The new Start menu is no longer just a menu but takes up the full screen with Metro style apps, and Windows 8 enables you to create your own line-of-business apps as needed to enhance productivity. The Start menu can give your employees immediate access to real-time business data. For instance, you can make apps that provide your employees with real-time access to sales and inventory figures.

Windows 8′s light hardware requirements will make it easy for your business to upgrade multiple computers. In general, Windows 8 should work well with hardware compatible with Windows 7. You will need a DirectX 9 graphics card with WDDM 1.0 support and a 1 GHz processor, whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit computer. On a 32-bit computer, you will need 1 GB RAM and 16 GB hard disk drive free space, while on a 64-bit computer you will need 2 GB RAM and 20 GB HDD free space. To run one Metro app at a time you’ll need a screen resolution of at least 1024×768, or 1366×768 to run two apps side by side.

If you’ve been hesitant to add tablets to your business due to potential difficulties with operating system interoperability, Windows 8 goes a long way toward eliminating those concerns. Windows 8 provides the full desktop experience on tablets, including the full versions of native software, while fully embracing and taking advantage of the tablet format with an intuitive multi-touch interface. Though you’ll be able to use Windows 8 on ARM-based tablets, you’ll only be able to manage 32-bit and 64-bit tablets in the same way as PCs. ARM-based tablets will have to be managed as stand-alone devices. Nevertheless, if operating system concerns were the only thing that kept you away from tablets, Windows 8 may help transform your business.

Improved security includes built-in anti-malware that loads as the OS starts and, for tablets, the ability to use a picture gesture login, in which you trace three gestures over an image to log in. Microsoft says that, with over a billion combinations, picture passwords provide greater security than a standard PIN or password, though you can still choose to use a standard password if you’re uncomfortable with a picture password.

For PCs, Windows 8 provides better support for multiple monitors, making it easy to switch between monitors and also adding the ability to extend the taskbar and wallpaper across two monitors.

Windows To Go is a new feature that allows employees to take a full corporate copy of Windows 8 — as well as all apps, data and settings — home with them on a USB drive. When they insert the drive into a Windows 7 or Windows 8-compatible machine and restart, it will boot from the drive. This essentially makes a Windows 8 work machine just as mobile as a tablet.

Other Features
•The redesigned Windows Explorer file management system uses the Ribbon interface from the Microsoft Office suite and offers a new feature called Copy Path, which allows you to copy and paste file and folder paths on a shared network drive, so you don’t have to type whole paths.
•Built-in mobile broadband supports 3G and 4G, allowing mobile workers to connect to the Internet immediately and helping you minimize data usage costs with built-in mobile broadband metering. Windows 8 will also switch to Wi-Fi whenever possible to minimize costs further.
•The Metro style SkyDrive app is a simple cloud storage solution that allows users to control who can access their stored files. It supports file uploads of up to 2 GB by dragging and dropping through Windows Explorer, and is also integrated with Microsoft Office, allowing your employees to easily store and collaborate on documents.
•With Windows ID login, your employees can use their Windows Live ID to log in to any Windows 8 PC. Their settings will be synchronized, and they can also reacquire their apps.
•Reset is a new feature that allows you to wipe data and apps so you can sell your devices without having security concerns.

If the future of computing will be mobile based, then its ability to be used on traditional PCs and mobile devices should make Windows 8 the first essential operating system upgrade since Windows XP.

Parsippany, NJ (PRWEB) August 22, 2011  Ahsun A. Saleem, Partner at Simplegrid Technology, Inc. was selected for Nine Lives Media Inc.’s fourth annual MSPmentor 250, a global report that identifies the world’s leading managed service executives, entrepreneurs, experts, coaches and community leaders.

Coverage of Mr. Saleem’s induction into the MSPmentor 250 is available now at http://www.mspmentor.net/mspmentor-250-page-8-of-our-2011-edition/

“I’m honored to be considered one of the leaders in the Managed IT services industry,” said Mr. Saleem. “Being named to the MSPMentor 250 indicates not only my commitment to delivering a vision of enterprise class service to the SME/SMB market, but it is also a reflection of the type of expertise and service Simplegrid delivers to our clients on a daily basis.”

