Technically Speaking

On Monday May 4th Kevin Remde will again be hosting a web chat for IT Managers.  This one looking at Business Process Automation through products like BizTalk as well as Service Oriented Architecture concepts and topics.

The discussion should be similar to the last couple chats we have had.  I have a few questions put together and am quite eager to learn about the technology myself.

Please register for the event here and I look forward to seeing you Monday.

I participated in a round table discussion about Virtualization this afternoon with Kevin Remde and others from Microsoft.  The goal was to discuss virtualization and look at how Microsoft technologies can help IT departments make the move to virtualization.

Virtualization is on of the hottest buzz-words around right now but for very good reason.  Reducing physical servers in your data center will redcue power consumtion costs and resource usage overall.  This leads to better performance on the backend, lower maintenance costs (in both time and tools needed), and greater server availability (more on that in a bit).

One of the tools that was discussed today was the Microsoft Assessment and Planning toolkit or MAP for short.  This tool can be run by any IT staff member (with appropriate permissions) and will examine your environment and determine where your servers are under utilized and how much you could benefit from using virtual servers.

The tool produces a report that will outline for IT Management and C-Level management the findings and benefits of taking your organization away from physical servers and into the virtual world.

The tool can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/map

It may be the best thing available to aid in determining just how your company will benefit from Hyper-V and Virtualization.

One more tidbit of useful information, the MAP utility is a free download.

Working on meetings and ensuring all of the parties and details are captured can be very tedious process.  Just arranging a time that works for everyone and getting into Outlook can be a hassle.

There are ways to take these meetings online, Microsoft’s Live Meeting, Citrix Goto Meeting, or Webex are three that spring to mind.

Note: Because these applications can be quite pricey, it is not my goal with this post to sell software for any of the vendors listed.

I wanted to look at the Microsoft solution, Live Meeting, not to try and get more shops to adopt the technology, although it is a great tool, but to suggest that IT staff take the time to attend some webinars sorry Live Meetings and get to know the application.

Meeting with vendors, customers, co-workers, and other groups or individuals via the web can save time for all involved.  It might even allow for IT Managers to send their staff to seminars, using web technology, to help them grow their skills.

If you go so far as to demo the technology to co-workers and management outside of IT, you may find savings in all kinds of places that might justify the cost of the application.

Note: I do not plan to review Live Meeting in this post, though I am considering doing so in the future. I wanted to get you thinking about meetings and how web technologies might remove the need for meetings or enable better use of meetings and the time spent in them.

Microsoft has tons of Live Meeting events, some public, some not, but they host tons of Live Meetings.  I would recommend looking around TechNet for a live meeting that might cover a topic that you or your staff struggle with or have questions about.  Or attend one of the IT Manager chats coming up as those will be done with Live Meeting.

Live Meeting has helped me tremendously in allowing travel to be reduced while keeping PowerPoint on the table.  It will not always replace a face to face meeting for many organizations, but in some it could as web cams can provide a visual experience.

From where I sit, Live Meeting makes conference calls more robust and more useful.  Making them a true alternative to face to face meetings.

So I encourage you to participate in the web chats for IT Managers or at least look into what Live Meeting might be able to offer your company, you might be surprised at the adoption and possibilities it brings.  I know I do.