Chip - Day 4

No keynote presentations today.  Jetlag kicking in lots – not much sleep last night.  Missed the first session.

My first session was about the next big release of Systems Management Server – (version 4), which is a way off yet.  It builds on SMS 2003 and focuses in on four main themes: Operating System Deployment, Security, Simplicity and Desired Configuration.

I learned about the next big release of Microsoft Operations Manager (version 3), which is due out in the second half of this year.  I thought the current version (2005) was great; the next version will be fantastic.  Some of the really cool features are: Client Monitoring (get to see how everything is performing) and Security Event Collection (get to see who’s doing what on your systems).  It takes the management of the Microsoft Applications and Platform to be world class (no one can manage Microsoft stuff better than Microsoft).  It will provide service oriented monitoring of packaged and custom applications (which will help to improve service levels and reduce the TCO of all applications that support the business).  We’re also making it very easy to develop your own management packs for your in-house developed apps.

The only other good session I went to today was an overview of our High Performance Computing (HPC) solution:  Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 – which is due out before this summer.  More info here: https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/ccs/default.mspx A very interesting fact was that 10 GFlops back in 1991 would have set you back $40 million (Cray super computer).  10 GFlops in 1998 was $1 million (24-way Sun box).  10 GFlops on Windows can be had for around $4 thousand (on 4 single processor PCs).  There’s probably not much call for HPC in Ireland (where I live), so I probably will never get to “play” with it, but if I’m wrong & you have an interest and you’re from Ireland, please contact me.

That’s it for today – more tomorrow

Dave