SMB Kitchen – Presenting at the SMB TechFest in Orange County, CA October 19th!

I’m excited to announce that I will be doing some presenting at the upcoming TechFest in Orange County, California! :)

• SMB TechFest

Amy Babinchak will be delving into the changes we are seeing in our industry and how she is working those changes into her own IT practice Harbor Computer Services.

Boon Tee will be looking at Hyper-V Replica and how it can be deployed in all manner of businesses.

Susan Bradley is going to present on a wide variety of security issues that SMB faces today and some of the tools that can be used to address them.

I will be delving into the materials I have already posted to the SMB Kitchen on Hyper-V, clustering with Hyper-V, with a special focus on selling Hyper-V clusters into SMB starting at the 15 seat level and above.

We will also have a Q&A session at the end where folks will be able to ask us questions.

And, of course, we will have lots of time to kibitz throughout the event!

If you can please join Amy Babinchak, Boon Tee, Susan Bradley, and myself for an excellent business and technical focused non-marketing fluff day. I can guarantee you there will be pearls to be had! :D

• SMB TechFest Pricing and Registration Info

Oh, and we will have whiteboards for discussion times! W00t!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMB Kitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Fall SMB Nation Presentation Video is on Our YouTube Channel

We posted my SMB Nation Fall Conference video on our YouTube channel..

SMB Nation Fall 2012 Conference Presentation

The slides for the presentation is here on the SlideShare site:

 

SMB Nation Fall Conference 2012 from Philip Elder

There may be a blank there. The link goes to the presentation deck though.

Please do take the time to have a listen. I believe it will be worth the time. Plus, I end with a real bang!

Thanks for reading. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

SMB Nation Fall

I will be speaking at the upcoming SMB Nation Fall Conference.

• SMB Nation Fall Conference

For those that are planning on attending please note that the Early Bird discount ends tomorrow. So, save a few dollars for an evening event and pick up a conference ticket now.

We will have a good sit-down session together to discuss where we are going and what we are doing about the current state of IT in SMB.

My goal with this session is to get the brain juices flowing to inspire hope for the future of our SMB IT Business.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

SMB Nation Fall: Taking My IT Support Business to the Next Level

It's official, I will be at SMB Nation's fall conference in Las Vegas.

• SMB Nation Fall Content

The following blog posts are an outline of the planned discussion:

• A little SBS History Lesson. What SBS Has Been, Is, and Always Will Be 
• SMB Solution Sets Going Forward 
• One Little Feature Where In-House/On-Premises Kills Cloud 
• The SMB Market - The Astute Small Business Owner 
• The SMB Market - IT Commodity or IT Contact?
• Small Business Owners Take Risks - Huge Life Changing Risks

Believe me when I say that we have been going through a lot of soul searching in the last six to nine months. We MVPs were just as much in the dark about the goings on around SBS and the product group's directions as all y'all out there.

As of today we see a lot of opportunity for us in the current SMB IT environment for those that have honed their skillset and are continually working on them.

We see an even larger opportunity for the IT Support Shop that provides a consistent On-Premises IT Solution experience for their clients. Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about the real-world experience of Cloud, Hybrid, and On-Premises IT Solutions for our clients. While our client's preferences at this time are for On-Premises we do have a number of clients that are Hybrid and a few that are almost completely in the Cloud.

The goal for the session will be to have a fairly solid understanding of what our client's options are, what our options are as the IT Solution Provider, and to have a big to medium picture road map in place for us going forward.

• On-Premises, Hybrid, and Cloud Solutions
• What are they and how do they work for our clients and us?
• Vehicles to specialize
• Training, Certification, More
• Business Plan
• 1 Year, 3 Years, 5 Years
• Where do I want my clients to be in 5 years?
• Where do I want to be in 5 years?

With all of the angst over the changes, the Cloud being pushed really hard, and uncertainty all around we need some hope. And hope is what we intend to bring about in this session.

Thanks for reading! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Tech Days 2010 Edmonton Presentation On Clustering

I will be doing a Tuesday October 5th presentation at the Edmonton Tech Days 2010 event at 15:40Hrs (3:40PM) on Hyper-V Clustering!

• Tech Days 2010 Site

The slide deck will be minimal with most of the presentation focused on a live Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 cluster running on an Intel Modular Server setup.

Looking for a Tech Days discount code?

