THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA : News, Rants

Conviction and confusion in Microsoft's cloud strategy

bradley — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 06:52:00 GMT

Conviction and confusion in Microsoft's cloud strategy • The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/08/teched_microsoft_cloud/

"So, does this all mean Microsoft now "gets" the cloud? There was a telling comment in the press briefing for Windows InTune, a cloud service for managing PCs that is aimed at small businesses. Product manager Alex Heaton had been explaining the benefits: easy management of PCs and laptops wherever they are, and a web application that upgrades itself, no need to install service packs or new versions.

In fact, it seemed better than tools in Small Business Server (SBS) that covers the same area. Should SBS users move over?

"It's an interesting question, when should you use the cloud based versus when should you use the on-premise," said Heaton. "The answer is, if you've already got an on-premise infrastructure that already does most of this, you're pretty much good, there's no reason for you to go to a separate infrastructure."

In reality this is not the case. There are strong reasons for small businesses to migrate to cloud-based solutions because keeping a complex on-premise server running sweetly is a burden. Microsoft is heavily invested in on-premise though and disrupting its own business is risky.

The result is a conflicted strategy."

I have a crappy DSL connection. I have sensititve data. I have needs for a Windows file server, not Azure, but a file server. I see just as many strong reasons for keeping an on premise server.

So when you email Vlad regarding your concerns, issues and business reasons for looking at clouds -- http://www.vladville.com/2010/06/writing-a-book-on-cloud-services.html just remember that there's still a lot of hype out here and we're still separating the hype of a beta product (Intune) from the reality of what is showing that it works (Hosted Exchange with www.ownwebnow.com )

SBSC... does it matter?

bradley — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:12:00 GMT

The other day someone said that he wasn't convinced that the SBSC credential mattered to clients... but I think he's missing the point.

SBSC matters to you... it matters to me..... it's what we ASKED Microsoft to do. We wanted and needed a way to rise up from the mere registered member status to be closer to the Certified Partner status but without having to have a second MCP on staff... so Microsoft came up with the SBSC...the small business specialist community.

And it's my opinion that even if you don't think your clients care ...if YOU care about being something more than a mere registered you should be a SBSC. Why? Because it shows to Microsoft you want to meet them half way... and if there are things you don't like about the SBSC...then you become one...so you can best give feedback to make it better...but if you don't become one...and you sit back and complain about it.... then I think you've forfeited the right to then ask Microsoft to make a better partner program for single man shops.

That sounds harsh, doesn't it? I know it does....

But it's kinda like my wacko thoughts that only people who vote in Presidential elections should be able to complain about the President. If you don't even try to meet them half way...then how can you merely complain about their partner program?

So yeah, it's not perfect.. and yeah it needs work...but it's something...and it's a start...and if all you can do is say "oh it doesn't work" and then not give ideas on how to fix it...well that doesn't help much either, does it?

So does the SBSC matter?

You bet your little bippy it does...

Take that HP!

bradley — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 20:22:00 GMT

Okay Charlie Russel (of SBS admin companion book fame) has pointed me in the direction of a HP tool to "scrub" the machine of it's malfunctioning printer driver.

I'll keep you posted...so far the computer is winning the battle...

This computer safety announcement courtesy of Seagate

bradley — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 06:08:00 GMT

This public service computer safety announcement courtesy of Seagate, makers of fine (and heavy) harddrives.

It's recommended to not accidentially drop a harddrive on on your foot.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog reading....

"ouch!"... "Dang that hurts"

Upgrades to SBS 2003 R2?

bradley — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 07:44:00 GMT

Adam says he just talked to the MS Concierge and they said the only way to get R2 was to buy the 'whole' product again, as there were no upgrade options.

Adam? Tell that Concierge-y person to go listen to the SBS weekly show where Guy Haycock 'aka the buck stops here' SBS Product Manager says there will be.

Guy's post and that podcast should clear up any confusion.

One correction to Guy's post though.. he says that if you have SA for a nominal fee you'll get the media... for those of us on the three year SA plan it gets automagically sent to us.

And Adam? The web site you were pointed to was Windows 2003 R2 pricing, not SBS pricing. We don't have SBS pricing yet.

Want to talk to a human?

bradley — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 14:01:00 GMT

This ... you gotta listen to....

NPR : Phone Guide Is a Real Customer Service:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5024153

Morning Edition, November 23, 2005 · Entrepreneur Paul English has produced a "must have" for the modern consumer. It's a guide to the customer service phone systems of major corporations. The big payoff? The guide tells you the quickest way to reach a human.

Paul's site... THIS is going on our firm's website/sharepoint -- http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/

Dear IT Pro Community:

bradley — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 03:58:00 GMT

HOW TO FACE OFF AGAINST MICROSOFT

Intuit has repelled the Redmond six times. Now it's defending its

largest business -- small-business accounting software

http://newsletters.businessweek.com/c.asp?id=583044&c=0a3482e76a3aa5ed&l=2

INTUIT'S BENNETT: READY FOR MR. GATES

Facing another onslaught from Redmond, the finance-software maker's

CEO says, "I love our position." Score so far: Intuit 6, Microsoft 0

http://newsletters.businessweek.com/c.asp?id=583044&c=0a3482e76a3aa5ed&l=3

-----------------------

I am a CPA in Californa. On a pretty regular basis I deal with small business customers. Some that have standalone computers, some with networks. I have a trusted relationship with all of these small businesses.

Just like how you install software better when 'you' know it.. just like how you have impact with what I call the 'wow' factor and word of mouth, so do I. As a result Microsoft has just introduced the Microsoft Accountants Network to introduce my world to Microsoft's Small Business accounting 2006. As part of this network my community is now eligible for free CPE and the Action pack [for $299 a year].

Now before you start yelling "Hey Microsoft, you are now allowing CPAs to use Action pack? You are taking software sales away from us", Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you make your income from software sales.. you make it on the labor and installation of the network.

Microsoft is offering to my world because they realize too how much I influence software purchases when I am plugged in.

Now in these same beancounter communities are the "just good enough' folks. The same people that when they raised their hands in a presentation on Wednesday and said if you ARE running Windows 98, you are sending a message to all of your clients that you don't CARE about the security of their data. These are exactly the cheap, 'it's good enough people' that you can now go to and say, "here's a way to get software, to get secure, to get free CPE and all you have to do is sign up and check out this software bundle"

Also for this plan it gives them "business critical down" that includes things like printers failing on April 14. To a beancounter ..that IS a critical down issue.

This week I was in Illinois and Cindy Bates of Microsoft indicated that the firm that "gets IT" has higher growth that one that doesn't. Here's your chance as a consultant to go to that CPA in your area and show them the MPAN program and say ...it's time you killed off that Windows 98 machine. It's not good enough ANY MORE. Show them THIS link and tell them this is one time “too good to be true“ isn't.

Now then my IT community out here... all you IT consultants... you talk to that CPA and tell them about how they can share calendars. How with Audiovox Windows Mobile phones, the partners can check their calendars from anywhere. That having their client data on a system hooked up to the Internet IS safe, and in fact with high speed access I would argue allows you to be more secure and up to date.

I told a room of 100 or so Accountants that if they thought the SBS 2003 product I talked about and used at my firm and actually demo'd was cool, that they needed to go and find an SBSer. To go to YOU and ask you how many SBS installs you had done. Be honest. Don't say you have and you've never even seen the product before.

Just remember if you don't treat my CPA community right, I just might hear about it.

Ever notice how you end up with screws leftover?

bradley — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 03:18:00 GMT

From the mailbag comes the request that I fess up what I have in hardware based on my talking about how I haven't migrated yet to my new computer....now you'll know I'm not a 'real geek' in that I have to slide over and see what the Intel [yes....I know... I couldn't break the habit and buy an AMD] chip is and all that... I can tell you it was a fun exercise in that I put it together.

Yes, you read that right... this is a NewEgg, Frys and CompUSA built machine...built by a GUI gal.

The important parts about it is that the case is black. Now the choice of black is very key here because it goes with the Mickey Mouse themed room that the upstairs office is decorated in. A hovering Space Mickey is over my head along with the beginning of the trail of the pixie dust that Tinkerbell leaves on the ceiling as she flies out of the TV sitting on the TV mount on the wall over to the window behind me [yes, there's a Tinkerbell doll hanging from the celing.] So since the monitor is black and all, I had to make the new computer a black case and all as well. Regardless of the rest of the pieces...the outer case looks cool.

