May 2007
Converting MOM 2005 Management Packs to SCOM 2007 Format
Posted by James Kahn on May 22, 2007 in tech
Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Management Packs can be converted to native Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 Management Packs using two tools, MP2XML and MPConvert.exe. Microsoft have instructions in SCOM 2007 help, as well as on the web.
Keep in mind that in order to do this you will need a MOM 2005 Management Server from which to run MP2XML. If you’re upgrading an existing MOM environment, keep your MOM 2005 management server around until you’ve converted all of your management packs. If you don’t have a MOM 2005 environment but need to use MOM 2005 management packs, you’ll need to set it up in a test environment to do the conversion.
Tags: mom, scomOne Year in Australia Today
Posted by James Kahn on May 21, 2007 in life
I’ve been living in Brisbane for one year today. Yee-haw, I love this place!
That is all. Thanks for listening.
Configuration Manager 2007 - Test Your Knowledge
Posted by James Kahn on May 18, 2007 in tech
Microsoft have released a series of quizzes for some of the features of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 beta 2. It’s a great way to test your knowledge, and learn a bit more about this feature-packed up and coming environment management product.
Compromising Quality for Reality
Posted by James Kahn on May 16, 2007 in concepts
If you’ve been in the IT industry for longer than a day and a half, you’ve probably had to compromise on something technical. Usually the story goes like this:
- The customer implementing a web-based remote access solution doesn’t want to put in two-factor authentication, despite the fact it’s been proven to be exponentially more secure than a username and password.
- The CIO decides that all user workstations will stay on Windows XP for at least another year, instead of migrating to Vista.
- The CEO knocks back the idea for a stand-by data centre in favour of a less optimal “back up and pray” routine.
- You work for a multi-billion dollar international company and you’ve had to cut out your number one and two features from your new virtualisation product in order to ship on time (I just had to add that one in. No hard feelings, Microsoft.).
It’s the old story - nobody seems to want to do anything properly. Can’t they just…
Woah. Hang on tiger. What does it mean to do something properly?
In the minds of most technical people, doing something properly means implementing every feature. Automating as much as possible. Installing on the best hardware. Configuring in the most secure way. For a developer, it can mean “release when it’s done”, like in the open source world. For a Systems Engineer, it can mean that a Standard Operating Environment machine builds itself, installs and configures every app, and migrates user settings automagically. Technical utopia. White marshmellow clouds, anyone?
The stunningly stark contrast to the technical mindset is the business side of the fence - dollars, and time. Can we leverage the 80/20 rule and cut some corners for most of the benefit? Will implementing this improve our profitability by reducing costs or increasing revenue? Are there other projects that will have a greater impact on the business?
The best path often lies somewhere in the middle, and this is where compromise comes in. As an advocate for whatever technical solution you’re trying to implement - whether you’re selling it to another company or to your own management - convincing the guy that makes the final decision to implement the “proper” solution won’t always happen. When you do compromise on a solution, the important part to know is not whether to compromise, but what parts you should compromise on.
So how should you go about it?
1. Make sure they know the risks
The first, and most important point to remember is this - make sure that those that make the decisions, know the risks. This goes for whether you’re working for an IT partner, internal IT, or development. Your role is to identify the risks so that the decisionmaker can make an educated decision.
For example, if you’re putting in a remote access solution, and the decisionmaker doesn’t want to spend money on two-factor authentication tokens, make sure that they understand that standard username and password authentication is susceptible to all sorts of security problems, whereas two-factor authentication is many times more secure. If they still don’t want two-factor authentication, that’s okay.
If they’ve accepted the risk of the compromise (bad pun unintentional) - that’s their decision to make. You’ve done your job by making sure that they’re aware of it, so they could make an educated decision.
2. Accept that there’s always a trade off
Many technical people get upset, angry or annoyed when someone doesn’t want to implement their full solution. I know I’ve been guilty of it at times. In our minds, the solution is appropriate, and the best to fix whatever the current problem is. Why don’t they just implement it!
Accept that there is always a trade off. Businesses only have so much money to go around, and the highest priority projects get the most attention. Much of the time the solution you’re trying to implement might be quite important, but so are half a dozen other projects that cost just as much. It’s a world of finite resources.
