System Center Solutions Contest Update [05/12/2008]

We’ve had several questions come in about contest rules, how to enter, etc.  I simply wanted to point everyone to where you can find all this information - on the System Center Solutions Contest Homepage.

Prizes

Through the courtesy of some amazing sponsors, we’ll be giving out some great prizes for your effort, including:

• Grand Prize: Xbox 360
• Category Winners: Zune 4GB (2nd gen)

• All Entrants: Random prize drawings amongst all participants

Rules and How to Enter

For complete rules, see the official contest rules and information on how you can enter, see official rules at the URL below: http://www.systemcenterusergroup.com/content/SCVUGContest.aspx

Deadline to Enter:

Contest entries will be accepted up until June 20^th, and winners announced on July 1^st.

Our Sponsors

Official Launch of the System Center Solutions Contest!

It is a few days later than we would have liked, but the System Center Solutions Contest is officially underway. By submitting your custom scripts, add-ons and other solutions for any Microsoft System Center product, you can win great prizes including an Xbox 360! If you're not a guru, don't worry, we'll also be doing random prize drawings for all entries. 

But you better get started. Deadline for entry is June 20^th, 2008! For more information, visit the links below!

Contest Homepage

http://www.systemcenterusergroup.com/content/ContestHome.aspx

Official Contest Rules

http://www.systemcenterusergroup.com/content/SCVUGContest.aspx

Contest Support Forum

Questions about the contest? Ask them here!

http://www.systemcenterusergroup.com/forums/19.aspx

Thanks again to our contest sponsors: Savision, Redynamics, Inovativ and AKOS Technology Services.

Big News at MMS 2008 for Tuesday, 4/29

Several significant announcements were made public at MMS today, but I think these three items were far and away the most important for the future of System Center:

Beta of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Available

The beta of the next version of VMM (SCVMM 2008), which includes support for Hyper-V, and requires the RC version of Hyper-V, is available today on http://www.connect.microsoft.com/ (requires Windows LiveID sign in and beta program participation). Read more...

Native Cross-platform Monitoring in Operations Manager 2007 SP2

Today Microsoft announced a few new beta products - two of which came from our team.  The System Center Operations Manager 2007 Cross Platform Extensions, which enable customers to manage Unix/Linux systems from Operations Manager 2007, was delivered as a beta today.

If you were attending Bob Muglia's Keynote this morning then you walked away with a CD containing the beta bits. Read more...

System Center Service Manager Roadmap

The roadmap (and some feature details) for System Center Service Manager were announced, and some talk of the planned integration with SCCM for CMDB were mentioned. There are screenshots and details available HERE.

Community Development Project: File System Management Pack (Your Feedback Requested)

There are several resources available for monitoring files, folders and shares in System Center Operations Manager 2007, but they have been presented in an ad-hoc fashion, and not really designed for specific use case scenarios.

• File and Folder Monitoring Scripts for Operations Manager and Essentials 2007
• Windows Filesystem Sharing Monitor MP
• SMB File Share Performance MP  

Your feedback is requested - You can help the team design and build the best file system management pack by providing your feedback on your common file system monitoring scenarios. Your help in beta testing the result will also be appreciated.

1.       What aspects of files, folders or shares do you most commonly need monitor?

·         Check to see if a file exists

·         Number of files in a directory

·         File size

·         File age

·         File share availability

·         Folder monitoring (same properties listed above)

·         Other

2.       Do you like custom performance views? For which items?

·         File size

·         File transfer response time

·         Folders (same as above)

·         Other

3.       Do you have need to monitor file access?

4.       What reports would commonly use for presenting monitoring data?

5.       Which specific applications drive your need for file, folder and share monitoring?

The group is looking forward to your feedback!

Live from MMS 2008 in Las Vegas

We made to MMS today, and have alreay had a couple of great discussions about a couple of potential community projects, and working on speakers for our kick off meeting in May. We should be posting some photos of the conference over the course of the week. In addition to covering some significants aspects of the event, we really want to show you some of the faces behind the product, partners, and bloggers around System Center.

 Keep an eye on the rss feed...

See you in the Community session at MMS 2008!

 The group will be formally introduced briefly in the Community session at MMS this year. Session date and time below.

System Center Solutions Contest gets "thumbs up"

Based on comment and e-mail feedback,  we are definitely going to proceed with a contest to kick off the new System Center User Group.

Looks for an official announcement with details between now and MMS 2008!

SCCM in Large Environments at MMS 2008 [Group Discussion]

Paul Thomsen of Microsoft is requesting feedback to gauge interest in a group discussion on System Center Configuration Manager 2007 deployments in large environments. 

Read more and respond on Paul's blog at http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/pthomsen/archive/2008/04/07/114742.aspx

MMS 2008 Parties and how to get invited.

Source: Rod Trent, MyITForum

If you’re a MMS newbie and want to know which parties to attend at MMS, listen up.  Or if you’re a seasoned MMS veteran, you know what I’m about to say. There are 4 parties that are must-attend events at MMS.  Each party has their own flair, but fit well in the mix to round out your MMS experience.

