Month: December 2009

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Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Centre (VLSC)


The VLSC (Volume Licensing Service Centre) is the newest customer licensing site from Microsoft. It’s fair to say that their licensing websites have never been the best and certainly wouldn’t win any awards…both those for customers and partners. Yes, the Microsoft.com site is pretty great and the new Partner site is pretty good too but it’s the other sites that are lacking:

  • eOpen
  • MVLS
  • explore.ms
  • eAgreements

eOpen is definitely one of the slowest websites I have had to use on a semi-regular basis…slow to load up initially and slow to load up as one navigates around it. This is the site that all OLP (Open Licence) customers must use to access licence information, licence keys etc…It often flakes out half way through a session, leaving you unable to see your keys or add a new agreement. It also suffers from a lack of design love…it’s basic and not particularly pretty.

Explore.MS is for partners to see details of agreements, price files etc. While it always seems to function perfectly well, it’s a very sparse, plain design/layout and not always terribly intuitive.

eAgreements is the site used for the creation of Open Value agreements. We do quite a number of these but I actually can’t login to the site! I’m not sure why…it’s not cache or cookies or anything like that…it just doesn’t seem to like me 🙂 This is another site that’s clunky, slow and often fails and kicks you out…something of a familiar theme now!

MVLS is the site that Open Value & Select customers use to administer their agreements…find keys, download media, assign roles etc; and it’s by far the best of the sites listed. It’s still not perfect but it’s certainly a step in the right direction 🙂

Anyway, a lot of that is almost by the by as eOpen & MVLS are being merged into the VLSC as of the 6th of December 2009. You may have noticed that certain actions in eOpen & MVLS have been taking you to VLSC recently…product downloads for instance?

There is a problem with this though…it’s Monday the 7th of December today…and the site is still down:

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This leaves customers unable to access their license info as the other sites have been taken down.

eOpen:

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and MVLS gives you the 1st VLSC error page. This is a pretty big #fail by Microsoft and there has been no official word about it at all (at least not that I’ve seen), something which reflects quite badly on Microsoft. *Update* The Microsoft VLSC twitter account (@microsoft_VLSC) are responding to customer tweets:

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It’s good to see Redmond responding to customers, especially via Twitter 🙂

This also has wider implications for “The Cloud” in general too. Customers are unable to access product downloads, licence keys and more just because a website is down…while it’s not the kind of information that is likely to be needed super urgently…it’s yet another example of Cloud Inconvenience…

I hope the site’s up tomorrow for the sake of Microsoft, customers and me…otherwise I’ll get loads of angry/confused customers calling me tomorrow 😉

Update – Tuesday 08/12/09

Well, the VLSC website was finally announced as being launched at 01:09 am GMT, but all is not well!

I’m still getting comments on this article from people who are experiencing trouble with the site and am experiencing issues myself…when I sign in, I get the below:

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To be fair, when I was at my desk this afternoon for just a few fleeting minutes (it’s been a busy one today!) I took a look and I got in straight away. Now however, it takes a good few minutes of thinking about it…and then gives me the above error screen each time. This could perhaps be down to all those unable to access yesterday hitting the servers but I’m inclined to think otherwise.

The Twitter account of @Microsoft_VLSC shows that it hasn’t been plain sailing:

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but then:

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So it isn’t a complete outage…it seems to be working for some people which is something 🙂

I don’t want this post to seem overly critical, or that I’m having a go at the VLSC team but I do think that it’s a situation that warrants attention…and the 100’s & 100’s of hits this post means that users seem to agree 🙂 If there is one silver lining from this, it’s that the VLSC team are doing a great job of offering support via their Twitter account:

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Not only are they keeping people up to date with changes etc; they’re also responding to, and assisting with, individual issues…which is very impressive 🙂

Update Monday 14/12/09

It’s now a full week since the new Microsoft Licensing website, VLSC, should have been up & running…and it isn’t. The VLSC Twitter account “@microsoft_VLSC” is still the best place to get information on the situation; yesterday they tweeted:

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which would lead you to believe that the site would be back today (Monday) but unfortunately:

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It seems that not all people have been experiencing the same problem…some cannot access the site at all, some can access only old licences, some cannot add new licences and so on…but now, with the site completely down, everyone will be affected.

