Big Picture Experience – Customer Day

So it was back to Darling Harbour in Sydney for the second day of the Microsoft Big Picture Experience. Today is the day for customers.

As expected there was certainly a rush in the morning but far more than I expected. I’d start off doing a SharePoint and Lync demo to a few people at the desk and look up a few minutes later a find over 30 people all crowded round watching intently. There were also plenty of questions from the crowd which really kept me busy most of the morning with demo after demo.

The early afternoon was a little slower but still a constant stream of demos and speaking with customers but in this case they seemed to have more specific questions. The customers came from a range of businesses both large and small, which was great to see. Many where interested in Office 365 and specifically Lync which most were not aware of. Easy to present some real ‘WOW’ features when they haven’t seen the product.

I thought the day was going to wind down by early afternoon as the number of attendees started to thin out, however I found myself still talking to customers even as they were turning the lights out and ushering people out.

So the day started out with more general sessions, demonstrating to groups of people and as the day wore on those discussions became more and more specific as people sought answers to specific questions. This to a great extent I think was the success of the overall event. You could come, walk around and see the latest from Microsoft but if you have specific questions you could find someone to chat with to help you better understand how to make it all work for you business.

Judging from the outside I’d say these events have been very successful and kudos to Microsoft for trying something a little different with the format. I think it worked well for everyone. My big take away was how well all the Microsoft technologies such as Exchange, Office, Lync, SharePoint etc. work together. They are simply so much more powerful when implemented together rather than piece meal. This event was a perfect opportunity to see and experience that.

Finally, thanks to all who attended and spent some time with me, I hope I helped you. Thanks to Microsoft for the opportunity to represent them at the event I hope I lived up to expectations. Now all I need is a good lie down!

Big Picture Experience – Partner Day

So the first day of the Microsoft Big Picture Experience here in Sydney and an opportunity for me to be on the other side of ledger for a change. This means that I donned the Microsoft shirt, badge and was tasked with helping to explain technologies such as SharePoint, Lync, Office 365, Windows InTune, etc to those in attendance.

The day started early and I was kinda of expecting to be bowled over in the rush when the doors opened at 8am, that was to come later. There was steady traffic up till about 9am when the keynote started. I took a wander to see how many attendees were in attendance and was surprised at the number so early.

Once the keynote was over then things started to really hot up as people came through each location seeking information. I have to say that all this Microsoft technology is pretty impressive when you see it all tied together and working. Making Lync video calls, connecting to complex SharePoint sites, received voice mail in Outlook, etc. Sure, at the moment all of this is not available in Office 365 yet, but that is the key thing to remember – YET! When you see it all working together in a single integrated environment you begin to appreciate the power that Microsoft can bring to desktops with their suite of products. Imagine what it will be like when all of this is available through Office 365 down a business as small as one person? Very, very powerful.

I also have to congratulate Microsoft on trying a different format where employees (and moi) are out there giving people hands on, one to one, demonstrations of the products and answering questions. Very different from simply having people sit and look at demos on stage. Now sure, there maybe times when certain locations get busy and individuals may not get the attention they want but hey there are plenty of other things to see. So, circle around and come back in a little while. All in all I think the themed ‘zones’ at the front and ‘lecture halls’ at the back worked well. I didn’t get a chance to attend the lecture session but they were well attended from what I saw.

I was very pleased to ‘run into’ a number of other resellers taking in the technology. I find it interesting how many simply see this even as something to come and look at only. To me, this is a fantastic opportunity to come and meet local Microsoft people face to face, press the flesh and make a connection. Not only that, the hall is also filled with other resellers with whom you can network. Too many simply never ‘make the time’ to attend, seeing it as low priority to their business. I’d be saying the exact opposite, make time, attend the sessions, talk to people, hand out business cards and generally make good opportunity of this rare occurrence.

