Agile Application Development

I read an article on Agile development: “Agile Adoption – Crossing the Chasm: Why is it so difficult to switch to agile process from waterfall?” by Udayan Banerjee

The article explains how the old school waterfall process of locking down requirements when developing solutions is flawed. This process does prevent scope creep but at the end of the day the solution does not meet the business needs because business needs are changing and it is impossible to really know the requirements right from the onset. The result is that you end with an application that meets the requirement document and is completed on budget and on time but does not meet the business needs. There is a gap between what the business needs and the requirements at the onset of the project. The only way to close the gap is by using an iterative agile process like scrum. Successful application development teams know this and are actively pursuing this kind of methodology. The challenge of course becomes around budgeting, scheduling and how frequent to release each update to the user team. This article does a good job of walking through this.

Is there a place for a more agile design and deployment process for infrastructure implementation? Not completely however, understanding why agile development is effective and the direction for application development should help when doing infrastructure implementation. Keeping the agile concepts in mind and working toward more integration of the users in envisioning planning and deploying an infrastructure solution will help ensure the business needs are met.

Here is a link to Mr. Banerjee’s article:
http://udayanbanerjee.ulitzer.com/node/1137387

Goals for 2010

If you have not already created written goals for 2010 it is time. This can be done in less than an hour, so don’t let the task intimidate you. You may want to wrap it all in to a New Year’s resolution - “This year I will exercise every day and lose 20 lbs……and this time I mean it!”

Clearly the hard part about goals is executing on them. If you don’t know what they are how can you possibly execute on them. Write your goals down and keep them handy – try to review at least once a month to see how you are tracking. Create a relatively short list as too many goals are overwhelming. Create clear measurable goals and target work, personal and family. Share them with someone who will support you and this will help drive success. If you really want to put yourself out there, share your goals with everyone! You probably do not want to do this around financial goals as this can create problems.

Create one year and five year goals and it is incredible how effective this can be with a little discipline! Ok, a lot of discipline….. Nothing worthwhile is easy.

IT Budgeting for 2010

Since we are heading into a new year it is appropriate to discuss IT Budget for 2010. I read an interesting article in CFO Magazine that suggests you should be able to cut 9% to 11% of your budget: “How to Save 11% of Your IT Spend” by David McCann.

The essence of the article is that by modifying last year’s budget IT spends 10% more than they would if they did a from scratch green field approach. This includes the cost associated with the additional time to do a budget from scratch. The article does point out that there are diminishing returns if you do this every year so it suggests breaking the budget into 12 segments and doing a different segment every quarter creating a 3 year cycle.

Creating a budget from scratch does help for all budgeting - not just IT. We have been successful cutting costs dramatically by revisiting expenses with a fresh perspective. There is nothing like a challenging economy to motivate companies to examine costs.

Here is the article “How to Save 11% of Your IT Spend” by David McCann:
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14461534/c_14462479?f=home_todayinfinance

Desktop Virtualization Update

I read an article “Desktop Virtualization: Ready for Prime Time or Still Hype?” by Jessica Davis. I have been following the desktop virtualization market since the mid-90s with Citrix Metaframe. I saw many very un-happy desktop virtualization customers in the late 90s and early 2000s and fortunately we did not implement those solutions.

Here is an excerpt from Steve Ballmer at the Paine Webber Technology Conference back in 1999:

"You know, when you get guys like Scott McNealy and Larry Ellison and Lou Gerstner talking about the end of the PC era, … Fully 60 percent of the personal computers that are sold around the world are used by knowledge workers. They're not just used for manufacturing or order entry or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're used by people like the people in this room, to send e-mail, to take notes, to do presentations, to do financial analysis, and that is best done today with an intelligent device. Maybe with some of the intelligence, more split client and server, but we can't take tools away from knowledge workers. There are just so many more things knowledge workers want to do. "

So, in ten years has this changed?

A little has changed as we are now constantly connected to the internet. We can do more with a terminal today and a terminal is easier to manage and secure. However, it will be a long time before I give up my PC and this article supports this showing 74% of CIOs do not have a plan for desktop virtualization. The one industry that does have a plan for desktop virtualization is the financial sector and this makes sense as security is extremely important.

Clearly there are situations where it makes sense to save money by implementing a desktop virtualization solution. When it is time to do a desktop refresh IT leaders will want to investigate both a PC and a virtualized desktop option. Each situation will be different and needs to be analyzed on a case by case basis. Every year desktop virtualization will make more sense than in the past year but will not completely replace the PC - Not yet anyway.

http://www.channelinsider.com/cp/bio/Jessica-Davis/

VMotion Sickness

I read an interesting article regarding VMotion Sickness : “Virtualization Will Cross the Chasm in Two Years” by Greg Ness

VMotion Sickness is a term coined to describe the effects from too many virtual machines moving around and VM Sprawl. This causes everything to run slower due to the overhead associated with VMs moving. This negates the basic virtualization benefits of better utilization of resources. VMotion is of course a management tool yet it can be a part of your virtualization management problem.

How do you deal with VMotion Sickness?

It starts with planning and management. Do a comprehensive capacity plan and implement structured management. Here are three keys to success:

1. Monitor right from beginning so you have a long history of data to troubleshoot problems
2. Keep a keen eye out for any virtualization bottlenecks
3. Know what is running on your infrastructure – keep details and avoid server sprawl

You may also want to read this article: “ Virtualization Will Cross the Chasm in Two Years”:

http://web2.sys-con.com/node/1203744

Managed Services Lessoned Learned

Nortec has been offering Nortec 24/7 Managed Network Services for four years now and we have learned several lessons. Nortec 24/7 Managed Services includes remote monitoring, remediation and patch management. Not all managed services are the same so this brings us to our first lesson learned:

1. Be clear on what managed services are included with your service agreement:
a. Monitoring
b. Remote remediation
c. Remote patch management
d. Exactly what servers, switches, routers, desktops are to be managed

2. What will the escalation process be if the problem cannot be resolved remotely:
a. Contact you to resolve issue
b. Send field technical professional to resolve the issue

3. Notification and reporting:
a. You probably do not want emails daily on all issues
b. You may want emails and even a phone call on major server issues
c. You should meet quarterly, semi-annually or at least yearly to review reports and discuss what is working and not working

Remote managed services are the way of the future. Communications is the main issue. Be clear on who is doing what and you will have tremendous success.

3 Basic Rules for Success

I have my three basic rules for success professionally. These rules keep you relevant, connect you and show respect to others.

1. Answer the Phone – If you are available answer the phone. I don’t believe in taking calls when in a meeting. If you must take a call well in a meeting, ask permission before and outline how long the call will last.

2. Return calls and emails – You don’t need to return solicitation calls of course but other calls and emails should be returned within a few hours. I am working on being more responsive on emails as I historically would only respond when necessary. I am working on being more proactive as people like to see that you are reading their emails and that you are not an email vacuum.

3. Show up – Be where you say you will be, when you say you will be there. If you show up late you are screaming to those waiting for you that “I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU.” I heard a Navy Seal talk about this recently. In their training, on time meant 15 minutes early. Anyone who shows up at the last minute would have the extra not wanted duties. I suppose this is why military people are usually very punctual.

It may seem like these rules for success are just way to basic but it is surprising how many people fail on some or all of these on a regular basis. I know I can improve on these rules myself and have had a few hard lessons on showing up on time early in my career. If you can deliver on all three of these rules on a regular basis you are 90% there!

Symantec Vision

Last week at the Symantec Partner Conference Enrique Salem, CEO of Symantec outlined 5 trends in the IT industry:

1. Virtualization
2. “We are under attack” – Businesses are under attack by criminals trying to gain financially through hacking into corporate information
3. “Consumerization of IT” – Consumers adopt and implement new technologies before businesses
4. Storage is growing extremely rapidly: A) 51% businesses plan to spend more on storage next year B) 33% businesses plan to spend the same on storage next year C) 16% businesses plan to spend Less on storage next year
5. Executives are targeted with IT attacks

Symantec is positioned as the company that will protect your information - from backing up to archiving - from end point security to data loss protection. Symantec will provide the solutions for complete information protection and quick recovery when there are server failures or a lost laptop at the airport.

Mr. Salem asks the question, "what is more damaging, servers failing or loss of information and customer data?" Clearly loss of information is a larger issue and this is where Symantec is focused.

