A look at the current initiatives within UWE such as SharePoint, consolidation and virtualisation as well as some of the technology trends we can see coming down the road such as new forms of communication, mobility and unified communications / VOIP. Alistair Sandford S h o w a n d T e l l S e s s i o n

1. Active Directory  Open demonstration 2. SharePoint 2007  Overview and demonstration 3. VMWare and Virtualisation  Overview of VMWare ESX as a platform for consolidation  Demonstration of Virtual Centre 4. SMS  Demonstration of SMS and overview of the PC build- system 5. The future of Exchange 2007  Unified Communications

 Day to day admin here does NOT include:  Making user accounts - automated using MIIS, 1000s of users so don’t want to be doing that!  Making changes all the time – changes must be planned as a large system like ours can be badly affected by a mistake and we have a service to deliver  Changes happen at specific times called the “At Risk Period” when ITS is aware of changes occurring and are on call to notify of any problems as they occur 3

 Definition: the masking of server resources, including the number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, and operating systems, from server users  Modern servers so fast we don’t use all the resources available so they sit idle 99% of the time  Waste is immense (power, money, time, natural resources, and space)  Currently, the best method of utilising resources effectively is by virtualisation & consolidation 4

 Virtual Machines, using a Hypervisor (ESX & Microsoft)ESXMicrosoft  Run on a software imitation of hardware  Multiple types of operating system possible on one server  OS level virtualisation (Virtuozzo & Solaris Zones)Virtuozzo  Partitions guests using same or similar OS – isolating them  Allows guests to share binaries – host 1000s of guests! 5

 Virtual Infrastructure 2 – uses ESX 3 hosts  Multiple hosts in an array, across two sites  Guest HD’s on SAN storage  Automatically migrated to hosts with available resources  If one site fails the VMs can be brought up on the other site  Can give permissions for admin/s of specific machines to look after VMs themselves 6

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 Main uses: software deployment & delivering standard operating systems to PCs  Process:  software installed by faculty experts on a standard OS install, then packaged into an.msi file  Software added to SMS then advertised to rooms  PCs poll the SMS server and discover the advert and install the.msi file using admin privileges  Problems:  Apps run badly due to poor testing of packages 8

 Install Windows XP and make standard desktop  Sysprep and then ‘image’ to a WIM file using a specially created CD  Added in to SMS as a new OS package  SMS allows for scripts to run at specific stages of the OS delivery  State capture – copy user’s old files and prepare vars  Pre-install – prepare HD for OS delivery  Post-install – add custom drivers or other files  State restore – install core applications 9

 Currently:  Add or change PC in a database  Put in a CD and reboot PC  OS automatically installs depending on details in database  Requires someone with a CD and a db change  Planned:  Make use of PXE to boot PCs without a CD  Allow users to rebuild their own PCs after a simple call to the help-desk! 10

 Official Title  Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS)  What is it?  Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities  Accessed via a Web Interface or directly from applications or via web services  Microsoft fastest selling product of all time

Docs/tasks/calendars, blogs, wikis, integration, project management “lite”, Outlook integration, offline docs/lists Collaboration BusinessIntelligence Portal Enterprise Portal template, Site Directory, My Sites, social networking, privacy control Enterprise scalability, contextual relevance, rich people and business data search Rich and Web forms based front-ends, LOB actions, pluggable SSO Server-based Excel spreadsheets and data visualization, Report Center, BI Web Parts, KPIs/Dashboards Integrated document management, records management, and Web content management with policies and workflow Business Forms Search ContentManagement PlatformServices Workspaces, Mgmt, Security, Storage, Site Model, Topology

 64 bit = performance and scaling  Unified Communications  Improved High Availability options  Increased support for mobile access  Improved protection  Voice enabled – Auto Attendant  Demo Video – Exchange 2007 & OCS Demo Video

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