More operational advice buried deep in the Microsoft website

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Last month I blogged about some useful operational advice on the Microsoft website and I’ve just found a load more in the MSDN library. Specifically, I was looking at the advice for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 operations but there is a whole load of guidance there for pretty much all of the Microsoft server products (although I should also point out that in true Microsoft style, each product group has structured its information differently).

How Microsoft does IT

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Microsoft IT ShowcaseI was at a presentation last week where some interesting statistics were given about Microsoft’s own IT operations:

  • 300,000 devices for 92,000 users in 89 countries.
  • 7,000,000 remote connections per month.
  • 3,000,000 internal e-mails per day.
  • 100,000 e-mail accounts with 99.99% mailbox availability.
  • 1.7Tb SAP database (running on Microsoft SQL Server).

Now who says that Microsoft software doesn’t scale to enterprise levels? For anyone who has ever wondered how Microsoft runs its own IT, check out the Microsoft IT Showcase.

Useful operational advice on the Microsoft website

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Finding information on the Microsoft website is not always easy, but there is some good stuff buried deep there. Like the Windows Server 2003 TechCenter, with topics including:

For anyone looking at developing a set of operational procedures, the Active Directory product operations guide is worth a look. Drill down through this, and it goes right down to the level of commands/clicks in the detailed procedures (e.g. back up system state and the system disk). Other product operations guides are linked from the Microsoft management and operations page for both core products (AD, DHCP, DNS, file, print, WINS) and server application products (Exchange Server, MOM, SMS, SQL Server).

I’m famous (sort of)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Some people have commented that I may be a little biased towards Microsoft… and whilst at times that may be a fair comment, if you look at my computers I use various open source programs, I do criticise the software giant from time to time and, let’s face it, I work for a systems integrator, primarily focusing on building solutions using Microsoft infrastructure products.

I also have a tendency to use my blog as a dumping ground for notes after I attend events, which seems to have caught the attention of the the IT professional technical evangelist team at Microsoft UK (hopefully not too annoyed at the plagiarism of their presentations). Last month, they created a new blog on the TechNet web site for articles contributed by “industry insiders” – people who don’t work for Microsoft, but who have real world experience of implementing Microsoft products, possibly even in conjunction with competitive products from other vendors – and yesterday, after a couple of weeks of discussions, Steve Lamb posted what I hope will be the first of many contributions from yours truly.

First SUS, then WUS, now WSUS (or is it MUS?)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

The SUS/WUS name debate continues…

Today I received notification from Microsoft that the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) release candidate (RC) is now available. Microsoft’s e-mail to participants of the WSUS open evaluation program (OEP) reads:

“We are pleased to announce that the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) Release Candidate (RC) released today, Tuesday March 22! The Release Candidate of Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), formerly Windows Update Services (WUS), includes new features such as:

  • Replica mode for WSUS server hierarchies, making them easier to manage.
  • SSL connections between WSUS servers and clients, providing an even more secure end-to-end environment.
  • Automatic Update policy to allow non-administrators to receive update notifications, offering greater flexibility in organizations where logged on users are commonly not administrators.”

Thomas Lee notes that “the name is still a curiosity and WSUS appears to fall a bit short of earlier promises in that no SQL or Exchange updates seem to be supported, it’s an important step on the road on the path to a better patch experience for users”.

Further details of the WSUS RC can be found on the Microsoft Update Services (MUS?) website.

Ozzie’s Groove is snapped up by Microsoft

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

In my recent post which discussed the perils of blogging I linked to Ray Ozzie’s Weblog . This week, I was interested to read that Ray Ozzie was actually the creator of Lotus Notes and that his company, Groove Networks is to be acquired by Microsoft (who have long since been investors in the firm) and integrated into Microsoft’s Information Worker unit.

The Windows IT Pro magazine network WinInfo Daily Update reports that the peer-to-peer and authentication technologies from Groove’s collaboration products will be integrated into the next generation of Windows, (codenamed Longhorn).

