MMS 2008 Keynote Day Two

 

Managing the dynamic desktop

Announcements

Central management of dynamic desktops for everything from wallpapers to office suites through SCCM R2 and SoftGrid. This also allows a virtual desktop experience through Windows 2008 terminal services. Furthermore, one can host entire “contractor” style desktops, allowing central control for compliance, security, licensing, etc.

SCCM SP1 will be released in May. Intel vPRO will be first class citizen in SCCM, allowing bios level changes without a visit to the desktop. Including powering off, managing while powered off, redirecting IDE, and powering on again.

SCCM R2 RC will be available in July. Support for virtual desktops will be available. Reporting moved to SSRS.

Desktop Optimization Pack v2 available in Q3 2008.

Attached Knowledge Services is social networking for IT data. The concept is sharing scrubbed service level data to the IT community as a whole to gauge oneself against others and find out what differences exist between yourself and the best performers. (No release date as yet, but contact knowledge@microsoft.com for more information on how to participate.)

Visions

The present and future of consumer scenarios. One-to-one person-to-computer is rapidly dying out. Person-to-devices is the present and the future. We must adapt to this flexible pattern of use. The target of management is no longer the computer, but the person. Person-centric computing. Dynamic application and data delivery. Applications will rely less and less on static presence.

Unified and virtual

Separation enables device flexibility. The OS independent of the hardware, Applications separate from the OS, etc.

This is not the traditional “thin client” idea but using the whole of a device to host the virtual desktop and sync the state back at the end of a session. One must manage the OS, Applications, and person-specific data/settings. Essentially putting the entire desktop “in the cloud”.

Model driven

Models are to drive the desktop experience as well. Encapsulating knowledge about health, capacity, compliance, configuration, and business activities. (MPs,CPs,SPs)

Service Enabled

Finished services, no customer side presence, exists entirely “in the cloud”. Window update is an example. Attached services use the same infrastructure but have a presence on the customer’s equipment. WSUS is an example. Microsoft will use these stateless approaches for more and more of their products.

Comments

How can we get beyond the inherently incorrect (stupid) reference to “best practice”? When what we really mean is, “we think this will often be a good idea for one to do, try it out and see if it works for you.”