• MVPInvite

The above will discount the entrance cost to $349. Not a bad deal for two days of technical content with no marketing fluff!

Every Tech Days that I have attended have always had bits and bytes to take away. There are lots of ways to get the creative brain juices flowing, this is definitely one of them.

One such bit was fellow MVP Dana Epp’s (his company site) security presentation a few years ago that included a good discussion on using AZMan (John Howard’s explanation) to manage access permissions on a Hyper-V setup.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

TechDays 2010 – LFE240 – Clustering with Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Presentation

I will be doing a Local Flavours track presentation on Tuesday October 5th at the Edmonton TechDays 2010 event!

• LFE240 – Clustering with Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Presentation
• Link to the calendar on our site.

My presentation is at 1540Hrs to 1645Hrs (3:40PM to 4:45PM).

An invitation code can be found in the above calendar link for an event fee reduction to $349.00 too.

Some of the topics to be discussed will be:

• Intel Modular Server
• Compute module, storage, and network configuration
• Cluster Integration
• How to create if new or existing domain.
• Cluster Configuration
• Hyper-V OS
• Networking structures
• Cluster Storage
• Cluster Shared Storage
• Promise VTrak integration
• Cluster Maintenance
• Live Migration
• Troubleshooting

There are all of five or six slides for this presentation with most content being demonstrations based on a live cluster setup.

This will be a highly technical dive into Hyper-V clustering on the Intel Modular Server with a little business perspective tossed into the mix.

I will make sure to address some of the key technical points to successfully standing up a Hyper-V Cluster as there are a quite a few of them.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Mitch Garvis Presenting at EMUG Tonight: Windows Desktop Deployment Made Easy: Light-Touch Installation from start to finish

Fellow MVP Mitch Garvis will be presenting at the Edmonton Microsoft User Group this evening.

• Click to Attend: Windows Desktop Deployment Made Easy: Light-Touch Installation from start to finish

For those that have not been present for any of Mitch’s presentations, he has a very engaging presentation technique.

His content is always relevant and he is an awesome speaker.

One of his blog posts that is a really good read on the recent “lost” Apple iPhone 4G debacle and Gizmodo:

• Mitch Garvis: Take Responsibility

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intel Modular Server and Intel Solid-State Drive Performance IDF2009 Presentation

The 2009 Intel Developer Forum presentations are all available online here:

• IDF2009 Session Presentations with Audio

Of particular interest to us is the presentation on configuring Intel X25-M or X25-E Solid-State Drives with the 2.5” drive MFSYS25 series Intel Modular Server.

• IDF2009 STOS004: Unleash Ultimate Virtualization Performance: Intel® Modular Server with Intel® X25-E Solid-State Drives

This particular presentation runs about an hour is chock full of good information comparing the performance characteristics of traditional spindle based SAS drives and Intel’s Solid-State Drives.

There are some pretty good explanations of the various features and abilities of the Intel Modular Server too.

A point in the session that we have focused on here has to do with the actual I/O performance (IOPs) of the onboard SAN storage in the IMS (MFSYS25) with either SAS or SSD drives installed:

Note that when it comes to actual disk performance, the read and write throughput (MB/Sec) numbers are important, but those numbers become a moot point if the hard drive’s IOPs capabilities are relatively low.

IOPs (Wikipedia), or the number of Input/Output Operations Per Second a drive is capable of can make or break a server setup whether it is serving a very busy database or a series of IMS SAN located VHDs for VMs running in a cluster.

Even the largest RAID 10 array can perform quite poorly if the drives running in that RAID array have a relatively low IOPs capability.

Based on our own experiences with the Intel X25-M series Solid-State Drives, the above SSD performance slide is quite realistic considering that the X25-E series drives have an even higher IOPs capability than the X25-M drives.

The Solid-State Drives do indeed trump the traditional spindle based drives, even with a spindle rotational speed of 15,000 RPM, by huge margins.

So, our storage configurations need to be planned based on what each server node will be doing or storage sharing with the other nodes.

A blog post will follow to develop our thoughts on IMS storage options.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Clustering SBS with Hyper-V Server 2008 r2 on the Intel Modular Server Slides

The following are the slides used for my presentation this evening at the Edmonton Microsoft User Group.

10 04-20 Clustering SBS with Hyper-V Server 2008 r2 on the Intel Modular Server

View more presentations from Philip Elder.

SBS and Clustering In-Person This Evening!

