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Alvinator, AlvinatorisageekI work for Avanade - http://www.avanade.com |
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5/7/2009 Exchange 2010The beta version of Exchange 2010 has been released for a couple of weeks now. My initial reactions to the latest messaging product version are as follow:
- Must use Windows Server 2008 x64.
- Built-in e-Mail archiving feature, not as functionally rich as say Enterprise Vault, but it is definitely worth having as a built-in feature.
- But the e-Mail archiving feature raises the question of how much more storage does an enteprise need? Apparently, Exchange 2010 significantly reduces disk I/O (up to 50% from Exchange 2007). Microsoft is heavily promoting the use of DAS and SATA disks instead of the traditional SAN storage, fibre attached or SAS disks. This will be a dramatic shift for Exchange architects and designers. The use of DAS also raises the question of why bother using clustering...
- Not much difference in terms of disaster recovery features - it is still based on continuous replication technology, which first became available in Exchange 2007. Some enhancesments include the support of hardware failure and garanteeing 30 seconds failover from the primary to the standby database server.
- Massive improvement in collaboration and unified messaging, with lots of new features for mobile devices and the new Outlook client (2010). However, much of the neww features are not available until the next version of Windows Mobile and Outlook 2010 is released. So I could not really examine these.
- Finally, Microsoft will be using Exchange 2010 for its Exchange Online services. This shows Microsoft is confident that Exchange 2010 will provide true anywhere access capability. Windows 7Microsoft released Windows 7 Candidate Release (RC) this week, which points to an official releases date of as early as late this year for the newest desktop operating system. Most commentators are referring to Windows 7 as Windows Vista done right. With no major changes, Windows 7 is really about eliminating the flaws within Windows Vista. Some enhancements that caught my eyes are:
- Much better support for touch screen hardware.
- Ability to view Divx meida files without the need to download third party codes (at last!).
- Seems to be faster than Vista on the same hardware platform.
- No more annoying User Access Control prompt every now and then.
- Virutal XP mode, which should support all XP compatible applications. 10/3/2008 My next mobile phone?Nokia is marketing a new phone 5800 XpressMusic - http://www.nokia.com.au/A41273263, which will directly compete against Applie's iPhone. Initial review looks promising because it certainly has some nice features including smaller frame, less weight, very long lasting battery, a year of music download for free and built-in GPS + WiFi. Apparently, its camera features are more advanced than the iPhone as well. Note that this is a walkman phone, not an e-mail/web phone. So if you are after features such as e-mail sync, personal organiser and ease of web access, then this is NOT the right phone for you. Another drawback is that it does not support any custom applications, at least not yet. Whereas there are many downloadable applications for the iPhone.
I really like this phone because it has a 8GB memory stick, I can download music for free for a year and the battery lasts up to 35 hours when listening to the music! personally, I am not fussed about e-Mail access and downloadable applications. 7/6/2008 Windows XP after 30 June 2008Yap, Windows XP is certainly coming to an end. Apparently, in addition to the the fact that OEMs can no longer order new licenses of Windows XP after 30 June 2008. Microsoft will end mainstream support for XP on April 14, 2009 and it will end extended support on April 8, 2014 - http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/28/04NF-save-xp-license_1.html. Ironically, my current customer is still half way through its Windows NT4 to Windows XP migration. The most impact for my customer is that mainstream support for Windows XP will end next year and this may impact their licensing agreement with Microsoft. I can understand that Microsoft is trying to push the sales of Vista. As my previous blog have mentioned, the uptake of Vista in the enterprise world is very slow. As for the retail space, there are genuine competitors such as Mac OS, Ubuntu and eePC GNU Linux. All of which is impacting the uptake of Vista. However, setting hard targets for ending the shipment of Windows XP and its support are NOT going to sway the enterprise customers to change to Windows Vista. At least in the Australia Market, most enterprises had a desktop hardware refresh in the past 12-24 months. Therefore, they are reluctant to go through another hardware refresh until they can get more values out of the existing fleet. Take Intel for example, http://www.itnews.com.au/News/NewsStory.aspx?story=79271. I think Microsoft needs to accept the fact that because Vista is much more resource hungry than XP, until the Australian enterprise customers catch up on their hardware fleet, the uptake for Vista will remain stagnant. 6/22/2008 MOSS 2007Recently, there has been an explosion in the implementation of MOSS 2007 in Australia. Many large enterprises are using MOS 2007 for hosting websites, online collaborations and user productivity enhancement. Arguably, MOSS 2007 is part of the Next Generation Work Place (NGWP) phenomenon. As of result, there has been a dramatic increase in the demand for experienced Sharepoint resources. Many IT professionals are updating their skills in this area. Many of them are focusing on the administration of Sharepoint website, creation of templates and management of workflows. While these elements of a Sharepoint design is important. However, I feel that in some cases the IT professionals and their organizations are neglecting the infrastructure aspects of MOSS 2007 such as high availability, fault tolerance, capacity and performance. Often the most complex part of a MOSS 2007 design is the supporting infrastructure services such as clustering, replication of SQL data, backup and recovery, SAN storage and etc. An Infrastructure Architect should treat MOSS 2007 as just another application solution that requires infrastructure support. Therefore, it is still critical to be familiar with the "grass root" of infrastructure design and the architectural understanding of infrastructure requirements. |
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