Innovative Technology Weblog

Hi i’m Douwe van de Ruit, a new blogger at buit.org and right now i have some nice things to share about the upcoming System Center Configuration Manager.next. Microsoft released Beta 1 last Tuesday so i downloaded it from the Microsoft connect site and kicked it in a virtual testlab to dig through the new features and changes. I will show some new features from which i have great expectations. I will stick to the headlines only because covering all newly or changed features will be to much for a blogpost.

While installing SCCM.next i found out that the procedure was very similar to the way SCCM 2007 is installed. But when i started the Admin console i finally saw the “Outlook-styled” console for SCCM that is inline with consoles used for OpsMgr and VmMgr!

A good example of “do more with less” will be client settings, all settings are simplified by consolidating them in just one, simple and faste editable setting-interface:

So the interfacelifted GUI is a big change included in SCCM.next. But what about functionality and features? Well, Googling on vNext will return 3 main focus areas where Microsoft would deliver changed functionalities:

1. User centric application management  – Empowering Administrators to define intent, and end users flexible access to the right application at the right time
2. Infrastructure simplification – Simplify management infrastructure, processes and administrative overhead
3. Simplify Client Management – Daily tasks, model based configuration management and improvements over existing capabilities

User centric comes with so called user device affinity rules as you like, which can be used to define user’s devices and priorize them in a way that some deployments can depend on these affinity rules. Additionally, it will allow admins to create definitions of the relationship between the users and their applications in a way that the admins don’t have to worry about where that user is and what device it’s using .  They can trust the system that the user will have the right application at the right time in the right place suitable for the device they are on. Just a screenshot that relates to the user centric management functionality:

Just looking at the interface already shows that all administrative tasks just got easier and smarter and will achieve better overall performance in using ConfigMgr for all tasks. Infrastructure and Client Management simplifications will take more investigation to find out significant improvements as opposed to SCCM 2007. However, i do know that distribution points in SCCM.next will support scheduling and throttling. Imagining a branch office with a considerable amount of clients, you normally would create a secondary site if there was a concern about content distribution bandwidth consumption during office hours. With SCCM.next now you’re not bound to secondary sites because you can use distribution points with scheduling and throttling capabilities using the newly added ”Rate Limits” tab in distribution point settings.

By simplified client management Microsoft introduces the “Custom Client Setting”. With this feature you can create custom client agent settings which you can apply to collections containing devices, users or both. On top of the custom client settings you will still be able to configure the top-level client agent settings. The need for an extra Primary site will become unneccesary if the only reason would be driven out of other Client settings. Very nice.

To summarize some more new stuff i (quickly) found:

• added distribution groups for administrative purpose
• SCCM.next is 64 bit only
• SQL 2008 required
• added more than 300 extra SQL tables in the site database
• changed the term “Advertisements” into “Deployments”
• added Global Conditions settings which can be used to divide device types based on various parameters
• SQL Reporting service replaces standard reporting
• the “inboxes” system is still in use (and not transformed into SQL based communication as introduced before as a “wanna have”)
• “Create Report” function crashes in my test lab
• Help function returns white pixels
• SCCM 2007 DCM and Assett Intelligence nodes are integrated into a “Assets and Compliance” tab
• New System roles: Software Catalog Web Service Point, Software Catalog Web Site Point, Mobile device enrollment proxy point, Mobile device enrollment point

Nice stuff so far :-)

Recently I noticed a change in remote support through Microsoft Windows. This is a feature I use a lot when helping family with their issues. Now I have an issue. I cannot get through anymore. Somehow remote support is blocked. I noticed a change. Before, the receiving party had to enter a session password. Now, a 12 digit security code is presented which the helping party needs to enter flawless. I have tried is at least three times with totally different machines and at differert times. Every time a connection was not established.

This time, I did not have endless time to troubleshoot. So I decided to make a quick escape through an internet service. I found TeamViewer 5 to be an easy to use replacable. For home use it’s free. It uses two simple codes to identify the session. For now, I stick with this. Because there is nothing more frustrating for a helpdesk like me than not seeing what happens on the other side, I guess…

Last Tuesday at the Microsoft Tech•Ed Europe 2009 conference in Germany, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop announced that Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is now available worldwide to help businesses reduce costs, protect communications and delight e-mail users. Along with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange Server 2010 is part of a generation of solutions designed for increased business productivity and cost savings.

 In today’s challenging economic environment, innovative use of new information technologies can result in improved operational efficiency and reduced costs. The combination of cost savings coupled with improved productivity and innovation is defined as “the New Efficiency.”

 Elop also announced the release of Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, which helps Exchange Server customers further safeguard business information.

 “Exchange Server 2010 customers are already reporting cost savings of up to 70 percent thanks to a simplified high-availability model and support for lower-cost storage. Customers are also seeing productivity gains of more than 20 percent with a universal inbox that delivers e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging and text messaging consistently across virtually any device,” Elop said. “Together with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the combined cost savings and improved productivity helps customers generate long-term business success.”

 According to a commissioned study of technology early adopters conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft Corp., a customer can see a payback period of less than six months when upgrading to either Exchange Server 2010* or Windows Server 2008 R2.**

 Customers such as Bank of America Corp., Carnival Cruise Line, Global Crossing, Lifetime Products, Morgan Keegan & Co. Inc., NEC Philips, Subaru Canada Inc. and Telekom Austria Group are deploying Exchange Server 2010 and report impressive results with the new server.

