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This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview Rory McCaw, Leading Authority in Microsoft Technologies, Microsoft Certified Trainer, Consultant and Advisor to Corporations, Microsoft Systems Center Operation Manager Most Valuable Professional Award Recipient.

Go to www.microsoft.com/youshapeit/technet March edition, for a deeper look at this interview and much more on Systems Management.

Enjoy,
Stephen Ibaraki,
FCIPS, I.S.P., ITCP/IFIP IP3, MVP , DFNPA, CNP, Advanced Technology,YouShapeIT

Rory McCaw is a Principal Consultant and OpsMgr MVP at Infront Consulting Group, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner based in Toronto, and the author of a number of technical books, including How to Cheat at Managing Microsoft Operations Manager 2005. Rory actively consults to large organizations helping them architect, implement, configure and customize System Center technologies integrating them into their business processes. Rory holds numerous industry designations, in addition to being an accomplished public speaker who has delivered numerous webcasts and online learning sessions on MOM 2005, SCOM 2007, SMS 2003, SCCM 2007, SQL Reporting Services, Branch Office Infrastructure and Security. Rory has also spoken on these and other topics at industry events such as MMS, TechEd and Comdex.

Rory enjoys developing training materials on the applications that he consults on and regularly delivers this training around the world for large enterprise customers. Rory has been nominated as a Ops Mgr MVP for the last 6 years and actively posts to his blog at http://spaces.msn.com/rorymccaw and company web site http://www.infrontconsulting.com. Rory is also the author of the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Boot Camps (http://www.infrontconsulting.com/events.htm) which deliver in-depth technical knowledge of Ops Mgr to customers worldwide.

To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link

DISCUSSION:

Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic

:00:34:
Can you share a little bit about your background?
"....I am a Principal Consultant at a company called Infront Consulting Group. Infront focuses on the deployment and integration and customization of different Microsoft Systems Center technologies within large corporate enterprise environments. My role is to help and assist in the deployment and integration of those technologies as well as manage a group of consultants that we have that provide similar services to our corporate customers...."

:01:06:
Can you share one or more stories centered around these themes and which involve the Systems Management: Focus on the System Center family?
"....Some of the challenges that customers are facing, particularly in today's economic times, are that they are looking at the investments they are making from their capital budgets (primarily into monitoring technologies and changing management technologies) and needing to justify those to senior levels of management. When faced with analyzing their current investments into a variety of different technologies, the Systems Center suite of products typically comes as one of the less expensive offerings. That is where we are typically engaged to help a customer deploy and integrate those technologies within their environment...."

:04:53:
Why are you passionate about Systems Management using System Center?
"....One of the reasons that I'm passionate is because we do tend to see an almost immediate return of investment to a customer....The other is the ability to get inside...into all of the mission critical systems within an enterprise...."

:07:01:
Can you profile the products in the System Center Family?
"....There are four core products right now.....They consist of Systems Center Configuration Manager which is primarily used for change and configuration management....On the Operations Manager's side....we had MOM 2005 and now we have Systems Center Operations Manager 2007....The second component of Operations Manager is the ability to centrally collect and report on all of the security events that are written to Windows security event log.....The Data Protection Center products would be the third offering in the Systems Center suite....A newcomer to the Systems Center space is the Systems Center Virtual Machine manager...."

:10:58:
What are some other related Microsoft solutions connected to Systems Management?
"....Microsoft has a suite of technologies that they have incorporated into the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP). MDOP provides access to technology that would enhance the support in a large enterprise environment of desktop applications...."

:16:57:
Do you have any other additional related Microsoft solutions?
"....Different resource kits are available that can enhance the monitoring and the maintenance of Windows' systems and there are a number of third party tools that provide point solutions to different problems within a large corporate environment...."

:18:54:
Would you consider PowerShell part of the tools to help with system management?
"....integration of PowerShell into some of the Systems Center suites (it's not available in all of the System Center products) certainly extends the system's capabilities and provides an alternative to administrators who may have a necessity to automate certain tasks....It does have its place in helping you make administrative changes en masse and automate those through the configuration family maintenance mode type task...."