1. The myITforum.com party on Tuesday night.  All you have to do is beat the mad rush to the myITforum.com booth (#235) as the Expo opens on Monday night to get a special party pass.  Some of you have passes held back for you (you know who you are).  Just so you know how large the myITforum.com party is, most groups hold parties in a restaurant or something small.  myITforum.com’s party is always in a large area or large room. This year’s party is in a large ballroom and we’re expecting around 500 people.
2. The 1E party, Tuesday night right after the myITforum.com party.  To get this party pass, you need to sidle-up with a 1E employee, either at the 1E booth (#311) in the Expo, or in the hallways somewhere.  Your best bet is to find Ed Aldrich and tell him you love his red purse.
3. The Microsoft party on Wednesday night.  This pass is generally available to everyone, but you’ll need to stop by the Microsoft booth (right in the middle of the Expo – very close to myITforum.com’s booth) in the Expo to get one.
4. The MMS closing party.  This is for everyone and your party pass (usually a bracelet) will be inside your MMS bag that you receive at conference check-in (different than hotel check-in).  Microsoft gives out awesome laptop bags each year and inside you’ll find a number of things like advertisements, maps, guides, etc.  Don’t forget to locate your MMS closing party pass right away and ask the folks at the registration booth for one if yours is missing.  Oh — and don’t forget to find the myITforum.com advertisement in the MMS guide this year!

Unleashed Giveaway at Networkworld

Its finally here! Operations Manager 2007 has been unleashed, and Network World is doing a giveaway for a free copy of System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed! 15 copies of the book are available in the contest - find out more about it at http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/microsoft-book-competition-jump.html. You can also read an excerpt of one of the chapters in the book, Chapter 3, at http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/032408-ch3-system-center-operations-manager.html.

 (More at the source)

Update: How about a contest? (Your feedback requested)

Giving this a "bump" just to give everyone another look. Between comments and e-mail responses, things are looking good. If it sounds good to you, register and add your comment to this post.

To get the user group off to a fun start, we were discussing the possibility of hosting a contest for the best custom System Center solution, and need to know if you'd be willing to participate. Please read the following, and then post a comment to this thread if you would be willing to play.

The contest would showcase the best custom System Center community solution for a number of categories, including custom Management Pack(Opsmgr/Essentials), Configuration Pack(SCCM), Scripts (any System Center product), etc.  Users would submit their entries to the site for judgement by a panel of System Center experts.

Virtual SCUG Forum Update

You'll notice in the "Forums" section, we removed the product-specific forums. When it comes to product support, more forums are not necessarily better. Our focus here is really to bring new and innovative SCUG activities and user collaboration, not to launch yet another support forum. That being said, we thought it best to set the right tone early on.

You'll also notice a new forum labeled "Contest". Watch for details in the next few days.

 For System Center support questions, Microsoft newsgroups and TechNet forums are really the best place to find assistance. There are also a couple of great community sources for System Center support. We've listed all your best System Center Support options below.

Microsoft Support Resources for System Center Technologies

·         System Center Capacity Planner

·         System Center Configuration Manager Support Forums

·         System Center Data Protection Manager

·         System Center Essentials 2007

·         System Center Mobile Device Manager

·         System Center Service Manager

·         System Center Virtual Machine Manager

The following System Center Products are supported through traditional newsgroups

Server: msnews.microsoft.com

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.acs

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.ad

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.aem

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.authoring

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.general

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.iis

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.managementpacks

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.powershell

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.reporting

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.sdk

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.setup

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.sp1

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.sql

·         microsoft.public.opsmgr.ui

There are also good community resources for support on some System Center products:

·         SystemCenterCommunity.com – These folks have great support forums for MOM 2005 and Operations Manager 2007

·         MyITForum.com – The best spot outside the Microsoft newsgroups for SMS and SCCM 2007 support, which is what they do best. They do offer forums on all other System Center  products as well. If you'd like to start blogging, you'll find this site is good option for assistance in gaining an audience. Definitely a huge and active community.

User Research Study with Microsoft Product Team Requests Your Assistance

Microsoft User Researchers want to receive feedback from companies that use System Center Essentials software.  We would like to meet with IT professionals who perform multiple responsibilities for their company; such as routine server maintenance tasks, various levels of troubleshooting, daily server, network or desktop management, and the planning and implementation of technology.  We want to meet at your office and learn what potential improvements could be made in our software.  This gives you the chance to tell us what your needs are and speak with some members of our product team.  We highly value your time and will be offering Microsoft software in appreciation of your participation. 

If this is something that you or others at your company would be interested in, please reply to ms_sitev AT microsoft.com at your earliest convenience.

Welcome to the System Center Virtual User Group Weblog

The community portal is online, and activities planned over the next several weeks, including community interviews, free t-shirts and other giveaways at the 2008 MVP Summit and  Microsoft Managemnet Summit (MMS) 2008 in Las Vegas.

Official launch is May 28th, 2008. Stay tuned for details!