All in all a very successful day for those that attended and I hope I was able to help people who I spoke with. I thank those people who made time and came up for a chat. The scary thing now is that TWICE as many people are registered for the customer day tomorrow. It is going to be busy.

Out and about

I’m going to be busy for the remainder of the week and thought I’d let people know where I would be in case they wanted to catch up.

Tomorrow (Wednesday 29th) and Thursday (Thursday 30th) I’ll be at the Microsoft Big Picture Experience event at Darling Harbour helping Microsoft explain their technologies, including Office 365 and Windows InTune to partners and customers. I’ll be very interested to see how this event pans out as it seems like a bit of change from Microsoft normally does.

On Saturday (3rd of December) I’ll be presenting at Infrastructure Saturday in Brisbane. My topic is –

Integrating Office 365 with AD and Exchange

Identity in Office 365 is an interesting and often confused topic. Everyone wants to know their options, including how to manage Office 365 customer and partner accounts, domain controller configuration, active directory synchronization, as well as creating a federation trust between a on-premise and Office 365. This session will compare the pros and cons of the approaches as well as guidance on how to set up the requirements. Additionally, the session will cover general information about available Office 365 options and plans.

So if you are in the neighbourhood during either of these event please let me know and we’ll catch up. Otherwise follow along on my Twitter feed (@directorcia) to see what happens.

Installing the SBS Essentials Office 365 module

Microsoft recently announced the open beta of the Office 365 Integration Module for SBS 2011 essentials. In a nutshell this allows you to easily provision and manage your Office 365 accounts from your SBS 2011 Essentials server. It does not provide the ability to do Single Sign On (SSO). It will however provide the ability to sync local account passwords with those in Office 365 PROVIDED the account names are identical.

In this post I’ll run through the installation of the integration module on SBS 2011 Essentials.

Once you have downloaded the software to your SBS 2011 Essentials server double click on the file to launch. Select Yes to install the feature pack.

Click on I Accept to accept the license agreement. Remember this is still beta (pre-release) software.

Allow the update to install on your server.

When complete you will need to reboot your server.

When the server has rebooted launch the SBS 2011 Server dashboard. On the front page at the bottom you will see a link Set up Microsoft Office 365 Integration. Click this to continue.

This will run the integration wizard. By default, the wizard will assume that you have not already obtained an Office 365 license. If you do already have an Office 365 license simply click the option I have a subscription for Office 365 at the bottom of the screen before proceeding.

If you proceed without selecting the option indicating you have an Office 365 subscription you will be taken to the page that allows you to select which subscription you may wish to purchase or trial.

It is interesting to note here that clicking any of these options takes to a page that runs javascript which can’t normally be displayed in the browser on the server due to security restrictions. Also, it appears that it takes you to an international subscription page for Office 365 which is not how you obtain licenses for Office 365 in Australia for 25 seats and under.

Thus, the best advice would seem to be make sure you have already obtained your Office 365 subscription prior to running this module and check the option in the previous step.

If you proceed after checking the option that you already have an Office 365 subscription you will see the above window prompting you for an administrator login for your Office 365 account. Enter the appropriate details and press the Sign in button to continue.

The details will checked and the system configured appropriately.

When successfully complete you should see a screen like shown above. Press the Close button to complete the wizard.

When you now view the SBS 2011 Essentials console you should see an additional Office 365 button at the top right of the dashboard. Clicking this should display a screen like shown above with information about your Office 365 subscription.

I’ll more details on how to use the Office 365 Integration Module with SBS 2011 Essentials in upcoming posts. However, remember that it is still beta software and the final product may differ from what is shown here.

SBS Essentials review

Not a bad little review from Paul Thurrott over at the Winsupersite on SBS 2011 Essentials. I have to agree with him that SBS Essentials is effectively incomplete until the release of the Office 365 integration module. There was talk that it would be released at the Microsoft world wide partner conference in July but nothing materialized. Paul says in his article:

“Sadly, it won’t ship until the end of the year”

which I certainly hope is not true but I do have some faith in the fact that Paul probably has better sources than I.

In that case I would have to say the waiting another 3 – 4 months for the Office 365 module for SBS Essentials is really going to throttle its take up in my opinion. The whole premise of this server was the fact that it would interface directly to the cloud and without that it is really a bit of a lame duck at this point. Sure I know that you can do the integration to Office 365 manually but without the dedicated module it kinda makes SBS essentials a car that is missing a wheel doesn’t it?

Office365 doesn’t replace SBS

I am always amazed at how many people are under the mistaken impression that something like Office365 (or Google Apps) can replace an on site network system (like Microsoft Small Business Server). In short the answer is no. Yet.

Office365 is designed to remove some of the ‘heavy lifting’ from on site networks by moving complex and hard to maintain applications like Exchange and SharePoint into a place where they can be managed by the people who designed and developed that software. However, even with those applications removed, local systems are still performing a lot of functions that the cloud cannot do well presently.

A good example is Windows Update Services (WSUS) which provide patch management for local machines. Microsoft does have a cloud product (Windows InTune) that does something similar but it is still in the early stages of development so it currently doesn’t have all the features the onsite equivalent has.

An very important phrase here is ‘currently’. The plan seems to be that Windows InTune will one day rival any onsite solutions (especially for small business), however it still has a way to go to reach parity. What many also overlook is the fact that cloud solutions like Windows InTune will improve far more rapidly than traditional on site software.

So even with Office365 and Windows InTune many small business have third party applications that depend on onsite solutions and infra structure. Those that use things like SQL will also eventually move to the cloud under something like Windows Azure but they won’t until developers rewrite their software to take advantage of the cloud offerings. Until they do, businesses will have to retain on site infrastructure.

Rather than believing that the cloud replaces everything currently on site you need to look at cloud technologies as reducing the requirements for on site equipment. With Office365 many business probably only need something like SBS 2011 Essentials, rather than the full blown SBS 2011 Standard. Think downsizing, not elimination. Yet.

As any business moves to the cloud they also need to carefully consider their connection to the Internet. Generally, most businesses have been able to get away with ‘consumer grade’ broadband. As they move to the cloud they must step this up to faster and more reliable pipes with redundancy. Most modern internal networks run at a speed of 1,000 Mb, while broadband typically only delivers 3 Mb consistently. Currently, you’ll never get the same performance but broadband speeds are always improving but they are not yet equivalent to on site speeds. Yet.

Finally, in all this talk of moving to the cloud, traditional things such as backup and security don’t magically disappear, they simply need to be re-thought and re-engineered. Just because your email moves to the cloud and Office365 does that mean you shouldn’t back it up? Certainly for me it doesn’t. I know that it is backed up at the data centre but since it is ‘my’ data I still backup regularly. Admittedly, this is still cumbersome and not totally automated as it is with on site situations. However, the key term again here is ‘yet’. It will come as demand increases.

So, in summary, can the cloud totally replace what you have with the your on site network? Almost certainly no. Will it? Almost certainly yes. The only question is when. In the meantime rather than thinking of eliminating think down-sizing locally when it comes to the cloud.

Office365 vs Small Business Server

Any good business tries to do two things. Firstly, it tries to maximize returns and secondly it tries to minimize risk. It is important to note that one can generally never eliminate risk merely minimize it. With that in mind let’s make a comparison of Small Business Server 2011 Standard (SBS) and Office365.

The elephant in the room when it comes to ‘cloud computing’ is generally security. However, it is important to keep some perspective here amongst all the pariahs. Most systems today, servers, desktops and mobile devices are connected to the ‘cloud’ and are as such subject to exactly the same risk. However, I would ask as to which systems have more resources dedicated to security and monitoring? An SBS server inside a business or the servers running Office365 maintained my Microsoft? Clearly it would have to be those of Microsoft. Importantly, this doesn’t eliminate the risk of these systems but having servers and systems maintained by Microsoft would certainly reduce the risk to security.

