Microsoft has announced that it will offer System Center Advisor for free to its customers in supporting countries. System Center Advisor is a cloud service that enables IT Professionals to proactively avoid problems resulting from server configuration issues. It can help you resolve issues faster by providing access to current and historical configuration data for a deployment. System Center Advisor can also assist in reducing downtime by providing suggestions for improvement and notifying users of key updates specific to their configuration
TVP Strategy Archives
Cloud Conversations: Tweetchat and Serendipity
The 3/7 Virtualization Security Podcast featured Andi Mann, VP of Strategic Solutions at CA Technologies, and RSA Conference. The conversation was lively and I invited Andi Mann due to a previous day tweet chat about cloud security. Lately I have had several serendipitous conversations on cloud security from TweetChat, to in face discussions with @Qthrul, and meeting @MrsYisWhy in person. Each conversation has been about Cloud or Virtualization security in some form. Let me delve into them a bit more.
Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for virtual environments (Part III) from form factor to power
In part II of this series we covered some of the differences between various Hard Disk Drive (HDD) including looking beyond the covers at availability, cache and cost. Let us pick up where we left off on our look beyond the covers to help answer the question of which is the best HDD to use.
Where Does Virtualization Stop and the Cloud Start?
“I was going to write about how building a cloud is similar to moving, but the more I think about it, the more I think people are confusing an automated virtual environment with a cloud: IT as a Service is not just about cloud. Having automation does not imply your virtual environment is a cloud or visa versa.”
Touch to Kill the VDI Star?
Businesses today waltz with the end of the PC. AppSense’s Jon Rolls wrote an interesting blog post on how the Windows desktop has not ceased to be in the post-PC era. For many businesses the corporate PC and the corporate laptop are increasingly supplemented by a personal tablet, personal laptop, personal smartphone. Perhaps if corporate IT moved faster (or depending on your viewpoint, businesses were willing to invest more in IT), then the rising reality of users believing they must bring in personal devices to be productive would halt, possibly even recede.
IT as a Service: Not Just for a Cloud
I was going to write about how building a cloud is similar to moving, but the more I think about it, the more I think people are confusing an automated virtual environment with a cloud: IT as a Service is not just about cloud. Having automation does not imply your virtual environment is a cloud or visa versa. Granted, using IT as a Service is important for a cloud if you look at the NIST definition of a cloud, but it is not necessary for a cloud. Perhaps IT as a Service is just a stepping stone towards a cloud, perhaps it should start as a data center play?