[TechCrunch] SPICEWORKS the new Facebook for IT Pros?

via TechCrunch

Spiceworks, a startup that develops Web-connected social IT management software, has raised $16 million in Series C funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners with Austin Ventures and Shasta Venturesparticipating. This brings the startup’s total funding to $29 million.

Spiceworks develops a desktop software suite that helps a company’s IT staff collaborate with each other and manage “everything IT.” The IT management software, which is free and ad-supported, is currently being used by 850,000 IT professionals at small to medium businesses in 196 countries to inventory, monitor, troubleshoot, report on and run a help desk for their IT networks. Currently more than 25 percent of all businesses with greater than 100 employees rely on Spiceworks to manage part of their IT operations.

The compelling part of Spicework’s software is that it includes a social network for IT pros that they use to help each other out that includes a crowdsourcing troubleshooting platform. Its product roadmap is visible to all members, who can vote on which features they want to see next. The application features a network map that visually shows every computer and network device on a company’s IT network, along with their relationships and bandwidth consumption.

Spiceworks also recently added a host of plug-ins and social media widgets, letting users keep track track of alerts, tickets, new software, and new hardware, as well as inventory summaries. Spiceworks also lets users add themes and skins to the desktop, create customized user portals, and lets users drop in news widgets from RSS feeds and social networking widgets for Twitter, Digg, Facebook, and MySpace

Spiceworks gives its software away for free, and makes money from advertising and in-app purchases of IT products and services.

[SOA World] is your App Infrastructure based on a the Postal Service’s Model?

This is a thought-provoking article from LORI MACVITTIE on SOAWorld Magazine that poses an interesting point-of-view:

…the US postal service doesn’t determine whether postage may be due or not until the package arrives at its destination. If the addressee isn’t willing/able to pay that postage due, the package is of course returned via the delivery service, which incurs round-trip costs of transportation and handling at every point along the way.

If this sounds anything like your application infrastructure architecture, then you might want to reconsider how you’re handling the delivery of applications and where you’re applying policies that may affect the delivery process.

There are tons of inefficiencies in every IT organization (not yours, of course!) but what this article sparks in the mind is that sometimes, it’s necessary to examine the whole structure – end-to-end, and to work toward a design in your vision, especially in the most taxing of areas: application delivery.

Too often, apps live in a vacuum in terms of how they are supported and connected on the back-end, but live together in the minds of their users. We do stuff to data before considering workflow: as MacVitte points out –

Why apply compression to data on the application server when that data may need to be examined by other components in the architecture on the way back to the user and may, in fact, degrade performance rather than improve it? Why not apply compression at the last point possible; at the strategic control point that sits between your infrastructure and the “rest of the world”, i.e. the user and their network. Why are requests not examined at the first possible strategic point of control for validity? Why allow what is potentially a dangerous and malicious request pass through the infrastructure so it can be processed by every component in the architecture and potentially wreak havoc throughout the data center? Why not examine the request at the first possible point and accept or reject it before the costs associated with that processing and the risks are incurred by the organization?

Completely engaging read, and worth passing around at that next Steering Committee meeting.

Nice list of Win-7 resources

One of our colleagues sent us a highly bookmarkable list of Win7 resources that’s definitely worth checking out. There’s great stuff on Deployment, USMT 4.0, etc.

http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2009/12/08/windows-7-useful-links.aspx

Let us know of any others –

SCCM SP2 R2 – it must of have been the Turkey

It must have been “feast induced drowsiness” that cause me to miss this.  Had to be.

I was trolling for technology webcasts and found one from thanksgiving week (2009) for SCCM – Technical Overview: System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 and R3 (Level 200) that among other things covers these gems:

Improved Client Policy Evaluation in SP2

• Faster policy processing
• Before SP2, policy download was queued locally for 2 minutes before processing
• This 2 minute delay has been removed in Service Pack 2
• More efficient software distribution configured to run at user logon
• Before SP2, user policy requests were not downloaded for 10 minutes after user logon event
• This caused a delay in User/Group targeted advertisements
• A common scenario is an App-V distribution environment where User or Security Group targeting is used
• This 10 minute delay has been removed in Service Pack 2
• User or Security Group targeted advertisements are instantly available after user logon in Service Pack 2

Can I get an AMEN?  Someone at Microsoft needs to be on the tower shouting this out to the masses.  Since Redmond is not, I will!  Albeit, my tower is a bit smaller but none the less I’M SHOUTING!!!

I can’t tell you how many MDOP POC’s I’ve done where the client wants to use SCCM to deliver App-V packages but has already seen the almost immediate delivery of App-V Management Server App-V packages and wanted to know why SCCM can’t do that.  It can now.  Just about fills my holiday wish list.  Well, there is the hope of bringing back Zero Touch for App-V self provisioning of pre-approved App-V applications and the ability to make request to a manager for apps the user needs but doesn’t have.  I can wait.

One of the other items that sort of sticks out is this one –

SMS 2003, time to migrate

• Mainstream Support ends Jan 2010
  What does that mean?
• No-charge Problem Resolution Support ends
• We no longer accept product design change requests (DCRs) or provide new feature functionality
• We no longer provide new non-security hotfixes without enrollment in Extended Hotfix Support

Sort of?  You know how not so good financial and political news is made available to the public at 3 pm on a Friday?  That’s what this feels like to all the folks that got their SMS 2003 environments up and running and had to do so from how to we say this, a not so well tuned previous SMS product of whose vintage will not be named here.  While you were enjoying your “feast induced drowsiness” you get this update about end of support for SMS 2003.  I hope you’re awake now.

In preparation for SCCM you might entertain propping a parallel Windows 2008 Server to then install SCCM SP2 R2 into for a migration instead of an upgrade to SMS.  This is one of our preferred method at CompuCom.  Taking a deployment approach by department you can remove the older SMS clients and seed by ‘collections of computers’ from SCCM that receive the new SCCM client thereby keeping SMS 2003 up while the migration is in progress until the last device has been migrated.

Plan now folks – before you make that SMS 2003 support call and are asked where to bill the call to.

Test Office 2010 beta without installing it!

Ya, right.  Part of my proof of concept work aside from MDOP delivery, SCCM/MDT and desktop I/O is to demo up and coming products like Office 2010.  A lot of our clients want to know how well it works with Vista and Windows 7 and what kind of interaction it might have with their installed apps – that whole regression testing thing.  We suggest you virtualize it with Microsoft’s App-V for application virtualization and stream it for local use.  Or in my case as an often disconnected road warrior I installed the App-V 4.6 beta client on my Win 7 64 Ultimate laptop in stand alone mode and utilize the App-V MSI option for the package to be cached and run locally without a server to stream it the first time.

For a detailed write up on the App-V Stand Alone Mode, the overview, prerequisites, installation and configuration check out http://www.app-v.in.

When the App-V client is installed in stand alone mode it doesn’t know about App-V Management Servers, Active Directory, SQL databases or SCCM – yet all of the goodness of App-V caching and launching with the benefit of protecting the registry, file system and overall system health is all put into play.  You can test Office 2010 beta without having to actually install it and if your desktop/laptop/thin client/VDI/MED-V/Terminal Service/Citrix client system already has Office 2007 you can run both from the same system – one locally installed and the other virtualized with App-V.

For more info on the integration of App-V 4.6 beta and Office 2010 beta check out the App-V Team Blog.  If your enterprise has a Microsoft EA agreement with SA on the desktop we’d enjoy the opportunity to partner with you on an MDOP engagement with possible funding from Microsoft with credits that you might already have.  Great time to put Office 2010 through its paces – and in a way that makes best use of in place systems for testing.  Subtle sustainability blurb there – another way IT can do it’s part.

Bring back Zero Touch (SoftGrid/App-V)

Microsoft – why did you kill the radio star?  The application virtualization product formerly known as SoftGrid prior to Microsoft’s purchase had a fledgling web based self-service application provisioning tool called Zero Touch.  Sure, it sounds like the image deployment methodology from Microsoft called “zero touch” but why kill it?  Re-brand it and offer it – nothing new there.  That’s pretty common MS practice.  MED-V is still blush with Kidaro brand colors and its former artwork.

Once logged in to SoftGrid’s Zero Touch you could provision your own apps or make request to your manager or an approver for anything not approved.

In the absence of a Microsoft offering Virtual World blog (which is Microsoft – hmmm) is reporting that Immido AppScriber 2.0 is now available.

Eerily odd the feature list looks like a close cousin to Zero Touch.  In the absence of their own product once again Microsoft will be playing catch-up if they ever decide this market is worth the entry.  And why wouldn’t it – making it easier for folks to get their apps without making a call to the helpdesk or opening a ticket for something that if you’re already approved for kind of makes sense.

We get asked often at CompuCom if Microsoft has a virtual app self provisioning tool.  We tear up and remember when . . . welcome AppScriber.

New Microsoft Partner Competencies & Requirements

If you were at any of the Microsoft partner events in the last couple of years,  you would know that  Microsoft has been in the process of revamping the Microsoft Partner Program and its ecosystem.  The changes officially started this past July when they renamed the Microsoft Partner Program to Microsoft Partner Network (MPN), partly in line with their effort to reflect and re-emphasize their reliance on the partner network.   They also announced the new partner program requirements, and the revision of the competencies sets.