But since I'm sure the emailer wasn't wanting to know about the Black computer case....it's an Intel 3.2 GHz chip, 2 gig of RAM, a 250 Sata drive, one DVD/CDRW drive, one DVD/RW drive, Nvidia GeForce 6200 turbo cache [and I'm seriously thinking of putting in a second video card here at home for the second monitor as I have one at the office and there are time here at home that I'd really like to have a second one around], one floppy [yes even though I'll doubt I'll need it]. I'll have to ask my friend down in LA what the Motherboard is as he's the one that recommended it. Tells you how hardware-ish I am doesn't it?

The lessons I learned? Even though I READ the instructions...really Marina... I did!.... it wasn't clear that I was supposed to put in the two power connectors. I thought it needed only one. So that slowed me down a bit in the building of the computer until I figured that one out. Next, make sure you get that goopy stuff called Artic Silver and you don't have to put as much as I put on there...but it works as when I first put the thing together the machine was pretty quickly shutting down and when it did work ...if you went into the bios it was reading that the temperature of the chip was too hot. So it needed that silicon gunk as the wafer of protection it came with wasn't enough. Took the fan assembly off the chip, put the gunk on there, stuck the fan back into place...and voila.. machine runs just as it should.

You do end up with stuff however that I'd like to complain about...

Screws.

..no not as in 'she's got a screw loose' even though I'm sure some might say that... I mean I always end up with leftover, weird sized, what screwdriver do you use with that... screws left over. I have them all over the place. Along with cables that I can't remember where they came from. Somewhere there's a bunch of computers that are missing a ton of screws and cables.

Call me. I think I have them here.

SCW on SBS? DDT!

bradley — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 23:39:00 GMT

In the world of geekdom we use many abbreviations. Small Business Server 2003 is abbreviated to SBS. The new Security Configuration Wizard that will be included in Windows 2003 sp1 is nicknamed SCW. And DDT? That's Jason's [a tech lead in Mothership Charlotte] phrase when you shouldn't do something on a SBS box: “Don't Do That“.

Windows 2003 sp1 will ship with something called the Security Configuration Wizard...the problem is .... we're already pretty Security Configured as it is and don't need it. In fact, if you run in on a SBS box you are going to end up shutting off something that I think provides you with MORE security.

Just for grins I ran the SCW included in the Windows 2003 sp1 release candidate on a SBS test box just to see what it would break. And based on my unscientific testing it's going to hurt us more then it helps us. In fact it was interesting that it didn't really do much on our SBS boxes that I would call of any real value.

The major change it made in auditing, changing the auditing of directory services from “not audited“ to success, could actually hurt us, as SeanDaniel.com pointed out that we shouldn't be auditing that. The good news is that it appears our SBS unique auditing policy does kick in but I'd rather not mess with the stuff that the SBS team has done to make backup work.

Next the other big thing that it hurts more than it helps is turning off the performance monitoring and alerts which will blow off our SBS monitoring email. I don't know about you, but I check that every morning just to make sure that my server is a “happy camper”. Again, why mess with a good thing here?

You see, SBS is already pretty well “tuned” to begin with. We really DON'T need the Security configuration wizard at all. In fact, I would argue that these days, it's not my server that I'm worried about at all. In fact, I'd much rather have a security configuration wizard for my desktops than I need one for my server.

Reminds me of something funny, in the newsgroup the other night a poster asked “Is there a document on creating a bulletproof, high security SBS server?” and both Javier and I said “Yeah, don't have end users!” Seriously, what is the “thing” that introduces the most risk into my network? End users. If I could just have a wizard for them, that would be real grand. I have one that we joke about, but it's a bit messy in it's application.

I would argue these days that you can't just look at protecting the server. And in fact if that's all you are looking at you are so missing out on where most security issues are entering these days... at least in the small business world of computing anyway. Heck this weekend's burglary showcases even more than ever that my weaknesses are my workstations, both in terms of my inability to physically protect them [even though we did have an alarm system, the machine taken was near the front of the office and quite visible from the outside, definitely a smash and grab], and to lock them down via group policy in a simple and easy manner because many of my line of business applications refuse to work without administrator rights.