It is almost time for my presentation on building a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 cluster for hosting SBS and other OS VMs.

• Event Code: 147718
  04/20/2010
  06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
  Welcome Time: 06:00 PM
  Time Zone: Mountain
• NAIT Main Campus : HP Center (Bing Map) 
  10504 Princess Elizabeth Avenue
  Room WB114
  Edmonton, AB T5G 3H1
  Canada

If you have some time, come and check it out!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

In-Person: SBS and Clustering on IMS – Date, Time, Place, and Registration

Into clustering? Into clustering in the SMB space?

Want to know more about the technical aspects of standing up a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 based cluster?

Then this is the event for you!

The time and place:

• Event Code: 147718
  04/20/2010
  06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
  Welcome Time: 06:00 PM
  Time Zone: Mountain
• NAIT Main Campus : HP Center
  10504 Princess Elizabeth Avenue
  Room WB114
  Edmonton, AB T5G 3H1
  Canada

The room we will be in is not that large, so if you will be coming out, register early!

Since we are now going to have an Intel Modular Server available to us courtesy of Intel, barring any technological barriers, we will have a live unit to work with via remote back to our shop along with some Camtasia captures of some of the early set up steps.

If registration is full, please e-mail me to let me know that you want in. If there is enough demand, we may be able to work something with the venue or schedule a secondary session elsewhere on another date.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

In-Person: SBS and Clustering On IMS April 20th EMUG – NAIT Campus Edmonton

On April 20th at the NAIT campus starting at 1830Hrs (6:30PM) I will be running through some key points on building a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 based cluster on top of the Intel Modular Server.

The specific room details, time of the event, and a link for registration will be posted on our Web site as soon as they are known. A calendar item is already in place.  A follow-up post will also be done here via the blog when the specifics are known.

Some clustering topics that may be covered:

1. Server and cluster install orders.
2. IMS Storage cluster configuration options.
3. IMS Network configurations for High Availability.
4. Node storage configuration for High Availability.
5. Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 node binding orders.
6. Hyper-V Management OS based network configuration.
7. Failover Cluster Management console.
1. Clustered Shared Volumes and data management.
2. Live Migrations.
3. FCM cluster networking.

Depending on timing, we will be able to present a pretty good and specific focus on some aspects of what it takes to get a cluster up and running successfully.

The idea is to work with the actual products demonstrating the how and why of clustering. There may be a few PowerPoint slides here and there, but I intend to keep this session very technical in nature.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Some Disclosure

There are a number of little sponsorships that I have received in the last little bit.

One was the free Zero Downtime Deep Dive done by Karl and Manuel Palachuk in Las Vegas on the first. Now, in all fairness the complimentary attendance was offered to me because I wrote the Forward for their Zero Downtime book.

Karl and Manuel, thank you for the opportunity to write the Forward and to attend the seminar.

The second was the complimentary pass to the SMB Nation Fall Conference. This pass was given to me as a result of my MVP status with Microsoft.

Thanks to Harry Brelsford and his awesome crew for putting on such a great show!

The catch with both of the above though is the cost in time, flights, hotel, and living expenses. All of the folks that attended the Pre-Day event(s) as well as the SMB Conference itself sacrificed a huge chunk of their client focused time to be there.

As a rule Sundays are family days for us. So, the actual cost in time spanned Wednesday September 30th through Monday October 5th except Sunday.

If either event was not worth it, that is the content was a wash, the event itself was poorly run, and so on, then given the value of the time spent there, we would be sure to voice our opinions as such.

But that was not the case. Both events were very well done with the SMB Nation conference being one of the best conferences I have ever attended.

Finally, it is no secret as far as what we think of the products and services provided by Vlad’s company Own Web Now as well as his e-mail sanitation and continuity service called ExchangeDefender.

We think that OWN provides us with an excellent set of products and services. Along with that OWN gives us an awesome opportunity to build passive income for our business.

So, there have been many posts on this blog here (ExchangeDefender) and here (Own Web Now) to that fact.

While in Las Vegas, Vlad shipped a box out to both Susan Bradley (her disclosure post) and myself. In that box were a couple of 13” MacBook Pros one for Susan and one for me.

The gift was an unexpected but pleasant surprise! So, courtesy of Vlad and OWN we will begin to post Mac specific content again.