The fourth annual MSPmentor 250 report is based on a global survey of MSPmentor site readers conducted from April through July 24, 2011. The MSPmentor editorial staff also weighed in with nominations, based on the team’s daily coverage of the managed services market. The resulting MSPmentor 250 report represents managed services experts across business, technology, sales, marketing, community development, coaching and more.

“MSPMentor congratulates Ahsun Saleem, as well as all of the executives identified within the MSPMentor 250 report.” said Amy Katz, CEO of Nine Lives Media Inc “We promised to raise the bar with our fourth-annual report, and we’ve delivered on that goal, paving the way for MSP experts across North America, EMEA, Asia and Australia to network.”

MSPmentor’s readership and editorial staff are uniquely positioned to identify the world’s top managed services experts. MSPmentor is the world’s leading managed services blog and community—and the ultimate guide to managed services.

About Nine Lives Media Inc.

Nine Lives Media Inc. ( http://www.ninelivesmediainc.com) defines emerging IT media markets and disrupts established IT media markets. The company’s websites — MSPmentor , The VAR Guy , Talkin’ Cloud, MSPtweet and VARtweet are the leading blogs and social media destinations in the IT channel.

About Simplegrid Technology, Inc.

Simplegrid is a full service IT consulting firm that specializes in Managed IT Services and Technology Consulting for the legal, financial and healthcare industries. For over ten years our team of engineers, technical architects and strategic consultants have been providing clients with superior IT services and technology consulting with a strong emphasis on dedication, quality and client satisfaction.

For more information about Simplegrid and our offerings, please visit http://www.simplegrid.com or call us at (888) 866-7010.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/simplegrid_it

Simplegrid’s Dektop Engineering practice blogged about the some of the new features in SCCM 2012; you can find that post here.

Follow us on Twitter! @simplegrid_it

There are definite benefits to using Windows XP mode – most notably allowing your users to be able to launch an application that doesn’t work on Windows 7 on their own machine.  This cuts down on the need of keeping physical Windows XP machines around, or the need of an alternative infrastructure to host these applications.  Furthermore, the seamless integration of Windows XP mode with Windows 7 allows the user to run their programs via the start menu – they won’t have to remember to launch something different in order to access the application.   There are, however a few caveats to keep in mind before deploying Windows XP mode within your environment:

• Limited Integration capability – Windows XP mode runs in as a virtual OS, and therefore has little to no integration with applications running in Windows 7 installation.  Therefore, applications that are heavily integrated applications (think of your CRM product, or your Office templates) should not be run within Windows XP mode.  Windows XP Mode does have the ability to access USB drives, Printers, known folders (i.e. My Documents), and the ability to cut and paste between the virtual machine and the host OS.
• OS Support – Windows XP mode is essentially a copy of the Windows XP OS that you are now running in your environment.   If you plan on giving your virtual machine access to the network, you must now decide whether you wish to maintain it, which means patching with the latest security patches, anti-virus, amongst other security requirements.  This can become quite the administrative burden, especially if you are deploying Windows XP Mode to multiple machines.

Typically we recommend using Windows XP mode sparingly, since most applications are compatible with Windows XP.  We also recommend trying the application in compatibility mode within the OS, before implementing Windows XP mode.  The most likely use case of Windows XP mode is for homegrown or 3^rd party applications that only work on Windows XP, or require versions of Internet Explorer before IE7.

Simplegrid’s Desktop Engineering practice is actively working on many VDI, Windows 7 and PC-Lifecycle management projects.  Contact us today to learn more.

User Centric Management – Traditionally, all of the pc lifecycle tools associated software applications to a machine, which is very problematic in environments where users float to different machines, or switch between their desktop and a remote terminal session.  In SCCM 2012, the software can now be associated to a user instead, thus allowing the application to follow the user, regardless of which machine they are logged into.

“Conditional Delivery” – The next version of SCCM introduces the concept of “conditional delivery”.  This delivery method automatically determines whether a user is on a virtual machine, a mobile device, terminal server, or a desktop/laptop and then determines how to deliver the application to the user – choosing between streaming the application, publishing it on a presentation server, or through traditional software deployment method.  This is accomplished even though the application itself needs to be packaged only once within the system.  Furthemore, conditional delivery also determines which device is the user’s primary or secondary device and behaves accordingly.

Software Portal – Microsoft finally caught up to Symantec’s Management Platform’s ability to deliver application via a software portal.    The software portal allows applications to be available to a user via a web page, which they can  install on their own schedule.  This allows for less user disruption, as software applications aren’t forced on users.  Applications on demand also reduce the burden on the IT staff, as they don’t have to always be available to distribute an application to a user.   The software portal is ideal for delivery of non-critical applications to a user.  Applications can still be associated to a user or a group, thus giving administrators control over which applications users can install.

Integrated Console – Following the “Better Together” strategy, SCCM 2012 brings the management of the following technologies into  their configuration manager console:

• Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)
• Microsoft Enterprise Virtualization (Med-V)
• Citrix XenApp
• Microsoft Forefront 2010

The console also supports the management of the Windows 7 phone, which will allow administrators to enable self-provisioning, device updates, and administer various controls on the devices.

Automated Remediation – Administrators will be able to allow for the automatic remediation of devices that deviate from the defined baseline configuration.  This feature is key for detecting vulnerabilities within the system and identifying non-compliance related issues.

Hierarchy and Client Improvements – Throttling and scheduling tasks can be administered on the distribution points, which will remove the requirement for additional primary sites when these tasks needed to be divided between different administrative groups.     Role based security is also being introduced in SCCM 2012, thus bringing granular control settings to the system, which will allow enterprise administrators to assign site specific administrators only the rights they need to perform the tasks.  Lastly, the SCCM client is introducing a “self healing” function, which will automatically resolve issues within the client, and even reinstall the client if it is removed from the endpoint.

The above are the most exciting features being released in SCCM 2012.  There are a couple of other features that are being introduced, such as Native 64 bit and Unicode support, improved SQL server replication, and improvements to the OS Deployment and Remote Control.  We will report back on these features as we dive deeper into them.

The next version of SCCM seems to be very promising as a PC lifecycle management tool that will meet the needs of our clients.  We’re looking forward to the official release of this product!

Simplegrid’s Desktop Engineering practice is actively working on many VDI, Windows 7 and PC-Lifecycle management projects.

Have a question that you want answered or a topic you want covered in a blog post?  Contact the Simplegrid Team, and we’ll be happy to write about it!

Nothing is set in stone here, and many things can go wrong here, but it is encouraging to hear Citrix listening to their clients and trying to bring this technology to the enterprise VDI segment.

Glaringly missing in this version is user profile management support via RTO software.   It appears that issues with RTO and Windows 7 still exist, and VMware has decided to not include this feature in this version.   View implementations will need to rely on third party vendors such as AppSense or RES Software, or attempt to perform user profile management by using VMware Composer or linked clones.  The latter strategy however doesn’t scale as well as the third party products would.  Furthermore, those products offer more features than just profile management, and are worth exploring as a potential option in any Windows 7 (either VDI or traditional) deployment.

 Customers current on their VMware subscriptions  can upgrade to View free of charge.  The product can be downloaded from here.

Here is a list of interesting updates within each service pack:

Windows 7 - Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 is essentially a cumulative update of all previously released security updates for the operating system.   Along with these updates, this service pack introduces client side support for RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory, two features being introduced in the Server 2008 R2 service pack.

The key item to note here is that with the release of this service pack, the clock starts ticking on the end of support for pre-SP1 Windows 7 implementations.    After 24 months, Microsoft will discontinue security fixes for Pre-SP1 Windows 7.   Simplegrid’s desktop engineering team has been busy assisting clients with Windows 7 design and deployment initiatives, and hasn’t encountered any major issues in terms of stability or performance during these projects.  We expect that the service pack 1 implementation for Windows 7 will go smoothly as well.

Windows 2008 – The buzz around the service pack for 2008 R2 revolve around two newly introduced features and their impact on Hyper-V:

Dynamic Memory – This feature, which is a direct response to VMware’s Memory Overcommit feature, claims to bring a 40% increase in density from 2008 R2 to 2008 R2 SP1 in VDI environments.  This increase in density also doesn’t compromise the system’s security as Dynamic Memory doesn’t require the disabling of Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), as VMware recommends.

RemoteFX – Another response to one of VMware’s technologies, this time PC-over-IP, RemoteFX is essentially an enhancement to RDP’s graphics remoting capabilities. RemoteFX will bring the same full display desktop experience to VDI clients, including multiple display, Aero and multimedia support.  This is accomplished via host-based rendering, which essentially means that the display is first rendered on the host, and then compressed and sent to the client.

There are two key items to note about RemoteFX.  First, RemoteFX is an enhancement of RDP’s graphics capabilities; it is not a replacement of RDP.  This means that all the other features of RDP (ports, printing, client drive mappings, encryption) are the same.  Second, RemoteFX will only work on a Windows 7 Service Pack 1 client connecting to a Windows 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V virtual machine.  RemoteFX will not in any other technology, primarily because Microsoft isn’t allowing it.

It remains to be seen how these features will work in production environments, but both service packs are well worth implementing into your environments as soon as possible.

Microsoft has annouced the release for the successor to Office Communications Server 2007 R2, named Microsoft Lync.

Lync Server provides enhanced versions of the communications capabilities provided by Office Communications Server 2007 R2—presence, instant messaging, robust conferencing, and enterprise voice—as well as improvements in topology, deployment, and management tools. 

Improve productivity Rich presence information helps employees find each other and choose the most effective way to communicate at a given time. Instead of e-mailing documents back and forth for approval, workers can rely on real-time collaboration through enhanced conferencing with desktop, application, and virtual whiteboard sharing—or contact a collaborator from within Microsoft Office or other applications. The unified Microsoft Lync 2010 client provides access to enterprise voice, enterprise messaging, and conferencing from one simplified interface.

Support the mobile workforce Mobile workers get access to rich Unified Communications tools from practically anywhere with an Internet connection, no VPN needed. An updated Lync Mobile client makes joining and managing conferences, searching the Global Address List, and viewing presence information easy. Rich presence in Lync Server 2010 has been updated with mobile location information, making on-the-go workers easier to find and contact. A single user experience across PC, phone, mobile phone, and browser gives workers more ways to stay in touch.

Gain operational efficiencies By integrating Unified Communications and rich presence into business workflows, latency and delays can be reduced or eliminated. For geographically dispersed teams, group chat can enable efficient, topic-specific, multi-party discussions that persist over time.

Be more responsive to customers, partners, and employees Enhanced delegation through Lync 2010, one-click call routing and management features in Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendant for receptionists, and rich presence information in both help ensure that opportunities are routed to the right person at the right time.

Maintain regulatory compliance Built-in security, encryption, archiving, and call detail records help meet regulatory requirements. By using your own servers and network, you maintain control over sensitive data that would otherwise be transmitted over public telephone networks and third-party conferencing platforms.

http://lync.microsoft.com/en-us/launch/Pages/launch.aspx

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_downloads/vmware_view/4_5

VMware claims to deliver rich, personalized virtual desktops as a managed service from a virtualization platform built to deliver the entire desktop, including the operating system, applications and data. With VMware View 4.5, desktop administrators virtualize the operating system, applications, and user data and deliver modern desktops to end-users. Get centralized automated management of these components for increased control and cost savings. Improve business agility while providing a flexible high performance desktop experience for end-users, across a variety of network conditions.

• Deliver desktops as a managed service to reduce costs and gain better reliability, efficiency and security
• Get ready for Windows 7 by virtualizing your desktops and applications now
• Deliver desktops to remote and branch offices to accelerate provisioning while retaining control