While the Twitter account is doing a good job of communicating with VLSC users, there is still a large amount of ambiguity as to what is behind this:

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I think everyone knows there’s an issue so not the most helpful comment! I know there will be various rules as to who can say what via which channels etc, but just a little insight would help a lot.

From my point of view as a Microsoft Licensing reseller, I haven’t heard or seen anything from Microsoft on this subject at all. No heads up so we can pre-warn our customers, or at least be prepared for the questions, no advice on how we can help etc…I find that a little disappointing to be honest.

From my point of view as a blogger, I find it very strange that none of the other Microsoft bloggers have picked up on this VLSC issue. The number of hits this post is getting keeps rising each day and the comments show real frustration on the part of both end users and Microsoft partners.

I’m not sure that there is any other way of being kept up to date on this from MS other than via the Twitter account; the number of people they’re following without profile pics suggests people are joining the micro-blogging service simply to contact Microsoft VLSC!

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As mentioned in the comments, there is a new notice on the VLSC page:

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Update Wednesday 16-12-09

We have a little more information from Microsoft on the subject today, their latest statement reads:

As you are aware, we recently upgraded three web sites including the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Centre; Volume Licensing Contract Manager, and Explore.MS.  These tools are to help you provide services to your customers. In standard systems testing, we encountered an issue with the registration system, which we are currently fixing. The result is that the systems are currently offline.
 
Our goal is to have the sites available starting late in the day on December 17, 2009 US Pacific Time through to December 18, 2009 Pacific Time. Pacific Time (PST) time is 8 hours behind GMT so late on the 17th will be morning of the 18th for us in the UK 🙂
 
We would like to apologise for the inconvenience this is causing. As a valued partner, we understand that your experience trying to access the site is not optimal.
 
While there are limited capabilities,
Customers can still retrieve product keys during this maintenance. You can direct customers to the Product Activation Call Centres for assistance You can also find a phone number for your region by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/existing-customers/activation-centers.aspx

So hopefully Monday 21st will see everything right as rain 🙂

Update Friday 18-12-09

The VLSC site is back up…and all seems to be working…Whoo Hoo!

WaMu's 'Whoo-hoo' campaign ...

I’ve logged in to take a look around and can’t see anything missing, which is nice.

It’s taken much longer than expected and hasn’t been a great time for MS, it’s partners or it’s customers but hopefully everything is ok now.

Let me know how you’re finding the site…is it in full working order for you?

Update Monday 04-01-10

It’s been a while since my last update and, while the VLSC site is working fine for me, the comments below show that not everyone has seen these issues resolved yet. I’m still working on getting an update from Microsoft on what happened and when all the issues will be resolved but, to be honest, I’m not getting anywhere quickly!

Thanks to everyone who has commented on this post and offered up their advice to other people in the same position…it’s really great to see a small community spring up around my blog 🙂

Update Thursday 07-01-10

Bill Snyder over at Infoworld has posted an article about the VLSC issues too. Go check it out here:

Infoworld Article on VLSC

Bill’s article has generated a lot of click throughs to this site and so this is clearly an issue that many people are interested in.

Update Sunday 10-01-10

On Friday, I received an email from Microsoft’s PR agency Waggener Edstrom with an official update/response on the subject so far, which is:

“We apologize to our partners and customers for the inconvenience that they have been through during the upgrade improvements for the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) site. In standard systems testing, we encountered an issue with the registration system.  While the vast majority of partners and customers are able to access the system, there remain some issues that are causing difficulties for some and it has taken us longer than expected to correct these issues. We are taking all necessary steps to resolve the situation and we are working with each impacted customer or partner to restore permissions if they can’t be resolved online. We understand the inconvenience that this causes and greatly value doing business with our partners and customers.”

It’s good that we’ve had a response but it’s again not that informative. “An issue with the registration system” doesn’t shed much more light on the situation…what do you think?

 Update Thursday 04-02-10

The majority of problems with the VLSC seem to have calmed down but it’s still not 100%…in fact this week has probably been the busiest re: VLSC issues for me!

 The biggest hurdle now is conflicting information as customers are told that MS can’t help them directly and they need to speak to the reseller; but I also know that resellers are being told that customers should contact MS directly!

The best process seems to be:

Customer -> Reseller -> Distributor -> Microsoft

With the request passed along in that manner, email addresses are being reset etc and all should be well 🙂

 If you would like to speak with a Microsoft VLSC rep, the number is 0800 917 9016. The email address is msdirecthelpe@msdirectservices.com .