Thanks Vlad for the gift!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Home – Now Time For Catch Up

The SMB Nation Fall Conference in Las Vegas was a really good event.

Now that I am back, there is a stack of things waiting for me to attend to.

Posting may be light for the next bit until I catch up.

Thanks for reading! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Heading to Vegas!

On the U.S. side of the airport there is no Tims. :(

This morning was such a rush getting things together before leaving that I did not have a chance to stop and pick up a morning coffee!

Check the right hand column of the blog or our Web site for links to the various events I will be attending.

Have questions on SBS 2003 to 2008 migrations? Then the SMB Nation conference would be a great place to ask them!

For those that are attending both events, or either one, I will see you there! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Only A Couple Of Weeks To The Vegas Events!

I am getting pretty excited about my visit to Las Vegas to attend the Zero Downtime Migration Deep Dive Seminar on October 1, and then the SMB Nation 2009 Fall Conference from October second through the 4th.

If you plan on being there, I hope we can meet and chat!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

SBS 2003 Setup Checklist Updated

One of the first ever checklists we have produced was the SBS 2003 setup checklist.

• SBS 2003 R2 - Setup steps and resources - Revised V2.1.1

The checklist is quite comprehensive and provides any new to SBS people a solid foundation to work from when it comes to learning SBS.

For those of us that have been around for a while, the checklist is a good thing to have to maintain consistency across all of the SBS OS installs that we do.

Setting up SBS, whether SBS 2003 as indicated above, or SBS 2008 (previous blog post), is a very complex task.

Doing the setup right the first time means a stable production environment for our clients for the two to three year period their servers will be in production. In some cases, such as our non-profit clients, those servers will be in production for four to six years!

When it comes to setting up SBS 2008, a lot of the thinking behind the way we set our SBS 2008 servers up can be found in my book:

• SMB Nation Press: Small Business Server 2008 Blueprint.

Pick up a copy and bring it with you to SMB Nation Fall 2009 in Las Vegas and Harry and I will sign it!

There will also be a number of fellow SBS MVPs at the conference with Susan Bradley the SBS Diva being one of the key presenters!

The fall conference would also be a good time to bring your questions with you. Hopefully we will have time to get together and chat whether it be over coffee or perhaps lunch.

As always, please feel free to drop us a note if you have a quick question and we will do what we can to answer it when time permits.

• Email: Blog Question

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Microsoft Tech-Days 2009 – Calgary In November

It looks like I will be going to the Tech-Days event in Calgary. The dates for the event are November 17 and 18.

• Tech-Days Canada 2009 Web Site

The event last year was very well done. The sessions were well put together and gave us some very good looks into the various Microsoft technologies.

Some of the event benefits included:

One thing that was different in this year’s registration process was the lack of track and session assignment. There was no need to go through all of the tracks and sessions to choose which ones we will be attending.

So, we will be able to float between sessions depending on the content and our interest in them. This kind of flexibility is good to have since our interests today may not be the same as tomorrow.

This event will be a good place to gain a solid overview on current and upcoming Microsoft technologies. Given what we do, we need to stay on top of the products we work with or we risk falling behind and possibly becoming irrelevant to our clients.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Zero Downtime Migration Deep Dive in Las Vegas – I’ll be there too! :)

Karl Palachuk has asked me to write the forward for his upcoming Network Migration Workbook which I have accepted to do.

Tied into the workbook is the upcoming Zero Downtime Migration Deep Dive Seminar on October 1st in Las Vegas.

Since I am in Las Vegas for the SMB Nation Fall Conference from the 2nd to the 4th of October, Karl offered a guest pass to the seminar for writing the forward!

I accepted his offer and am really excited about attending the seminar.

If you are new to SBS and/or the SMB market, then the SMB Nation conference and Karl’s Zero Migration Deep Dive Seminar would be two events to deepen and strengthen your SBS/SMB knowledge base.

The costs may seem quite high for both events, but one thing I have learned in my own I.T. career is that we need to spend money to make money. Money spent on deepening our technical knowledge and experience along with developing our business sense is money well spent.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

SMB Nation in Las Vegas – Looks Like I Will Be Going!

While things are not 100% in place yet, it looks as though I will be attending the SMB Nation fall conference in Las Vegas!

• SMB Nation

It will be a good time to finally meet some of my fellow MVPs and hopefully get to know some of our regular blog readers!

If you plan on being there, please e-mail me!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer