The Sikh Geek

Yesterday was the first conference call of the FY09 PALs and Andrea had arranged for Scott Whitright, Senior Product Manager, Windows Server Business Group to have a discussion on Infrastructure Optimisation. Now, I know nothing about IO which is one of those "scary" Microsoft Terms. I believe it is something used for larger customers or that was the impression I got from some of the other PALs who had experience of it. It is based around three models which are :-

• Application Platform Optimisation Model
• Business Productivity Infrastructure Optimisation Model
• Core Infrastructure Optimisation Model

Scott was interested in knowing if IO could be applied to SMB and in what form it might make sense. Do you have experience of this model? What do you think?

One of the things within Small Businesses who have had SBS 2003 installed, is ensuring that the customer is making the full use of the assets they have paid for. This is often not achieved because SBSC Partners are not skilled up on things like Sharepoint and SQL Server 2005, so do not feel comfortable in supporting customers on it. At the end of the day these are complex products all thrown into a single solution and being an expert in all these products individually is not humanly possible. This is only going to get more difficult with SBS 2008 and EBS 2008.

I know the point was made that SBS/EBS 2008 has made the deployment even simpler and maybe too simple! My belief is that deployment should be simple and quick because the whole point is to have the infrastructure in place so that customers can start benefiting. The concentration of effort should then be on helping the customer to make effective use of the technology, looking at the business processes, looking at the business data and seeing what value the business can extract from the technology. However, that is probably a different set of Partner skills and probably a different set of Small Businesses than we’re used to. I don’t know? So, maybe the focus should be on upskilling Partners?

That sort of nicely leads on to the discussion we had about the Online Peer Groups. Mark Crall and Brad Kowerchuk were able to give their insight into the HTG Groups and the value they see from them.

One thing I cannot fault Microsoft are the intentions to try and provide SBSC Partners a mixture of business and technical training and support.

I’ve changed the blog url to http://www.sikhgeek.com and titled the blog "The Sikh Geek". It means you might have to update any links and subscribe to the new feed.

It’s so named because I’m a "Sikh" and a "Geek" and they sort of Rhyme

Apologies if this is a pain.

Apologies to people getting HTTP 404 errors on my site at the moment. I’ve been trying to associate a new domain name and point it at the directory holding the blog. This seems to have caused problems and if I tell you the site and domain are hosted by 1and1 you’ll understand the problems

UPDATE

Okay, I think it’s working again, let me know if you find something broken. Thanks to those who pointed out the problems earlier.

I finally got around to taking off some the video I took on the Camcorder at the Microsoft SMB Forum 2008 in Houston. It includes part of the Keynote by Michael Risse, the Microsoft VP for SMB, Peter Hilary (son of Sir Edmund Hilary - that was a great talk!) and of course Richard Tubb enjoying some beer!!

Damn a cool Party I’m going to miss but never mind try and enjoy yourselves without me, I know it will be hard I hope everyone has a good time and I’m going to want photos and all the gossip at the very least!

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PRESS RELEASE

SMB Nation 2008 Fall Conference to Hold Launch Party: Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008.

MarketPlace Expo SOLD OUT!

Seattle, WA – August 22, 2008 - Boasting a completely sold out tradeshow hall and host hotel, SMB Nation 2008 will hold a Small Business Server 2008 (SBS) and Essential Business Server (EBS) LAUNCH PARTY on the Saturday night of its October 4-6, 2008 annual conference in Seattle. A 58’ Hatteras yacht will be christened the M.V. SBS 2008 on the pier at the party.

“With the SBS 2008 release-to-manufacturing (RTM) yesterday, we are thrilled to be timed perfectly for the SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 products debut and look forward to toasting its great success,” said Harry Brelsford, founder and CEO of the 20,000 member SMB Nation. “Our conference is uniquely positioned to motivate and educate the small and medium business (SMB) technology consultant, channel partner and computer guy and gal!”

SMB Nation 2008 appears to be outperforming similar technology events with the complete sellout of the MarketPlace Expo tradeshow hall and with attendance figures ahead of last year. “We believe the 600+ attendees will be treated to a unique educational experience and BE THERE for the start for the next generation of SBS and the first release of EBS!” Brelsford added. Over three busy days and nights, attendees will select from three (3) academic tracks including BusinessSpeak, GeekSpeak and “How To” that provide bona fide content without “being sold to.” SMB Nation 2008 has even added a “Speakers Behaving Badly” hotline where attendees can report any speaker from the 40+ content sessions that make commercial statements to insure the most pure attendee experience possible. “We want to avoid the wolf in sheep clothing phenomena,” emphasized Brelsford.

Sponsors and attendees will meet in the spacious Bell Harbor Conference Center. “At a time when similar technology shows are behind plan, we are ahead of plan” said Brelsford. “We believe this underscores the strength of the SMB segment and the optimism our sponsors have about the SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 opportunity.” Intel and Trend Micro are the platinum sponsors leading the event followed by HP and Microsoft. Gold sponsors include Autotask, CMIT  Solutions, Aastra, SonicWall and Labtech. Silver sponsors include D&H, The Planet, Connectwise, Citrix, N-able, Reflexion, Tigerpaw Software, Nero, 19Marketplace, Symantec, StorageCraft, Acronis, Calyptix, MaxSP, Doyenz, EMC Retrospect, Quanta\Syspine, Zenith Infotech, Linked In, Backup Assist,  CRU DataPort and WatchGuard. Bronze sponsors include Netgear, Untangle, CTL Computers, Level Platforms (LPI), MSP Partners, Linksys by Cisco, Comcast, Diskeeper, Expetec, New Global Telecom (NGT), Pronto Marketing, eFolder, CoreConnex, Highly Reliable Systems, SMB Books & Results Software, Technology Marketing Toolkit, Napera Networks, Independent Computer Consultants Association (ICCA) and Integrated mar.com. 

Attendees can expect a high-quality conference with content that has been rigorously scrutinized by esteemed industry conference chairs (Dana Epp, Mikael Nystrom, Curt Hicks and Joe Moore). That has resulted in outstanding speaker selections such as Jeff Middleton, Susan Bradley, Ramon Ray and Amy Babinchak and popular topics such as How to Sell Your SBS\SMB Consulting Practice and Security in SBS 2008.

“So the last question is this. Where will you be October 4-6, 2008?” concluded Brelsford. Attendees can learn more and register at www.smbnation.com.

About SMB Nation

Founded ten years ago by Small Business Server author Harry Brelsford, Bainbridge Island, Washington-based SMB Nation supports small and medium business technology consultants to improve their business and technical skills with publications (books, SMB PC magazine) and events (SMB Nation conferences and workshops). SMB Nation boasts worldwide tribal membership in 30+ countries exceeding 20,000 consultants, resellers, VARs\VAPs and channel partners. Harry Brelsford is a Microsoft Small Business Specialist (SBSC) and holds an MBA from the University of Denver in addition to MCSE, MCT, MCP, CNE, CLSE and CNP certifications.

Contact:

Harry Brelsford

CEO, SMB Nation

206-915-3072

harryb@smbnation.com

Harry Brelsford | CEO | SMB Nation, Inc. | www.smbnation.com

Please attend our SMB Nation 2008 fall conference, October 4-6, 2008

Read Harry’s SMB Dude Blog here

Download your copy of SMB PC magazine here

Yesterday evening I went up to the SBS Manchester Group meeting to talk about some of the discussions that were had at WPC as part of the PALs Meeting. It was a very interesting discussion around a number of topics. For me it was interesting to hear what value people see in the SBSC Programme. It got me thinking and I realised that there are two separate things at play here which are :-

1. SBSC Certification/Programme Benefits
2. Community Membership and Peer-to-Peer Networking

I guess you can have the second without having the first and the question is which is the more valuable?

I have no doubt that business growth and personal development comes from the second and for people to see real value in SBSC then the two have to be more closely tied in together. By this I mean if you obtain SBSC then you should be getting into an exclusive for SBSC only Peer-to-Peer Networking Group.

There was a discussion around the SBS/EBS Launch Plans by Gareth Hall, the Microsoft Windows Server Product Manager, and what this might look like. I’m not going to give you the details because you need to get to your local SBS Group and listen to Gareth yourselves on one of his visits to the Groups. Suffice to say I really like his thinking and we certainly need to think out of the box and ultimately it must mean more SBSC Partners go out and talk to more Customers and to sell more (for Microsoft that means more licenses and for us as Partners it means getting more service revenue).

Emily Lambert, the Microsoft SBSC Programme Lead, was there to talk about some of things happening around SBSC and how she is taking feedback onboard and then eventually planning to try and start to address some of the issues.

There is a great bunch of people there at Manchester SBS Group and great that the North West is one the areas that Microsoft is implementing a Regional Approach. There is a new North West Microsoft Small Business website which I think is a fantastic idea and if you can get some Case Studies from local Partner then it will be a great resource.

I was at the Manchester SBS Group Meeting this evening when Gareth Hall, the Microsoft Windows Server Product Manager announced that SBS 2008 was now at RTM. Sure enough, I had the following email from the Beta Participation :

We are very excited to announce the RTM of Small Business Server 2008 today! This is a huge milestone for the team here, as well as all of you who have played a pivotal role in providing feedback on this product. We on the product team want to say "THANK YOU!" for the hours you’ve spent installing builds, discussing issues on the newsgroups, and filing all of those bugs we love! The SBS Community CANNOT be topped, and this release is just another example of that!

What’s next?

We’ll be making the Evaluation builds available on the Microsoft CARE site within a month

Complimentary Not for Resale copies of SBS will be awarded to Beta participants, based on participation.details from Kevin Beares coming soon!

RTM product to be available in Retail and Volume Licensing early October, stay tuned to your favorite OEMs for launch plans Please join us in celebrating this important day! We couldn’t have done it without you!

Cassie Hicks and Dean Paron

Windows Small Business Server 2008

There was a comment on Nick Bryant’s Australia Blog that the Olympics euphoria won’t last because we British just don’t feel comfortable with winning. Well I can tell you that I feel VERY comfortable with it.

  Perhaps the final table won’t look like that (I don’t really care!) but honestly I can’t see Australia or Germany surpassing Team GB now as they are on 11 Golds. Team GB have been amazing and inspiring and makes you feel proud to be British, something we don’t say or show enough of.

I recently found out that the British Library in London holds some amazing pieces of Sikh Manuscripts. The most amazing of these is the "Guru Granth Sahib" (The Sikh Holy Book) but what is remarkable is that is the oldest known version outside of India and one the 20 oldest known in existence. It dates from c1660-75 which is the time of the Ninth Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji and his son the Tenth and Final Guru, Guru Gobind Singh Ji. It was only in 1699 that the Khalsa was formed by Guru Gobind Singh Ji and he declared that after him the Sikhs should only follow the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. So, it became the living embodiment of our Faith and it is treated with the utmost respect and reverence. I’m not sure if it is a good or bad thing that the British Library owns such a rare part of the Sikh Faith. You could argue that it might have been destroyed if it had remained in India through various upheavals. I understand it has been restored with funds from the Sikh Education Council.

The collection also contains the Prayer Book of Rani Jindan Kaur, the wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who fought two wars with the British before the Punjab was finally annexed. His son Maharaja Duleep Singh was shipped off to England, converted to Christainity (later went back to being a Sikh) and become a favourite of Queen Victoria. This was when the famour Koh-i-Nor diamond was somehow given/taken from Duleep Singh and now is part of the Queen’s Crown Jewels ("To the Victor the Spoils"). Duleep Singh is buried in Elveden Church in Norfolk. How strange that the last Maharaja of the Sikh Nation’s resting place is only 100 miles away from me. There is a Sikh Memorial to him there but I’ve never visited or seen it and to be honest I didn’t know it even existed until quite recently.

It’s amazing to think how intertwined the history of Britain and the Sikhs are and I guess why my parents came to this country back in the 1960s.

Within the collection there is a picture of Guru Nanak Ji, the founder of Sikhism with his two followers one which was a Muslim and one a Hindu. The message from this and from the Sikh Faith is of the equality of Religious belief.

The opening words of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji is "Ek on Kar" meaning "One God"!

Following on from my previous post, I thought I would let you know that the HTG Groups are coming to the UK. The facilitator/moderator will be Dave Sobel of Evolvetech who will be jetting in from the US to guide/support the Group with a first meeting planned in for mid October time.

One thing I wanted to say in public is that I won’t be joining the Group and it has nothing to do with not seeing the value of them. Many people I respect are members of them and really value them. I would certainly encourage those SBSC Partners who are looking for growth to consider joining. For me, as I’ve written previously, lots of things are changing and Ashish and I are putting investment into many aspects of our business Ardent iSys and you just have to make your choice somewhere. Also, we’re a Software Business not an Infrastructure Business which is essentially what the other Partners will be.

One thing that is a regret is that we have to rely on our US Colleagues for something like this which I think is a shame but that’s the reality and why reinvent the wheel?