If you’re still having problems and/or you’ve got a success story (!), please let us all know in the comments…

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What’s New in SQL Server 2008 R2


SQL Server 2008 R2 aka Kilmajaro is due for release on May 6th, 2010 and is a much more Business Intelligence focused release. It has a bunch of new features as well as a number of improvements to existing features.

What’s New?

There are three main new features which we’ll take a look at here:

Master Data Services:

This is a “database, configuration tool, Web application, and Web service” that is used to “manage your organization’s master data and maintain an auditable record of that data as it changes over time”. This can then serve up the data for BI & Reporting tools such as Sharepoint, SSRS, SAP Crystal Reports etc for use around the business.

For information on architecture, deployment, security and more, see here. A great getting started guide can be found here

PowerPivot for Sharepoint

“Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint extends SharePoint 2010 and Excel Services to add server-side processing, collaboration, and document management support for the PowerPivot workbooks that you publish to SharePoint”.

PowerPivot enables Excel workbooks to easily work with over 1,000,000 rows of data and still perform quick calculations…see my other post here.

3 tier diagram of client, middle, backend add-ins

.A great MSDN look at PowerPivot for Sharepoint can be found here.

Multi-Server Administration and Data-Tier Application:

This “forms a central repository for performance data and management policies that tailor the operation of instances of the Database Engine”. It also includes the ability to connect to a SQL Azure Database.

More info on the manageability side of SQL 2008 R2 is here.

What’s Enhanced?

SQL Server Reporting Services (SRSS) have been given a huge boost in SQL 2008 R2, to help bring them closer to dedicated Business Intelligence platforms such as SAP Business Objects Crystal Reports Servers and Business Object EDGE.

Sharepoint Integration: New features include:

  • Support for multiple Sharepoint Zones
  • New Data extension
  • Query designer for Sharepoint Lists as a data source
  • Right to Left text w/Arabic  & Hebrew

and more. You can now use data held in lists inside Sharepoint and include that in your reports, for more info head over to Getting Data from a SharePoint List Data Source Type (Report Builder 3.0).

Report Parts: This is a great feature which allows you store parts of reports on the server, to be re-used by you (or others) at a later date. This means if you’ve got someone who’s awesome at making charts, they can pre-create them and load them up on the server for the benefit of the rest of the team/business 🙂

Report Part Publishing LifeCycle:

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You can publish the following report parts:

  • Charts
  • Gauges
  • Images and embedded images
  • Maps
  • Parameters
  • Rectangles
  • Tables
  • Matrices
  • Lists

    • This makes it quite similar to SAP Xcelsius but I don’t think it is as fully featured and also, and perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t seem anywhere near as end user friendly.

    MSDN have got more info on Report Part Publishing here.

    Wrap Up:

    I hope this has gone some way to explaining some of the new features of SQL Server 2008 R2 and that it helped show how these can help you and your business 🙂
    The full MSDN article with almost literally 100’s of how to’s, guides and FAQ’s is here:

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb500435(SQL.105).aspx

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    A deeper look @ PowerPivot


    PowerPivot for Excel

    PowerPivot for Excel supports self-service business intelligence in the following ways.

    • Current row-and-column limitations in Excel are removed so that you can import much more data. This goes far beyond 1,000,000 rows!
    • A data relationship layer lets you integrate data from different sources and work with all of the data holistically. You can enter data, copy data from other worksheets, or import data from corporate databases. You can build relationships among the data to analyze it as if it all originated from a single source.
    • Create portable, reusable data. Data stays inside the workbook. You do not need manage external data connections. If you publish, move, copy, or share a workbook, all the data goes with it.
    • PowerPivot data is fully and immediately available to the rest of the workbook. You can switch between Excel and PowerPivot windows to work on the data and its presentation in PivotTables or charts in an interactive fashion. Working on data or on its presentation are not separate tasks. You work on both together in the same Excel environment.

    PowerPivot lets users build relationships between completely different data sources and still have all the data held entirely within the workbook.

    Try it out:

    You can download PowerPivot for Excel here. Note: It requires Office 2010 beta.

