Category: Downloads

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Microsoft Silverlight 2


Microsoft Silverlight 2 is ready and will be available for download from tomorrow (14/10/08) here. (If you’re currently using Silverlight 1 or Silverlight 2 beta, you will be automatically upgraded through Microsoft’s patching mechanisms over the next few months..)

It works on a variety  of platforms such as Windows, Mac OS X, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. No iPhone compatibilty (thanks to Apple) but it does play nice with Google Chrome.

Microsoft have done some great inter-operability work here as the .Net Framework and Common Language Runtime are now officially cross-platform, with Windows and Mac support today and Linux (via Novell’s Moonlight work) coming some time in the future.

Mary Jo Foley over @ ZDNet also tells us that more mobile/SIlverlight related news will be revealed at PDC 2008..

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Microsoft Web Platform Installer Beta


Deploying Microsoft IIS wesbites isn’t always the easiest thing in the world, due to all the various pre requisites you need such as .Net Framework, certain drivers etc..it’s certainly caught me out a few times over the years! If this happens to you, don’t worry because now help is at hand with:

Microsoft Web Platform Installer Beta (download here) or more info here

What does it do?

It’s a single tool that helps you get started installing the Microsoft Web Platform including:

· ASP.NET components

· SQL Server 2008 Express Edition (and all required pre-requisite software)

· IIS Extensions such as Secure FTP, Web Playlists, URL Rewriter, and much more!

· Visual Web Developer

· .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

· SQL Server Driver for PHP

and Supported Operating Systems are: Windows Vista RTM, Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008

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Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007


Configuration Manager:

This is the replacement for SMS 2003 and is used to comprehensively assess, deploy, and update your servers, clients, and devices, across physical and virtual machines as well as mobile devices. Config. Manager provides Asset Intelligence giving organizations continuous visibility of their hardware/software assets, where they are and who’s using them.

It can show how many copies of a particular program have been deployed, which machines they’re on and which people actually use the software. This information can then be used at renewal time to help decide how many copies are needed for the next year etc.

Software Update Management is often the main reason that people look at System Center Config Manager. Keeping all the various bits of software in an Enterprise fully up to date with patches is very important and also very difficult! Using SCCM you can deploy patches & updates for Microsoft products, 3rd party applications, custom LOB (Line of Business) applications, hardware drivers and more to servers, desktops, laptops and mobile devices.

The new feature of Desired Configuration Management enables organization to increase desktop stability and security by assessing the compliance of computers with regards to things such as “whether the correct Microsoft Windows operating system versions are installed and configured appropriately, all required applications are installed and configured correctly, optional applications are configured appropriately, and whether prohibited applications are installed.”

Using SCCM for Software Package Deployment can make things a lot easier! This simplifies the task of distributing software packages to physical and virtual machines (servers, desktops, laptops and mobile devices). You can centrally define how and when these packages will run on client machines, installing the software with no user intervention.

Next Steps:

Now you’re got an idea of what it can do, I’m sure you can’t wait to get it set up in your Test & Development system so:

Online Virtual Labs

Download Trial Software

Pricing & Licensing:

There is a single licence for System Center Config Manager Server, Management Licence (ML) for Servers (Std and Enterprise) and a Management Licence for Clients.

An Enterprise Server ML is required for full application and server desired configuration management, including the proactive management of systems for configuration settings that follow an industry-leading framework for managing information in changing regulatory and business environments, while a Standard Server ML is limited to operating system and basic workload desired configuration management.

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Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007


Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 (SCOM) is the replacement for MOM (Microsoft Operations Manager). It is an the end-to-end service-management product that helps organizations increase efficiency while enabling greater control of the IT environment.

Management Packs are available to add extra functionality into SCOM 2007, these can be downloaded or you can create your own.

The Distributed Application Designer is a graphical wizard to help IT administrators quickly create health models and MPs (Management Packs) for their IT Services. The Management Pack Authoring Console is a graphical tool used to help IT administrators and developers build MPs for their custom applications and other technology components. The Operations Manager 2007 Software Development Kit (SDK) provides programming interfaces so developers can more deeply integrate with and automate Operations Manager 2007.

SCOM isn’t restricted to monitoring Windows environments, it’s possible to monitor HP-UX, Solaris, Red Hat & SUSE Linux by using the Cross Platforms Extension beta.

Download a trial of System Center Operations Manager 207 here.

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Symantec (Veritas) NetBackup New Features


Symantec (Veritas) NetBackup 6.5.2 has new features. The higher end, enterprise big brother to Backup Exec has a new version to bring more benefits to your organization…and it’s been stealing from it’s smaller sibling!!

The new PureDisk DeDuplication Option enables data deduplication across Veritas NetBackup clients and allows you to backup only the unique data.

When it came to improving it’s recovery capabilities, NetBackup looked to Backup Exec and “borrowed” it’s Granular Recovery Technology (GTR) which allows for quick recovery of entire systems/individual files, e-mails, documents, and virtual machines from single-pass image backups of Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2007, and VMware servers…nice! The Granular Recovery Technology also eliminates duplicate block-level backups, thus reducing storage requirements.

Similar to Backup Exec 12.5, NetBackup now supports VMware Consolidated Backups (VCB) and snap-shot client support in VM’s.

A number of datsheets on the different optiopns for NetBackup can be download here.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 released


Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 has been released.

“What are you talking about? It’s been out for months!” you say…nearly but not quite.

This is the standalone Hyper-V server, so while it includes the core parts of the kernel as related to Hyper-V, there are no other roles available for installation. This is a pure Hypervisor that site on bare metal, and allows you to run up to 192 VM’s on a single machine!!

It doesn’t have much of a GUI (Graphical User Interface)-bit of an old school vibe but hey, that’s cool! Also, you can manage it from a Windows Server 2008 installation or indeed a Vista SP1 machine with the Remote Server Admin Tools Pack installed.

Microsoft expect the main uses for this product to be:

  • Test and Development
  • Basic Server Consolidation
  • Branch Office Consolidation
  • Hosted Desktop Virtualization (VDI)

    • You can download HYper-V Server 2008 here

    and

    More info can be found over at Matt “VirtualBoy” McSpirit’s blog here

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    Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007 Licensing


    As a follow on to my MOSS 2007 post, here’s some information on the various versions and how they are licensed…hope it helps!

    The main and most common edition is:

    Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007: This is licenced with a single server version and then 2 editions of Client Access Licences (CAL)-Standard and Enterprise. It is the CALs that determine which features are avilable to the users and they are “additive” meaning you must have both the Standard AND Enterprise CALs to receive the Enterprise features, which include:

    • Line of Business Data Search
    • Business process and forms capabilities (such as Web-based Microsoft Office InfoPath forms)
    • Business intelligence capabilities (including report center sites, the ability to build interactive dashboards, and Excel Services)

     Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites: This version is licensed per server only and is used for running extranets and internet sites. This means it cannot be accessed by internal employees “creating, sharing, or collaborating on content which is for internal use only”. As there are no CALs required, this edition includes the functionality of both the Standard AND Enterprise editions.

    Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007: This licensed via the Server/CAL model so each client accessing the server needs a CAL.

    Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 for Internet sites: As with MOSS 2007, this is per server licensing only, cannot be used for internal only projects and includes full Enterprise functionality.

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