We have the tools to do

Everyone is talking about <it> and we have the tools for <it>.

Microsoft Windows, for instance, does <it> via Updates, which are also known as hotfixes or QFEs. If <it> is critical and urgent, Windows Updates can deliver <it> automatically. Large amounts of <it> can be put together in a Service Pack. When major amount of <it> is needed, you might need an entire new release, but you can usually upgrade from a previous version to carry your configuration forward and minimize the impact of <it>. At times your old hardware can’t take <it> or you’re doing <it> to a new architecture, like going 64 bits. In those cases you will need to perform a migration of your configuration and data, but we have tools for those as well.

Hyper-V and virtualization in general is all about making it easy to react to <it>, provisioning new systems in minutes instead of weeks. Tools like Quick Migration allow you to move a workload. Live Migration in the upcoming release (already in beta) will make <it> happen without your users even knowing it. I also like the ability in the upcoming version to park your CPUs to make sure you’re optimizing your infrastructure while <it> happens.

However, <It> can materialize in simpler forms like in a Microsoft Office application. Word does <it> using Find and Replace. <It> can get quite sophisticated at times, with the ability to use wildcards, replace formatting and use special characters as well. You could, for instance, change the color of some text across the document or replace all sequences of two paragraph marks with a single one. Microsoft Word will also track <it>, so you can tell what happened and work in a team to agree on <it> before it gets into your final document.

Microsoft SharePoint is specially aware that teams have a lot of <it> every day. Version control, for instance, is all about making sure we can track the entire life of an evolving document, as <it> happens. SharePoint can also check out documents, to make sure two people don’t do <it> at the same time to the same data.

Speaking of people applying <it> to large number of documents, Live Search spends a lot of effort tracking <it> around the world by constantly crawling the Internet. In the US, <it> is also applied to the picture on the main Live search page every day. A simple thing that made me put live.com as my home page. I look forward to <it> every day.

SQL Server can deliver massive amounts of <it> in a single UPDATE statement. With the many options and capabilities of the Transact-SQL language, you can apply <it> with discretion and the indexing abilities of the database will let you find exactly where you need to do <it> in blazing speed, even if your database is terabytes in size. Distributed databases are quite a challenge, since doing <it> consistently to many servers across the globe is no easy task. However, different replication models will help you find the best way to do. Merge replication, for instance, will let you do <it> asynchronously and manage the potential conflicts that might result. We sometimes need that.

Developers typically do not like <it>, since it can have repercussions throughout their code. Code dependencies can be hard to track. That's why refactoring is such a big feature of Visual Studio. This is basically the process by which VS will allow you to apply <it> in a consistent fashion throughout a project, considering all dependencies and taking care of everything. Testing is also very important, especially after <it>. Automated testing tools in the Visual Studio Team System will find problems created by <it> before you ship your code.

Now a neat trick is to detect the need for <it>. System Center tools like Operations Manager and Configuration Manager and Virtual Machine Manager do a great job of constantly monitor your infrastructure to detect <it> and make sure it’s within your parameters. If not, it will alert you of <it> and will help you take the necessary actions to address <it>, sometimes by running automated processes. Automating <it> to take care of <it>. It’s the concept behind the idea of the Dynamic Data Center.

My point is: we are ready for <it>, we have right tools to handle <it>.

This is a Historical Moment and we certainly welcome <it>.

P.S.: This was a post aligned with the Inauguration of the new US President. <it>=Change, his main theme.