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Launch

Steven Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division announced the general availability of Exchange 2010 yesterday at Tech Ed Europe. He announced Forefront 2010 protection for Exchange 2010 and the integration of the two products. Exchange 2010 is a release with several significant advances specifically around message management, archiving and unified communications. We have demonstrated some of the features at several launch events we have hosted with Microsoft in the Mid-Atlantic. The combination of Exchange 2010, Outlook 2010, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 is driving many business to implement a server and desktop refresh. Ultimately the upgrade will drive efficiencies in the marketplace with the enhancements in these products.

Here is a link detailing the news in Redmond Developer:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/181708/microsoft_makes_case_for_upgrade_to_exchange_2010.html

Here is an article on launch in CIO Magazine:
http://www.cio.com/article/507118/Exchange_2010_Launch_Week_Round_Up

Here are video clips from Tech Ed Europe in Microsoft's Virtual Press Room:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/teched/default.mspx

Online Security

I read an article on CSO Online called "Researchers Advise Cyber Self Defense in the Cloud " http://www.csoonline.com/article/504770/Researchers_Advise_Cyber_Self_Defense_in_the_Cloud

The article points out that through social media a criminal could pieces together your birth date, personal photos, family members, and other pieces of personal information. This makes it much easier for identity theft. Between these different social media like a Blog it becomes easy for someone to gather information on someone and therefore does justify some concern.

Using social media it is easier to access personal information needed for identity theft. A stolen identity will allow a criminal access to credit. Banks and anyone providing credit will need to get more sophisticated about how they identify someone. Individuals will need to continue to be vigilant about what information they do give out to social media sites.

Companies that in all regard are good corporate citizens need only one bad apple to compromise their data. This does not even have to be over the internet. I have received letters from banking institutions stating their information was compromised internally and they are sending me a new credit card.

Clearly we are living in a time when it is easier to access information. The battle will be ongoing and will ensure a good living for those focused on information security. We will continue to transact business and share information over the internet. It is extremely effective and efficient. The main thing that an individual can do is be cautious about who they share information with online. Two questions to ask yourself before sharing sensitive information online:

1. How did you ended up at this particular site? Did you seek out this site or did the site find you through an email?

2. Does it make sense to give out the information you are giving out? Is it necessary?

The key is being careful about what information you share and who you are sharing it with.

Cloud computing is a growing trend and I don't think the fear of identity theft will stop the trend. Individuals will continue to use protective software like antivirus, antimalware, and firewalls and probably more important, just think about what information they are sharing online.

What Drives Success

I am preparing for a Nortec Management and Sales Conference and reflecting on what drives success. In a post a couple of weeks ago I wrote about the value of staying focused. This is important. However, first you must determine what you are going to focus on. What drives you? What is it that you want to accomplish? All too often I get caught up in the doing and don’t take the time to step back and reflect on what it is that I want.

Last year, I dealt with a lack of vision regarding my health and fitness. Although I was not completely out of shape, I sporadically exercised and was about forty pounds overweight. I created the vision of a healthy fit version of myself and set out to create a plan to get there. I decided that I would exercise every day first thing in the morning for 30 – 40 minutes alternating between cardio and weight training. By exercising every day I would give myself the ability to skip one or two days a week when my schedule would not permit exercising and still have a viable plan for fitness. I combined this exercise program with an improved diet by eliminating bad foods and eating smaller portions.

In the last nine months I have struggled with the weight. I am down about 10 pounds so I still have about 30 to go. I have done better on the exercise program with only a few lapses usually when on a vacation or when I am not feeling well. Key for me was doing my work outs first thing in the morning in my basement or on the street running. This allows for just one shower a day. I like to be efficient. This also alleviated “the need to exercise” from hanging over me the entire day.

The bottom line is that anyone can accomplish whatever it is they focus on. Clearly, like losing the weight for me, some things are harder to accomplish than others. You will test your discipline since ultimately it takes discipline to accomplish anything. Since humans are creatures of habit I think it is easier if you can build the disciplines into routine. Create the vision and use your passion to drive your discipline to be that person you dream to be.

Oh, one other motivator for me was my realization of my mortality and that if I don’t do something now … well, I may never get a chance in the future – Carpe Diem!

"Getting Things Done" by David Allen

I attended a presentation by David Allen last week the author of “Getting Things Done”. His presentation was straight forward and to the point. I came up with four keys to getting things done based on his presentation:

1. If you have an action that needs to be done and you can do it in less than 2:00 minutes go with the Nike strategy, “just do it!”

2. Create and constantly update your things to do list. Carrying around a list of things in your head is prone to forgetting and is a constant burden that interferes with your effectiveness.

3. Take one of three actions on emails: delete, file, or put in an action folder. Maintain an empty email inbox and clean desk.

4. Review your to do lists and action folders at the beginning of the day. Prioritize what you need to do and then schedule time if necessary.

This is my take away from what he said and the plan I am now implementing. For more details, and a better explanation of how to get things done, I would suggest reading the book. David Allen also has this simple test that can help you determine how effective you are in getting things done – It takes about 2:00 minutes:

http://www.gtdiq.com/

Windows 7 Launched Today

Microsoft released Windows 7 to the market today. So far the product looks terrific – everyone I know that is using it is very happy. Amazon announced yesterday that it was the number one pre-ordered product ever, out performing Harry Potter! If this is any indication, it will be a hit.

Here is a brief description of Windows 7 from the Nortec News Letter:

Windows 7 is the easiest, fastest, and most engaging version of Windows yet. The new user experience is really something to get excited about; thanks to elements like peek through, a whole new taskbar and some common sense simplifications, Windows 7 has a more usable UI and will run even faster than the previous release of Windows, a first for Microsoft. Developed based on feedback from actual customers Windows 7 offers faster and more reliable performance, and great features like Home Group and Windows Touch to make new things possible.

Windows 7 is much smarter than its predecessor, Windows Vista. While Vista’s memory manager devoted the same amount of RAM to each open window, performing as if each open window was visible and full screen sized even if they were minimized or in the background, Window 7’s memory manager doesn’t operate that way. Therefore, users can run Windows 7 with 1GB of RAM, unlike Vista which requires at least 2GB. With application crash resiliency, Windows 7 is also smarter when it comes to unstable apps and errors . If an application crashes multiple times, Windows 7 learns how it should run to avoid crashing. Further, the new Problem Steps Recorder makes error reports useful by generating a detailed error report in plain English.

Here is a review done on you tube. It was recorded about 5 months ago on Windows 7 beta version. I like it because it gives a good and quick introduction to the new features:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jsx-gf-z2U

Staying Focused

I am coaching hockey with my brother, Peter, this year and really enjoying it. Peter is a very seasoned coach having coached many teams including being a paid High School Coach. I have plenty to learn. I asked him what the most important thing is to coach the kids. He said that it is keeping the "main thing" the main thing – staying focused.

In business today, it is hard to stay focused for three reasons:

1. We have so many things coming at us (information over load) that it is hard to stay focused. We are constantly being pushed to look at this product and that product.

2. The entire information technology industry is a moving target. The “main thing” may change. This makes staying focused on the “main thing” really hard!

3. Human desire to seek out new exciting things – bored with “the main thing”

If you are bored with what you are doing. Spice it up and suck it up. If you want to be great at anything you will have to do it over and over again. Is there anyone who does not think Tiger Woods is not tired of swinging a golf club? Look for ways to make it fun by turning everything into a game and seek small incremental improvements. Make it fun!

Re-evaluate the main thing and prioritize. Do not rush to add more and more things that will allow you to lose focus. If you think there is a fundamental change you may have to dramatically change your focus but you will still need to focus.

One of the key differentiators for Nortec is that we are entirely focused on IT infrastructure and primarily around Microsoft. There was a CIO panel at the Microsoft Partner briefing and everyone of the CIOs said they prefer partners that are focused and not one partner for all IT.

Stay focused and be the best of the best in your niche.

BTW – The main thing when coaching kid’s hockey is skills.

IT Changes to Reduce Costs

This year IT Leaders are under pressure to reduce costs. Businesses need to improve cash while increasing operational efficiencies. These demands will cause fast changes.

The shift to virtualization this year has been very swift. IT Managers are now moving from 1.0 issues (What Servers to Virtualize) to 2.0 issues (How do I mange these virtualized servers?).

There is also a shift to cloud computing and hosted applications. This is a very disruptive shift and happening a little slower. The value proposition is very compelling in these times of cost reduction. Businesses can completely offload the infrastructure capital purchase and the management. This is very good for the business cash position.

