Richard and Greg talk to Tim Barrett about Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server. Originally for the academic market only, MultiPoint Server is now available for small businesses, allowing up to 20 users to share a single computer simultaneously via Remote Desktop. Tim talks about using MultiPoint to provide access to applications for iPads and other third party devices, as well as extending the life of older PCs. You can learn more about MultiPoint at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/multipoint/....
Oct 05, 2011•31 min•Ep. 232
Richard and Greg talk to the one-and-only Rhonda Layfield about the beta 1 of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012. MDT 2012 is a free tool for doing operating system, driver and software deployments. Rhonda talks about how MDT is becoming more closely integrated with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), to the point that you need to use MDT with SCCM to do zero touch deployment. The conversation digresses into a series of discussions around fundamentals of IT, talking a bit about netw...
Sep 28, 2011•36 min•Ep. 231
While at the Build conference in Anaheim, California, Richard sat down with Mark Minasi to get his first impressions of Windows Server 8. What happens next is almost an hour of high speed brain dumping, so hold on to your hats. For even more information about Windows Server 8, check out Mark's newsletter (which you should be subscribing to anyway).
Sep 21, 2011•51 min•Ep. 230
Richard flies solo to talk to Barry Dorrans, now at Microsoft, about the recent spate of security breaches at Certificate Authorities like Comodo and DigiNotar. What can you as an IT Pro do about this recent set of hacks? Other than replacing your potentially exploited certificate, not a lot. Barry talks about how these exploits have happened, what Microsoft, Google and others are doing about it and some possible long term solutions to the problems. Check out Barry's blog at idunno.org. Barry al...
Sep 14, 2011•36 min•Ep. 229
Richard and Greg talk to Donald Farmer about his new role over at QlikView. Don spent ten years working on Business Intelligence technologies at Microsoft and now has taken his experiences into QlikView and their business analytic products. Don also digs into how business analytics has evolved, reducing the cost of systems and making BI 'disposable' - low cost, agile and easily replaceable. Towards the end of the show, Don tells some great BI stories of different companies taking advantage of th...
Sep 07, 2011•36 min•Ep. 228
Richard talks to Mark Russinovich and Aaron Margosis about the newly released Sysinternals Administrator's Reference. SysInternals is a vital part of any IT administrator's toolkit, but has never been well documented. The administrator's reference is that documentation, including details on every SysInternals tool as well as troubleshooting examples and a detailed overview of core Windows concepts. If you're using SysInternals (and who isn't), you need this book!
Aug 31, 2011•35 min•Ep. 227
Richard flies solo to talk to Laura Hunter, now working at Microsoft IT about the identity infrastructure at Microsoft. Laura talks about the scale of the identity problem at Microsoft, the challenges of using smart cards instead of passwords (the passwords won). The conversation moves on to talking about identification in general, talking about different ways of recognizing users, the shared authentication via twitter, facebook, etc. Ultimately Richard and Laura end up back at ADFS and how clou...
Aug 24, 2011•34 min•Ep. 226
Richard talks to Jeremy Moskowitz about his latest version of PolicyPak. PolicyPak provides Group Policy templates for third party applications. This is one of those products that once you understand what it does, you can't live without it. There's a free community edition as well as a paid version that is ten bucks per PC! Check it out at www.policypak.com.
Aug 17, 2011•35 min•Ep. 225
Richard and Greg to talk Yong Rhee from Microsoft Premier Field Engineering. Yong talks about optimization and health checks for Windows clients. He focuses on using the Windows Performance Analysis Tools (WPAT) which includes three tools: xperf, xperfview and xbootmgr. WPAT works with Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), available for Windows Vista and 7.
Aug 10, 2011•34 min•Ep. 224
Richard and Greg talk to Cameron Fuller about System Center Operations Manager. Operations Manager is the instrumentation part of System Center - centralizing the status of all your servers into one console. The conversation moves into the concept of server and application health... looking beyond ping times and into knowing how healthy your application is. Cameron also helps us understand how Operations Manager interacts with other System Center products including Configuration Manager, Service...
Aug 03, 2011•36 min•Ep. 223
Richard flies solo to talk to James Bannan about System Center Configuration Manager. Configuration Manager pulls together the administration of operating system, driver and application installs working alongside tools like Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. Check out James' blog at http://www.jamesbannanit.com/.
Jul 27, 2011•33 min•Ep. 222
Early one morning at Kim and Paul's place, Richard sat down for a conversation about how they go about helping their customers make SQL Server go faster. The conversation wanders over index tuning, hardware issues and learning issues. Also listen for a special guest visit from Paul's nine year old daughter who knows that auto shrink is evil.
Jul 20, 2011•36 min•Ep. 221
Richard and Greg talk to Stephen Foskett about storage technologies. Stephen gives a history of storage technologies from RAID arrays to SANs, including Microsoft's Storage Server. The conversation ranges over a huge number of storage technologies, including the new generation of low cost iSCSI targets, lamenting the death of Microsoft Home Server and even diving into obscure concepts like (get this) Fibre Channel over Token Ring! The show ends exploring the prospects of storage in the cloud and...
Jul 13, 2011•35 min•Ep. 220
Richard and Greg talk to Steve Wright of SQL Sentry about the performance challenges with Analysis Services. Steve talks about how putting SSAS on the same box as SQL Server is not a good idea, how both products are greedy for memory and comparing query tuning techniques. Steve also gets into the performance counters that matter in SSAS.
Jul 06, 2011•33 min•Ep. 219
Richard and Greg talk to Chris Ross from Catapult Systems. Chris talks to the boys about System Center Service Manager, an IT Service Desk application recently added to System Center. Service Manager is the front line application for doing problem support, routine maintenance, routine workflow processes, and so on. Chris discusses how Service Manager becomes a hub for the other System Center components, making it easier to have a clear picture of what's going on with your system and what to work...
