The Microsoft Management Summit has brought more great changes, this time involving MDOP.
The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack is a great set of additional tools aimed at making desktop management easier,faster and more dynamic – for more info, see this post:
https://richardgibbonsuk.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/microsoft-mdop/
MDOP 2011 will see both new products, feature enhancements and a change to the way the product is licensed.
Products:
Microsoft recently announced the “Microsoft Bitlocker Administration & Monitoring” tool aka MBAM (codename Malta), which makes the management of Bitlocker devices much easier across an organization; a big one being self-service recovery of keys…I’m sure many IT dept’s will be happy to lose that job!
This will be included in MDOP 2011 and the beta is available on Microsoft Connect here:
https://connect.microsoft.com/site1115/Downloads
Features:
DaRT – Diagnostics & Recovery Toolkit – is getting a new version with at least one new feature; the ability to do an offline remote boot, rather than needing to visit the physical machine. Again, another great time saver for some IT teams!
If you’re interested in this, the beta nomination form can be found here:
https://connect.microsoft.com/site1200/Survey/NominationSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=12358&ProgramID=6840
Licensing Availability:
Previously the only way to purchase MDOP was as an addition to having Windows 7 with Software Assurance (SA) but now it is also available to companies who have either the Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) licence or Windows InTune.
Thanks to Bridget Botelho for her article over at:
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 