:20:21:
What hard-to-find tips do you have for IT Pros concerning Systems Management?
"....An evaluation of what they truly want to accomplish and to come up with a requirements list and a wish list. When they sit down to evaluate the different phases within their project they will be able to realistically identify what the architecture looks like and what the hardware requirements are and what the resources are going to be required....A requirement analysis...."

:22:28:
What's cool about System Center?
"....The Systems Center tools allow the systems administrators to become proactively notified as well as more proactive in their day-to-day role. By becoming more proactive and having an understanding ahead of time of potential issues, they can schedule a time that is convenient for them to deal with the issue before it becomes an outage and they have to go into 'fire fighting' mode...."

:24:09:
What are the pain points and solutions for IT Pros when installing, managing, and working with Systems Management?
"....Look for commonalities between different server roles. Try to identify what it is that could be grouped together from a logical monitoring or deployment perspective....In the context of operations management look at what it is that you are needing to monitor and what your immediate needs are....Look at the overall health of your operating system and the logical drive, memory and CPU utilization and other key performance indicators....Look at monitoring the applications that run on those systems, extend that to monitoring network devices....Then integrating the system into the business process...."

:26:53:
What do you consider to be the best resources for working with Systems Management and System Center?
"....There are a number of resources out there that are easily accessible on the Internet....microsoft.com website (systems center section)....Technet for different how-to and documentation....When it comes to Operations Manager, the best community website is systemcenterforum.org....If you are looking for Systems Center Configuration Manager information my IT forum (http://spaces.msn.com/rorymccaw) tends to be a site where SMS or SCCM administrators contribute .... FAQShop.com ....momanswers.net ....Different blogs from MVPs in the community who post resolutions to different problems on an ongoing basis...."

:28:36:
What about the future of Systems Management?
"....From a Microsoft perspective I think there is a lot of potential there...."

:30:09:
Can you tell us more about Systems Management with System Center Operations Manager?
"....The Operations Manager technology provides customers the ability through an agent-to-server like configuration, to monitor their production systems and possibly development or QA systems within the large enterprise - to locally identify issues and generate alerts based upon those issues on the agent and have that forwarded back and centrally logged and collected into a backend SQL server database...."

:33:08:
What is required to ensure a successful deployment?
"....Make sure you have the right skill set in-house and you have experience with the technology so that you can get it up and running quickly....Look at it from a phased or staged perspective....Allocating the right project resources to those who are knowledgeable in the operations manager technology is important but having administrative resources there to deal with resolving the issues as they are identified and as alerts are generated is another very important component to a successful implementation within a large organization....Integrate through bi-directional communications into a second system so that the business processes can be adhered to...."

:37:19:
What are your tips for moving from another product to System Center Operations Manager successfully?
"....First step is identifying what the customer wants to achieve....There are some ways depending on the tool to move different configurations from one platform to another...Other challenges to take into consideration include the need to have multiple agents performing duplicate monitoring during that transition period...."

:40:08:
What does it mean to do change and configuration management?
"....From our perspective it includes everything from receiving a new system from your Original Equipment Manufacturer and getting that system to a point where it is ready to be released into your production environment....Patch deployment and application deployment are a very important aspect of configuration and change management ....Having the ability to collect and gather both hardware and software inventory information and licensing information is another component, as is the need for remote administration...."

:44:13:
Can you describe the biggest challenges organizations face when implementing a monitoring tool?
"....The biggest challenge that we see is approaching it methodically....We want to encourage the customer to make an investment in a requirements analysis...."

:48:00:
What 3 questions would you ask and what would be your answers if you were doing this interview?
"....What are the keys to success for Systems Center deployment?....What do each of the technologies do within the Systems Center suite?...What are some best practices around the System Center toolset?...."

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview Pat McGee, Top Development and Gaming Authority, top-selling Author, and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). 

Pat has an infectious enthusiasm that appears in this interview. When you consider that gaming is a $18B industry in NA versus $9B for movies, you can see its continuing rise is readily apparent. In fact, it’s predicted that e-sport federations will supplant traditional sports as the most popular spectator pastime. This is happening now in parts of the world where stadiums are filled to capacity to watch on gigantic screens while e-teams compete.

Enjoy,
Stephen Ibaraki,
FCIPS, I.S.P., MVP , DFNPA, CNP, Advanced Technology

Pat McGee, Top Development Authority, Author, and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional

This week, Stephen Ibaraki has an exclusive interview with Pat McGee.