Gartner points out that outsourcing is anti-cyclical since it is done in growth periods and sometimes more in down turns. They also present moderate results:
"Even during stable economic times, outsourcing has some specific drawbacks. It often delivers moderate (for example, 10% to 20%) cost reduction in exchange for moderate levels of satisfaction (typically 5 on a scale of 1 to 7, in which 7 represents the highest level of satisfaction), low levels of flexibility (4.8 — the lowest satisfaction score on Gartner outsourcing surveys), while causing high levels of lengthy renegotiation (more than 60% of deals are partially renegotiated in the course of their term)."
- Predict 2009: Recession Accelerated Shifts in IT Services, Gartner Report

Clearly there will be a shift to cloud computing but there will be a hybrid model for many years for most businesses. IT department will need to develop new process and methods to manage the hosted applications. Since hosted applications are fast to turn on, IT Departments will also need to manage more applications and have a strategy to stay compliant.

Windows 7 Launch

Microsoft Windows 7 Launch is just 10 days away! Most of our engineers are already running Windows 7 as well as several on the Nortec Sales Team. I am waiting for the official launch and will get a new PC with it pre-loaded in a couple of weeks. The good news is that the PC doesn’t actually need to be new and Windows 7 will run faster than Vista. Windows 7 can also run fine on most computers running XP. Microsoft has designed the Windows 7 operating system to be very quick. Unlike Vista, Windows 7 will be a brilliant success.

Nortec will be hosting Microsoft Launch Events for Windows 7, Exchange 2010, and Windows Server 2008 R2 in the Mid-Atlantic – DC, Richmond, Virginia Beach, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Here is a link to the events scheduled so far: http://www.nortec.com/launch.asp

Microsoft has done a great job with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 from everything I have seen. Exchange 2010 also looks good. Microsoft has incorporated voice mail to email conversion and much needed archiving features just to name a couple of features..

The rest of this year and 2010 will be a great time for making improvements to your desktop and server infrastructure!

Exchange 2010 Release To Manufacturing

Here is the announcement on Microsoft Technet today:

The big news today is that Exchange 2010 is now code complete. The senior leadership team has signed off on the final code, and it has been sent to early adopters for a final look before its public release. This Release To Manufacturing (RTM) milestone means we are well on our way to general availability and launch at TechEd Europe in November. For those of you attending TechEd in Berlin this year, be sure to visit the Exchange booth and tell them what you think of the product. I caught some of you on video with Crystal Flores at TechEd US earlier this year…Crystal will be looking for more of you in Berlin in a few weeks. If you can’t join in person, tune in via the Web (www.thenewefficiency.com) to be part of the launch.
Tags: Exchange, exchange 14, exchange 2010

Driving Business in the New World

I attended an event last week held at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. The event was "Driving Revenue in the New World" put on by the IT Network and Media Network of Young Presidents Organization. We had great guest speakers including several from Google and a panel including leadership from Youtube, Linkedin and Facebook.

I am a neophyte when it comes to marketing in the online world. I have been investing time in trying to understand the best approach to using social media in business this year. This event reinvigorated my passion for online marketing and the best practices. The event also opened my eyes to the need to create an entire online marketing plan from search engine optimization to Ad Words and banner ads online. Paid online advertising was not something I really looked at very seriously and now realize this is worth investigating further.

One piece of wisdom found was that the online strategy is not something you can just delegate. Leaders need to embrace this and understand all that can be done. I have a certain fascination with online marketing and social media so this reinforced what I was already thinking. The world of online marketing is completely different then the old world of marketing and just when you think you have it figured out you discover another entire dimension. This can be very exciting and possibly frustrating! You must thrive on learning.

If you are a business leader or an IT leader I believe you need to be reading and investigating the impact and the fundamental business changes your organization needs to be implementing to grow in the new world. The message of this event was that adopting an online strategy for marketing and interacting with customers will be necessary for business survival! So if you do not have a plan, now is the time to get one!

IT Spending Growth in 2010!

This year has been a year of cost cutting for businesses and this includes IT where the spending dropped a projected 8%. Goldman Sachs on Monday released a prediction of double digit IT spending growth in 2010! They are also predicting growth of about 15% in online advertising after a 4% decrease this year. This is a positive indicator for the business climate overall and even more significant swing for IT professionals. This 20% swing will put pressure on the industry to supply the products, services and technical professionals to meet the demand.

I have already seen an increase in interest and activity in the market. I think the inflection point will be October 22 when Microsoft releases Windows 7. After that, companies will begin technology refresh cycles at a faster rate as we move into 2010.

2010 looks like it will be a great year!

Source:
Google AP - Goldman Sachs
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gtH3V91COtoipptOBVJXnfZgT3SgD9ARUUT01

Virtualization Adoption Update

VMWare ESX Server continues to lead according to Centrify survey with 60% of the market. VMWare ESXi has 31%, Microsoft Hyper-V comes in at 26% and Citrix Xen Server at 18%. This is in line with what we have seen. There is definitely a continued trend to move toward virtualization and more often than in the past companies are considering Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix Xen Server.

So what is delaying some companies from implementing a virtual production environment? There is an old adage that pioneers get arrows in their back but the pioneer days of virtualization were 3 -5 years ago and ended 2 years ago when we here at Nortec virtualized our entire infrastructure. The delay has been around cost of the software and the new hardware needed to implement the solution. Microsoft’s pressure on VMWare by bundling Hyper-V with Windows 2008 is solving the cost issue. As more and more businesses reach the point of needing a hardware refresh the hardware cost issue is being resolved as well. There are still of course a few old school hold outs but by in large this shift is happening and happening fast.

If you have not already virtualized your entire server infrastructure then now is time to put your plan together. It is a great time! There are several options and all are viable and make sense. Your design and choice of hypervisor will depend on your environment and what you are trying to accomplish.

Source: Centrify
http://www.centrify.com/news/release.asp?id=2009090101

Managing IT Professionals

I read “The Unspoken Truth About Managing Geeks” by Jeff Ello an article in CIO Magazine on managing IT Professionals. The article states that managing IT professionals is different than other groups because IT Pros are very logical and have little to no tolerance for non-logic. It is all about respect. The IT Pro needs to have respect for you and must show respect to them or the communication breaks down. The key to getting the respect is being logical and getting things done. You must not implement rules, process or decisions that do not make sense.

Mr. Ello states “While everyone would like to work for a nice person who is always right, IT pros will prefer a jerk who is always right over a nice person who is always wrong. Wrong creates unnecessary work, impossible situations and major failures. Wrong is evil, and it must be defeated. Capacity for technical reasoning trumps all other professional factors, period.”

In my experience I have seen the traits Mr. Ello describes in IT Pros. The challenge is that at the end of the day everyone is an individual and so any kind of stereotyping can be shot down. Does this mean we should not try to identify behavior that is typical for IT Pros? No – We can and this article does help identify some behaviors. I think adapting your approach to each individual will still be required. That is what you signed up for when you became a manger. Create an engaging relationship with each member of your team and have a passion for technology.

Article: “The Unspoken Truth About Managing Geeks” by Jeff Ello
http://www.cio.com/article/501697/The_Unspoken_Truth_About_Managing_Geeks?page=1

Quote of Day from "Who's Got Your Back":

Mr. Ferrazzi states the following about building your support network and following his methodology for success:

"... it requires dedication, discipline, and a willingness to push through your defenses and fears. Setting goals, then busting your butt to follow through with them, takes effort, self-reflection, honesty, and perseverance. But think about the alternative: Do you really want to look back from your old age at the dreams you almost but never quite went for, or the relationships you didn’t find the courage or time to develop? Or do you want to look back and say to yourself, ` Yes I did it’?”

- Keith Ferrazzi

“Who’s got your back” by Keith Ferrazzi

“Who’s got your back” is a book about building a support team – people you confide in for support on life’s challenges. When I first started reading the book I quickly grasped the concept of building a network. Mr. Ferrazzi gave several examples including weight watchers – essentially the entire weight watchers strategy is creating a support group to hold you accountable to your own goals.

I wondered after a chapter or so if there was really enough on building a personal support network for an entire book …. There is and Mr. Ferrazzi does an excellent job. After giving examples of how support groups have succeeded Mr. Ferrazzi explains why the support is important and how to create a support group.

My take away from “Who’s got your back” is five steps:

1. Inventory your current relationships and determine who supports you and who does not.

2. Build an engaging relationship with a few individuals that will; support you and allow you to support them; Are willing to open up in an engaging, trusting, confidential relationship.

3. Meet with those individuals at least once a month formally or casually.

4. Build the relationship to where you are comfortable discussing your goals and challenges.

5. Review your goals and hold each other accountable to them.

I have been a go it alone person and somewhat introverted so this is challenging for me. I have learned the value of support and have done some of this. I can refine my execution and have more and better relationships and Mr. Ferrazzi did a great job of outlining how to do this.

Desktop Virtualization – Is it time?

Today is opening day of VMWorld in San Francisco! Nortec has several of our Senior Consultants attending. http://www.vmworld2009.com/

I read an interesting article on Desktop Virtualization in Tech Republic. Server virtualization has taken off and there is more and more buzz around desktop virtualization. Is it time to for virtualization on the desktop? Tech Republic asked their CIO Jury, “Is your IT department strongly considering a deployment of virtual desktops?” - Out of 12 CIOs , 9 gave no votes and 3 gave yes votes. However, some yes votes were very enthusiastic yes so are these CIOs the early adopters or are they the minority?

Virtualization on the desktop is driven primarily by cost. This savings is mostly the cost to manage the desktop not the actual physical cost for hardware. In this current economy driving costs lower is a priority for most CIOs. The challenge is that the virtualized desktops still come up short for many applications and around multi-media. When it comes to simple desktops with minimal applications virtual desktops make tremendous sense but as the complexity goes up sometimes it cannot be done. Citrix does continue to lead in the desktop virtualization space with more and more capability around multimedia and providing the complete desktop experience users are looking for so this helps with the adoption.

I think that those implementing desktop virtualization today are early adopters, but desktop virtualization will not eliminate the desktop. Over the next 3 - 7 years there will be a slow shift to about even - 50% desktops and 50% terminals as virtual desktops.

After that well………….

Applications are moving to the internet and “cloud computing” so as this happens the virtual desktop will continue to make more sense. Provided the internet bandwidth can get ahead of the desktop demands we will eventually only need a web browser. However, as rapidly as technology is changing, it will still take time.

Link to Tech Republic Article:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=2607

The Hypervisor Battle

There is an interesting article regarding VMWare’s battle to hold market share in the hypervisor market in Network World, “VMware plows ahead in face of controversy, increased competition”.

The article discusses a survey showing VMWare and Microsoft with very close hypervisor penetration! However, they point out that VMWare is used by 100% of the Fortune 100 and 150,000 companies worldwide. VMWare does seem to have the majority of clients and is very strong in enterprise clients.

This will be a very interesting year for the “Hypervisor Battle”. Microsoft has commoditized the hypervisor by bundling it with Windows Server 2008. Microsoft is taking share and starting in the mid-market clients. They are offering to manage both Microsoft Hyper-V and V-Sphere with System Center Virtual Machine Manager as they recognize that they will need to co-exist with VMWare.

Microsoft has been successful at taking down some large competitors and continues to battle with many. One thing for sure is that Microsoft will stay in the battle and will not give up easy - as Steve Ballmer said at Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference 2009: “long term, long term, long term…. Is Microsoft going to go home? We don’t go home!”

Network World Article - “VMware plows ahead in face of controversy, increased competition”:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/082609-vmware-vmworld-preview.html?hpg1=bn

Microsoft Exchange 2010

Microsoft Exchange 2010 release will follow closely behind Windows 7 and there is plenty to be excited about. Windows 7 is looking fast and rock solid and Exchange 2010 has some great new features.

Microsoft is a leader when it comes to a vision around Unified Communications. Specifically I really like the voice mail to text feature that allows someone to receive their voice mail in text within an email. This will allow you to read your voice mails in loud places or when you are at a seminar and do not want to have to get up and step outside to retrieve a voice mail. Here is a summary of other Exchange 2010 features listed by Microsoft:

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 enables you to achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that simplify your administration, help protect your communications.

Exchange Server 2010 gives you the flexibility to tailor your deployment based on your unique needs and a simplified way to help keep e-mail continuously available for your users.

Exchange 2010 mailbox database will allow you up to a 50% reduction in disk IOPS (Input/Output Per Second) over Exchange Server 2007, as well as greater resiliency against data corruption.

Building on previous investments in Continuous Replication technologies in Exchange 2007, a simplified approach to high availability and disaster recovery coupled with enhanced maintenance tools, will help you achieve new levels of reliability and reduce the complexity of delivering business continuity.

Exchange Server 2010 helps your users get more done by giving them the freedom to securely access all of their communications – e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging, and more – from virtually any platform, Web-browser, or device through industry standard protocols. Your users live their business lives in their inboxes every day. For so many organizations, Exchange has been the foundation of a universal inbox.

Exchange 2010 adds new productivity features that can help your users more easily organize and prioritize the communications in their inboxes.

In today's increasingly regulated environment, it has become critical to efficiently preserve business records. This includes e-mail which has quickly become the principle source of data in legal discovery and other compliance-related investigations.
But managing e-mail for compliance has become particularly challenging for most organizations. The problem is that, as e-mail volume grows beyond inbox storage limits, users are often forced to move this mail off e-mail servers and onto PCs and laptops as PST (personal storage) files. This isolates e-mail, making it more difficult to manage and search in a way that meets compliance requirements.

To address this PST problem and ease the compliance burden, Exchange 2010 delivers new, integrated e-mail archiving and retention functionality–including granular multi-mailbox search and immediate legal hold. When you combine this with the flexibility provided by the Exchange storage architecture, you can take better control of your corporate information, while providing your users with a streamlined experience that does not disrupt the way they manage their inboxes every day.

Despite all your best efforts, users make innocent mistakes handling sensitive corporate information every day. At the same time, there is always the threat of unauthorized users getting access to unprotected sensitive data. The issue has grown even more urgent in the face of increasing regulations governing customers’ and employees’ personal information.
Exchange 2010 makes it easy to better protect your company’s communications and e-mail through centrally managed information control capabilities. This includes the ability to intercept, moderate, encrypt and block e-mail more effectively. Together, this functionality provides you with a flexible range of protection and control options, whether you want to automatically enforce controls or empower users to implement their own data protection.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Features

Microsoft Released Windows Server 2008 R2 in July and this comes with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. This new version of Hyper-V changes the game when considering virtualization solutions. Realistically businesses will need to look at this option particularly in the current economy where IT needs to do more with less. Much needed Live Migration has been added and customers get increased availability with support for planned and unplanned downtime scenarios.

· Available as a free download: http://tinyurl.com/5plkqa
· Support for live migration for “zero downtime” planned migrations
· Support for host clustering for unplanned downtime protection
· Improved scalability with support for 1 TB host memory and up to 8 sockets

Live Migration
#1 Customer Requested Feature
Processor Compatibility Mode

New Processor Support
Improved Performance
Lower Power Costs

Enhanced Scalability (4x Improvement)
Support for 64 Logical Processors
Support for up to 384 Running VMs or up to 512 virtual processors
Greater VM Density
Lower TCO

Networking Enhancements
Improved Network Performance
10 Gb/E Ready

Dynamic Virtual Machine Capabilities
Live Migration
Hot Add/Remove Virtual Storage

Boot From Flash

Usability Enhancements
SCONFIG Enhancements

Management of Virtualized Infrastructure

Virtualization breaks the historical methods of measuring performance and troubleshooting problems. Applications running on virtual machines move across physical platforms and this is one reason why virtualization creates new issues that must be addressed differently than in the past. Knowing what container is running slow is not always enough to solve a performance issue.

Management and management software is crucial to running a successful virtualized environment. There are several management products directly from VMWare and Microsoft. If you are in a homogeneous environment these may be all you need. If you are looking at a heterogeneous environment or something more complex you may want to look at some of the third party products. There are products that range from virtual planning and management to troubleshooting and you can usually try them out for free!

Here are three virtualization management products:

VMWare VCenter Appspeed:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-appspeed/

Blue Stripe:
http://bluestripe.com/products/

Akkori
http://www.akorri.com/products-overview.htm

Disaster Recovery Planning in Virtualized Environment

Virtualization is a driver for disaster recovery. Companies that previously could not have a disaster recovery solution are able to implement one using virtualization technology.

Here are the high level steps to creating your plan:
1. Make sure you have executive sponsorship – no point putting a lot of effort into a plan that will never get off the ground
2. Store less with deduplication
3. Plan your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) - How fast will you be back up and running?
4. Plan your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - How far back will you be capable of recovering?
5. Utilize image level backups
6. Document the plan and implement
7. Test, test, test

You can create a plan for very high availability, extremely fast recovery that goes back a very long way but this all costs money so it is important to really analyze the business requirements and what is acceptable. The old saying is with enough money you can accomplish anything!

Plan before, after and then continuously!

Quote of the Day

This Quote came from the Netfix Corporate Culture Presentation:

Why high performance is so important:
1. In procedural work the best are 2X better and in creative work the best are 10X better!
2. A great work place is one with stunning colleagues

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-034 - Critical

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (972260)
Published: July 28, 2009 Updated: August 04, 2009
Version: 2.0
General Information
Executive Summary

This security update is being released out of band in conjunction with Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-035, which describes vulnerabilities in those components and controls that have been developed using vulnerable versions of the Microsoft Active Template Library (ATL). As a defense-in-depth measure, this Internet Explorer security update helps mitigate known attack vectors within Internet Explorer for those components and controls that have been developed with vulnerable versions of ATL as described in Microsoft Security Advisory (973882) and Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-035.

This security update also resolves three privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. These vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 5.01 and Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, running on supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000; Critical for Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 running on supported editions of Windows XP; Critical for Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 running on supported editions of Windows Vista; Moderate for Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 running on supported editions of Windows Server 2003; and Moderate for Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 running on supported editions of Windows Server 2008. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.
The security update addresses these vulnerabilities by modifying the way that Internet Explorer handles objects in memory and table operations. For more information about the vulnerabilities, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

Recommendation. The majority of customers have automatic updating enabled and will not need to take any action because this security update will be downloaded and installed automatically. Customers who have not enabled automatic updating need to check for updates and install this update manually. For information about specific configuration options in automatic updating, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 294871.
For administrators and enterprise installations, or end users who want to install this security update manually, Microsoft recommends that customers apply the update immediately using update management software, or by checking for updates using the Microsoft Update service.

See also the section, Detection and Deployment Tools and Guidance, later in this bulletin.

Known Issues. Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 972260 documents the currently known issues that customers may experience when installing this security update. The article also documents recommended solutions for these issues.

Complete Bulletin:
MS09-034
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-034.mspx

Microsoft Security Response Center
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/pages/security-bulletin-webcast-q-a-oob-july-2009.aspx

Technet Webcast
https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032422342&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for July 2009
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-jul-ans.mspx

“Who’s Your City” by Richard Florida on Authors@ Google

I recently watched Richard Florida author of “Who’s Your City” on Youtube, Authors@Google. The presentation is about cities and how your choice is important. I think the presentation is interesting and worth watching. Mr. Florida discusses what he found makes people have an overall feeling of well being or happiness -it is not money provided you are above the poverty level. There are basically three factors:

1. Job that you love that challenges you
2. Social connections – A “Scary Stat” is that on average people have one close confidant!
3. Your surroundings – “Who’s Your City”

He found through surveys that what makes people happy with where they live is:
1. Safe and Secure
2. Economic and Social Opportunity
3. Good Government and Business Leadership
4. High diversity environment – accepting of multi-culture, economic, and religions
5. Quality of the place physical characteristics – Parks, trails, architecture

So I will stretch this with no real supporting data to a business environment! I believe people are looking for the same things:

1. Safe work environment physical as well as information technology
2. Successful company
3. Good managers in a positive environment
4. Diverse culture on business teams has been proven to be more effective
5. Work in good physical conditions

Look at your business for the gaps and try to fill them in.

Richard Florida on youtube, Authors@Google Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khQ9BaXZAjM

There is No Silver Bullet

I have heard the expression “There is no silver bullet” many times … so much so, that it is a cliché. It is however, true and this is a fundamental concept when managing a team or business. Since there is no one thing, the alternative is to piece together all the key elements. Management leaders need to be constantly seeking out new ideas. These concepts, principles and processes need to be implemented to incrementally improve yourself, your team and your business.

When I graduated from college I read "Dress for Success" and this is a classic must read, but clearly one small piece of what is involved in a successful career. John T. Malloy, the author, did a great scientific job of analyzing business attire and what works. Companies like IBM and EDS incorporated the concepts very successfully to the point of coining the “IBM Blue Suit”. The book as many since present as if this is the silver bullet! It is more like a tool in the toolkit.

I have read many business books and often I come across the same concepts. However, I am amazed that just as often I find new information and ideas. I read new thinking on technology, management and business practices. So I will seek new information and at the same time revisit the best of what I have read and learned in the past. Take the best principles and concepts and incorporate them. The goal is small 10% improvements. Over a long period of time these small improvements add up!

Oops: 13 Management Practices That Waste Time and Money -- Aubrey Daniels

I recently read and enjoyed the “quick read” book Oops by Aubrey Daniels. The book is interesting as it focuses on human behavior and discusses management practices, policies and processes that motivate and de-motivate employees. The essence of the book is that business managers need to focus on frequent positive reinforcement of behavior and that motivating through discipline and fear is not effective for long term success. Mr. Daniels makes the analogy of games that we play and how we are constantly getting positive reinforcement when we make that great shot or move as we play. Managers need to reinforce positive behavior regularly and often as well. One practice he points out that does not work is the employee of the month because the metrics are usually not clear and it creates a negative feeling from everyone except that one person. Mr. Daniels suggests a better practice would be to create clear metrics and then recognize everyone who meets or exceeds the threshold. Do this more often – daily if possible!

I think that the book is worth reading. Motivating and driving desired employee behavior is extremely important and there are not many books that focus entirely on this.

Interoperability in the Data Center

Microsoft submitted source code yesterday to be included in the Linux Kernal. This move has been seen by many as another step by Microsoft in embracing Linux, Open Source and interoperability. The code will allow Linux to run on Windows 2008 and Hyper-V. This is also seen as necessary to compete and put pressure on VMWare.

“By allowing greater ability to run Linux on the Hyper-V virtualization platform, Microsoft is making a compelling case that it could be the virtualization vendor of choice for consolidation of Windows and Linux applications” says Gartner analyst George Weiss from PC World article:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/168759/microsoft_linux_move_puts_pressure_on_vmware.html

In either case, Microsoft’s realease of source code to Linux community is another step toward interoperability in the data center where companies have historically continued to compete on standards and not just products. Businesses have a choice to push to add to the bottom line or spend on interoperability. Until interoperating drives to bottom line, it doesn’t happen. In the world of virtualization, interoperability is driving profits so we are seeing this change in behavior. Ultimately the user will benefit from the interoperability and this is one more way the shift to virtualization is helping the industry!

The future of Technology

Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher at Microsoft spoke yesterday at Microsoft World Partner Conference #WPC09. Mr. Buxton primarily presented on multi-touch screen technology and this technology is very cool. He also talked about the future of technology and how technology will work in the future. He spoke of how monitors in general will be everywhere and I think computers in general will be everywhere. You can now purchase a notebook computer at Best Buy on clearance for $350!


Mr. Buxton talked about how 10 years ago he purposed the question “What if broadband internet were essentially free” and today it is essentially free! He then said this is essentially what is happening with monitors and I would argue computers – in the near future they will be essentially free. How will this impact our lives?


Mr. Buxton said that figuring out how technology will impact us in the future is the challenge. He said “nothing we know about technology today, we did not know 10 years ago.” How we use the technology to benefit our lives? It is how we interact with technology with our brain - incidentally our brain is “90% water.”


Mr. Buxton finished with a quote by French Novelist, Marcel Prost:


“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Steve Ballmer's Presentation at Microsoft World Partner Conference

I am in New Orleans at the Microsoft World Partner Conference 2009 #WPC09 and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO gave his presentation this morning. Mr. Ballmer was very energetic as always and appeared very excited about Bing and the launch of so many products: Windows 7, IE 8, Silverlight 3.0, Office 2010, Windows 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows Mobile 6.5.

Mr. Ballmer talked about the leaps in technology we are seeing and how Microsoft is on the edge of technology that can understand human language meaning and not just keyword search. He also mentioned the new visual recognition technology developed in the gaming group.

Mr. Ballmer talked about the difficult economy but encouraged everyone to power through this economy and think long term. He said “We can’t fix the economy, but we can innovate and help customers.” He went on to explain that Microsoft will invest 9.5 Billion dollars in R&D in these 8 areas: Windows and IE, Windows Mobile, Communications, Server, Enterprise Infrastructure, Search, Entertainment, and ERP. Mr. Ballmer said “long term, long term, long term! Is Microsoft going to go home? We don’t go home!”

Billion Dollar Lessons the Why and How

I am just finishing up Billion Dollar Lessons by Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui. The book at the end discusses why we make strategic business mistakes and how to avoid them. The why part is related to another rule I heard recently in regard to technology - The rule is that people value technology they have or use by a factor of 3 more than they are actual worth and discount technology that they don’t know or have by a factor of 3. The result is a factor of about 10 between technology we have and don’t have. This explains passionate differences people have between Macs and PCs or Linux and Windows! The book discusses how we are swayed to decisions based on what we already have, peers and leaders. We as humans have a really difficult time looking at anything objectively as we always have contextual bias. They discuss many ways to try to combat this and I break this down to four things to strive for in management and strategic decision making:

1. Conflict is good – Meetings need conflict otherwise you have false consensus, bad decisions and boring meetings!

2. If necessary, assign someone on the team to be the “devil’s advocate” and postpone the decision until some contrary points are found. Mine for conflict – seek it!