     

    3 tier diagram of client, middle, backend add-ins

     

    PowerPivot for Sharepoint:

    “PowerPivot for SharePoint adds services and infrastructure for loading and unloading PowerPivot data”. The PowerPivot System Service tracks usage of PowerPivot workbooks across the app servers on the farm and deals with “setting up new connections to data that is already loaded in memory, and caching or unloading data if it is no longer used or when there is contention for system resources.” It then presents server health and usage data in reports, enabling admins to see how well the system is performing.

    Excel Services renders the Presentation layer of a Pivot workbook  while the Analysis Services instances detect, extract and process the Pivot data. Here’s a diagram showing how a query request is processed:

    Data processing request diagram

    You can see a full overview over on the MSDN site here.

    Try it out:

    You can download PowerPivot for Sharepoint here. Note: It requires the CTP of SQL 2008 R2  AND Sharepoint 2010 beta.

    Installing PowerPivot for Sharepoint

    There are a number of pre-requisites and steps to installing the product, and they can all be found here:

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee210708(SQL.105).aspx

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    Microsoft Black Screen of Death


    Recently, a new buzz phrase has risen up…”Black Screen of Death”. Supposedly Microsoft’s latest updates for November have been causing user’s machines to boot up into blackness with no system tray, side bar, desktop etc. The cause, according to PRevX, is that the registry key:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell key

    was being edited.

    This issue was brought to light by security firm PrevX, who said “millions” of people have been affected. However, actually finding someone who’d experienced one has proved very difficult…even on Twitter and the internet at large. This was strange but it didn’t stop it becoming the #1 story on the BBC site today and starting to become quite a talking topic. Microsoft have just released a statement about this saying:

    “We’ve investigated these reports and found that our November Security Updates are not making changes to the system that these reports say are responsible for these issues…Thus, we don’t believe the updates are related to the “black screen” behaviour described in these reports.”

    As the information and issues weren’t given directly to Microsoft, they are unable to give a definite answer as to what is causing the problem. However, the important thing is to reassure users that Microsoft Updates are safe and should still be applied regularly as normal.

    You can see the full MS statement here:

    http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2009/12/01/reports-of-issues-with-november-security-updates.aspx

    Prevxlogo.gif

    Thoughts

    It is still an odd state of affairs as PrevX are a reputable company with some great technology that has really helped me, and our customers, out of some sticky situations. So it’s unlikely that they’d just make it up but perhaps almost as unlikely that they’d be this wrong about something they’ve publicised so much. On the other hand, it’s even less likely that Microsoft would be wrong! So where does that leave us? To be honest I’m not sure…could it be that they’re both right?

    MS note that “Black Screens” can be caused by the “Daonol” family of Malware…but “Black Screens” are known in Windows…as this Wikipedia page shows.

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    A Windows 3.0 BlSOD error message.

    Maybe if you have a machine infected with certain Malware AND you do the updates, then the “BlSOD” is triggered?

    I honestly don’t know but I’m intrigued to learn more and see how this case is solved!

    Update: They’ve Apologised

    PrevX have released a statement on their blog confirming Microsoft’s statement that the November updates from MS did NOT cause the Black Screen of Death.

    “Having narrowed down a specific trigger for this condition we’ve done quite a bit of testing and re-testing on the recent Windows patches including KB976098 and KB915597 as referred to in our previous blog. Since more specifically narrowing down the cause we have been able to exonerate these patches from being a contributory factor.” (Bold mine)

    You can read their full statement here:

    http://www.prevx.com/blog/141/Windows-Black-Screen-Root-Cause.html

    Thanks to @Jamestutt for letting me know

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    SQL Server 2008 R2 Release Date


    SQL Server 2008 R2 AKA Kilimanjaro now has a release date..May 6th 2010.

    A post over on one of the MSDN blogs confirms this:

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    This tightens it up from “1st half 2010”, which is good for partners and customers…enabling us all to plan a bit better.

    Props to Mary Jo Foleys for this.

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    Office 2010 coming in June


    Office 2010 will be with us in June. This was confirmed by a (now vanished) MS web page, stating that Office 2010 would be released in June 2010. I nearly didn’t bother posting this as it doesn’t seem, to me at least, to be news. I’ve been stating to colleagues and customers that Office 2010 will be here around April/June for a while…based on info already released by Microsoft.

    However, I thought I’d better mention it so I don’t look like I’ve missed something 😉

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