Pat is a Microsoft XNA / DirectX MVP and has co-authored the Microsoft XNA Game Studio Creator's Guide. Pat McGee is an Instructor and curriculum developer for both CST part-time studies and for BCIT's High Tech Professional Programs. In his career he has been a Games Programmer and a Technical Engineer at Business Objects where he worked with business intelligence technologies. Pat began his teaching career by leading several video games courses for teens in summer sessions. Since then Pat has gone on to develop several courses for BCIT and for Part-Time studies in addition to writing two books on games programming.

To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link

DISCUSSION:

Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic

:00:38:
What triggered your initial interest in computing?
"....Being able to combine an interest in technology with any industry or sector, and being able to create something from nothing using software was a real selling point for me...."

:01:15:
Pat profiles how he got to his present position in his career.

:03:23:
Pat describes his upcoming work at BCIT.
"....A web programming option, very Microsoft based...."

:04:18:
Please define XNA: what it is, who uses it, where and how do you get it?
"....It is a C# based platform from Microsoft that enables development for the Xbox 360 and PC....As far as 3D games are concerned, it's really the number one freeware library out there for hobbyists, programmers and independents. It's really changed the gaming programming world...."

:06:38:
Based on your experience if someone had some background in computing but wanted to get into the gaming area, how long do you think it would take them to go from scratch to having some proficiency?
"....Not long at all....The XNA creative site has tons of examples.....These libraries have been built by thousands of people over millions of hours so they've really streamlined it and made the 3D graphics development very simple...."

:07:38:
Profile key lessons from the XNA Game Studio Creator's Guide which you co-authored.
"....It's really a complete solution showing how to build the entire game. That's the approach that I use in the classroom too....How to build a complete project and also to encourage the readers or students to take it further and customize it and make it their own...."

:09:26:
What best practices can you share from other books you have written?
"....We had Nick Gravelyn help with the tech review of our latest book. He's a Microsoft MVP for XNA and really knows his stuff and is a really big community champion as well....We've really benefited from having that expertise in the technical review and that's really going to take the 2nd edition to another level...."

:10:43:
What gaming best practices can you share from the courses you are teaching?
"....The ones who do really well are the ones that experiment, who look things up on their own. They'll take the framework that I provide them but they will go and try things on their own...."

:11:31:
Can you talk about the suitability of XNA for schools and for encouraging students to learn programming?
"....I think it's a great technology for schools. At BCIT we run kids camps almost every summer and the game programming courses are extremely popular....It's exciting for children, they can learn about programming and even if they don't become game programmers, the skills they learn, applying the logic, they can apply in other industries. It really is a great, healthy learning tool for young learners...."

:14:28:
Can you explore further key new and recent features surrounding: Developers selling their games on Xbox Live, Networking, and Zune deployment (Microsoft's mobile mp3 player)?
"....This is going to drive game innovation. We are going to see a lot of small game developers and independents driving innovation. I think it's going to change the way games are made and I think big companies are going to be paying attention to what the smaller developers are doing with XMA...."

:18:25:
What are some little known but essential tips in XNA?
"....In general 3D graphics are easy to program. The main area of math that you can benefit from knowing is linear algebra which is mostly addition, multiplication and volume....All 3D worlds, everything from plants to people, are just a collection of triangles...."

:20:59:
Where is gaming heading in 3, 5, and then 10 years?
"....More advertising in games....Athletics integrated into the games....Resort companies hiring companies to build 3D models of their resorts so they can be toured virtually....A convergence of animation and 3D programming...."

:24:12:
The industry is changing. What advice would you give to IT professionals to stay on top of what is happening in the industry in order to position them (from a career standpoint) and their organization to benefit from these trends?
"....Anybody interested in this industry really needs to find what interests them the most and to focus on it. Over time, as they gain experience they will find a way to take a lead and find a niche...."

:25:48:
In your current role, what are the biggest challenges, and their solutions? How does this relate to business?
"....For me it's trying to create complete solutions that are good foundations for anyone to start with; to challenge people to customize by adding to it and to develop it into a framework and make it their own....Find what's important to you and pursue it. That's how I've approached it for myself...."