3. Create diverse teams so that you have many perspectives

4. Leadership is important however, be wary of over powerful leadership that squashes anyone who challenges their ideas –Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were great leaders!

I recommend reading the book if you have the time it is entertaining, easy to read and great information.

Here is my previous post on June 1, 2009 if you would like to look at it:

http://andrewgrose.blogspot.com/2009/06/billion-dollar-lesson-by-paul-carroll.html

New book: MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-652): Configuring Windows Server Virtualization

Microsoft Press - New Book:

Server virtualization is one of the hottest technologies today, despite a very tough economy. According to a recent IDC study, spending on virtualization is expected to approach $15 billion worldwide this year. The study estimates that over three-quarters of all companies with more than 500 employees are deploying virtual servers.

A strong growth in virtualization means more and better IT jobs for those skilled in the technology. And getting certified is a great way to validate those skills to your current and prospective employers.

To help you on the path to certification, we’re introducing the newest Microsoft Press Training Kit: MCTS Study Guide (Exam 70-652): Configuring Windows Server Virtualization (Microsoft Press, 2009; ISBN: 9780735626799; 656 pages), authored by Nelson Ruest and Danielle Ruest.
Danielle and Nelson were kind enough to send a few words on the book and their thoughts on Virtualization. Merci beaucoup, mes amis!

From Danielle and Nelson Ruest:

Over the course of 2007 and 2008, we toured the U.S. to deliver a series of presentations on virtualization and its impact in the modern datacenter, as well as its impact on server sprawl. We visited over 30 cities and talked to thousands of people in all stages of implementation.
One thing we discovered was that in each and every case, people wanted to know how to move to virtualization—what to do first, how to prepare their infrastructure, how to migrate their physical machines, how to administer hosts and virtual machines, and how to make the most of virtualization in general. This is what we wrote about in the 70-652 Training Kit, beyond providing solid support for passing the exam.

From our discussions with conference attendees, we knew that there are three starting points for organizations moving to Hyper-V virtual infrastructures:

Organizations that are not using virtualization at all

Organizations that are using software virtualization tools such as Microsoft Virtual Server

Organizations that are using a hypervisor other than Microsoft Windows Server with Hyper-V
The book begins by outlining each of these three potential positions and then moves on to provide a structured step-by-step approach to implementing Hyper-V based on your own starting point. It covers the creation of the host server infrastructure, the preparation of your administrative framework for the infrastructure, the migration of server operating systems—whether physical or virtual—to Hyper-V virtual machines, the implementation of high availability strategies for your VMs, the automation of Hyper-V operations through Windows PowerShell, the implementation of a secure Hyper-V infrastructure and more.

Like all of our other books, this guide takes you through the various stages of deployment and then provides guidance on how to administer the infrastructure once it is in place. This is also the approach we used in MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-238): Deploying Messaging Solutions with Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007. In both cases, the guides let you learn all you need to know to pass the exam, but also provide everyday guidance on how to use the product.

In addition, the 70-652 Training Kit provides deep content for studying and passing exam 70-403, Configuring System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 as well as providing updates on Hyper-V R2 features and functionalities. Two chapters have been made available for free: Chapter 6, Migrate to Hyper-V and Chapter 8, Securing Hosts and Virtual Machines. Find them here and get your first taste of what a Hyper-V deployment can and should be like. Good luck with the exam! Danielle and Nelson

Virtualizing Exchange

I am on vacation these two weeks so here is a guest Blog Post:

Tom Raisbeck
VP Professional Service
Nortec

I often get asked about virtualizing Exchange on Hyper-V or VMware? Some people think it is a bad idea to virtualize Exchange under all circumstances - this is not true! You get many advantages from virtualizing Exchange if you spec it out right. However, no matter if you spec it out perfectly or not, there is the question of whether Microsofft will support your build. Here are some tips to keep Microsoft support:

1. Exchange 2007 is supported on 64-bit hypervisors or kernels only. 32-bit is not supported. VMware 3.x is 32-bit and although Microsoft has not said they will not support this it does seem they moved the goal posts.
2. Dynamic disks are not supported.
3. Differencing disks are not supported.
4. Snapshots are not supported.
5. Exchange 2007 SP1 or better is supported on Hyper-V.
6. Exchange 2003 SP2 or better is only supported on Windows Virtual Server 2005 R2.
7. More than two virtual processors per physical core is not supported
8. Unified Messaging role is not supported
9. Storage must be fixed, pass-through SCSI, or iSCSI. Set up all advanced packet management at the host level.
10. Hardware-based VSS or VDS not supported
11. 2040GB limit for the VHD file.

Quote from IT Savvy by R. Weil and J. W. Ross

I am reading IT Savvy and so far it is pretty good! I came across a quote I liked regarding typical solutions when management is not pleased with their technology:

Fire the the CIO. If the firm just needs someone to blame, management may be inclined to bring in a new face. As with any senior management position, it's possible that a firm has an ineffective CIO, but it's often the case that the rest of the management team hasn't embraced its responsibilities to define and implement effective business processes. Blaming the CIO may simply be one way for business leaders to abdicate accountability for IT.
- Peter Weill and Jeanne W. Ross

The entire management team needs to share in the responsibility of having technology integrated with business processes. This concept reinforces the need for communication, alignment and having an IT Plan!

What is a business looking for from information Technology?

I read many articles on alignment of information technology (IT) and priorities so it made me think about what a business is looking for from IT. The answer of course is that it depends on the kind of business so I will focus here on the professional information worker business with half mobile professionals and half in office staff roles.

Here is my List of 6 High Priority Business IT Needs:

1. Most important the technology systems must be stable and up 99.999% or something close to that – Really 101 stuff here!

2. Today more than ever the systems must accommodate mobility of the work force on the road and the transition in and out of the office.

3. Employees need to have freedom to use technology – Old school restrictive strategies are just that. The lines blurred between work time and personal time so the employee needs access to business and personal technical resources.

3. Resourcefulness – IT Budgets are being cut so must do more with less!

4. Security of information

5. Information library and collaboration tools

6. Everything paperless – No paper forums to fill out.

Of course businesses also need the key aplications like office suite, email and ERP/accounting system.

Virtualization Mistakes to Avoid

1. Do not cowboy virtualization – Capacity planning and architecture is extremely important when implementing a virtual infrastructure

2. Do not put VM or Virtualization anywhere in the name of your virtual machines.

3. Keep people from launching too many virtual servers – When you can deploy a virtual server in 10 minutes it is easy to get out of control – Chasing a monster!

4. Do not try to use old methods of disaster recovery in virtualized infrastructure - create a fresh architecture for your virtualized infrastructure.

5. When planning disaster recovery solution think broad overall solution and not point solutions – DR solutions are almost always too narrow!

6. Think about fail over and also fail back – Plan how you will restore to your original system and make it a manual process.

Also see previous virtualization mistakes to avoid in post on May 27:
http://andrewgrose.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

“Do You Think Strategically about Technology?” - Jim Balsillie

I have been working with our Senior Consultants to work on providing Information Technology (IT) Strategic Plans for our clients. This is a challenge for two reasons:

1. Strategic plan sounds really grandiose, complex, time consuming and expensive.

2. IT is very broad so individuals gravitate to their area of expertise and the plan becomes narrow and tactical.

I was on a Global Conference call yesterday with guest speaker Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIM) the developer of the Blackberry and he reinforced this need and asked “Do you think strategically about technology?” Jim believes that it is rare that a CEO thinks strategically about technology and that absent a strategic mandate from senior leadership nothing really happens – the result is we go in and cut IT spending 5% or something like that!

So make the decision that you need an IT Strategic Plan, keep it broad without getting to deep into the weeds of what exact technology you will use and keep it short. The IT Plan may just be two or three pages. What do you want technology to do for your business and what will it look like when you are done in two or three years. Finally if the word strategic gives you too much hartburn just call it your IT Plan!

Here is the article I wrote on April 29 on writing an IT Strategic Plan:

http://andrewgrose.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

SCVMM 2008 R2 RC Public Release Available Now

Microsoft released System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) R2 and is now available for public testing:

http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/archive/2009/06/06/scvmm-2008-r2-rc-public-release-available-now.aspx

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM) is a comprehensive management solution for the virtualized data center, enabling increased physical server utilization, centralized management of virtual machine infrastructure, and rapid provisioning of new virtual machines by the administrator, delegated administrator, and authorized end users. VMM 2008 can manage hosts that are running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2, and VMware ESX through VirtualCenter Server.