Jun 29, 2011•34 min•Ep. 218
Richard chats with Mark Minasi about his Tech Ed Atlanta experience. The conversation moves onto recent announcements around Windows 8. Richard and Mark argue over the viability of tablets like the iPad versus the latest generation of laptops. Mark also mentions a few web sites, including the Software Conspiracy. It's one of those rambling conversations we know and love!
Jun 22, 2011•34 min•Ep. 217
While at DevTeach, Richard talked to Colin Melia about the challenges of securing applications using the phone and cloud. The discussion digs hard into Active Directory Federated Services, Azure Access Control Services and more.
Jun 15, 2011•29 min•Ep. 216
While at Tech Ed Atlanta, Richard talked to Jeremy Thake from AvePoint about scaling Sharepoint. Jeremy talks about how Sharepoint decomposes into multiple servers to provide effective scale. The conversation also moves to the cloud, talking about the Sharepoint offering in Office 365.
Jun 08, 2011•31 min•Ep. 215
Richard catches up with Kevin Kline at Tech Ed Atlanta to talk about the next version of SQL Server, code name Denali. Kevin discusses the new 'Always On' features, new column store and the updates to reporting services. The conversation also wanders over to SQLAzure, SQL Saturdays and how the major database products in the world can work together.
Jun 01, 2011•34 min•Ep. 214
While at Tech Ed Atlanta, Richard talked to Mitch Garvis about Hyper-V. Mitch focuses on how Hyper-V has caught up with VMWare feature wise. The conversation ranges over what should be virtualized, what shouldn't, and the role the cloud plays in virtualization.
May 25, 2011•30 min•Ep. 213
While at Tech Ed Atlanta, Richard talks to Dmitry Sotnikov from Quest Software about cloud technologies including virtualization. The debate ranges over Software as a Service, Platform as a Service and whether or not application migration to the cloud really makes sense.
May 18, 2011•29 min•Ep. 212
Richard and Greg talk to to Dana Epp about CardSpace. Now that Microsoft has decided not to release CardSpace 2.0, where does that leave identity? Dana mentions Dick Hardt's Identity 2.0 presentation at Oscon 2005, take a look at it here: http://identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/.
May 11, 2011•39 min•Ep. 211
Richard and Greg talk to Mike Crowley from Planet Technologies about infrastructure rights management (IRM) and Exchange. Rights Management Service (RMS) has been around for the past few versions of Windows Server, but the latest edition significantly improves its abilities. More than just encryption, IRM and Exchange together can actually block a sensitive file from going out via email!
May 04, 2011•38 min•Ep. 210
Richard and Greg talk to Ted Pattison about how SharePoint 2010 is permeating every aspect of business. All of the major Microsoft product lines now have some part of their feature set connected to SharePoint. Ted is one of the authors of Inside Microsoft SharePoint 2010. Check out Ted's blog at http://blog.tedpattison.net/default.aspx.
Apr 27, 2011•34 min•Ep. 209
While at SQLConnections, Richard sat down with Brent Ozar for a rolling discussion about the things Brent is working about these days - how SQLAzure is stacking up, and how many performance problems that can be solved by 10Gb iSCSI and SSD drives. The conversation also dives into disaster recovery strategies, thoughts around data loss vs. downtime, and more.
Apr 20, 2011•38 min•Ep. 208
While at Exchange Connections in Orlando, Richard sat down with Tony Redmond, former CTO of Hewlett Packard. Tony talks about how Microsoft's Office 365 is the 800 pound gorilla on the minds of many folks in the Exchange community. The conversation digs into the differing viewpoints of cloud technologies for large enterprises and small-to-medium businesses. Along the way Tony pulls out some anecdotes from his experiences with messaging.
Apr 13, 2011•29 min•Ep. 207
Richard and Greg talk to Ken Westin from ActiveTrak about mobile device security. The conversation ranges over securable smartphones, tablets and laptops. Ken also tells some stories about using GadgetTrak to break up a laptop theft ring. Check out GadgetTrak at www.gadgettrak.com.
Apr 06, 2011•31 min•Ep. 206
Richard flies solo to talk to Ed Horley about getting IPv6 deployed. In February 2011, IANA exhausted all the reserve IPv4 addresses, allocating them out to the five regional internet registries. APNIC, the registry for the Asia-Pacific area, is expected to run out of IPv4 first. So 2011 is going to be a big year for IPv6, especially for content providers. If your responsible for your company putting content on the internet, you need to get thinking about IPv6. Check out http://isoc.org/wp/world...
Mar 30, 2011•35 min•Ep. 205
Richard and Greg talk to Stephen Rose about where Windows is going. Stephen gives us some hints about Windows vNext and some ideas on how IT Pros are going to be able to manage the new diversity of devices coming into the workplace. Stephen also spends some time talking about the IE9 Release Candidate, Windows 7 SP1 and announces Windows inTune! inTune is a cloud-based management console for small to medium businesses - bringing together all the different tools built into Windows to manage them ...
Mar 23, 2011•37 min•Ep. 204
Richard flies solo to talk to the father of Powershell - Jeffrey Snover! Jeff talks about the core concepts of PowerShell, advances that happened from version 1 to 2 and some hints of what is coming in version 3. The discussion goes into some of the community extensions for PowerShell, including the PowerShell Community Extentions (PSCX) and PowerShell Management Library for Hyper-V. Jeff also talks about the upcoming PowerShell Deep Dive at TEC 2011 - if you love PowerShell, you'll want to be t...
Mar 16, 2011•34 min•Ep. 203
