Upcoming TechNet Events for Systems Management…..

Good Day Folks!

I am excited to let you know about a series of events I will will be delivering across the western United States. As many of you know, I have been focusing on our management technologies and have put together some presentations on two specific products from Microsoft. Let me give you the almost official blurb we will be sending out soon!

The continued rapid evolution of computing requires IT Pros to stay nimble and adjust their skills to meet the needs of their changing networks. Virtualized computing environments and the growth of “cloud” computing mean that the physical servers and workstations we have had on premise for years are quickly being virtualized or being placed in cloud based datacenters. How do we manage these assets that we can’t touch?

System Center Essentials 2010 and Windows Intune bridge the gap between the physical, the virtual, and the cloud for IT Pros and Network Administrators.

System Center Essentials 2010 combines several of Microsoft’s flagship System Center family of products into an easy to use, unified management solution. Combining deployment, configuration, management, reporting, alerting, configuration and more into a single console for physical and virtual assets gives IT Pros a unified view and control over all aspects of their small to medium size networks. Designed for networks with up to 50 Servers and 500 workstations, System Center Essentials 2010 gives IT Pros the information they need to monitor and maintain their entire network.

Windows Intune is a new cloud based management solution that is currently in beta. Windows Intune allows an IT Professional to begin managing many aspects of their networks immediately – without installing costly on-site servers. Simply deploy the small footprint Windows Intune agent to the workstations you wish to manage and within minutes you have the ability to: Monitor PC’s, Manage Updates, Protect PC’s from Malware, Provide Remote Assistance, Track Hardware and Software Inventory, Set Security Policies, and more!

Now that I have some of the marketing fluff out of the way, here are the dates and cities I will be at.

April 11 – Denver, CO

April 12 – San Francisco, CA

April 15 – Tempe, AZ

April 18 – Bellevue, WA

April 19 – Portland, OR

April 20 – Irvine, CA

April 21 – Los Angeles, CA

We are still finalizing some details for the events, so we have not opened up registration yet, but as soon as we have things buttoned down, I will get links to the registration pages posted.

I am particularly excited about the Windows Intune technologies which I am using to manage my home network of a dozen or so machines. I will be demoing using my home network so you can see it working in a real (albeit small) production environment.

Feel free, in fact, please let people in your local communities know about these events. Tell your user groups, fellow IT Pros, and all around computer geeks about these events. Be sure to mention that they are FREE!

On a final note, I won’t be alone at these events. We will be doing a full day with TechNet and MSDN at the same location. MSDN will be delivering a full session on Windows Azure for developers at the same locations. As soon as I have all of their information I will get it posted here.

Cheers!