 “We have increased storage eightfold at 25 percent of the cost with Exchange Server 2010 and our employees are seeing a reduction of unwanted e-mail by more than 70 percent, freeing us up to focus on more important client issues,” said Steve Derbyshire, operations director, NEC Philips.

 Organizations including Automatic Data Processing Inc., BMW, Baker Tilly, the City of Miami, Energizer, Getronics and Pella Corp. are deploying Windows 7 and report gains in efficiency for both business users and IT. Customers report improved user productivity and easier information access, reduced costs with streamlined management, and reduced risk through better security and increased desktop control. Supporting detail is available in recent total cost of ownership studies and analyst survey reports at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/windows-7/default.aspx.

 Businesses are seeing equally significant results from Windows Server 2008 R2, with customers including Continental Airlines Inc. (U.S.), Chester Zoo (U.K.), Combell Group NV (Belgium), FinPro (Finland), Wacom Europe GmbH (Germany) and Wortell (Netherlands) noting cost savings through server consolidation, reduced power consumption and improved service levels.

 “With Windows Server 2008 R2, we’ve been able to dramatically reduce costs in our IT infrastructure while simplifying management,” said Phil Morris, IT manager, North England Zoological Society/Chester Zoo. “By virtualizing our environment with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, we have reduced the number of servers in our environment by 80 percent while maintaining the high availability our retail staff, researchers and management team need.”

 “Windows Server 2008 R2 brings many efficiencies to our customers, including enabling new virtualization scenarios,” said Bill Laing, corporate vice president for the Windows Server and Solutions Division at Microsoft. “We’ve added the next generation of hypervisor and the new ability to perform Live Migration of virtual machines. Many customers are already seeing tangible results since deploying Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V.”

 Elop said more than 45,000 partners are trained on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010, with several partners announcing new services and solutions today, including Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Avanade, Dell Inc., EMC Corp., Kaspersky Lab, Symantec Corp. and Unisys Corp.

 Exchange Server 2010 and Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange are available now for trial at http://www.thenewefficiency.com, along with more information about Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and partner solutions.

Howto deploy a Federated Search Connector in Windows 7

Yesterday we had a kickoff for an Early Adopter Windows 7 Community @ Microsoft in the Netherlands.
One of the presentations was about Federated Search and how this nice option will make our work much easier.

Some people were wondering howto deploy a Federated Search Connector in an Enterprise Environment, but nobody seems to know the answer. Reason for me to find out how to do this.

As for most solutions, it is not the only or the best solution, but because I like Group Policy Preferences (GPP) so much I developed a way to deploy a search connector using GPP.

In this example I will deploy the Youtube connector.
(Look for more connectors on : http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/742-windows-7-search-federation-providers.html)

On an admin PC just doubleclick on the downloade file, this will install the Search Connector on your PC, in fact it will install it in your user profile.

Now we need 2 files from your profile, first look up C:\USERS\<YOUR USERNAME>\LINKS\YOUTUBE.LNK
Before you copy this file right click it, choose properties and change the targetlocation to : C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Searches\Youtube.searchConnector-ms

Now copy this file to for example your NETLOGON share.

After that copy the file C:\USERS\<YOUR USERNAME>\SEARCHES\Youtube.searchConnector-ms to the NETLOGON share.

We’ve got the files that we need to deploy it to our users.

Logon to your domain controller (or the machine that you use to manage Group Policy) and open the Group Policy Management Console.
N.B. To manage Group Policy Preferences you need a Windows Server 2008 (R2), Windows Vista or Windows 7 machine.

Open your User policy and expand the User Configuration node.
Now go to Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Files.

Add these 2 files :

If you close the file screens, the preference screen will look like this (except for my domain name )

Now the only thing you have to do is wait until the user policy is refreshed ( a user does not have to take any action and will see the search provider automaticly)
And if you cant wait, just use the good old GPUPDATE.

Thats it for now, please enjoy.

Regards,

Erik

I noticed that is currently is impossible or at least difficult to apply Disk Quota’s based on Security Groups instead on Folder location / users. In this article I will try to explain a solution for this problem.

To successfully apply quota’s to groups, you need the following things:

• Windows 2008 Domain Controllers for Group Policy Preferences
• File Server Resource Manager (available on Windows Server 2003 R2 and Server 2008)
• A single file server
• Security Groups
• Vb Scripts

• Event triggered tasks

In this situation, there are 3 quota templates defined in the File Server Resource Manager:

• Bronze (100 MB), applied to the share \\SERVER1\HOME$\BRONZE
• Silver (200 MB), applied to the share \\SERVER1\HOME$\SILVER
• Gold (500 MB), applied to the share \\SERVER1\HOME$\GOLD

Ok here we go! This how-to is pretty straight forward, so if I am going to fast plz let me know!

1: Create the required QUOTA templates in FSRM (BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD)

2: Create a HOME$ share on a fileserver (in this example SERVER1)

3: For every QUOTA template, create a separate subfolder with the Quota name (BRONZE, SILVER and GOLD).

4: Apply the QUOTA templates on the in step 3 created folders (BRONZE -> BRONZE. SILVER -> SILVER etc)

5: Create three security Groups (in this example BRONZE, SILVER and GOLD)

6: Create a folder redirection policy for Desktop and Documents and configure it as show in the pictures below:

(pictures only show the BRONZE part, also add the SILVER and GOLD Groups\locations)