Something has to give - and it usually results in a compromise on your solution.
3. Holding your ground
There are some things that you should never compromise on. The school of life has shown me that if you don’t stick to your guns on these, all hell can break loose later.
You should never compromise on:
- The project implementation process. Especially, don’t skip the design and testing phases. You’re far better to compromise on the functionality of the solution than on the process by which you implement it - you’ll end up with less functionality, but a better solution.
- The supportability of the solution. Don’t put a rush-job, stop-gap solution in place that is unsupportable because of a lack of time. If you don’t have the time to do it right, where are you going to find the time to do it over again?
- Your ethics. It’s not up to me to tell you what your ethics are, but if you start compromising them to cut corners - take a long, hard look at what you’re doing. “Because my boss told me so” isn’t a valid excuse.
4. And sometimes, things just suck
If you’ve explained the risks, accepted that compromises need to be made and held your ground where it counts, and you still have to compromise further - you could have a problem. Either there’s a problem with your perception of the situation, or the decisionmaker’s. Figure out how you’re going to deal with it.
Just don’t get bitter when you’re asked to compromise - everybody’s doing it.
the perfect workout
Posted by James Kahn on May 15, 2007 in asides, fitness, life
There’s nothing like that feeling of hitting the gym and feeling strong. Every rep slots into place. You finish knowing you’ve put in your best effort. I just had it. Beautiful.
Blog Focus - IT Infrastructure Management
Posted by James Kahn on May 14, 2007 in blog
All things must come to an end, and in my case, the scattershot nature of my blog is changing to one of focus - IT Infrastructure Management. What do I mean by that?
In general, I’ll deal with the tools, concepts and techniques of implementing and managing a business IT Infrastructure. Expect a fair amount of:
- General conceptual articles, such as my previous posts Strategy vs Tactics and Infrastructure Planning: The Road to Success;
- Commentary on IT Infrastructure trends;
- Information on the Microsoft System Center range of infrastructure management products; and,
- I might throw in a couple of best practise guides along the way.
Don’t expect a lot of knowledge base article style technical detail - that’s what vendor’s knowledge bases are for. And of course, I’ll still pepper in the occasional personal post - I’m far too vain to avoid it!
My Blog is Moving Home
Posted by James Kahn on May 10, 2007 in tech
I’ve decided to migrate my blog from my general purpose website to it’s own domain - jameskahn.net. There might be a few headaches as I move everything. If your feedreader doesn’t automatically update, the new RSS feed location is http://jameskahn.net/blog/feed.
word for the day - bullshitty
Posted by James Kahn on May 9, 2007 in asides
Bullshitty - Used when something is mostly made up of bullshit, usually to make something sound more complicated or grandiose than it needs to. For example: “Is this how it actually works, or is this just bullshitty marketecture?”
Counteract the Physical Effects of Computer Use
Posted by James Kahn on May 9, 2007 in fitness, life
If you’re anything like me, you spend hours in front of a computer at work, and then spend a bit of time in front of a computer at home as well. Any fool can tell you that this isn’t good for your posture, and wreaks havoc with any number of muscle imbalances that show themselves as inflexibilities, and often, the dreaded back injury. Not to mention that poor posture looks terrible, even if you’re physically fit.
The excellent sports training website Testosterone Nation have released a series of articles about what training you should do in the gym to counteract the effects of sitting at a computer for hours a day, and also provide some practical advice as to what you should do when you’re not at the gym.
The first article, (De)-Constructing Computer Guy, what exercises to do in the gym in place of more popular ones so that your body can correct posture imbalance, rather than exacerbate it.
The second article, (De)-Constructing Computer Guy - The Other 23 Hours, gives a series of tips we can use in the office or at home to prevent injury from all this un-natural sitting.
Systems Center Essentials 2007 licensing details released
Posted by James Kahn on May 3, 2007 in tech
Microsoft have updated the System Center Essentials website overnight, and have now included pricing and licensing details.
When first looking at it, I was a bit shocked at the pricing - until I noticed that the base SCE server license includes 10 managed server and 50 managed client licenses. Not bad!