Ronni Pedersen's deployment ramblings

Registration for the Microsoft Management Summit 2011 is now open!

Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2011 will empower you with the insight, solutions and networking opportunities to succeed in your job today while preparing for the future. MMS is the premier event of the year for deep technical information and training on the latest IT management solutions from Microsoft, Partners, and Industry Experts. Reserve your place at Microsoft Management Summit 2011.

Register here: http://www.mms-2011.com/

Unfortunately I was unable to attend last year  as a result of travel complications from the volcanic ash cloud, so I’m really looking forward to see you all in Las Vegas.

Call for Session topics is now public. If you ever wanted to present at MMS here is your chance! There is no telling what might be selected or not so make your topic interesting that could fill a room. Maybe it is an introduction to a topic or a deep dive. Everything is needed. “Real World” experiences are the greatest draws because the audience can relate to you.

If you are selected then you will receive the following accommodations:

Free speaker registration for the event
4 nights’ hotel accommodation during the event
Access to the on-site speaker lounge at the event
An opportunity to take Speaker Training on-site with top professional speaker coach Richard Klees

Content Goals
We are seeking session topics from Industry speakers which cover:

Real-world experience in the Windows management space
Best practices developed through actual deployments
Tips and tricks developed from real life experience

Session Format & Content
All Session slots will be 75 minutes, and should be pitched at a 300-400 (technical to deep technical) level for this audience. Live demonstrations are strongly encouraged.

The “Call for Sessions” entry page is located here https://www.mms-2011.com/CFT
The closing date for topic proposals from all speakers is midnight PST on November 24th 2010.

If you have a colleague or Industry contact who is interested in speaking at the event, please ask them to send email to mmsqs@microsoft.com. They will be sent a New Industry Speaker Access Code.

You can register for the event and if you are selected to be a speaker there is a process by which you can go through to receive a refund of your registration fee.

Yesterday at the Microsoft Management Summit, Brad Anderson announced during his keynote the release of ConfigMgr07 R3 Beta. Power management is at the core of the R3 release, it addresses the need that many organizations have to monitor and reduce the power consumption of their computers. ConfigMgr07 R3 Power Management leverages the power management features built into Windows to apply relevant and consistent settings to computers in the organization. There are three major components to power management in ConfigMgr07 R3:

1. Monitoring and Planning: Power Management collects information about computer usage and power settings for computers in the origination. Reports are provided to allow the administrator to analyze this data and determine optimal power management settings for computers.

2. Enforcement: Power management allows the administrator to create power plans which can be applied to collections of computers. These power plans configure Windows power management settings on computers, and different power plans can be configured for peak and non-peak working hours.

3. Compliance: After applying power plans to computers in the organization, the administrator can run reports to validate that power settings were correctly applied and to calculate power and carbon footprint savings across collections of computers.

In addition to power management, ConfigMgr07 R3 will provide customers with enhanced scale and performance support (scale to 300K managed clients per hierarchy, delta AD discovery, dynamic collection updates), as well as enablement of further capabilities for operating system deployment. A full list of the R3 features can be found on Microsoft Connect at the “What’s new in R3” post.

Navigate to Microsoft Connect today and download the ConfigMgr07 R3 Beta.

Download: https://connect.microsoft.com/site16

Friday I’m leaving for "Microsoft Management Summit 2010" in Las Vegas. The greatest Management event in the world for IT Pro’s. This time my main focus will be on Configuration Manager v.Next, Data Protection Manager 2010, Service Manager 2010 and MDT 2010 Update 1.

One of the great things about MMS is opportunity to meet with colleagues, customers, partners, fellow MVP’s and friends. If you want to have a chat, coffee or a beer during the event just give me a call +45 2085 9452 and I’ll arrange something.

So expect either blog silence or multiple blog posts about my week in Las Vegas. Either way I will enjoy the week.

From today, Monday April 5th, the Schedule Builder tool on the MMS 2010 Communications Network (CommNet)  allows each attendee to reserve a place in up to six Instructor-led Lab sessions. This limit was previously three reservations per attendee.

As attendees from previous years may remember, the Instructor Led Hands-on Labs (ILLs) at MMS are very popular and as space is limited many lab sessions will be fully booked well before the event opens.  This is especially true for the lab topics hosted on the opening day – Monday April 19th.

http://www.mms-2010.com/public/Headlines.aspx

Source: http://twitter.com/mmsteam

Today MMS begins… "State of the Union" is THE session, and MMS doesn’t start until this session…

My schedule for Tuesday was the following:

• 08:30 – 10:00 Opening Keynote
• 10:15 – 11.30 System Center Configuration Manager: "State of the Union"
• 11:45 – 13:00 How Microsoft IT Uses OSD for Deploying Windows 7
• 14:15 – 15:30 Easing the pain: Techniques for managing drivers with SCCM and MDT
• 16:00 – 17:15 Configuration Manager Hardware Inventory Customization
• 17:30 – 19:00 Configuration Manager MVP Reception
• 19:00 – 21:00 The myITforum.com Party

Opening Keynote
The opening keynote was like always a great "show" including a few announcements. The Keynote was presented by Corporate Vice President Bob Kelly and he talked a lot about Datacenter Management and "Cloud Computing". Something that we will hear a lot about in the coming years. He also talked about the importance of Dynamic IT, something Microsoft has talked about for last 4 or 5 years.
With Windows Server 2008 R2 almost being ready to be released, Microsoft Hyper-V 2.0 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 is something everyone talks about. Edwin showed some really cool demos on the integration between Hyper-V, SCVMM and SCOM 2007 R2. There is no doubt that Microsoft will win some key customers that uses VMware today, with these upcoming releases.

System Center Configuration Manager: "State of the Union"
Bill and Josh on stage together is just awesome. Nothing at MMS beats this session…
One of the main reasons many people wants to see this session every year, is that we always get a sneak peak on what will happen in v.next and what great features they plan to add. This year was no exception.
They showed a great live demo on real code of ConfigMgr v.next. I don’t want to go through all the new features in this post, but I’ll promise to blog about most of the features when I get back to Europe.
The most important information right now, that might help you prepare for this upcoming release is the system requirements. All site roles requires 64-bit Windows. The only exception is the Standard DP that will run on Windows Server 2003 32-bit as well.

How Microsoft IT Uses OSD for Deploying Windows 7
Windows 7 is everywhere, and many of our customers is already asking about when we expect that they’ll be able to deploy Windows 7 using ConfigMgr, so I went to this session to hear something about what Microsoft IT has learned during the beta.
This session was awesome… The main speaker was Chris Adams, and I’ve never heard this guy do a talk before. He is truly a great speaker… This session is one of the best sessions I’ve ever seen (I’m not sure it’ll be as fun, if you could only hear him. Watching him on stage was amazing).
Microsoft’s users required significant enhancement of the OSD end-user interface, driver management, and USMT. These tools and "add-ons" was developed for internal use only, but they will all be shared on his blog within a week or so… Check it out at http://blogs.technet.com/osd.

Easing the pain: Techniques for managing drivers with SCCM and MDT
Managing drivers is always a pain, and there’s no perfect solution today to this problem. Michael Niehaus walked through different ways of managing drivers in WDS, MDT and ConfigMgr. As many of you already know I’m a "control freak", so this session will not change the way I manage drivers, but he showed some pretty cool PowerShell stuff that gave me some ideas to work with (yet another reason to get started with PowerShell J).

Configuration Manager Hardware Inventory Customization
My last session today was about hardware inventory customization. This session was presented by a friend and fellow MVP Sherry Kissinger. This was Sherry’s first talk a MMS, and she did a great job. She showed how to customize the information reported ConfigMgr clients to increase the scalability and relevance of data reported by Hardware Inventory. Most of this session was live demo, and she showed how to modify the files used to enable or disable inventory items step by step. Great Session!
If you want to read more about Sherry’s inventory optimization, don’t forget to visit her blog:
http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/skissinger/

Configuration Manager MVP Reception
It’s not easy to get time to talk to everyone during the conference, so the ConfigMgr MVP Reception was a great opportunity to get to talk to some of the other MVP’s and the product team.

The myITforum Party
I was really looking forward to this party, but I got hit by jetlag, so unfortunately I had to leave early.
I was completely wasted…

This year, the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) has a 10th year anniversary, and like last year this great event is located at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. The first day at a conference is always very special. You can fell the excitement in the air from the attendees, Microsoft employees and the guest speakers that’s just can’t wait to get started.