Recently, Windows Server 2008 released an R2 version that included significant feature improvements to Hyper-V. VMM 2008 R2 leverages these new platform enhancements and extends the feature set of VMM 2008. This topic provides an overview of the new features that are included in VMM 2008 R2.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Host Management

With VMM 2008 R2, you can create and manage virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V hosts. When you add a host that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 and that does not have Hyper-V enabled, VMM 2008 R2 automatically enables the Hyper-V role on the host.

VMM 2008 R2 supports the following new features of Windows Server 2008 R2:
Live migration between Windows Server 2008 R2 clustered hosts. With live migration, you can migrate a virtual machine from one node of a Windows Server 2008 R2 failover cluster to another node in the same cluster without any downtime. Because the virtual machine does not experience any downtime, the move is completely transparent to the users that are connected to the virtual machine.

Network optimization detection during virtual machine placement. VMM 2008 R2 supports both Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) and TCP Chimney, which are Windows Server 2008 R2 features that improve network performance for virtual machines.

Network adapters that support the VMQ feature are able to create a unique network queue for each virtual network adapter and then connect that queue directly to the virtual machine’s memory. This connection routes packets directly from the hypervisor to the virtual machine, bypassing much of the processing in the virtualization stack.

Network adapters that support the TCP Chimney feature are able to offload the processing of network traffic from the networking stack. Both of these features increase network performance and reduce CPU utilization.

Hot addition and removal of virtual hard disks (VHDs). In Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V allows users to add and remove VHDs from a virtual machine while it is running.
Enhanced Support for Shared Storage and SAN Transfers
VMM 2008 R2 provides the following enhancements:

Clustered Shared Volume (CSV) Support

VMM 2008 R2 supports the Windows Server 2008 R2 clustered shared volume (CSV) feature. CSV enables all hosts on a Windows Server 2008 R2 failover cluster to concurrently access virtual machine files on a single shared logical unit number (LUN). Because all nodes on the cluster can access a single shared LUN, virtual machines have complete transparency with respect to which nodes actually own a LUN. This enables live migration of virtual machines within the cluster because all nodes in the cluster can access any LUN.
Support for Sanbolic Clustered File System

VMM 2008 R2 supports the Sanbolic Clustered File System (CFS), a third-party shared volume solution for quick migration on hosts running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, and live migration on hosts running Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V.
Support for Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows

VMM 2008 R2 supports Veritas Storage Foundation 5.1 for Windows (SFW), an online storage management solution for creating virtual storage devices from physical disks and arrays. Volumes created as part of a cluster resource group by using SFW are detected by VMM 2008 R2 and can be selected during virtual machine placement or migration. An SFW volume is limited to one virtual machine.

SAN Migration into and out of Clustered Hosts

VMM 2008 R2 supports the use of SAN transfers to migrate virtual machines and highly available virtual machines into and out of a cluster. When you migrate a virtual machine into a cluster by using a SAN transfer, VMM checks all nodes in the cluster to ensure that each node can see the LUN and automatically creates a cluster disk resource for the LUN. Even though VMM automatically configures the cluster disk resource, it does not validate it. You must use the Validate a Configuration Wizard in Failover Cluster Management to validate the newly created cluster disk resource. To migrate a virtual machine out of a cluster, the virtual machine must be on a dedicated LUN that is not using CSV.
Expanded Support for iSCSI SANs

VMM 2008 supports SAN transfers of virtual machines that use initiator-based iSCSI target connections, which requires one iSCSI target for every LUN. VMM 2008 R2 adds support for LUN masking, which allows multiple LUNs per iSCSI target and expands VMM support for iSCSI SAN vendors.

Quick Storage Migration

For a Windows Server 2008 R2 host or a Storage VMotion-capable host, you can migrate a running virtual machine’s files to a different storage location on the same host with minimal or no service outage. If you use a wizard to migrate a virtual machine to a host that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 and you use a network transfer, VMM 2008 R2 now gives you the option to specify separate storage locations for each virtual hard disk (.vhd) file for the virtual machine.

Maintenance Mode for Hosts

In VMM 2008 R2, you can start maintenance mode for a Windows-based host anytime you need to perform maintenance tasks on the host, such as applying updates or replacing a physical component.

When you start maintenance mode on a host in a Windows Server 2008 R2 cluster with highly available virtual machines, you can do one of the following:
If the option is available, use live migration to evacuate all virtual machines to other hosts on the same cluster. If the migration fails for any virtual machine on the host, maintenance mode is not started on that host and VMM does not migrate back the virtual machines that have already migrated.

Place all virtual machines on the host into a saved state.
When you start maintenance mode on a stand-alone Windows-based host, on a host in a Windows Server 2008 cluster, or on a Windows Server 2008 R2 host that has any non-highly available virtual machines, VMM automatically places all virtual machines into a saved state.

Important

When VMM places virtual machines into a saved state, any users of the virtual machines will experience a loss of service.

When you start maintenance mode on any host, VMM automatically does the following:
Blocks virtual machine creation operations on the host.
Excludes the host from the host ratings during placement.

Displays a host status of In Maintenance Mode in Host view of the VMM Administrator Console.
When you stop maintenance mode on a host, VMM allows virtual machine creation operations on the host, includes the host in the host ratings during placement, and displays a host status of OK in Host view of the VMM Administrator Console. However, VMM does not automatically do a live migration to move highly available virtual machines back onto the host in a Windows Server 2008 R2 cluster, and it does not restart any of the virtual machines on the host.
To start or stop maintenance mode, in Host view of the VMM Administrator Console, right-click a host, and then click the appropriate command.

Support for VMware Port Groups for Virtual Switches

VMM uses the network location and tag specified for the virtual network adapter in the hardware configuration to determine the network availability of a virtual machine on a host. In VMM 2008 R2, if you are deploying the virtual machine to a VMware ESX Server host, you can select from the VMware port groups that are available for virtual switches.
Support for Virtual Machine Permissions Assigned in Hyper-V

In VMM 2008 R2, VMM preserves changes made to role definitions or role memberships in the root scope of the Hyper-V authorization store. All changes to any other scope are overwritten every half hour by the VMM user role refresher. This differs from user role processing in VMM 2008. In VMM 2008, VMM determines access to virtual machines, hosts, and resources based solely on the rights and permissions associated with VMM user roles. VMM 2008 does not make any changes to Hyper-V role definitions and role memberships; it simply ignores the Hyper-V authorization store while the hosts and virtual machines are under its management.
For more information about user roles and scopes, see Role-Based Security in VMM (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=119337).

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft Sets Date for Windows 7: October 22

Microsoft set the date for general public release of Windows 7 today - October 22, 2009. Microsoft will offer an upgrade plan for individuals purchasing computers before the release – details will be coming soon.

“Our milestone-to-milestone approach for Windows 7 is built on a great deal of feedback from customers and testers. This has been pivotal to the development of Windows 7. Since then, we’ve made enough progress to feel really good about announcing today that Windows 7 will be in stores beginning 22 October.”
- Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft Windows 7 Team

Windows 7 looks good from the reviews I have read – here are key features:

Faster, more responsive performance
Improved taskbar and full-screen previews
Jump Lists
New ways to work with Windows

For more details on Windows 7 see my earlier Blog Post on May 1st:
http://andrewgrose.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

Microsoft Windows New Threat

Time to update your Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server and older Windows versions - Here is the Security bullitin from Microsoft:

Microsoft Security Advisory (971778)
Vulnerability in Microsoft DirectShow Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published: May 28, 2009

Version: 1.0

Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a new vulnerability in Microsoft DirectX. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if user opened a specially crafted QuickTime media file. Microsoft is aware of limited, active attacks that use this exploit code. While our investigation is ongoing, our investigation so far has shown that Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 are vulnerable; all versions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 are not vulnerable. Microsoft has activated its Software Security Incident Response Process (SSIRP) and is continuing to investigate this issue.
Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.

We are actively working with partners in our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) and our Microsoft Security Response Alliance (MSRA) program to provide information that they can use to provide broader protections to customers.
Mitigating Factors:

In a Web-based attack scenario, an attacker would have to host a Web site that contains a Web page that is used to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker would have no way to force users to visit a malicious Web site. Instead, an attacker would have to convince them to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link that takes them to the attacker's Web site. After they click the link, they would be prompted to perform several actions. An attack could only occur after they performed these actions.

An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

All versions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 are not affected by this issue.