So if you start hearing in the “buzz“ from Microsoft about a Security Configuration Wizard and wonder about it's applicability to Small Business Server 2003 know two things:

We are already pretty tweaked as it is and running this wizard will only hurt not help
The folks in Mothership Redmond are going to come out with our OWN SBS 2003 sp1 which will include ISA 2004 [for those folks on Premium edition] and thus you'll want to pass on downloading and installing the normal Windows 2003 sp1

So about that Security Configuration Wizard on Small Business Server 2003? Just Don't Do That!

Internet Explorer - what actions to take

bradley — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:59:00 GMT

If you've been seeing some of the tech news, you'll know that a group overseas called Xfocus published some details of Internet Explorer vulnerabilties on the web right before Christmas. And while the press can say [clearing their throats] “Microsoft hasn't responded”, I can say that every time I sent in an email to the Secure alias [secure - at - microsoft.com] I got a response back. They know and are “responding“ in their own quiet way when such things occur.

But in the meantime some general rules to keep safe until a patch is released:

Begin to push for running in lesser “rights“ on the desktop. This isn't easy at all, but it's something that we all need to push our app vendors to do natively in 2005. I don't expect you guys to do this right away, but start thinking about preparing your end users and clients to not being able to download and install just willy-nilly.
Ensure that you always use up to date antivirus
Only surf where you know you'll be safe [I know...this one is kinda dumb as there have been reports of “good sites“ that don't keep themselves up to date on patches getting turned into “bad sites“ - but just try to be AWARE]
Block all unnecessary email attachments. Whether you use the native to SBS Exchange attachment blocker or Trend's blocker, PICK ONE and don't even let this stuff get in your network.
Consider running IE with High security turned on, and only place those web sites into “trusted“ zones that you need fully functional for business purposes.
While you can use alternative browsers like Firefox, Mozilla, I'd still recommend that you not “install and forget it“. Mozilla today just released a new patch for a security issue it had. Remember that Windows update does not patch Firefox, Mozilla, so you are on your own. The default for Firefox is to check every 7 days [apparently as I'm guessing from the about:config that I'm looking at. Brian Livingston has a great primer on Firefox that he had to dig up from their web site and other locations.
Just in general be aware. If an email sounds too good to be true, or is trying to sound like the sky is falling, check it out on the snopes.com web site.

P.S. Next time guys, send an email to the secure alias and work with them for a patch FIRST? Don't just disclose this stuff and then contact Microsoft? Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Patch management tool comparisons

bradley — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 23:15:00 GMT

http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/43870/43870.html

In this month's IT pro there is a patch program comparison... now I can't talk about other products....but I can talk about the one I personally own and the chart says that Shavlik doesn't support uninstalls and rolling back patches but I've got 4.3.0.1 [Which according to my machine is the latest version] and there's patches that I can roll back....not that I want to go ripping patches off my production server mind you on a Friday night just to prove the author wrong... [I do have a BIT more of a life than that] but I do have the option to do it. I have tested it at home though. Also, I know that they patch ISA server and Linux as well. So if those items are wrong, the best thing to do is do your own homework.

Might want to do your own due diligence regarding this table. But, it is a nice chart though of all the vendors in this space to get you started.

Dear Mr. Ellison: I think you forgot something?

bradley — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 03:24:00 GMT

CRN is reporting that Oracle will be coming out with a competitor to the Microsoft Small Business Server platform. Except that in their description of the program I think they forgot about email? They just talk about the server, a web app server and a portal server?

[update note] And it's not just that mail needs to be inside or outside the server, it's the whole integration package with the mail client on the desktop. What mail client will Larry recommend? Outlook Express? [just kidding]

Also Larry, if you don't also have the wizards of SBS, the “tao”, the “Yoda” of the box, you don't have what this market needs. Wayne Small was attending the Australian Partner conference and reported that many partners there didn't know about the wizards.

Jeff Middleton once again put it the best...

“The IT Pro needs to be assured that the wizards are not there to dumb down the product as much as to get you into the game, at a documented and known point of installation where the true skill tasks are needed.

Nobody takes a Windows CD and copies the files individually, then uses a remote machine to edit a clean registry to add the services and devices manually. We don't do that because there's no point.

With SBS, bringing all those applications to a point of ready to use is only the start of the challenge that still requires significant skills.“