As far as the requirements, Microsoft is asking that in order to maintain the competency status current:

• Be an active member of the Microsoft Partner Network;
• Meet the appropriate individual or software certification requirements per competency;
• Meet the minimum sales bar as appropriate; and
• Submit at least 3 customer references of recent (12-months) completed work performed per competency

For the new competency rollout and the mapping to the old ones, as of this writing,  only 3 out of the 29 competencies announced  have been rolled out.  Desktop Platform, Virtualization,  Server Management and Systems Management.

The complete list (along with estimated launch dates)  follows:

New Solution Competency	Formerly known as	Launch date
Application Integration	SOA and Business Process	Mid-2010
Application Lifecycle Management	not applicable (n/a)	Mid-2010
Authorized Distributor	n/a	Mid-2010
Business Intelligence	Business Intelligence Platform, Performance Management, Data Visualization	Mid-2010
Content Management	Enterprise Content Management and Forms	Mid-2010
Customer Relationship Management	Microsoft Dynamics CRM	Mid-2010
Data Platform	Data Management	Mid-2010
Desktop Platform	Windows Desktop Deployment, Office Deployment	Oct 2009 – DesktopMid-2010 – Office
Digital home	n/a	Mid-2010
Enterprise Resource Planning	Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics C5, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics POS, Microsoft Dynamics SL	Mid-2010
Hosting Platform		Mid-2010
Identity Security	Identity and Secure Access, Infrastructure Security	Mid-2010
ISV/Software	ISV/ Software	Mid-2010
Learning	Learning	Mid-2010
Medium Business Solution Provider	Networking Infrastructure	Mid-2010
Mobility	Mobility	Mid-2010
OEM Hardware	Device manufacturing, System Building	Mid-2010
Portals and Collaboration	Office Solution Development, Portals and Collaboration	Mid-2010
Project and Portfolio Management	Enterprise project Management	Mid-2010
Search	Search	Mid-2010
Server Platform	Active Directory, Storage Solutions	Oct 2009
Small Business	Small Business Specialist	Mid-2010
Software Asset management	Software Asset Management	Mid-2010
Software Development	Application Infrastructure Development, Smart Client Development	Mid-2010
Systems Management	System management	Oct 2009
Unified Communications	IM/Presence, Messaging, Voice	Mid-2010
Virtualization	n/a	July 2009
Volume Licensing	License Delivery	Mid-2010
Web Development	Web Development	Mid-2010

Useful article related links:

• Microsoft Partner Network Site
• Competency Matching Tool

Windows Azure Simple Explanation

We are often asked what is Windows Azure, and how does it help the business. 

Explaining what an application hosting platform is, and how it can help it is not as simple as it sounds… Microsoft Azure is an application hosting environment rather than a server-based like Amazon’s AWS environment.

• Azure is a service that allows you to upload an application and run it.
• Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2)  is a service that allows you to rent one or more virtual machines running Linux/Windows or some other operating system .
• Both services charge based on usage parameters like CPU usage, number of requests, data transferred, and other variables. (consider and understand these carefully)
• Both services provide "behind the scene” reliability, scalability and capacity, so you do not have to worry about it

In doing some of the research, I came across a nice presentation  made by Steve Marx, which I had  to share with all.

 

  

 

I went to Steve’s blog:  http://blog.smarx.com   and found it to be a wealth of very relevant information on the Azure topic.     Thanks Steve! – We have marked your blog as one to follow.

Cloud-Services vs Virtualization

As many of you already know, we have been  strong proponent of cloud-based services for a very long time…   The idea of  maintaining an expensive and complex in-house infrastructure to support basic IT services  is steadily shifting away from mainstream business. Adoption of cloud-based services continues to climb steadily.

However, a recent  article on the Dec’09/Jan’10 Fortune Small Business magazine titled “Control the Cloud“, provided an excellent example that “one-platform” does not fit all.

The FBS article describes a company, which provides a specific set of application services for its customers, whose requirements were not met by cloud-computing.     They reconsidered their implementation, brought it back in-house,  this time they used server virtualization to minimize  the number of physical servers which resulted in significant cost reduction including space, power and air.

Although, in the end, not a less expensive solution than cloud-based computing,  it did meet the requirements and goals, at significant costs reductions than their previous hardware based implementations.

Let us know what you think! – If you have a story to share, send it our way!

Behind the scenes on Cloud Computing

A very interesting video on the hardware architecture behind cloud computing was posted yesterday on Microsoft’s Channel9 site…  The walk-though is presented by Patrick Yantz, a Cloud Architect with Microsoft’s Data Center Services Team at PDC09.

Self contained 40-foot containers (yes the kind you see on the road)  are used to store 1000’s of motherboards and equipment that is used to drive the cloud…   Pretty Cool!

Link to  Channel9 Story   or directly to video here