Link to fix issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971778

Billion Dollar Lesson by Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui

I have been reading Billion Dollar Lessons and it is a great book! It is interesting to read the details of so many companies that make what appear in many cases very obvious blunders. It is also surprising just how many companies with deep resources have failed. So what key concepts can be gained by reading about these failures? Here are the four concepts that resonated with me:

1. Wayne Gretsky Rule: Go where the puck is going not where it is. Invest today for where the business and technology will be next year or three years from now. This is extremely important in technology because by the time a solution or practice is developed the market place will have changed so much. Examples of this are video, cameras and cellular business.

2. Constantly be revisiting your strategic business plan. In just about every case of business failure it is the plan! No matter how well the management executes on the plan the business will fail if the plan is severely flawed.

3. When your business is declining because of a shift in the marketplace, it is very difficult to change your entire business. When deciding what new business to invest in be clear on what the true experience and skills of your organization are and how you can leverage those in the new market that you plan to pursue.

4. Acquisition and consolidation strategies are very difficult to execute on for five main reasons:

a. The acquired business culture is usually very different and therefore the employees do not assimilate and actually, in some cases, employees have gone as far as doing harm to the new organization.

b. Economies of scale rarely materialize

c. When companies suddenly increase by 50% - 100% their systems and process usually are not able to scale fast enough and often lead to massive losses

d. Usually an acquisition leads businesses into new markets that the current management team does not have the necessary experience

e. Acquiring businesses usually requires more leverage and this puts the business at a greater risk

These are the key concepts I gained and at the end of the day the book reminded me how fragile businesses big and small are and how important it is to have a solid business plan.

Managing Your Virtual Infrastructure

I was at Interop last week and although attendance appeared to me to be lower than in the past I thought the presentations were much better and I believe this is a result of the major shift in technology to virtualization and cloud computing combined with the soft economy. Challenging times bring out the best in many people!

One common theme at Interop was the challenge around bringing different technical groups together: storage, server, networking, applications. Virtualization requires considering the complete system so communicating between silos is necessary. I am an east coast person but it looks like what the IT team really needs is a non-technical west coast style tech team off-site somewhere in Orange County to work on communications and various team building exercises.

Once you have the entire technical staff working as a team here are the challenges you will need to address:

1. Visibility – Where is the application and where is the problem?
2. How do you prove source of problem to the component owner?
3. Where will the next constraint or problem arise?
4. Planning for the next expansion
5. Dealing with applications resource contention
6. Over use of VMotion – simultaneous moves in same LUN can cause poor performance

Virtualization creates the most dynamic data center that IT management has seen and this is great but it means there is a more significant challenge - The mantra becomes “constant monitoring, modeling and planning.” Depending on the size and complexity of your virtualized infrastructure the technical management team should at least once a quarter and maybe as often as weekly do a capacity planning style exercise based on current utilization and planned expansion.

Here are the virtualization mistakes to avoid:

1. Racing to deploy and failing to plan completely
2. Configuration mistakes – check before using default settings
3. Not enough storage IOPs
4. Resource contention – not all applications work well together
5. CPU access – underestimate demands
6. Not understanding work loads
7. Not taking complete system into consideration
8. Lack of awareness of the dependencies
9. Lack of awareness of workload curves

Here are a few companies that make tools you may want to consider to help you manage your dynamic virtual infrastructure: Akorri, Ixia, Blue Stripe, vKernal, Visioncore and CA.

Virtualization is one of the most exciting things that has happened in the information technology industry in many years so embrace it and enjoy it – “Virtualize your infrastructure with passion.”

State of Virtualization

Latest data on the state of virtualization from presentation today by Barb Goldworm, President and Chief Analyst of Focus:

Drivers – Why are businesses implementing virtualization?

1. Disaster recovery
2. Consolidation
3. Increase Server Utilization
4. Reduce space and power
5. Increase availability
6. Improve IT
7. Improve Management

The recent change to disaster recovery as primary driver is a result of small businesses that before could not justify the cost. In enterprise space consolidation is still the primary driver.

Actual businesses benefits reported:

1. Increase utilization
2. Reduce space and power
3. Reduce total cost of ownership
4. Increase return on investment
5. Improved agility

In either case businesses do realize the benefit and are moving to a virtual environment rapidly.
80% of companies have adopted virtualization to some degree
95% of companies have either adopted or are planning or implementing

How much of the server environment is virtualized:

1/3 Less than 20%
1/3 between 20% - 40%
1/3 40 – 100%

Only 9% have virtualized more than 80% of their Servers.

Barriers to Virtualization:

1. Budget
2. Applications don’t support virtualization
3. Performance concerns
4. Applications are hard to virtualize
5. Storage issues
6. Skill set to implement and support
7. Security

Next I will post on virtualization management and then the direction of the industry.

Source: Focus – http://www.focusonsystems.com/

7 Rules for a great PowerPoint Presentation!

I was at a technical event the other day and sat wondering – “Why is it that…. everyone knows not to put word documents in PowerPoint but does it anyway?” This particular PowerPoint presentation was brutal – the material was dull to begin with and the font size was so small only the front row could read it if they squinted. The scary part is that this is not the exception - it is in fact the rule in the technology industry. Here is the quote you will hear “This slide is a bit of an eye chart” – So why do presenters do this? I shamefully admit I to have done this - but why? I am afraid the only explanation is that the presenter is not putting enough time into preparation and feels they need all the information up there so they have something to present! I have actually seen presenters admit while fumbling through a presentation that they were not their slides and that they had not gone through them before! This just screams to their audience “I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU!”

I participated in a presentation skills course a few years ago and the instructor said the most effective way to use PowerPoint is one slide one thought or concept. I tried this once myself and it worked but comes across a little odd as there is a “PowerPoint Culture” (I just coined that term and I think I like it) that clearly has more than one idea per slide.

So what do you do…………

Guy Kawasaki has his 10-20-30 rule for effective PowerPoint presentation for venture capitalists. The rules are no more than 10 slides, no more than 20 minutes and no less than 30 size fonts. I really like his presentation it is less than 2 minutes here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liQLdRk0Ziw

I came up with my 7 rules for creating a compelling PowerPoint presentation in the technology industry:

1. Start with an attention getter – Jump in!
2. Know the 3 -5 points you want the listener to "take away"
3. Be sure to put a diagram or picture on just about every slide
4. Keep your presentation less than 40 slides and less than an hour
5. Use font size of 30 or greater
6. Tell 3 - 5 stories that ties in to each of your points
7. Rehearse the presentation 3 – 5 times

PowerPoint Presenter Oath “I will always be well prepared for my presentation and never read any of the slides” and now the most important part, “and this time, I mean it!”

Information Technology major changes in the next 5 – 10 years – How do we prepare?

The fact that all the major U.S. auto companies are facing major financial pressures and two out of three are facing government bailout and bankruptcy should be a wake-up call to everyone! Businesses and people in general need to consider what is happening in industries, markets, and technology. The challenge of course is that when you watch the news and discuss what is happening it is very hard for most people, including me and probably you, to know what is really going on! This confusion is caused by the complexity combined with the political and economic agendas of the media, politicians, and business leaders discussing the situation.

The business leaders with the most to loose seem to have a blind spot right where they need visibility the most – just look at Kodak, GM and Chrysler. Kodak new for more than 30 years that the digital camera was coming but somehow did not really believe it would completely replace film in the consumer market until it was too late. Kodak’s stock was $65.95 on Oct 2 1972 ($335 inflation adjusted) and is now under $3 with losses of $2.46 per share last year. That is more than a 99% drop in share price adjusted for inflation! If you invested in GM and Chrysler your shares will likely be worthless.

The key is looking at a shift and really analyzing the long term implications. Is your main product going away completely like traditional camera film? Is your business becoming non-competitive with the rest of the world like the U.S. auto industry? In both these cases the answer is yes! The individuals in the industry need to create a long term strategy to prosper in that change.

In the case of IT the question is two fold: 1. Is there a shift in IT to cloud based computing? 2. Is there a shift to outsourcing tasks to lower cost countries (off-shore)? The answer to both of these questions is yes! So the next step is to start understanding the implications of this and creating a strategy so that your business can thrive in this environment or you, as a technology professional, can take advantage of this shift. The worst thing you can do is stick your head in the sand and say, "oh it is years away." It is years away, but these shifts usually happen faster than we think - if you wait until it is upon you, it will be too late!!

To go deeper into this IT shift you need to look at what parts of technology are shifting to the cloud and off-shore first. The obvious business shift is software development off-shore and managed IT services to the cloud and off-shore. Simple broad based applications such as email, and CRM will move to the cloud fast.

Plan to benefit from the technology shift to cloud computing and off-shore and you will prosper!