Core Configurator – download it whist you can…

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A few months ago, I wrote a post on customising Windows Server 2008 Server Core and Michael Armstrong tipped me off about a cool utility, written by former MVP Guy Teverovsky, called Core Configurator. I say former MVP, because Guy has given up that award to join Microsoft in Israel – and I’m not surprised, after his employer claimed it was their intellectual property (even though he developed it in his spare time) and asked him to remove it from the web.

Anyway, Core Configurator is intended to provide a GUI (strange as it may seem on server core) to aid in the initial setup tasks for a server core machine including:

  • Product activation.
  • Display configuration.
  • Date and time configuration.
  • Remote Desktop configuration.
  • Local user account management.
  • Firewall configuration
  • WinRM configuration
  • Networking.
  • Computer name and domain/workgroup membership.
  • Installation of server core features/roles.
  • Shutdown.
  • Reboot.

Because the tool has been removed from the web, it’s now pretty hard to get hold of, so download it while you can (there is another download location but this version has a slightly different filename and I cannot vouch for the file contents – i.e. I have not tested it). Once it’s gone, it’s gone – so don’t ask me where to get it if these links stop working.

Reviewing documents? Forget about review sheets and use the features in Word instead!

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A few weeks back, I was taking part in a document review process where the prescribed format of the review involved recording all the document comments on a separate sheet and then sending them back for consideration. Describing where the change/comment applied (e.g. section 1.1, paragraph 4, it states “blah blah blah” but really it should be “something entirely different”; section 2, last paragraph, extraneous apostrophe in PC’s; etc.) is a very labour intensive process for all the reviewers involved – it’s far easier to work through a work document and add comments/tracked changes as required.

Today, I was on the receiving end of some comments on one of my designs and I had the opposite problem – several documents with comments embedded to wade through (and one on a review sheet for good measure… grrr).

The obvious issue with receiving several documents with embedded comments/changes is how to merge all of the separate review comments into one place – and it turns out that’s easily done using Word 2007’s built-in tools for combining and comparing documents (Word 2003 has similar functionality on the Tools menu – Compare and Merge Documents…).

Compare and combine tools in Microsoft Word 2007

Once I had all the review comments merged into a single document (which only took a few seconds), I could track changes, make my edits (the review pane is useful here to jump between comments) and send it back for final sign-off. A few minutes later I had confirmation that the changes were approved, following which I accepted the changes in the document, removed hidden metadata (using the document inspector) and published the document.

It’s all quite straightforward really – the trouble is that most of us still use our office applications in the same way that we did 15 years ago… and, dare I say it, aside from knowledge workers using word processing software on a PC instead of relying on secretarial staff, the basic process probably hasn’t changed much since the days of the typing pool…

Software as a Service – or Software plus Services?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

There’s a lot of media buzz right now about cloud computing – which encompasses both “web 2.0” and Software as a Service (SaaS). Whilst it’s undeniable that web services are becoming increasingly more important, I’ll stand by my comments from a couple of years ago that the “webtop” will not be in mainstream use any time soon and those who are writing about the the death of Microsoft Windows and Office are more than a little premature.

Even so, I was interested to hear Microsoft’s Kevin Sangwell explain the differences between SaaS and the Microsoft idea of software plus services (S+S) during the recent MCS Talks session on infrastructure architecture.

I’ve heard Microsoft executives talk about software plus services but Kevin’s explanation cut’s through the marketing to look at what S+S really means in the context of traditional (on premise) computing and SaaS:

Kevin made the point that there is actually a continuum between on premise and SaaS solutions:

Software delivery continuum and software services taxonomy

  • We all understand the traditional software element – where software is installed an operated in-house (or possibly using a managed service provider).
  • Building block services are about using web services to provide an API to build applications “in the cloud” – so Amazon’s simple storage service (S3) is an example. This gives developers something to hook into and onto which to deliver a solution – for example, Jungle Disk uses the Amazon S3 platform to provide online storage and backup services.
  • Attached services provide self-contained functionality – for example anti-spam filtering of e-mail as it enters (or exits) an organisation.
  • Finished services are those that operate entirely as a web service – with salesforce.com being one, often quoted, example – Google Apps would be another (not that Microsoft are ever likely to promote that one…).

S+S is about creating a real-world hybrid – not just traditional or cloud computing but a combination of software and services – for example an organisation may use a hosted Exchange Server service but they probably still use Microsoft Outlook (or equivalent software) on a PC.

So, would moving IT services off to the cloud make all the associated IT challenges disappear? Almost certainly not! All this would lead to is a disjointed service and lots of unhappy business users. SaaS and S+S do not usually remove IT challenges altogether but they replace them with new ones – typically around service delivery (e.g. managing service level agreements, integrating various operational teams, etc.) and service support (e.g. presenting a coherent service desk with appropriate escalation between multiple service providers and the ability to assess whether a problem relates to internal IT or the hosted service) but also in relation to security (e.g. identity lifecycle management and information rights management).

Kevin has written an article for The [MSDN] Architecture Journal on the implications of software plus services consumption for enterprise IT and, for those who are interested in learning more about S+S, it’s worth a read.