktop errors, failures, faults, crashes, etc. DEM is instead built from a subset of System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007.

But the most peculiar thing I found during this training course wasn't related to any of these technologies. All of which are very good in their own rite. But rather, it was when I asked about SA. I got the same response I get from every sales person, technical engineer, and account manager: "Well, it's sort of subscription with some other goodies, but I don't know exactly".

Say what?!

That's what gets me. The single most important, vital, profitable venture Microsoft has underway is obviously one of the most under-communicated, misunderstood, and poorly explained services they have.

Go ahead. I dare you. Ask anyone around you to list five things you get for purchasing SA on desktops. I've asked people from all kinds of environments, countries, companies, you name it. Most can rattle off two or three at most. I could only list three. Here's what I've managed to cull from various Microsoft and partner web sites...

• Vouchers for Training Courses
• Vouchers for Partner Consulting Services
• Vouchers for 24x7 Technical Support
• Allows Conversion of Vouchers (training to consulting, to support, vice versa)
• E-Learning Vouchers
• Employee Purchase Discounts
• Home Use Program
• MDOP for $10/client more (15% discount on Enterprise coverage):
• Operating System Upgrades (XP to Vista)

Damn! If I were to pass along what many of the sales managers have told me, I would have said "You get upgrades and some support and some other stuff". Wow. That would really sell it to someone. Not. Seems to me that Microsoft needs to (A) simplify what SA "is" and what it gets you, and (B) communicate and educate their partners to better understand it enough to sell it effectively. Holy shit! That sounds like common sense sales and marketing to me.

Selling Software Assurance based on two or three of these key features would be abysmal. I wouldn't want to earn commission upon that horrible thought. I'd starve to death. As soon as you mention "upgrades" as a feature benefit, most customers will immediately shove you out the door and slam it behind you. All the while laughing hysterically. In my (humblest) opinion, Microsoft needs to bundle more than MDOP into SA to make it really attractive. Even as nice as MDOP is (and it is very nice), it's not going to sell itself.

Microsoft's partners will be putting in a lot of face time to get these points across, and hope, fingers' crossed, that customers are receptive and willing to stroke the check. It's a tough sell even so. I realize that much of the reason they have to tread lightly is due to their dealings with DOJ and the EU and their penchant for biting at Microsoft's ankles when they try to knock on doors.

I'm a Systems Engineer and I feel like I know it better than the people who are supposed to be selling to customers.