:26:48:
Pat shares some stories (something surprising, unexpected, amazing, or humorous) from his work.

:30:42:
Provide your predictions of future IT/Business trends and their implications/opportunities?
"....Independent developers are going to see their ideas come to light and we'll see a lot of good small games come out of this. There's always going to be room for the big companies too. I think they will definitely co-exist. But we will benefit more from having platforms like XNA...."

:31:36:
Which are your top recommended resources and why?
"....XMA Creater's club....Shawn Hargreaves blog....Michael from Ziggyware....Andy Dunn from ZBuffer....George Clingerman....Nick Gravelyn...."

:34:04:
Provide commentary on any topics of your choosing.
"....XNA is a great platform for schools. If I were to choose a games platform for a school/college/university, I would choose XNA. It's free, it has incredible support from Microsoft....You've got a great suite of products that you can use to develop the games....More and more applications are going to use advanced graphics and elements of XMA graphics libraries are finding their way into other applications...."

This one caught my eye since it’s about students, education, innovation, and addressing the skills gap. Each ICT worker contributes about $120,000 to the Canadian Economy and with the world economic challenges, the skill value of IT professionals is more pronounced then ever. Well David O’leary is at the forefront of making a substantive difference to all of the areas noted above.

My last extended chat with Dave O’leary happened at the March 2008 National Council of IT Deans Summit hosted by Microsoft Canada, where academic leaders from across the country shared solutions to increase technology enrollments, address the skills shortage, foster passion and industry-leading competencies in students, and innovate. I was invited to keynote and advise, and will do this again in Feb 5/6 of 2009 at the National Council of IT Deans Summit. Dave, led the summit as both incoming Chair of the National Council of IT Deans and also as a Dean at Northwest College. Dave also now holds the position as CIO at the college.

Dave spoke at the summit about an innovative consortium of colleges and universities launching a new collaborative academic program which features the use of Microsoft technologies and solutions. This is often not widely known but Microsoft has extensive and far reaching programs to support the academic community through academic forums, research and software, gaming tools and curriculum, student ambassador/partner programs, faculty connections, sponsorships, awards, events such as TechDays/EnergizeIT, Webcasts (Ignite Your Career, Academic), and much more.

Late in 2008, Northwest Science & Innovation sponsored an innovation award, and David O’leary was spotlighted by a nomination for his leadership.

As noted in the nomination, Dave “has been instrumental in the development of a new collaborative Information Technology Program which not only addresses the skills shortages in the IT field both locally and nationally, but also which uses modern communications technology to break down geographic and other barriers to students, and allows students to train, work and stay in their communities.”

I wanted to congratulate Dave on this special honour! Well Done!

And a special thank you to Dave for his continuing commitment to excellence and to Microsoft Canada (and the award-winning, world top-ranked advisor, evangelist teams you see in the MS blogs) for providing the enabling support to make real change happen.

Cheers,
Stephen

How many of you have wanted to start a company? My guess is the majority of you have considered this at some point in your career. With online services increasingly prevalent, it can be done with limited capital, piloting and testing new innovations.

My history advising/creating startups, goes back to the 1970s’--more than 30 years. In fact, I have several new startups I am working with now with one holding No.1 position internationally in the social media space. So, I found this news item on “startups” reported in www.itbusiness.ca of great interest. Here are extracts from the MS web site…

Enjoy,
Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, I.S.P., MVP , DFNPA, CNP

More about the MS BizSpark program: http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/BizSpark/Pages/At_a_Glance.aspx

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Microsoft® BizSpark™ is a global program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage startups by providing key resources when they need it the most:

• Software. Receive fast and easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools, platform technologies, and production licenses of server products for immediate use in developing and bringing to market innovative and interoperable solutions. There is no upfront cost to enroll.
• Support. Get connected to Network Partners around the world — incubators, investors, advisors, government agencies and hosters — that are equally involved and vested in software-fueled innovation and entrepreneurship who will provide a wide range of support resources.
• Visibility. Achieve global visibility to an audience of potential investors, clients and partners
  As a Microsoft BizSpark member, you’ll be tapping into a rich, vibrant ecosystem of peers, partners and support resources around the globe, helping you grow and succeed. Microsoft BizSpark is the quickest way to get your Startup fired up.