As for Ray Ozzie, he will become one of Microsoft’s chief technology officers, reporting directly to Bill Gates.

Microsoft’s new malware removal and anti-spyware products

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

This week, alongside the January security updates, Microsoft released the first version of its malware removal tool, called the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). New versions will be released on the second Tuesday of each month (with the monthly security updates) and each version will be cumulative.

Note that this is not the Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware tool (a separate beta of that product was released last week, based on the anti-spyware application gained in the purchase of Giant Company), nor is it an anti-virus tool – MSRT is simply a rollup of all the malware removal utilities that Microsoft has previously released.

Why the EU’s sanctions against Microsoft are wrong

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I don’t normally bother to read about Microsoft’s latest legal battle when yet another competitor cries out that nobody buys their product because it’s free/cheaper/better/more widely available* (*delete as appropriate) from Microsoft, but yesterday’s rejection of Microsoft’s appeal against European Union sanctions concerns me greatly.

Forget the €497m fine – Microsoft can afford it!

Forget the trade secrets – Microsoft’s crown jewels are Windows and Office – most of that source code is still safely locked up in Redmond. Besides which, perhaps we’ll get a better quality of third-party software if it works more closely with Windows.

What worries me is that Microsoft has been forced to ship a version of Windows without Media Player.

It may sound inconsequential but its the wider ramifications of this ruling that concern me. Last week, Microsoft bought an anti-spyware company. Many believe that this sort of technology should be bundled with the operating system (more so than a media player), but this latest legal ruling in Brussels means that Microsoft now needs to be wary when including any new technologies in Windows, just in case a competitor cries foul.

The unbundling of Windows Media Player achieves nothing – those of us who use it will go and download it from Windows Update instead. Real Networks are upset because they only have a tiny proportion of the market. Boo hoo! Apple’s proprietary iTunes service is tied to the iPod meaning that they have a huge percentage of the portable digital music market sewn up, but as far as I am aware no-one is challenging them in court for that (only for charging more for downloads in the UK than elsewhere in Europe). My past experience of RealPlayer is that it is unstable, that I can’t download it without giving away my e-mail address and that it keeps popping up messages on my desktop. I only use it at all because I need it for certain websites that only offer digital media content in RealPlayer format (i.e. the BBC Radio Player). That is the crux of this issue – consumers will use whatever player they need to access their content, be that Apple QuickTime Player, Real Networks RealPlayer or Microsoft Windows Media Player – it often depends on the technologies used by the website serving the content, not what is bundled with the operating system.

Microsoft buys Giant Company

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Back in August I posted a blog entry about the what you should know about spyware article on the Microsoft website. The article has since been replaced but I was interested to read about Microsoft’s purchase of Giant Company – a leading provider of anti-spyware and anti-spam software.

Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows includes some information on Giant AntiSpyware as well as comment on Microsoft’s plans for the product, but this is the clearest indication yet as to how Microsoft is planning to integrate anti-spyware capabilities into Windows – something that some industry commentators criticised Windows XP Service Pack 2 for not addressing.

Microsoft TechNet UK events

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 20 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I used to go along to the Microsoft TechNet UK events but I stopped attending after the content and quality of the presentations dropped. Tonight, I went to my first TechNet event in years and was pleasantly surprised by the new format. Gone are the uncomfortable hotel venues (many of the events are now held at Microsoft’s UK headquarters in Reading); the time slot has switched to weekday evenings (easier for most of us to get out of work to attend, even if it did necessitate some spirited driving down the M40 after I fought my way out of Birmingham this afternoon); in come quality (if a touch arrogant) speakers; and finally a sure fire way to keep 200 techies happy – beer and pizza!

Tonight’s event was presented by Fred Baumhardt, who spoke about ISA Server 2004 network design/troubleshooting and inside application layer firewalling and filtering. I must admit that I was a little disappointed to see him dump the slide deck part way through in favour of just demonstrating the features of ISA Server 2004 Enterprise Edition, but overall, the new TechNet event format seems to be a huge improvement.

Details of future events may be found on the Microsoft UK TechNet website.