When you run an internal SBS system you are totally dependent, normally, on a single Internet connection. If that fails for any reason then your connection to the outside world is severed. I f the same situation happened with Office365 workers could be up and operational again using wireless Internet cards or be allowed to work from home. Thus, there is a much higher dependency on your Internet connection if you select to run an on site network like SBS. With Office365 people can work where ever they have Internet connectivity, whether that be in your offices, at home, at a local coffee shop, the airport lounge or wherever.

Another reason cited by many for desiring on site servers is because they ‘know where their data is’. If that is important to your business then that is what you should do but let me give you another real world analogy so we can look at this in perspective. Is it possible for you to ask your bank to see your money? I doubt it. We all trust the modern banking system, that whizzes money around the globe in ones and zeros, to store this valuable resource. Trusting our money to banks provides a significant amount of benefit doesn’t it? It allows up to withdraw cash fro any ATM in the world. IT allows us to pay our bills from the privacy and comfort of our own homes any time we like. It provides us to a range of financial services that once was only the domain of the well to do. Sure you can keep all your money at home (on-site) but that makes things so much harder that for most people it isn’t really worth considering is it? Most people appreciate the significant amount of benefit they receive, with minimal risk, for utilizing a bank so why is you data any different?

Following along with this analogy, most people still retain some cash locally for convenience and so it can be the same with data. The cloud is not an all or nothing strategy, especially in the Microsoft realm. Given some of the larger sizes of files and information in makes more sense to consider a hybrid strategy for your technology needs. We all know that bandwidth is not the same everywhere we go, however we all know that it is not getting slower. The SBS family is not limited merely to SBS Standard there is also SBS Essentials which is an onsite server that integrates closely with Office365, providing on site storage as well as access to all the features and functionality that Office365 provides. It is possible to do with the more onsite based SBS Standard system but if you have Office365 doing all the heavy lifting for Exchange, SharePoint, etc why would you need to replicate those features on site as SBS Standard does?

Importantly, in comparison between two potential offerings we should consider the feature sets. Now Office365 doesn’t claim to do everything that SBS 2011 Standard does. Things such as SQL, patch management and third party applications are not currently handled by Office365 however that doesn’t mean there isn’t other options (especially from the fast developing Windows InTune for example). However, when you consider the core products such as Exchange for email and SharePoint for collaboration the biggest difference is the products that come with Office365 are the enterprise versions and importantly they are available from a single license. SBS 2011 Standard by comparison only contains the Standard editions of products like Exchange and SharePoint which lack features like legal hold and form services. Again, it seems to demonstrate that Office365 is offering more benefits than SBS 2011 standard.

In today’s business environment flexibility to meet changing conditions and competition is important. SBS 2011 Standard requires a significant up front cost to implement and then continued ongoing maintenance. This means if you implement this and your business started to grow dramatically you’d have to invest more to scale up. Office365 by contrast (especially the enterprise SKU’s) provide a far more flexible solution. If you only need 5 licenses this month, that’s all you need to pay for. If however you need 10 next month you can scale up. If a certain group of users don’t need all the power of Exchange then you can allow them to use the reduced functionality and costs of the kiosk workers licenses. With Office365 all you need to worry about is what features individual needs rather than guessing what features your whole business may need and being somewhat limited to that after the fact.

Unless you are an IT business your aim should be minimize the amount money that you spend on technology to provide you with business advantage. It means you also want the most flexibility and greatest range of features for your investment and on balance one would have to conclude that Office365 fits this bill much better than traditional on premises SBS. This doesn’t mean that Office365 is the solution for all businesses and it doesn’t mean that there things that Office365 can’t do. What it does mean is that Office365 should be taken seriously as an option for even the small businesses that once only considered on site servers like SBS. Every business need to make its own decisions about risk and reward in regards to what works best for them, however the important thing is to these decisions based on solid information not the opinions of a vocal minority.