Toolzz.com

System Center Certification

Certifications for TSFKASMS+MOM That’s right, I’m referring to certifications for Systems Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM) and Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 (SCOM): the Systems Formerly Known As SMS and MOM.   If you want to learn more about what these things do, you can visit some smart, helpful blog, like I often do.  If you want to hear about certifications we are developing to help you validate/show your skills on Systems Center, you can attend this Live Meeting we are having on October 24.  Rob Linsky (or “Slinky,” as Spellchecker prefers to call him, our certification program manager) will give you the scoop on what these certs are all about and how to earn them. Click on these links to register for:  

October 24, 2007, at 7:30 A.M. Pacific Time (What time is this in my region?)   
October 24, 2007, at 5:00 P.M. Pacific Time (What time is this in my region?)   

In advance of that, I can tell you that we are developing two Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certs and a professional-series (MCITP) certification for Systems Center, all of which will be available in 2008 (January/February for MCTS; later for the MCITP).  

Announcing the DPM 2007 Release Candidate

The DPM website has been updated (www.microsoft.com/DPM) - with new information on the upcoming release of DPM 2007, pricing/licensing details, and best of all - new downloads.

As some of you may have heard from our recent demonstration at SQL PASS or from the DPM newsgroups, we have a release candidate for DPM 2007 - and now everyone can start to evaluate it.
This is a later build than what some of our early adopter customers have already been working with, testing aggressively and have been putting into production.
This evaluation downloadable is the complete feature set for the upcoming release, so check out:

Blending continuous data protection with traditional tape backup
Protection for Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005 and even 2008-previews
Protection for Exchange Server 2003 and 2007
Protection for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 & WSS 3.0
Protection for Virtualized Environments hosted on Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
Protection for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 files and shares
Windows XP Professional (sp2) and Windows Vista Business edition or better
System State protection
Command-line control through Windows PowerShell
And new since Beta 2 for this evaluation and the upcoming RTM:

Document-level restore for SharePoint
Bare Metal Recovery
We’ll be having a few Microsoft TechNet webcasts (and posting new whitepapers & datasheets) over the next few months to explain more about these features as we get ready to bring the product to market - but for now, go get the evaluation software and try all of the features.  Get ready - DPM 2007 is coming !!Thank you very much to everyone who downloaded and our tested beta software.

The DPM team.

Windows Server 2008 RC0

October 3, 2007

Microsoft has reached a major milestone with the initial release candidate (RC0) of Windows Server 2008. And you can download the Windows Server 2008 RC0 for evaluation. The release candidate includes a customer technology preview (CTP) version of Windows Server virtualization, the new, thin, hypervisor-based software virtualization layer that provides customers with greater flexibility to provision multiple applications and services to servers and blades, while achieving greater application performance than is offered by traditional virtual machine environments. There has been a lot of work done in the past few months to unify the deployment tools for desktops and servers. For a preview, join the Deployment 4 Beta 3 program.

DPM Webcast

Webcast 
Data Protection Manager (DPM) is the new standard for Windows backup and recover—delivering continuous data protection for Microsoft application and file servers. DPM enables rapid and reliable recovery through advanced technology for enterprises of all sizes. In this session learn how to protect your key information assets around SQL, Exchange, and Vista.
http://www.microsoft.com/emea/itsshowtime/sessionh.aspx?videoid=485