My schedule for the first day was the following:

• 10:30 – 11.45 Introduction to Windows PowerShell for Absolute Beginners
• 12:00 – 13:15 Windows 7 Deployment: Introduction to Microsoft Deployment Tools
• 13:30 – 14:45 SQL Performance Tips for SMS and ConfigMgr Reporting Gurus
• 15:00 – 16:15 Roadmap and Introduction to Windows 7 for Enterprise Customers
• 16:30 – 17:45 Windows 7 Networking Overview
• 17:45 – 18:45 Welcome Reception
• 19:00 – 22.00 The Danish Welcome Reception

Introduction to Windows PowerShell for Absolute Beginners
I don’t have much experience using PowerShell, but I think it’s clear to everyone, that PowerShell will be around for a while, so I thought that I might as well get started.
This session was a hands-on Lab that gave the basic knowledge on how to perform simple tasks IT management tasks, but more important it gave me a solid foundation to learn advanced PowerShell topics.
The speaker in this session was James McCaffrey, and I think he did an awesome job making this scripting lab both funny and exciting. This hands-on lab runs several times during this week, so if you have the time, and want to get started with PowerShell, this is the lab you don’t want to miss.

Windows 7 Deployment: Introduction to Microsoft Deployment Tools
With Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 coming, Microsoft is also releasing a new version of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT 2010). This lab was a basic introduction to the updated Deployment Workbench. If you’ve previously worked with MDT LiteTouch scenarios, you might find this session a bit boring. The Speaker/Instructor was Jeremy Chapman, and I thing he did a great job.

SQL Performance Tips for SMS and ConfigMgr Reporting Gurus
This session was at a very high technical level, and was presented by ConfigMgr MVPs Brian Mason and Steve Thompson, that showed how speed up SQL Queries and Web reports. They also shared how they would and would not configure the ConfigMgr SQL Server. Great session, with some nice demos.

Roadmap and Introduction to Windows 7 for Enterprise Customers
This session was a basic "what’s new" session, on Windows 7, but with a high technical level. We got some great info on the Windows client roadmap and what will be changed in fundamentals and deployment. There was some nice demos I can use for inspiration for our upcoming event later in May, where I get to speak about Windows 7 on the Keynote.

I think Jeremy Chapman, did a good job pointing out some of the main reasons to upgrade to Windows 7 when you’re an administrator. But I think that he covered too many subjects. You can’t make a techical session in 75 mins. that covers all the new features in Windows 7.

Windows 7 Networking Overview
This session was dedicated to two subjects. DirectAccess and BranchCache. To me there’s no doubt. DirectAccess is THE feature in Windows 7, that everyone wants to implement frist if they could. DirectAccess enables the Information Worker to work anywhere as long as they have access to the Internet. This feature is really hard to demo in a "TechSexy" way, but I’m sure that everyone in the room was convinced that this feature will solve many problem, that most of us are facing today.

The Welcome Reception, was… hmm…. Well, we got free beers and free food (And my badge for the myITforum.com party). What else can you ask for

The Danish Welcome Reception is always something I look forward to. This is a great opportunity to meet with costumers and "colleagues" from other Danish consulting companies. This year was no exception, but there is no doubt that the global economy has reached MMS as well… This year there in less than 90 Danish attendees compared with more than 200 last year.

This completes my first day at MMS, and I’m really looking forward to the rest of the week here in Las Vegas.

Saturday I’m leaving for the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) in Las Vegas. This is one of the biggest Management events in world for for IT Pro’s. This year my main focus will be on Configuration Manager 2007, Microsoft Deployment (MDT 2010) and Windows 7 Deployment. Hopefully I’ll also get time to see some of the great sessions about Microsoft Hyper-V 2.0 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

One of the great things about MMS is opportunity to meet with colleagues, customers, partners, fellow MVP’s and friends. If you want to have a chat, coffee or a beer during the event just give me a call +45 2085 9452 and I’ll arrange something.

So expect either blog silence or multiple blog posts about my week in Las Vegas. Either way I will enjoy the week…